Freethought Review.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 12, 1 September 1884, Unnumbered Page

Freethought Review.

VOL. I.—No. 12.

An unrepealed Act of George 111., it appears, prohibits the charging of a fee on Sundays for admission to a public place, and the police are using this rusty old weapon against the Rationalistic Association of Auckland, which has thought it prudent not to contest the matter in the Courts. Some of the papers have censured the police for their action, holding the opinion that obsolete Acts of that kind should not be revived. We cannot agree with this opinion. The duty of the Executive is to enforce the law, and no law is obsolete which can be enforced. Freethinkers should clearly understand the merits of this question. Lord Coleridge lately, in the case of Mr. Foote and his friends, placed the most liberal interpretation on the law of blasphemy; but his dicta have been questioned by Mr. Justice Stephen, who traces at every turn the harsh and cruel features of the law. There is no guarantee against a revival of prosecution while an oppressive law exists. If the Act of George is in force in the colony, we have no right to blame the police for their action. What has to be done is to get it repealed ; and as no one can very well defend so senseless a prohibition, it should not be difficult to remove the dead hand of the Georgian lawgiver from New Zealand.

The French are keen wits, and the report of the Committee appointed on the Recidiviste question is a characteristic production. The prosperity of the Australian colonies is due to the fact that they arose out of convictism, and hence France must insist on following so excellent an example ! We are further informed that French criminals of the artizan class prefer New Caledonia. This probably means that it will be some advantage to Australia to have the chance of an accession to its population of a class which, though criminal, is artizan and French at the same time. Of course so polite a nation would never insinuate that because Australia received convicts at one time, it should not object to receive them now. But seriously, how little French politicians know of the new world, — almost as little as they knew of Germany in 1870 !

The ' Manawatu Times ' quotes as follows from a recent speech made by the Hon. Major Atkinson : " He was in favor of a State religion, and thought it a " disgrace to us, as a Christian people, that we could " not sink all differences and worship God without all " these creeds." The logic of this may be expressed in a few words. Does Major Atkinson believe in none of the creeds ? If so he must have some special belief of his own, and this belief is itself a creed. If he objects to the Immaculate Conception, we see no reason why the Roman Catholics should abandon the dogma in order to attain uniformity. He is trying to attain therefore at the impossible. The line is drawn at Christianity, and all outside that pale would have, it appears, to acknowledge the new State religion. With the advance of Freethought the Christian sects

SCIENCE. RELIGION. PHILOSOPHY.

WANGANUI, N.Z.: SEPTEMBER i, 1884.

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will no doubt approach each other more closely, and they will sink many of the feuds and differences in face of the common enemy. But by the time when they will all be found in such agreement as to accept a national form of religion, Freethinkers will be numerous enough to be able to resist even the united efforts to establish Christianity upon an official basis.

Just previous to the General Election which this colony has lately passed through, the President of the " Wanganui Freethought Association " very properly deprecated the advice of a member of the kindred Association in Wellington (where it was seemingly received with applause) that a " block vote " should be given by Freethinkers on general political questions. To do so would be to act upon the principles, and to adopt the practice, of the bitterest opponents of freethought. It is not Freethinkers who should follow the bad example of those who attach undue importance to the holding of a certain set of theoretical opinions upon abstract questions. Character, and special knowledge and ability in relation to political matters, and even special views on the questions that are likely to occupy the attention of Parliament, are surely of more importance in determining the fitness of a candidate to assist in the legislation and government of a country, than his theological or anti-theological ideas. There might be special occasions on which a Freethinking block vote would properly be given, e.g., if any serious attempt were made to interfere by legislation with freedom of thought and expression. At present no such danger threatens, and it would be a great mistake for Freethinkers to act as if they were a sect anxious to use political power to assist in spreading their opinions.

