Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws

J >> James Buchanan >> Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws

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These are the _three_ great stages through which the collective mind of
Humanity must necessarily pass in its progressive advancement towards a
perfect knowledge of truth; but of these three, the _first_, or the
Theological Epoch, is again subdivided, and exhibited as commencing with
Fetishism, then advancing to Polytheism, and finally consummated in
Monotheism.

FETISHISM is supposed to have been the first form of the Theological
Philosophy; and it is described as consisting in the ascription of a
life and intelligence essentially analogous to our own to every existing
object, of whatever kind, whether organic or inorganic, natural or
artificial. It is traced to a primitive tendency, supposed to exist
equally in man and in the lower animals, to conceive of all external
objects as animated, and to ascribe to them the same, or similar, powers
and feelings with those which belong to the living tribes
themselves.[59] "Let an infant, for example, or a savage, on the one
hand, and, on the other hand, a dog or a monkey, behold a watch for the
first time, there will doubtless be no immediate profound difference,
unless in respect to the manner of representing it, between the
spontaneous conception which will represent to the one and the other
that admirable product of human industry as a sort of veritable animal,
having its own peculiar tastes and inclinations; whence results,
consequentially, in this respect, a Fetishism fundamentally common to
both, the former only having the exclusive privilege of being able
ultimately to get out of it." This instinctive and spontaneous
belief--the natural, and, indeed, the necessary result of a tendency
inherent in living beings--is conceived to have been an indispensable
and a most useful provision for the primeval state of man, and to have
exerted a highly salutary influence on the progressive development of
human thought. It is contrasted with the subsequent but more advanced
stage of Polytheism;[60] and the latter is held to denote a spontaneous
belief in supernatural beings, distinct from and even independent of
matter, since it is passively subject to their will; while the former
considers matter itself as animated, and has no idea of any higher or
more spiritual form of being. It is further supposed that idolatry,
properly so called, belongs to Fetishism only, and not at all to
Polytheism, for this singular, but not very conclusive reason, among
others, that if Polytheism be justly chargeable with idolatry because it
recognizes many wills superior to Nature and having power over it,
Catholicism would be equally liable to the same charge in respect of the
homage which it renders to saints and angels![61]

But Fetishism is only the initial step in the process of our
intellectual development; and it passes into Polytheism, not suddenly
and _per salium_, but slowly and gradually, through the intermediate
stage of "_Astrolatrie_," or the worship of the heavenly bodies. The
mind is imperceptibly divested of the idea that everything around it is
animated, and, by a process of real, but as yet imperfect
generalization, it rises from Fetishism to Polytheism; in which latter
system of belief an order of powers superior to Nature is recognized,
while as yet there is no conception of a supreme and all-perfect Mind.
The Polytheistic system, which prevailed so universally in the ancient
world, and which still prevails among Heathen nations, is supposed to
have been, not a _declension_ from a purer and better state, not a
_corruption_ either of natural or revealed religion, but _a step in
advance_ of the primary faith of mankind, a result of growing
intelligence, a vast and most beneficial change in the right direction.
It was the first great product of the metaphysical spirit, the result of
an early but imperfect generalization; it constituted the principal era
of the theological history of mankind; it was admirably adapted, and,
indeed, indispensably necessary, to the exigencies of society at the
time when it prevailed; it was more intensely religious than Monotheism
itself, since it brought man habitually into contact with a multitude of
gods, whose symbols were always present and visible to the eye, while it
exerted a wholesome influence on Science, on Poetry, on Industry, on
Morals, and, indeed, on the whole process of man's mental and social
development.[62]

