THEISM INDEPENDENT OF REVELATION.

The Reasoner. No. 45. Edited by G.J. Holyoake.[820] Price _2d._ Is there sufficient proof of the existence of G.o.d? 8vo. 1847.

This acorn of the holy oak was forwarded to me with a ma.n.u.script note, signed by the editor, on the part of the {400} "London Society of Theological Utilitarians," who say, "they trust you may be induced to give this momentous subject your consideration." The supposition that a middle-aged person, known as a student of thought on more subjects than one, had that particular subject yet to begin, is a specimen of what I will call the _a.s.sumption-trick_ of controversy, a habit which pervades all sides of all subjects. The tract is a proof of the good policy of letting opinions find their level, without any a.s.sistance from the Court of Queen's Bench. Twenty years earlier the thesis would have been positive, "There is sufficient proof of the non-existence of G.o.d," and bitter in its tone. As it stands, we have a moderate and respectful treatment--wrong only in making the opponent argue absurdly, as usually happens when one side invents the other--of a question in which a great many Christians have agreed with the atheist: that question being--Can the existence of G.o.d be proved independently of revelation? Many very religious persons answer this question in the negative, as well as Mr. Holyoake. And, this point being settled, all who agree in the negative separate into those who can endure scepticism, and those who cannot: the second cla.s.s find their way to Christianity. This very number of _The Reasoner_ announces the secession of one of its correspondents, and his adoption of the Christian faith. This would not have happened twenty years before: nor, had it happened, would it have been respectfully announced.

There are people who are very unfortunate in the expression of their meaning. Mr. Holyoake, in the name of the "London Society" etc., forwarded a pamphlet on the existence of G.o.d, and said that the Society trusted I "may be induced to give" the subject my "consideration." How could I know the Society was one person, who supposed I had arrived at a conclusion and wanted a "_guiding word_"? But so it seems it was: Mr. Holyoake, in the _English {401} Leader_ of October 15, 1864, and in a private letter to me, writes as follows:

"The gentleman who was the author of the argument, and who asked me to send it to Mr. De Morgan, never a.s.sumed that that gentleman had 'that particular subject to begin'--on the contrary, he supposed that one whom we all knew to be eminent as a thinker _had_ come to a conclusion upon it, and would perhaps vouchsafe a guiding word to one who was, as yet, seeking the solution of the Great Problem of Theology. I told my friend that 'Mr. De Morgan was doubtless preoccupied, and that he must be content to wait. On some day of courtesy and leisure he might have the kindness to write.' Nor was I wrong--the answer appears in your pages at the lapse of seventeen years."

I suppose Mr. Holyoake's way of putting his request was the _stylus curiae_ of the Society. A worthy Quaker who was sued for debt in the King's Bench was horrified to find himself charged in the declaration with detaining his creditor's money by force and arms, contrary to the peace of our Lord the King, etc. It's only the _stylus curiae_, said a friend: I don't know _curiae_, said the Quaker, but he shouldn't style us peace-breakers.

The notion that the _non_-existence of G.o.d can be _proved_, has died out under the light of discussion: had the only lights shone from the pulpit and the prison, so great a step would never have been made. The question now is as above. The dictum that Christianity is "part and parcel of the law of the land" is also abrogated: at the same time, and the coincidence is not an accident, it is becoming somewhat nearer the truth that the law of the land is part and parcel of Christianity. It must also be noticed that _Christianity_ was part and parcel of the articles of _war_; and so was _duelling_. Any officer speaking against religion was to be cashiered; and any officer receiving an affront without, in the last resort, attempting to kill his opponent, was also to be cashiered. Though somewhat of a book-hunter, I {402} have never been able to ascertain the date of the collected remonstrances of the prelates in the House of Lords against this overt inculcation of murder, under the soft name of _satisfaction_: it is neither in Watt,[821] nor in Lowndes,[822] nor in any edition of Brunet;[823] and there is no copy in the British Museum. Was the collected edition really published?

[The publication of the above in the _Athenaeum_ has not produced reference to a single copy. The collected edition seems to be doubted. I have even met one or two persons who doubt the fact of the Bishops having remonstrated at all: but their doubt was founded on an absurd supposition, namely, that it was _no business of theirs_; that it was not the business of the prelates of the church in union with the state to remonstrate against the Crown commanding murder! Some say that the edition was published, but under an irrelevant t.i.tle, which prevented people from knowing what it was about. Such things have happened: for example, arranged extracts from Wellington's general orders, which would have attracted attention, fell dead under the t.i.tle of "Principles of War." It is surmised that the book I am looking for also contains the protests of the Reverend bench against other things besides the Thou-shalt-do-murder of the Articles (of war), and is called "First Elements of Religion" or some similar t.i.tle.

