MISCHIEVOUS THEOLOGY.

Evening Star, Issue 2904, 10 June 1872, Page 2

MISCHIEVOUS THEOLOGY.

To the Editor. Sir,—When I first addressed you on this subject, I ventured to anticipate some probable profit from its discussion. 1 fear, if the tone and manner of the last effusion of the Rev. T. Roseby are to be taken as a sample, that hope will be disappointed. The smell of powder smoke seems to impart a peculiar sensation to his nerves. Be* sides imparting to him the feeling that anP mates one Irishman when he sees another trailing the caudine appendage of his coat at Donnybrook, the smoke really seems to obfuscate the ethical and logical discernment of the rev gentleman. While trying to avoid the infection of the arrogant tone of his letter, I venture to hint in a mild way that it seems to me to betray a considerable amount of that unlearned ignorance which he is so bountiful ig he§tfiWing upon others. It is also inconsistent. In the very first sentence he 'says that he has nothing to do with my political economy, and yet he immediately follows that up with a string of confident assertions directly in the teeth of the teachings of the masters of that science. For example— “ He [meaning myself] has got something less than one fourth of the truth”— i. e., I presume, the economic truth. W e u—I enumerated several of the efficient checks on over population, and I know of a good many more, which I reserve. The rev gentleman mentioned one only, namely emigration, on which I have something to say in its place. Does this make up the other three-fourths? Again, “his doctrine is true in the eastern hemisphere—it" Is certainly false in the western.’' This may bo the Gospel which “we preachers” profound, but it is not the Gospel of the eminent men who dedicated their lives and their genins to the investigasion of these subjects—not of Malthas, or Mill, or Senior, or M'Cnlloeh, or (tell it not in Gath) of the Rev Dr Chalmers. These “wayfarers” and “amateur theologians” have all audaciously intruded into this portion of the assumed theological preserves. I am not aware that they .have excluded their practical application of the Malthusian theory from the western hemisphere. On the contrary they were looking specially to the evils they saw there prevalent. Next come the “2,200 emigrants,” and the naive assertion following pat thereupon, “ Malthus can have no honor in such a land as this.” Will the rev gentleman refer to a single word in my letter where I said the doctrine was practically applicable to this Colony or any new country ? If ho can it is a good point, and properly used hi argument; if he cannot, then the remark is either very illogical or very disingenuous. If he can’t make the required reference, this is the common logical fallacy of irrelevancy i e. , answering an assertion which an opponent has not made. In the meantime, I will charitably assume that it is cnly a little sample of “Bonus Homerus dormitana. ” Then comes another little bit of charming complacency. After admitting fully the truth of the theory of Malthus (in which Mr Roseby is wise), he then proscribes the true remedy, the panacea for the “bugbear that frightens Malthus”—to wit, “emigration” —and in this Mr R. is foolish. This is all that appears for the “ three-fourths of the truth ” above referred to. Well, let us “ presumptuous tyros ” be thankful for even this small modicum of bread of truth. Alas I those nasty, hard-headed, “inscient” fellows [ut Rosebeians verbo vtar), the economists, will cavil and question even this. Listen to what this one says, viz.:—“lf any European nation could hope to make emigration a complete substitute for prudence, that hope might be entertained of the, British people. We have the command 1 ofunocou-

