convey a different meaning from that given above. If we look narrowly at the meaning of the term responsibility, we shall find that the idea of punishability is inseparably connected with it. When we say that we hold a man responsible, we mean that he is capable of discharging a certain obligation, or doing certain acts, which obligations and acts if not discharged and performed, proves criminality in him, and renders him a fit object of reward or punishment, varying in amount according to the nature of the crime -in such a case only can the term responsibility be correctly applied, as here we have a punisher or punishers as well as punished, those who call to account and those who are accountable, the executioners and the victims. But nature cannot know anything of the suffering her changes produce in us-an earthquake, which destroys thousands, good, bad, or indifferent, at one fell swoop, is a phenomenon, a fact--not a law, promulged by some old man with a beard, who exists somewhere in space, looking down upon the inhabitants of earth and savagely punishing them because he thinks they might have been better if they pleased and therefore deserved to be so swallowed up, as in sacred books we are told that god burnt up the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and all contained therein, because of the vice which then prevailed. Individuals are occasionally struck dead by thunderbolts, against what law have they sinned-could they help the thunderbolt passing through them? not, supposing the thunderbolt to have been thrown by a god or devil, how could the unoffending individual be held accountable for a fault he had never committed, or expected to discharge an obligation he had never ineurred ? This amounts to the absurdity of giving back what we never had, of returning that which we never received. A man lost in a fog, trying to grope his way home, mistakes his road, tumbles into a ditch, and is smothered. Pray what law of nature has been violated in this case? If so, those who act contrary to them are to be pitied not blamed, but as well might we call the bird responsible when it is firmly fastened in the net spread for it by the bird catcher, or the lion when crouching, faint, and bleeding beneath the spears of his pursuers, or the goose in the mouth of the half-starved ravenous fox, or even the poor hare when hunted to death by the hounds. This would indeed be filling the cup of absurdity to the brim, or nearly so, for some have gone a step further, and held stocks, stones, and trees responsible. We read of Xerxes, who, when throwing a bridge across the Hellespont, with a view to form a passage for his army into Greece, lashed the waves, because they would not lie still, and was angered and chagrined 396 If that they paid no attention to him, but continued waving and swelling as before, whereupon he threw his chains among them, but with no better success. We should therefore do well to bear in mind that what are called natural laws are the facts or the phenomena exhibited by matter, that when we speak of universal laws of nature, they mean universal facts of nature, for instance, it is a universal fact that a chip of potassium thrown upon ice will cause a flame to burst forth, that is, what chemists call combustion takes place; a certain degree of heat applied to metals will cause them to melt; in stating these things we state facts, not laws, for men are the only law-givers, and when ignorant of human nature they do not-as wisdom dictates-make laws with a view to restrain men from the commission of bad deeds, or move them to the practice of virtue, but borne along by the gusts of passion, and breathing revenge, reason has been lost sight of, and the aim and end of all laws grossly misunderstood; so that law, which was manifestly intended to be the terror of evil-doers, and the shield of the oppressed, has been converted into one of the most terrible engines with which tyranny arms itself, while the spirit of legislation, up to a very late period, may be summed up in the Jewish maxim, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. THE WORTH OF MAN. (Concluded.) BUT what, after all, does this accumulation of knowledge amount to? It is generally agreed that this earth had a beginning (this does not deny the eternity of matter), if so, an end may be expected some time or other in the natural order of things. What then will become of man and his boasted acquisition of knowledge-will not he and his records and his braggart superiority be swept away in the common ruin? Nature is no respecter of persons or things. It is said that man has a greater degree of intelligence-he need not boast of this, it is as much the ac. cident of a combination of atoms as that the dog was born a dog; we are all alike natural productions, and all alike creatures of neces sity; besides, where is the merit of his intelligence? Man, as far back as we can trace him, is said to have been the most irrational of animals, which certainly appears very like the truth, although he has been pleased to call himself the most astonishing creature in existence, and principally so because he has a language. Why have not all animals a language? What is the delightful warbling of the bird, the plaintive bleating of the sheep, the neighing of the horse? Man is so tenacious, too, of his self-conferred diguity, from the preceding observation:-that man is not of more thought, of more care, of more importance, or of more value relatively to nature, than the so-called meanest reptile that crawls on the face of the earth, and yet I have given a picture of human nature, which if realised would be destructive of inequality of rank and condition, and would indeed become the blessing and support of us CHARLES DENT. that he will not listen to a comparison of | greater amount of intelligence is scarcely I believe that until man dismisses from his mind the