Time clears up all things.]

Notes

[1] See Mrs. De Morgan's _Memoir of Augustus De Morgan_, London, 1882, p 61.

[2] In the first edition this reference was to page 11.

[3] In the first edition this read "at page 438," the work then appearing in a single volume.

[4] "Just as it would surely have been better not to have considered it (i.e., the trinity) as a mystery, and with Cl. Kleckermann to have investigated by the aid of philosophy according to the teaching of true logic what it might be, before they determined what it was; just so would it have been better to withdraw zealously and industriously into the deepest caverns and darkest recesses of metaphysical speculations and suppositions in order to establish their opinion beyond danger from the weapons of their adversaries.... Indeed that great man so explains and demonstrates this dogma (although to theologians the word has not much charm) from the immovable foundations of philosophy, that with but few changes and additions a mind sincerely devoted to truth can desire nothing more."

[5] Mrs. Wit.i.tterly, in _Nicholas Nickleby_.--A. De M.

[6] The brackets mean that the paragraph is substantially from some one of the _Athenaeum Supplements_.--S. E. De M.

[7] "It is annoying that this ingenious naturalist who has already given us more useful works and has still others in preparation, uses for this odious task, a pen dipped in gall and wormwood. It is true that many of his remarks have some foundation, and that to each error that he points out he at the same time adds its correction. But he is not always just and never fails to insult. After all, what does his book prove except that a forty-fifth part of a very useful review is not free from mistakes? Must we confuse him with those superficial writers whose liberty of body does not permit them to restrain their fruitfulness, that crowd of savants of the highest rank whose writings have adorned and still adorn the _Transactions_? Has he forgotten that the names of the Boyles, Newtons, Halleys, De Moivres, Hans Sloanes, etc. have been seen frequently? and that still are found those of the Wards, Bradleys, Grahams, Ellicots, Watsons, and of an author whom Mr. Hill prefers to all others, I mean Mr. Hill himself?"

[8] "Let no free man be seized or imprisoned or in any way harmed except by trial of his peers."

[9] "The master can rob, wreck and punish his slave according to his pleasure save only that he may not maim him."

[10] An Irish antiquary informs me that Virgil is mentioned in annals at A.D. 784, as "Verghil, i.e., the geometer, Abbot of Achadhbo [and Bishop of Saltzburg] died in Germany in the thirteenth year of his bishop.r.i.c.k." No allusion is made to his opinions; but it seems he was, by tradition, a mathematician. The Abbot of Aghabo (Queen's County) was canonized by Gregory IX, in 1233. The story of the second, or scapegoat, Virgil would be much damaged by the character given to the real bishop, if there were anything in it to dilapidate.--A. De M.

[11] "He performed many acts befitting the Papal dignity, and likewise many excellent (to be sure!) works."

[12] "After having been on the throne during ten years of pestilence."

[13] The work is the _Questiones Joannis Buridani super X libros Aristotelis ad Nicomachum, curante Egidio Delfo_ ... Parisiis, 1489, folio.

It also appeared at Paris in editions of 1499, 1513, and 1518, and at Oxford in 1637.

[14] Jean Buridan was born at Bethune about 1298, and died at Paris about 1358. He was professor of philosophy at the University of Paris and several times held the office of Rector. As a philosopher he was cla.s.sed among the nominalists.

[15] So in the original.

[16] Baruch Spinoza, or Benedict de Spinoza as he later called himself, the pantheistic philosopher, excommunicated from the Jewish faith for heresy, was born at Amsterdam in 1632 and died there in 1677.

[17] Michael Scott, or Scot, was born about 1190, probably in Fifeshire, Scotland, and died about 1291. He was one of the best known savants of the court of Emperor Frederick II, and wrote upon astrology, alchemy, and the occult sciences. He was looked upon as a great magician and is mentioned among the wizards in Dante's _Inferno_.

"That other, round the loins So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot, Practised in every slight of magic wile." _Inferno_, XX.

Boccaccio also speaks of him: "It is not long since there was in this city (Florence) a great master in necromancy, who was called Michele Scotto, because he was a Scot." _Decameron_, Dec. Giorno.

Scott's mention of him in Canto Second of his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, is well known:

"In these fair climes, it was my lot To meet the wondrous Michael Scott; A wizard of such dreaded fame, That when, in Salamanca's cave, Him listed his magic wand to wave, The bells would ring in Notre Dame!"

