Chapter 2

In England you think, Sir, that atheism is not prevalent among men of free reasoning, though you acknowledge it to be much so in other countries. It is not the first time it has been observed that the greater the superstition of the common people the less is that of men of letters. In the heart of the Papal territories perhaps is the greatest number of atheists, and in the reformed countries the greatest number of deists. Yet it is a common observation, especially by divines, that deism leads to atheism, and I believe the observation is well founded. I hardly need explain here, that by deism in this sense is meant a belief in the existence of a Deity from natural and philosophical principles, and a disbelief in all immediate revelation by the Deity of his own existence. Such is the force of habit, that it is by degrees only, that even men of sense and firmness shake off one prejudice after another. They begin by getting rid of the absurdities of all popular religions. This leaves them simple deists, but the force of reasoning next carries them a step farther, and whoever trusts to this reasoning, devoid of all fear and prejudice, is very likely to end at last in being an atheist. Nor do I admit it to be an argument either for Revelation or Natural Religion, that the same turn for speculation that would convert a christian into a theist, will carry him on to be an atheist, though I know the argument has been often used. If upon sick beds or in dying moments men revert to their old weakness and superstitions, their falling off may afford triumph to religionists; for my part I care not so much for the opinions of sick and dying men, as of those who at the time are strong and healthy. But in the opinion of the one or the other I put no great stress. My faith is in reasoning, for though ridicule is not a complete test of truth, reasoning I hold certainly to be so. I own belief may be imprest on the mind otherwise than by the force of reason. The mind may be diseased. All I shall say is that though I have formerly believed many things without reason, and even many against it, as is very common, I hope I shall never more. My mind (I was going to say, thank God) is sane at present, and I intend to keep it so. I am aware that at the expression just used some will exclaim in triumph, that the poor wretch could not help thinking of his God at the same time he was denying him. The observation would hold good, if it were not that we often speak and write unpremeditately and though what is in this manner unpremeditately expressed upon a revision should be certainly expunged, yet I chuse to leave the expression to shew the force of habit.

In fear lies the origin of all fancied deities, whether sole or numberless.

_Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor._

But the great debasement of the human mind is evidenced in the instance of attributing a merit to belief, which has come at last to be stiled a virtue, and is dignified by the name of faith, that most pitiful of all human qualities. When the apostle spoke of faith, hope and charity, he might as well have exclaimed the least of the three is faith, as the greatest is charity.

One enthusiast cries out _un Roi_ and another _un Dieu_. The reality of the king I admit, because I feel his power. Against my feeling and my experience I cannot argue, for upon these sensations is built all argument. But not all the wondrous works of the creation, as I hear the visible operations of nature called, convince me in the least of the existence of a Deity. By nature I mean to express the whole of what I see and feel, that whole, I call self-existent from all eternity; I admit a principle of intelligence and design, but I deny that principle to be extraneous from itself. My creed in fine is the same with that of the Roman poet;

_"Deus est ubicunque movemur."_

If then I am admitted to explain my deity in this sense, I am not an atheist, nor can any one else in the world be such. The _vis naturae_, the perpetual industry, intelligence and provision of nature must be apparent to all who see, feel or think. I mean to distinguish this active, intelligent and designing principle, inherent as much in matter as the properties of gravity or any elastic, attractive or repulsive power, from any extraneous foreign force and design in an invisible agent, supreme though hidden lord and maker over all effects and appearances that present themselves to us in the course of nature. The last supposition makes the universe and all other organised matter a machine made or contrived by the arbitrary will of another Being, which other Being is called God; and my theory makes a God of this universe, or admits no other God or designing principle than matter itself and its various organisations.

The inquiry is said to be important. But why is it so! All truth is important. It is a question of little importance, merely whether a man had a maker or no, although it is of great importance to disprove the existence of such a Deity as theologians wish to establish, because appearances in the world go against it. Supposing however that it was granted, that the question, whether there is a Deity or not, was as little important as other truths, yet the question becomes important with this reflexion, that other events may follow as deductions; such as a particular providence, or a future state of rewards and punishments; but whether such deductions or either of them necessarily follow may well be queried. As to a particular providence you give up the reality of it, and I give it up too. But I cannot give up the argument, that if there were a God with all his allowed attributes of wisdom, power and justice, there ought to be a particular providence to counteract the general laws of nature, in favour of those who defend the interposition. Though the Deity should not interfere unless there be a worthy cause, agreeable to the Horation rule,