The result of the General Election serves to show that a large number of Roman Catholics had too much good sense and honesty to sacrifice their individual political convictions at the command of their priests. Indeed, bigotry of all kinds has been taught a useful lesson, and those persons who thought that the electors would virtually disfranchise themselves at their bidding will perhaps remember it for future use. ' The Tablet ' indeed draws a different moral, and advises Catholic voters to sacrifice everything to the education question regarded from their point of view. According to this plan of operations, every effort is to be made to place Catholics on the electoral rolls in order that they may vote so as to " disorganise parties " and thus " compel them in the long run to unite and settle the education question on just and equitable principles." Apart from the obvious immorality of this advice, ' The Tablet ' forgets that two can play at such a game as this. A class that deliberately combined to injure the community at large, in order to advance its own supposed interests, would soon be regarded as political " dynamitards " who would have to be rendered powerless for evil at all hazards.

The growing conviction on the part of the official representatives of the Catholic Church, that the intelligent and educated members of their own communion can no longer be controlled " like dumb driven cattle," and forced to turn from the broad path of social duty into any narrow little lane that the Church declares is the only road to Heaven, is perhaps the reason why of late such persistent efforts have been made to redress the balance on the side of ignorance. With this object in view, the Catholic priests in various parts of the colony have made use of that perfect organisation which has always characterised their Church, to " work " the system of nominated immigration in their own interests. The plan adopted is to induce as many people as possible to nominate the lower class of Irish Catholics. The men are in a very short time available as electors, who are manipulated as " block " votes " at all elections, general and local, throughout the colony. The women are indirectly quite as useful, for where Bridget is Pat soon comes. In this way the relative proportions of creeds and nationalities is being gradually altered, as the immigration returns show. We commend this fact to the consideration of the Legislature and the Government.

It must be confessed that the supporters of a supernatural creed which does not rest upon the solid rock of fact, but upon the shifting sands of popular belief, are wise in their generation when they insist upon having the control of the education of the young. It is only prejudicing the growing intellect, conscience, and imagination in favour of accepted dogmas that in our day gives them a chance of being retained in after life, in spite of the disintegrating influences of modern surroundings. As Mr. Matthew Arnold says, " Our " point is that the objections to miracles " —and he might have added to supernaturalism generally—" do, " and more and more will, without insistence, without " attack, without controversy, make their own force " felt." And he adds—" It is the time-spirit which is " sapping the proof [of Christianity] from miracles—it "is the Zeit-Geist itself. Whether we attack them or " whether we defend them does not much matter. "Thehuman mind is turning away from them.'

There is a fashion in religion as in most other things, and there are not wanting signs, that Christianity of the old definite type is ceasing to be fashionable, and belief in it is coming to be regarded as a mark of intellectual and social inferiority. So far as this change in public opinion is due to increased knowledge and culture, it ought to be welcomed by all Freethinkers, who have long been assured by the orthodox that " society " was against them, and that their ranks were only recruited from the class of the half educated and wholly discontented radicals of the large towns, who as the natural enemies of order, hated Christianity as its embodiment. Now it is acknowledged that the chief danger to the creed of Christendom arises from the fact that while it is attacked by the foremost men of the age, its defence is either official, or is undertaken by those who have no idea of the strength of their enemies' position.

People who have come to the conclusion that the civilised world has, from the time of Constantine at least, been the victim of a huge delusion, and because Christianity embodies many true ideas, has accepted

the myths with which they are associated, on the authority of the Churches, are naturally apt to regard with suspicion many moral and social truths hitherto held with undoubting confidence. In short, the utter collapse of one authority throws discredit upon all authorities, just as one bank failure shakes confidence in all other banks, or the fraudulent conduct of a trustee makes other trustees suspected. Now this is a prejudice which should be carefully guarded against. As Sir G. C. Lewis long ago demonstrated, in his excellent work on " The influence of Authority in matters of Opinion," that the value of authority is at its very lowest in religious questions, just as it is at its highest in those branches of science in which experts are unanimous, such as Astronomy or Physics. Between these extremes lies that large region where the presumption is in favour of the truth which rests upon a wide experience, and is supported by principles which have been carefully thought out by those who have devoted their attention to them. If Freethinkers would carefully consider what weight should properly attach to any authoritative statement, they would be saved from the risk of discrediting their own cause by being too ready to support any crude project of social reform, which too often resembles the creed they have rejected, by appealing rather to the feelings than to fact and reason.