But Polytheism, although indispensable and salutary as a provisional
belief, was not destined to be permanent; it was to be superseded in due
time, at least in the case of the _elite_ of humanity, by the higher and
still more abstract system of Monotheism, which is regarded as the
natural and inevitable product of human intelligence, independently of
all supernatural teaching, at a certain stage of its development. But
here, as in the former instance, the change is not effected suddenly;
the human mind advances gradually from Polytheism to Monotheism, through
the intermediate stage of the idea of Immutability or Destiny,--an idea
suggested partly by the study of the invariable order of Nature, and
partly by the irresistible domination of one great temporal power, such
as the iron empire of Rome.[63] Historically, indeed, Monotheism is said
to have spread in Europe through the Jews, who derived it from Egypt;
but it is added that, had there been no Jews, others would have given
birth to a system so necessary for the development of human thought. The
prevalence of Monotheism, for a limited time, was useful, and even
necessary, as the natural result of the great law of human progress,
and the indispensable precursor of a new and brighter era; but it was
temporary and provisional merely,--a stage in the onward march of
development, not the ultimate landing-place of human thought. It is
conceived to be radically incompatible with the recognition of
invariable natural laws, and even with the exercise of the industrial
arts.[64] It is, however, the last and highest form of the Theological
Philosophy; and, having reached this stage, the human mind necessarily
advances beyond it, until it arrives at a point where all theology
disappears, and where it is entirely and forever emancipated from all
the beliefs, the hopes, and the fears which have any reference to an
invisible spiritual world.

The ultimate goal of speculative thought is "the Positive Philosophy,"
which treats only of the Facts of Nature, and of their cooerdination
under general laws, to the utter exclusion of all supernatural powers,
and of all knowledge of causes, whether _efficient_ or _final_. But this
goal cannot be reached, it seems, by a sudden or abrupt transition from
the Theological to the Atheistic creed. There must be an intermediate
stage,--the era, in short, of Metaphysics,--during which the process of
Criticism will operate as a solvent on all previous beliefs, and by
producing Skepticism, in the first instance, in regard to all other
systems, will tend at length to concentrate the attention of mankind
exclusively on the truths of Inductive Science. The Metaphysical
Philosophy is held to be the necessary, but temporary stage of
transition from the theological to the positive method in science. It is
destined to supersede the one, and to introduce the other. It is
conceived to be equally at variance with both; and the era of its
ascendency is described as a critical, destructive, revolutionary age,
useful only as it delivers mankind from the shackles of former beliefs,
and prepares them for the adoption of a new and purely natural system
of thought. During this era of decomposition there will commence the
reconstruction of human opinion on new and more solid foundations; and
the transition from Monotheism to Positive Science will be the greatest
achievement of the race, greater far than the advancement from Fetishism
to Polytheism, or even from Polytheism to Monotheism itself. The
culminating point of human progress is absolute and universal
Atheism.[65]

Surely such a prospect may well arrest the most thoughtless, and prompt
them to inquire, with some measure of moral earnestness, What _is_ this
Positive Philosophy, this ultimate landing-place of human thought, this
final goal of human progress? Is it nothing else than the Inductive
Science of Bacon, but under a new and less attractive name? or is it a
philosophy radically different from it, and entitled, therefore, to be
regarded as an original method? The author tells us that he might have
called it "Natural Science," or "the Philosophy of Nature," since it
treats of Facts and their Laws; but that he had been induced to prefer
the distinctive title of _positive_, as one better fitted to mark the
contrast between it and the _negative_ character of those metaphysical
and theological systems which it is destined to supersede. And yet it
will be found that, in so far as it differs at all from the Inductive
Science of Bacon, it is purely _negative_, since its chief
characteristic is the negation of all Theology, and the entire exclusion
from the domain of human knowledge, of Causes, whether efficient or
final. It _adds_ nothing to the sum of human thought which might not be
reached by Bacon's method; it only _subtracts_ whatever has reference to
the Divine and Supernatural, and especially everything connected with
the theory of Causation. It makes no new contribution to the general
stock, unless, indeed, it be the hitherto unknown law of development
which is supposed to regulate and determine the progress of humanity
from primeval Fetishism to ultimate Atheism; and it takes away Theology,
with all its ennobling beliefs and blessed hopes, not by grappling with
and solving, but by merely discarding the problem both of the origin and
end of the world.