_"Nec Deus interfuit nisi vindice nodus;"_

Yet surely from the same principles it should follow that the Deity ought to interfere where there is a worthy cause. Here however arises another dilemma, for if the Deity has really those attributes of power and justice, there would never have been occasion for such temperaneous interpositions. A particular providence must indeed prove one of these two principles, either that God was imperfect in his design, or that inert matter is inimical to the properties of God. If that wished for interposition of the Deity is put off to a future existence, I cannot help observing, that future day has been already a long while waited for in vain, and any delay destroys some one attribute or other of the Deity. He wants justice, or he wants the power, or the will to do good and be just. That a future state of rewards and punishments may however exist without a Deity, you, Dr. Priestley, allow to be no impossibility. It may indeed be argued with apparent justness, that a principle of reviviscence may as well be admitted as a principle of production in the first instance: and as to rewards and punishments, judgement may be rendered, as well as now, by Beings less than Deities. For my part I firmly wish for such a future state, and though I cannot firmly believe it, I am resolved to live as if such a state were to ensue. This seems, I own, like doubting, and doubting may be said to be a miserable state of anxiety. "Better be confident than unhinged; better confide in ignorance than have no fixed system." So it may be argued; but I think the result will be as people feel. Those who do not feel bold enough, to be satisfied with their own thoughts, may abandon them and adopt the thoughts of others. For my part I am content with my own; and not the less so because they do not end in certainty upon matters, from the nature of them, beyond the complete reach of human intelligence.

There is nothing in fact important to human nature but happiness, which is or ought to be the end or aim of our being. I mean self-happiness; but fortunately for mankind, such is by nature our construction, that we cannot individually be happy unless we join also in promoting the happiness of others. Should immorality, timidity or other base principles arise from atheism it tends immediately, I will own, to the unhappiness of mankind. If it is asked me, "why am I honest and honourable?" I answer, because of the satisfaction I have in being so. "Do all people receive that satisfaction?" No, many who are ill educated, ill-exampled and perverted, do not. I do, that is enough for me. In short, I am well constructed, and I feel I can therefore act an honest and honourable part without any religious motive. Did I perceive, that belief in a Deity produced morality or inspired courage, I might be prompted to confess, that the contrary would ensue from atheism. But the bulk of the world has long believed, or long pretended to believe in a Deity, yet morality and every commendable quality seem at a stand. The believer and the unbeliever we often see equally base, equally immoral. Superstition is certainly only the excess of religion. That evidently is attended often with immorality and cowardice. I am tempted to say, from observation, that the belief of a Deity is apt to drive mankind into vice and baseness; but I check myself in the assertion, upon considering that very few indeed are those who really believe in a Deity out of such as pretend to do so. It is impossible for an intellectual being to believe firmly in that of which he can give no account, or of which he can form no conception. I hold the Deity, the fancied Deity, at least, of whom with all his attributes such pompous descriptions are set forth to the great terror of old women and the amusement of young children, to be an object of which we form (as appears when we scrutinise into our ideas) no conception and therefore can give no account. It is said, after all this, that men do still believe in such a Deity, I then do say in return, they do not make use of their intellects. The moment we go into a belief beyond what we feel, see and understand, we might as well believe in will-with-a-whisp as in God. But I would fix morality upon a better basis than belief in a Deity. If it has indeed at present no other basis, it is not morality, it is selfishness, it is timidity; it is the hope of reward, it is the dread of punishment. For a great and good man, shew me one who loves virtue because he finds a pleasure in it, who has acquired a taste for that pleasure by considering what and where happiness is, who is not such a fool as to seek misery in preference to happiness, whose honour is his Deity, whose conscience is his judge. Put such a man in combat against the superstitious son of Spain or Portugal, it were easy to say who would shew the truest courage. The question might be more voluminously discussed, but I feel already proof of conviction; if you, Dr. Priestley, do not, perhaps some other readers may. I have nothing to do with men of low minds. They will always have their religion or pretence of it, but I am mistaken if it is not the gallows or the pillory that more govern their morals than the gospel or the pulpit.

After all, atheism may be a system only for the learned. The ignorant of all ages have believed in God. The answer of a Philosophical Unbeliever though written in the vulgar tongue may probably not reach the vulgar. If argument had prevailed they were long converted from their superstitious belief. The sentiments of atheistical philosophers have long been published. If mischief therefore could ensue to society from such free discussions, that mischief society must long have felt. I think truth should never be hid, but few are those who mind it. I will therefore take upon myself but little importance though I have presumed to preface an answer from a Philosophical Unbeliever to Letters which you, Dr. Priestley have written. If you deem that answer detrimental to the interests of society, you will recollect that you invite the proposal of objections and promise to answer all as well as you can. If you should happen to be exasperated by the freedom of the language or the contrariety of the sentiment, this answer will gain weight in proportion as you lose in the credit of a tolerant Divine. Therefore if you reply at all, reply with candour and with coolness; heed the matter and not the man, though I subscribe my name, and am

Reverend Sir, Your friend, admirer, and humble servant, WILLIAM HAMMON.