idea of his great importance in the scheme of creation, he will never act as becomes a rational being; and I believe, also, that the knavish priesthood of the world are content to allow the Infidel, whether Socialist or Atheist, to proceed as he has hitherto, busying himself from generation to generation in destroying a belief in a god and a future state-I say, the priesthood are quite content with socialism or atheism as long as their disciples show that they retain a lively sense of their own intrinsic value above all other beings. By adopting a new line of argument, by showing by close comparison the identity of animal life, the Atheist would accomplish his object in a much shorter period than by that hitherto pursued, and the Socialists themselves having no belief in a personal god nor in a future state, have deprived themselves of the only standard by which their superiority was manifest even to themselves. This, then, is my conclusion CHRISTIAN CHARITY AND FORBEARANCE. IT has been the custom of all ages upon the first announcement of any principles that were at all opposed to the received notions of the age, or in any way at variance with their own preconceived ideas upon the subject, at once to denounce them as untrue; and without thought or inquiry, without giving themselves the least trouble to investigate any of the facts from which the principles have been deduced, they have declared them to be subversive of religion, and opposed to the practice of morality and virtue; while the promulgators thereof, who were men perhaps of high intellectual attainments and moral worth; men who have devoted their time, their talents, and even sacrificed their fortunes in endeavouring to effect an amelioration in the condition of their fellows, were looked upon only as fit subjects for ridicule, abuse, and persecution. And they have had heaped upon them all the contumely, scorn, and contempt that malice could invent, or a bigotted and intolerant fanaticism engender. Instead of the learned of the day coming forward to grapple with the principles introduced, and of disputing point by point the propositions laid down, they have invariably chosen the easier, but less honourable, method of exciting the passions and prejudices of the ignorant, and endeavouring to overturn by sophistry, clamour, and misrepresentation, the facts which they could not contravert by fair argument. But when these gentler means have been found insufficient to effect their object, when the voice of truth has yet been heard despite the din and clamour which has been raised against it, when despite the maledictions of the priest and the mad fury of a bigotted populace, the banner of truth has yet waved unfurled, then have the mightier engines of persecution been brought out, and they who have had sufficient moral courage to uphold it have been dragged from their homes, their wives, their children, and all that was near and dear to them, and have been immured within the walls of a dungeon; or else they have had immediately to pay the forfeit of their consistency by the sacrifice of their lives amid the blaze of the faggot, or by the excruciating torture of the rack. Such has been the implacable hatred manifested by the priesthood to the introduction of anything which had a tendency to enlighten the mind and improve the mental condition of man, that no outrage however daring, no persecution however brutal, no cruelty however ferocious, was ever left unperpetated, if by its instrumentality they would be enabled to effect their diabolical purpose of crushing the rising intellect of the human race, of placing a barrier to the attainment of real knowledge, and keeping the labouring classes in that state of physical and mental subjection that was best calculated to foster credulity, bigotry, and superstition, to feed their rapacity and pander to their lusts. It was a matter of no consequence to them as to what might be the private character of the individuals, however exemplary they might have been in their moral conduct, however useful as citizens, kind and affectionate as husbands and as parents, all these inestimable virtues were looked upon as nought compared with the monstrous crime of being a little wiser than their guides, of arrogating to themselves the free uses of all their senses and faculties, and claiming the right of judging for themselves. The only virtues of which they had any notion were those of credulity and gullibility; believe that which they tell you to believe, feel just as they would have you to feel, know precisely those things which they in their infinite wisdom and goodness think it right that you should be acquainted with, and, above all, pay them well for being at all this trouble to tell you what you should believe, how you should feel, and what you should know, and depend upon it though you may lie, cheat, steal, illuse your wife, and neglect your children, though you may be faithless as a friend and revengeful as a foestill, if you believe, feel, and do as the priests tell you, you are an exceedingly virtuous and holy man, and not only deserving of a large share of the good things of this world, but an uuperishable crown of glory hereafter. While the really consistent, virtuous, and intelligent man, who refuses to prostrate his endowments, his senses, and his reason, at the shrine of intolerance, bigotry, and superstition, who stands firm to his principles, because he believes them to be true-a man like this, I say, is scoffed at, ridiculed, spurned, and contemned; and not content with inflicting every possible atrocity upon him in this world, they would consign him to unutterable and everlasting punishment in another. I know not of a single discovery that was ever worth the trouble of propagation that 898 66 did not, upon the first avowal, subject the individual to persecution or malevolence of some kind or other, while even the