{tied continents in each hemisphere, the argeat navy the world ever saw to convey us to them, the largest capital ever accumulated, and a population remarkable not merely for enterprise, but for enterprise of this particular sort. These advantages we have enjoyed almost from the tinrn of the Tudors, and yet during this long period how little effect has emigration produced on our numbers ! The swarms which we have sent out, and which we now send out seem to be instantaneously replaced. All experience shows that no numerous and civilised nation, surrounded by other civilised nations, can venture to rely on emigration as a permanent and adequate check to population. (Nassau Senior’s “Political Economy”). Then comes the text, “Bo fruitful and multiply. &c.,” which said text “speaks for itself ” as we “preachers say.” But then, alas: it does not speak for the preacher’s argument in this case, for the rev, gentleman forgets that this precept was given to the first colonists in the biggest new country that ever was seen, to wit, the garden of Eden. If Mr R. distorts it into a precept from God to people situated as the mass of the lower people are in countries like England now, I say that it is just another sample of that blasphemy which is so revolting to all rightly constituted minds. It is (so destorted, utterly at variance with the truth, and with other texts, which reflect Clearly the Malthusian principle, e. <7., this one of a certain “ preacher,” “ the destruction of the poor is their poverty,” of which the deep significance and wisdom are fully up to the best scientific teachings of our day. Again, the rev. gentleman might read with profit the 7th chapter of Ist Corinthians, where abstinence from marriage is not only approved wh<re it might lead to greater evils, but sexual temperance is inculcated even ill the married state. So much for Mr Koseby’s economy, of which he is rather liberal, notwithstanding tho disclaimer in his exordium. Then with an exclamation of amazement at my bad logic he comes to what he calls my theology- Here, I must say, both bad logic and I fear disingenuousness are on the face of the language of the critic himself. His quotations show plainly how he has tried to distort a passage that means one thing into meaning something quite different to suit his purpose. . , , , , ~ In the first place, m order to found Ins objection to my “ theology” as he calls it, he quotes correctly enough a passage of my letter—then he wilfully transposes the sentences, that he may attribute to me an inference I never drew, and put into my mouth words I never wrote. I said (witness the quotation he gives) the operation of nature went on (in men’s belief) under the control of “the gods”—that is under the direct personal control of the heathen deities, several of whom I named, bow mark the way in which this is twuted—“Man living in society is governed,byfiaw, therefore it is a fallacy to suppose that streams flow, Ac., under ‘God’s’ (mark the word) control.” Here, first, the heathen gods are transfigured in a twinkling, by theological logic, into the one God of the Christian universe : in that logic, which is so glib on his tongue. Did the rev. gentleman ever read of the fallacy of paronymous words - the fallacy, that is, |of taking for granted that words of the same root have a precisely correspondent meaning ? “ Two middle terms in sound as well as in sense,” as Wh t:!y says. Thus “God” is quite' a different thing in sense and sound from “the ends.” If the gentleman does not know this, it is only ignorance; if he does, it is uncandid. I fear, from the manifest care that has been taken to make out a point, I must here decide for the latter. Again he asks “ Is it not possible that God's government may be a government by law ?’ Once more, will Mr Roseby point out a pas sage where 1 deny thattheunifoimlaws which govern nature and life, are the laws of God ? I defy him to do so. So far is this from true that, this is just the complement of my whole position, viz : Goc} in Ipa wisdom, ordered that pnijorm law shall prevail—he £aa given us noble and expansive faculties, “large discourse looking before and after,” just that we may study and under.-1 ind, and be able to shape our course in. obedience to them, and thus by obeying nature, learn to command her. This is true science, and to this the theological mode of thought is opposed as I said before, and say now. Here is another sample of logic: “1 assert, he ■ays, “that God is the creator of man—of all men. Does your correspondent deny this?” From this I infer that he thinks man, i.c., the race, is the same thing as “ all men,” i.e., each tiny unit of humanity emerging into life from day to day and year to year. Really I must refer him to the page in Whately, where he will see the same fallacy. It is p. 117- The former member of this sentence, I believe: but I distinctly deny the latter, which is quite another thing. I Will now ask him another question ? When the Kussian proprietor made the father of the infant serf -whom, in order to increase the stock on the estate, he oompelled to marry before the age of puberty, occupy the son’s marriapo bed till the latter was of proper age, was the luckless progeny of this disgusting custom the direct creation of God, or was result of the wickedness of man abusing God’s laws ? This is a sample of “ the men ” whose creation by God in that sense I deny. I regret the rev. gentleman sees fit to repeat the passage I criticized ; but as he does so, I repeat the charge of blasphemy, and to that I mar I must add wilful misrepresentation. I scarcely know how to notice the very remarkable string of confident assumptions and offensive imputations with which the letter ends—“ We preachers say that the laws of population belong to the domain of theology and mystery; and therefore when you, the unorthodox part of the community, presume to discuss them, it is a piece of intolerable presumption.” Now, sir, I am not quite old enough to be the rev. gentleman’s father; but if he were my son, and I were sending him into the world to push his way, and were talking to him “ like a father,” I might say something like this— Young man, you are a very young man. You have a glib tongue, and are afflicted with the ewaetjiea sorihemli. It is a very dangerous itch, so have a care. When you happen to meet some one who differs from you in opinion, and wish to annihilate him with a dy-logistio theological term, or to olnb him with an offensive epithet, look to it well that when you are imputing to him “shallow ignorance,” “foolish presumption,” “inscient dogmatism,” and “confident assertion,” you may not be yourself the victim of all these at once, and just expose your nakedness to the unkindly and unaanctified lash of the unlearned, unorthodox Economicus.

A young lady has bought a libel against hexmother, as the only means to get a mother—in law.