That this is a correct account of the new theory is evident from his own
words: "The fundamental character of the Positive Philosophy is, to
regard all phenomena as subjected to invariable natural _laws_, the
precise discovery of which, and their reduction to the least possible
number, is the end of all our efforts; while we regard the investigation
of what are called _causes_, whether first or final, as absolutely
_inaccessible and void of sense for us_." ... "We have no pretension to
expound the producing causes of the phenomena, for in that we can never
do more than push back the difficulty; we seek only to analyze with
exactitude the circumstances of their production, and to connect them
with one another by the normal relations of _succession and
similitude_."--"In the positive state of science, the human mind,
acknowledging the impossibility of obtaining absolute knowledge,
abandons the search after the _origin and destination_ of the universe,
and the knowledge of the secret _causes_ of phenomena."[66]

It is thus plainly announced that the Positive Philosophy is the science
of facts and their laws, exclusive of all reference to causes, efficient
or final; and it is even admitted that Theology could not be excluded,
were it deemed legitimate or possible for the human mind to investigate
the causes of phenomena.

Viewing the theory in this light, we submit the following remarks as a
sufficient antidote to this daring but impotent attempt to exclude
Theology from the domain of human knowledge.

1. It is worthy of notice how completely the Infidel party have shifted
their ground and changed their tactics since the era of the first French
Revolution; and how utterly inconsistent are the arguments of M. Comte
and the Positive School with those of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists.
Formerly, Religion was wont to be ascribed to priestcraft; it was
supposed to have been invented by fraud, supported by falsehood, and
professed in hypocrisy; and the Church, but especially the hierarchy of
Rome, was the object of incessant ridicule or malignant abuse. But now,
Religion is discovered to be the natural, necessary, and salutary result
of the legitimate action of the human faculties in the earlier stages of
their development, the initial impellent of social progress, the
indispensable condition of advancing civilization; and, on the broad,
general principle that sincerity of conviction is essential to
wide-spread success, the theory which ascribes its origin to the fraud
or the policy, whether of kings, or priests, or fanatics, is scouted as
a mere delirium of Voltaire, or as one of those revolutionary prejudices
of his disastrous era which were alike irrational and injurious. And the
Church, so far from being ridiculed or maligned, is lauded above measure
as the highest extant product of _human_ wisdom; Catholicism is even
preferred to Christianity itself, as a manifest improvement on the more
primitive form of faith and worship; it is declared to be the
indispensable basis of the future reorganization of society, which, when
it shall have been freed from all theological influence, its only point
of weakness, will still survive, with its separate speculative class,
its imposing public forms, and its splendid hierarchy,--an Atheistic
society, but still Catholic and One.[67] The change, in this respect,
between the opinions which prevailed, respectively, at the era of the
_first_ and that of the _second_ Revolution, is at once striking and
instructive. It shows how variable and vacillating is the wretched creed
of Infidelity, and how the firm maintenance of truth will eventually
compel the homage, even where it may not succeed in carrying the
convictions, of speculative minds. That Religion in all its successive
forms, from the rudest Fetishism up to the sublimest Christian
Monotheism, has been the natural and genuine product of human
intelligence, working ever onward and upward to a still higher stage of
development,--that its existence was inevitable, and its influence, on
the whole, highly beneficial,--and that, even when it shall have passed
away, society will still be largely indebted to it for the impulse, yet
unspent, which it has imparted to the cause of civilization and
progress,--all this is admitted and even maintained by M. Comte, in
direct and often derisive opposition to the theorists who once ascribed
its origin to fraud, and its prevalence to priestcraft; nay, he elevates
it to the rank of a primordial and indispensable element of human
progress, a necessary and legitimate result of the great law of human
development. We know of no parallel instance of a change of opinion so
great and sudden, unless it be the marvellous transition of certain
modern Rationalists who were wont to ridicule the doctrine of the
Trinity as absurd and incomprehensible, but who have now arrived at the
conclusion that it is the fundamental law of human thought![68]