_Oxford-Street, No._ 418. _Jan._ 1, 1782.

ANSWER FROM A PHILOSOPHICAL UNBELIEVER.

It is the general fashion to believe in a God, the maker of all things, or at least to pretend to such a belief, to define the nature of this existing Deity by the attributes which are given to him, to place the foundation of morality on this belief, and in idea at least, to connect the welfare of civil society with the acknowledgement of such a Being. Few however are those, who being questioned can give any tolerable grounds for their assertions upon this subject, and hardly any two among the learned agree in their manner of proving what each will separately hold to be indisputably clear. The attributes of a Deity are more generally agreed upon, though less the subject of proof, than his existence. As to morality, those very people who are moral will not deny, they would be so though there were not a God, and there never yet has been a civil lawgiver, who left crimes to be punished by the author of the universe; not even the profanation of oaths upon the sacredness of which so much is built in society, and which yet is said to be a more immediate offence against the Deity than any other that can be named.

The method which Dr. Priestley has taken to prove the existence of a God, is by arguing from _effect_ to _cause_. He explodes that other pretended proof _a priori_ which has so much raised the fame of Dr. Clarke among other theologians. As to the attributes of the Deity, Dr. Priestley is not quite so confident in his proofs there; and the most amiable one, the most by mortals to be wished for, the _benevolence_ of God he almost gives up, or owns at least there is not so much proof of it as of his other attributes. His observations are divided into several Letters, this is one answer given to the whole; for it would be to no purpose to reply to topics upon which the writers are agreed. What therefore is not contradicted here, Dr. Priestley may in general take to be allowed; but to obviate doubts and to allow his argument every force, it may be fairer perhaps to recite at full length what in this answer is allowed to be true, what is denied as false, what meant to be exposed as absurd, and what rejected as assertions without proof, inadmissible or inconclusive. The conclusion will contain some observations upon the whole.

TRUISMS.

1. "Effects have their adequate causes."

2. "Nothing begins to exist without a cause foreign to itself."

3. "No being could make himself, for that would imply that he existed and did not exist at the same time."

4. If one horse, or one tree, had a cause, all had."

5. Something must have existed from all eternity.

6. "Atoms cannot be arranged, in a manner expressive of the most exquisite design, without competent intelligence having existed somewhere."

7. "The idea of a supreme author is more pleasing to a virtuous mind, than that of a blind fate and fatherless deserted world."

8. "The condition of mankind is in a state of melioration, as far as misery arises from ignorance, for as the world grows older it must grow wiser, if wisdom arises from experience."

9. "All moral virtue is only a modification of benevolence."

10. "Virtue gives a better chance for happiness than vice."

11. "No instance of any revival."

12. "Atheists are not to think themselves quite secure with respect to a future life."

13. "Thought might as well depend upon the construction of the brain, as upon any invisible substance extraneous to the brain."

14. "If the works of God had a beginning, there must have been a time when he was inactive."

15. "Where happiness is wanting in the creation I would rather conclude the author had mist of his design than that he wanted benevolence."

FALSE ASSERTIONS.

1. "A cause needs not be prior to an effect."

2. "If the species of man had no beginning, it would not follow that it had no cause."

3. "A cause may be cotemporary with the effect."

4. "An atheist must believe he was introduced into the world without design."

ABSURDITIES.

1. "A general mass of sensation consisting of various elements borrowed from the past and the future."

2. "Since sensation is made up of past, present, and future, the infant feeling for the moment only, the man recollecting what is past and anticipating the future, and as the present sensation must therefore in time bear a less proportion to the general mass of sensation than it did, so at last all temporary affections, whether of pain or pleasure become wholly inconsiderable."

3. "The great book of nature and the book of revelation both lie open before us."

4. "A conclusion above our comprehension."

5. "A whole eternity already past."

6. "Since a finite Being cannot be infinitely happy, because he must then be infinite in knowledge and power; and as all limitation of happiness must consist in degree of happiness or mixture of misery, the Deity can alone determine which mode of limitation is best."

7. "We have reason to be thankful for our pains and distress."

8. "If the divine Being had made man at first as happy as he can be after all the feelings and ideas of a painful and laborious life, it must have been in violation of all general laws and by a constant and momentary interference of the Deity."