Sir Walter's notes upon him are of interest.

[18] These were some of the forgeries which Michel Chasles (1793-1880) was duped into buying. They purported to be a correspondence between Pascal and Newton and to show that the former had antic.i.p.ated some of the discoveries of the great English physicist and mathematician. That they were forgeries was shown by Sir David Brewster in 1855.

[19] "Let the serpent also break from its appointed path."

[20] Guglielmo Brutus Icilius Timoleon Libri-Carucci della Sommaja, born at Florence in 1803; died at Fiesole in 1869. His _Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques_ appeared at Paris in 1838, the entire first edition of volume I, save some half dozen that he had carried home, being burned on the day that the printing was completed. He was a great collector of early printed works on mathematics, and was accused of having stolen large numbers of them from other libraries. This accusation took him to London, where he bitterly attacked his accusers. There were two auction sales of his library, and a number of his books found their way into De Morgan's collection.

[21] Philo of Gadara lived in the second century B.C. He was a pupil of Sporus, who worked on the problem of the two mean proportionals.

[22] In his _Histoire des Mathematiques_, the first edition of which appeared in 1758. Jean Etienne Montucla was born at Lyons in 1725 and died at Versailles in 1799. He was therefore only thirty-three years old when his great work appeared. The second edition, with additions by D'Alembert, appeared in 1799-1802. He also wrote a work on the quadrature of the circle, _Histoire des recherches sur la Quadrature du Cercle_, which appeared in 1754.

[23] Eutocius of Ascalon was born in 480 A.D. He wrote commentaries on the first four books of the conics of Apollonius of Perga (247-222 B.C.). He also wrote on the Sphere and Cylinder and the Quadrature of the Circle, and on the two books on Equilibrium of Archimedes (287-212 B.C.)

[24] Edward c.o.c.ker was born in 1631 and died between 1671 and 1677. His famous arithmetic appeared in 1677 and went through many editions. It was written in a style that appealed to teachers, and was so popular that the expression "According to c.o.c.ker" became a household phrase. Early in the nineteenth century there was a similar saying in America, "According to Daboll," whose arithmetic had some points of a.n.a.logy to that of c.o.c.ker.

Each had a well-known prototype in the ancient saying, "He reckons like Nicomachus of Gerasa."

[25] So in the original, for Barreme. Francois Barreme was to France what c.o.c.ker was to England. He was born at Lyons in 1640, and died at Paris in 1703. He published several arithmetics, dedicating them to his patron, Colbert. One of the best known of his works is _L'arithmetique, ou le livre facile pour apprendre l'arithmetique soi-meme_, 1677. The French word _bareme_ or _barreme_, a ready-reckoner, is derived from his name.

[26] Born at Rome, about 480 A.D.; died at Pavia, 524. Gibbon speaks of him as "the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman." His works on arithmetic, music, and geometry were cla.s.sics in the medieval schools.

[27] Johannes Campa.n.u.s, of Novarra, was chaplain to Pope Urban IV (1261-1264). He was one of the early medieval translators of Euclid from the Arabic into Latin, and the first printed edition of the _Elements_ (Venice, 1482) was from his translation. In this work he probably depended not a little upon at least two or three earlier scholars. He also wrote _De computo ecclesiastico Calendarium_, and _De quadratura circuli_.

[28] Archimedes gave 3-1/7, and 3-10/71 as the limits of the ratio of the circ.u.mference to the diameter of a circle.

[29] Friedrich W. A. Murhard was born at Ca.s.sel in 1779 and died there in 1853. His _Bibliotheca Mathematica_, Leipsic, 1797-1805, is ill arranged and inaccurate, but it is still a helpful bibliography. De Morgan speaks somewhere of his indebtedness to it.

[30] Abraham Gotthelf Kastner was born at Leipsic in 1719, and died at Gottingen in 1800. He was professor of mathematics and physics at Gottingen. His _Geschichte der Mathematik_ (1796-1800) was a work of considerable merit. In the text of the _Budget of Paradoxes_ the name appears throughout as Kastner instead of Kastner.

[31] Lucas Gauricus, or Luca Gaurico, born at Giffoni, near Naples, in 1476; died at Rome in 1558. He was an astrologer and mathematician, and was professor of mathematics at Ferrara in 1531. In 1545 he became bishop of Civita Ducale.

[32] John Couch Adams was born at Lidcot, Cornwall, in 1819, and died in 1892. He and Leverrier predicted the discovery of Neptune from the perturbations in Ura.n.u.s.