Still, with all this outward homage to Religion, considered as a mere
matter of history, the theory of M. Comte is essentially and even
avowedly Atheistic. It is mainly designed to account for the origin of
all Religion, whether Natural or Revealed, without having recourse to
the supposition either of the existence of God, or of his interposition
at any time in the affairs of men. He seems to have proposed to himself
a twofold object: _first_, to account for the prevalence of the various
forms of natural religion and superstition, without recognizing any
valid evidence for the existence of supernatural powers; and,
_secondly_, to account for the origin of Judaism and Christianity, or,
as he calls it, of Monotheism, without recognizing the reality of any
Divine Revelation. And he attempts to accomplish _both_ objects by means
of the same law--a law of development which, in primitive times,
produced Fetishism--which then produced Polytheism; then Monotheism;
then the Metaphysical transition era, during which all Theology is
undergoing a process of disintegration and decay; and, last of all (the
noblest, because the latest, birth of time), the Positive Philosophy,
under whose predicted ascendancy all Theology must die and be buried in
everlasting oblivion. His theory is not merely Anti-Protestant, although
it is bitterly so;[69] nor merely Anti-Christian, as opposed to all
Revelation; but it is Anti-Theological, as opposed to all Religion. It
proposes to eliminate Theology from the scheme of our knowledge, by
showing that it is utterly inaccessible to our faculties, and neither
necessary to society nor useful to morals.[70] It anticipates the time,
as being near at hand, when it shall have no existence, save on the
historic page.

2. This Atheistic theory rests entirely on a supposed discovery of M.
Comte,--the discovery of _a law of human development_, which serves at
once to account for the origin and prevalence of Theological beliefs in
the past, and to insure their utter disappearance in the future; a law
which, like the magician's wand, can raise the apparition, and then lay
it again! Now, of this law we affirm and undertake to prove that it is
_utterly groundless_; that it has no solid basis of evidence on which it
can be established; that it is contradicted by the history of the
world, and opposed to our own experience at the present day.

It can scarcely be imagined that a man accustomed, as M. Comte has been,
to the severe pursuits of Science, could give publicity to a law of this
kind, and claim the credit of a great original discovery, without having
some plausible reasons to plead for it; and he does assign certain
reasons for his belief, which are, it may be safely affirmed, as
frivolous and inconclusive as any that have ever been offered in support
of the most baseless revery. They may be reduced to THREE; the _first_,
derived from our cerebral organization; the _second_, from the history
of a certain portion of our species; the _third_, from the analogy of
our individual experience.[71]

He founds, in the first instance, on our _cerebral organization_. He is
an ardent admirer of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, and has no scruple in
avowing himself a decided Materialist. It is unnecessary here to enter
on a discussion of Materialism, or even of Phrenology,--that will be
done hereafter; in the mean time it is enough merely to indicate the
fact that the theory proceeds on that ground, and then to inquire _how
the fundamental law of Development is deduced from it_. How does the
theory of Materialism, or even of Phrenology, were it assumed on the one
side and admitted on the other, contribute to the establishment or
verification of that law? Suppose it to be conceded that every mental
faculty or propensity has a distinct cerebral organ, or, more generally,
that the brain may be divided into three parts, representing,
respectively, the animal propensities, the more elevated sentiments, and
the intellectual faculties; could it be rationally inferred from this
concession that human nature must necessarily develop itself after a
certain order or method, and especially in the precise way that is
indicated in M. Comte's law? Would it prove that Man must needs pass,
in the process of his mental and social development, through _three_
distinct and successive stages,--the preparatory Theological state, the
transitory Metaphysical state, and the final Positive state? Would it
prove that Religion must first exist as Fetishism, then as Polytheism,
then as Monotheism, and thereafter disappear from the earth altogether
on the advent of M. Comte? He seems to think that there is a real
connection between the cerebral theory and his great fundamental law;
but it is not easy for a common reader to discern or to explain it.
Considering the cranium, according to what he conceives to be the true
anatomical theory, as simply a prolongation of the vertebral
column,--the primitive centre of the whole nervous system,--he argues
that the functions, intellectual and emotional, which are proper to the
upper and anterior parts of it, are less energetic than the animal
propensities, whose organs lie in the lower and posterior region, just
in proportion as they are further removed from the spine; and that, for
this reason, the latter must first come into action, then the
intermediate organs of sentiment, and, last of all, the intellectual
powers. And this doctrine he applies to the verification both of his
otherwise admirable classification of the Sciences, and of his far more
doubtful law of human development. We conceive that if it were
applicable at all to the problem of human progress, it might possibly be
applied to indicate the probable development of an _individual mind_, in
the successive stages of infancy, youth, and manhood; but that it does
not admit of the same application to _the history of the race_,
otherwise than by the aid of a very fanciful analogy. We have no faith
in the _a priori_ methods of constructing the chart of human history,
and tracing the necessary course of social progress, which have recently
become so popular in Germany and France. We cannot, with M. Comte,
undertake to solve the problem,--Given three lobes of the brain,
representing the propensities, affections, and intellectual powers, but
differing from each other in size and situation, what will be the future
history of the race,--religious, aesthetic, industrial, metaphysical,
social? We cannot, with M. Cousin, undertake to solve the
problem,--Given three terms, the finite, the infinite, and the relation
between the two, what will be the development of human thought, first,
in the experience of individuals, and, secondly, in the history of
society?[72] All such problems are too high for us. The history of the
human race must be ascertained from the authentic records and extant
monuments of the past, not constructed by theories, or divined by _a
priori_ speculations.