simplest truths, which now appear too self-evident to need demonstration, were at the time of their first promulgation denounced as false, decried as immoral, and abhorred as blasphemous, and it was not till long after the original propounders had passed to that home whence no traveller returns" that their truth became acknowledged, and the blot of infamy erased from those who gave them birth. You have only to turn over the page of history, to find that whenever a human being has come upon this earth, gifted with extraordinary perceptive facul ties, who has pierced the thick gloom of ignorance and superstition, and there beheld some truth upon which, perhaps, the physi cal, mental, or moral welfare of nations might depend, and who possessed sufficient moral courage to propagate that truth-he has been assailed with every species of obloquy, and has had to contend against the butts of irony, the shafts of ridicule, and every other species of persecution that a dishonest priesthood could wage against him. How many instances might be adduced in support of these assertions. But I need only allude to the case of the great Florentine philosopher, Galileo, who, after having devoted a long life to the study and contemplation of the grandeur and wondrous sublimities of the universe, a man who had given a greater impetus to the march of science than any who had preceded him, one who, considering his thirst for knowledge, his wonderful attainments, and the gigantic powers of mind which he possessed, was entitled to the sympathy and support of the whole human race-was denounced as a blasphemous heretic; was cited to appear before the tribunal of a superstitious priest. hood, and there upon his bare knees, on pain of imprisonment or death, was forced to forswear the honest convictions of his mind, because those convictions did not square with their own, or accord with what they considered to be "divine revelation," and was compelled to make a solemn recantation of his " Theory of the Earth's Revo lution round the Sun," because it was in opposition to their ignorant and puerile notions of deity; because it burst the cords which bound the infinity and omnipotence of the great actuating spirit of the universe to the paltry and insignificant world inhabi ted by themselves: which confined creation to this mere speck in comparison to the millions of worlds which Galileo revealed as revolving in the vast infinity of space. But think not that Galileo was the only martyr to science and truth! I would that we could say so. But, alas! the clanking of the chain, the stifled moans of the immolated father, and cries of the widowed mother and her orphan children, have been heard too often to allow such a thought to be entertained. So general has been the persecution of those who have had the courage and manliness to advocate new truths in opposition to existing errors that I would say, in the language of Miss Frances Wright, that "I know of none, from the modest Socrates and gentle Jesus, down to the least or greatest reformers of our own times, who have remembered the poor, the ignorant, or oppressed; raised their voices in favour of more equal distribution of knowledge and liberty; or dared to investigate the causes of vice and misery with a view to their removal, I know of none, I say, who have not been the mark of persecution, drank of the poison of calumny, or borne the cross of martyrdom." Varro distributes the ages of the world into three periods: viz. the unknown, the fabulous, and the historical. Of the former we have no accounts but in scripture; for the second, we must consult the ancient poets; such as Hesiod, Homer, or those who wrote still earlier; and then again come back to Ovid, who in his metamorphoses seems, in imitation perhaps of some ancient Greek poet, to have intended a complete collection, or a kind of continued and connected history of the fabulous age, especially with regard to changes, revolutions, or transformations. 399 inventions, have miserably wrested and abused the fables of the ancients. Nor is this only a late or unfrequent practice, but of ancient date, and common, even to this day. Thus Chrysippus, like an interpreter of dreams, attributed the opinions of the Stoics to the poets of old; and the chemists at present, more childishly, apply the poetical transformations to their experiments of the furnace. And though I have well weighed and considered all this, and thoroughly seen into the levity which the mind indulges for allegories and allusions, yet I cannot but retain a high value for the ancient mythology. And certainly it were very injudicious to suffer the fondness and licentiousness of a few to detract from the honour of allegory and parable in general..... Upon deliberate consideration, my judgment is, that a concealed instruction and allegory was originally intended in many of This opinion may, in the ancient fables. some respect, be owing to the veneration I have for antiquity; but more to observing, that some fables discover a great and evident similitude, relation, and connection with the thing they signify; as well in the structure of the fable, as in the propriety of the names, whereby the persons or actors are characterised insomuch, that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning to be from the first intended, and purposely shadowed out in them. For who can hear that fame after the giants were destroyed sprung up as their posthumous sister, and not apply it to the clamour of parties, and the seditious rumours which commonly fly about for a time upon the quelling of insurrections? Or who can read how the giant Typhon cut out and carried away Jupiter's sinews, which Mercury afterwards stole and again returned to Jupiter, and not presently observe that this allegory denotes strong and powerful rebellions, which cut away from kings their sinews both of money and authority; and that the way