9. "It is better the divine agency should not be very conspicuous."

10. "If good prevails on the whole, creation being infinite, happiness must be infinite, and God comprehending the whole, will only perceive the balance of good, and that will be happiness unmixed with misery."

11. "If a man is happy in the whole he is infinitely happy in the whole of his existence."

12. "Although all things fall alike to all men and no distinction is made between the righteous and the wicked, and even though the wicked derive an advantage from their vices, yet this is consistent with a state of moral government by a Being of infinite wisdom and power."

13. "As ploughing is the means of having a harvest, though God has predetermined whether there should be a harvest or not, so prayer is the means of obtaining good from God, although that good is predetermined upon; it is therefore no more absurd to pray than to plough."

14. "Notwithstanding happiness is the necessary consequence of health, yet man's happiness is more from intellectual than corporeal feelings."

15. "Evil is necessarily connected with and subservient to good, although in the next world there will be all good and no evil."

16. "By reason we can discover the necessary existence of a Deity, yet to be a sceptic on that subject is the first step to be a Christian, because reason not sufficiently proving it we fly to revealed truth."

17. "The power, which a man has by the comprehensiveness of his mind to enjoy the future, has no apparent limits."

18. "It is of no avail in the argument concerning the existence of a Deity, that we have no conception of him, since it does not imply impossibility of his existence that we have no idea at all upon the subject."

INADMISSIBLE OR INCONCLUSIVE.

1. "The question of the existence of a Deity is important."

2. "A Theist has a higher sense of personal dignity than an atheist."

3. "The conduct of an atheist must give concern to those who are not so."

4. "An atheist believes himself to be, at his death, for ever excluded from returning life."

5. "There are more atheists than unbelievers in revelation."

6. "Men of letters may have the same bias to incredulity as others to credulity, because they are subject to a wrong association of ideas, as well as other persons though in a less degree."

7. "Whoever first made a thing, for example a chair or a table, must have had an adequate idea of it's nature and use."

8. "If a table had a designing cause, the tree from whence the wood came, and the man who made the table must have had a designing cause, which comprehended all the powers and properties of trees and men."

9. "All the visible universe, as far as we can judge, bears the marks of being one work, and therefore must have had a cause of infinite power and intelligence."

10. "We might as well say a table had no cause, as that the world had none."

11. "A Being originally and necessarily capable of comprehending itself, it is not improper to call infinite, for we can have no idea of any bounds to it's knowledge or power."

12. "A series of finite causes cannot possibly be carried back _ad infinitum_."

13. "Our imagination revolts at the idea of an intellectual soul of the universe, that is, of an intelligence resulting from arrangement."

14. "The actual existence of the universe compels us to come at last to an _originally existent and intellectual Being_, because if the immediate maker of the universe has not existed from all eternity, he must have derived his being and senses from one who has, and that being we call God."

15. "God must be present to all his works, if we admit no power can act but where it is, he must therefore exist every where, because his works are every where."

16. "As no being can unmake or materially change himself (at least none can annihilate himself) so God is unchangeable, for no Being God made can change him and no other Being can exist but what God made."

17. "Two infinite intelligent beings of the same kind would coincide, therefore there can only be one God."

18. "Nothing can be more evident, than that plants and animals could not have proceeded from each other from all eternity."

19. "That happiness is the design of the creation because health is designed and sickness is only an exception, not a general rule is as evident as that the design of the Mill-wright must have been, that his machine should not be obstructed."

20. "As a state of sickness is comparatively rare with a state of health, happiness the result of health, and the end of the creation happiness, so the end of the creation is already in a great measure answered."

21. "Pleasure tends to continue and propagate itself, pain to check and exterminate itself."

22. "As our knowledge and power in respect to shunning pains and procuring pleasures advance with our experience, nothing is wanting to enable us to exterminate all pains, but a continuance of being.

23. "Our enjoyments continually increase in real value from infancy to old age."

24. "A future moral distribution is probable, because God is infinitely powerful and wise."

25. "Since reverence, gratitude, obedience, confidence are duties to men, so they are to God; and as we pray to men, so we should pray to God."

26. "Prescience, predetermination and infinite benevolence are no argument against prayer to the Deity."

27. "A wish produced by nature is evidence of the thing wished for, but a future state is wished for, therefore there is evidence of a future state."

28. "As we have no idea how we came originally to be produced, for what we know to the contrary our reproduction may be as much the course of nature as our original production.."

29. "A gloom and melancholy belong more to atheists than to devout people."

OBSERVATIONS.