But M. Comte does appeal, in the second instance, to history in
confirmation of his views. He is far from affirming, however, that the
progress of the race, under the operation of his great law of
development, has been either uniform or invariable; on the contrary, he
admits, with regard to India, China, and other nations, comprising
probably the majority of mankind, whose state, intellectually and
socially, has been stationary for ages, that they afford little or no
evidence in support of his theory; and for this, among other reasons, he
confines himself to the history of what he calls the _elite_, or
advanced guard of humanity, and in this way makes it a very "_abstract_"
history indeed![73] Beginning with Greece, as the representative of
ancient civilization, and surveying the history of the Roman empire, and
of its successors in Western Europe, he endeavors to show that the
actual progress of humanity has been, on the whole, in conformity with
his general law. He gives no historical evidence, however, of the
prevalence of Fetishism in primitive times; _that_ is an inference
merely, depending partly on his theory of cerebral organization, and
partly on the assumption that in the savage state, which is
gratuitously supposed to have been the primitive condition of man,
there must have been a tendency to regard every object, natural or
artificial, as endowed with life and intelligence. Polytheism, again, he
conceives to have been a step in advance, an improvement on the
preexisting state of things, instead of being, as it really was, a
declension from a purer and better faith, an aberration from the light
of Nature, not less than from the lessons of Revelation. He conceives
Monotheism, whether as taught, to the Jews by Moses, or to the world at
large by Christ and his apostles, to have been the natural product of
man's unaided intelligence; and he assumes this, without making a single
reference to the supernatural events by which its publication, in either
instance, is said to have been accompanied, or to the sacred books in
which they are recorded; nay, he does not even name the Founder of the
Christian faith, otherwise than by describing him as "the founder, real
or imaginary, of this great religious system."[74]

In treating, again, of the Critical or destructive system of
Metaphysics, and of the Positive or reconstructive system of the New
Philosophy, he adduces no evidence to show that _the same element_ is
negatived by the one and restored by the other; on the contrary, were
his statement true in all respects, it would only serve to prove that
the Theological element, which is slowly dissipated by Metaphysics, is
formally and finally abjured by Positivism. He assumes and asserts, on
very insufficient grounds, that there is a real, radical, and necessary
contrariety between the facts and laws of Science and the first
principles of Theology, whether natural or revealed; and he anticipates,
therefore, that in proportion as Science advances, Theology must recede,
and ultimately quit the field. He ought to have known that there are
minds in every part of Europe as thoroughly scientific as his own, and
as deeply imbued with the spirit of modern Inductive Philosophy, who,
so far from seeing any discordance between the results of scientific
inquiry and the fundamental truths of Theology, are in the habit of
appealing to the former in proof or illustration of the latter; and who,
the further they advance in the study of the works of Nature, are only
the more confirmed in their belief of a Creative Intelligence and a
Governing Power. It may be that, in his own immediate circle at Paris,
there is a tendency towards Atheism; but, assuredly, no such tendency
exists in the highest and most scientific minds of modern Europe. The
faith of Bacon, Newton, and Boyle, of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Pascal,
in regard to the first principles of Theology, is still the prevailing
creed of the Sedgwicks, the Whewells, the Herschells, and the Brewsters
of the present day.

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