to have them restored is by lenity, affability, and prudent edicts, which soon reconcile, and as it were steal upon the affections of the people? Or who upon hearing that memorable expedition of the gods against the giants, when the braying of Silenus's ass greatly contributed in putting the giants to flight, does not clearly conceive that this directly points at the monstrous enterprises of rebellious subjects, which are frequently frustrated and disappointed by vain fears and empty rumours? Again, the conformity and purport of the names, is frequently manifest, and self-evident. Thus Metis, the wife of Jupiter, plainly signifies counsel; Typhon, swelling; Pan, universality; Nemesis. revenge, &c. Nor is it a wonder, if sometimes a piece of history, or other things are introduced by way of ornament; or if the times of the action are confounded; or if part of one fable be tacked to another; or if the allegory | christianity, not a contemptible scheme of eighteen be new turned; for all this must necessarily happen; as the fables were the inventions of men who lived in different ages, and had different views; some of them being ancient, others more modern; some having an eye to natural philosophy; and others to morality, or civil policy. hundred years, but as the science of the spiritual world, as declared in the first verse of Genesis and St.John's gospel, and sustained throughout the bible. This, because you have a name for debate, not that you are a gentleman, or that I think you a in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, Bristol, scholar qualified for the task, I will debate with you or anywhere else on equal terms of profit or loss. I throw down the gauntlet for theological debate and all men, and say, that there is not one of them to the entire clergy of England, dissenting preachers, who can, by historical, literary, and scientific evidence, maintain his ground opposed to mine. For this I am your humble servant, John Brindley. RICHARD CARLILE. It may pass for a farther indication of a concealed and secret meaning, that some of these fables are so absurd, and idle in their narration, as to show and proclaim an allegory even afar off. A fable that carries probability with it, may be supposed invented for pleasure, or in imitation of history; but those that could never be conceived, or related in this way, must surely have a different use. For example, what a monstrous fiction is this, that Jupiter should take Metis to wife; and as soon as he found her pregnant, eat her up; whereby he also conceived, and out of his head brought forth Pallas armed ? Certainly no mortal could, but for the sake of the moral it couches, in-complete cheat. He is as decided an Infidel and vent such an absurd dream as this; so much out of the road of thought! [We give insertion to the following because Mr. Carlile has no publication at his disposal in which he could defend himself from the attacks of his enemies, otherwise its nature would prevent its appearance in our columns. The Oracle can no more make common cause with Mr. Carlile than it can with Mr. Brindley. They are both laboring in the same vineyard, though employing different means and perhaps for different objects. The attempt to perpetuate the superstitious veneration attaching to the bible, on the part of Mr. Carlile, is more disgusting and more humiliating to an honest man, than the same attempt by a man of Brindley's character.-W. C.] To the Editor of the Oracle of Reason. [I presume the following paragraph is extracted from Brindley's paper, it accompanied Mr. C.'s letter.} THE NOTORIOUS CARLILE.-We think it ne cessary to caution the public against this unblushing deceiver. He professed to recant his Infidel errors and to believe in the Christian religion-this is a ings at Bristol, where he has lately been, as he Atheist as ever he was. His blasphemous proceed. impiously calls it, consecrating" the late Socialist Hall to Christian purposes, are really of too awful a character to dwell upon. We trust that none of our operative friends will be drawn by his false placards to attend to his "ministrations." The Public Meeting in connection with the AntiPersecution Union will take place at John-street Middlesex, Enfield Highway, Nov. 7, 1842. Sir.-If you have written and caused to be printed Institution, on Monday, Dec. 5, half-past eight, p.m. in your last number of the Antidote, that I am a cheat and a deceiver, I answer, that you are in that case a liar, and in all cases a blackguard; you are neither Christian nor gentleman, neither teacher nor scholar of anything good. I am neither cheat nor deceiver, but throughout the last twenty-five years have given utterance, much to my damage, to the precise thoughts of my heart. What other man can give similar evidence of such a martyrdom to truth? I enclose my letter to the people of Bristol, that you may, if you can, prove me a cheat and deceiver. As much as you I detest socialism as sectarianism, and have everywhere opposed it where I have raised pen or voice. But I detest, too, that superstition, which is not christianity, which you illmanneredly, ruffianly, and unprincipledly advocate. I advocate 400 A Benefit Ball for Mr. Southwell will take place on Monday, Dec. 12. A Meeting will take place on Saturday evening, Nov. 19th, at half past eight, at No. 8, Holywellstreet, to Inquire into Mythological Systems and Overthrow Religious Error. Printed and Published by THOMAS PATERSON, No. 8, Holywell-street, Strand, London, to whom all Communications should be addressed.-Agent for Sheffield, George Julian Harney, Bookseller, 11, Hartshead; Bristol, J. Chappell, News Agent, Narrow Wine-street; Macclesfield, Mr. Roche, Hall of Science; Barnsley, Mr. Thos. Lingard, New-street; Coventry, J. Morris, 35, Union-place, Butts; Preston, Jas. Drummond, 112, Friar-gate. And Sold by all Liberal Booksellers. Saturday, November 19, 1842. |