The practical experience of ages, with which economic science is in complete accord, fully justifies the aversion felt by the majority of thinking men to all the wild socialistic schemes which are so freely advocated in the present day. Nearly all of them are based upon the notion that whatever can be controlled by legislation can be improved by it. Given a parliamentary majority and these " projectors " think they can use it as a lever to move the world. They forget that the fulcrum is wanting if the facts of human nature are left out of the calculation. Were society reorganised to-day on some abstract theory of social justice, it would begin to settle down to-morrow in accordance with the organic forces by which it has been evolved. The legislative dose, or shock, would have produced an illness more or less severe in the body politic, and its various organs would soon resume their normal functions. Such considerations might be thought to imply a contented or perhaps a discontented fatalism, but they do not. On the contrary, they point to the possibility of so modifying social relations as to produce the greatest possible good consistent with the existing state of the society sought to be improved, but to do this demands the care of the skilful political physician, instead of the rashness of the ignorant quack. Still less can we trust to the sentimentalists where tender mercies are generally cruel. Nature is utterly regardless of human wishes that are not in accord with her laws. From the sentimental point of view how admirable were the attempts of Governments to prevent speculators from buying up corn when cheap and selling it to the people when clear, and yet modern science has shown that such interference converted a scarcity into a famine.

Very similar to those sumptuary laws which worked such mischief in the middle ages are all those proposals to interfere with the relations between capital and labour which in the form of eight hour" bills and " protection to local industry " seem becoming increasingly popular in this colony. Were half the attention

which is given to these proposals—which are as unscientific and apparently as fascinating to some minds as was formerly the attempt to discover perpetual motion—devoted to considering the question of co-operation or " Profit-sharing Between Capital and " Labour," to quote the title of Mr. Sedley Taylor's recent book, the working man would soon resent as an impertinence the assertion of the politician anxious for his vote, that he is kept in the position of a serf because capitalists are too powerful and too clever to allow him to get a fair share of the products of his own industry. What is of far greater importance, instead of looking to the State for that assistance which the State is quite unable to give, he would endeavour to help himself by taking a portion of his wages in the form of a per-centage of the net profits of the undertaking in which he was employed. This no doubt implies a certain amount of self-denial and the power of postponing a small present gratification in order to procure a greater one in the future, but this is a condition precedent to all success in life due to individual exertion. No contrivance, however ingenious, will enable us to eat our cake and to have it. Communism means eating other people's cakes till there are none left. If the end of the world had come as soon as they expected it would, the Communism of the early Christians would have been rational, as no more cakes would then have been wanted.

In the June number of The Nineteenth Century' Mr. Justice Stephen has gone far to prove that" Mr. " Harrison's God, Humanity with a capital H, is " neither better nor worse fitted to be a God than the " Unknowable with a capital U," which, though not Mr. Herbert Spencer's God, seems to have been regarded as such by certain theologians in search of a Deity not made in man's image by the gradual evolution of the religious idea. The conclusion Mr. Stevens arrives at is, that if belief in the supernatural has to be given up, religion in any intelligible sense of the term, must cease to exist. " If," he says," human life is " in the course of being fully described by science, I do " not see what materials there are for any religion, or, " indeed, what would be the use of one, or why it is " wanted. We can get on very well without one, for " though the view of life which science is opening to us " gives us nothing to worship, it gives us an infinite " number of things to enjoy. There are many who think " or say they think, that if the scientific view of human " life is true, life itself would not be worth living. This " seem to me altogether false. We should have to live " on different principles from those which have usually " been professed ; but I think that, for people who take " a just view of their position and are moderately " fortunate, life would still be extremely pleasant. The " world seems to me a very good world if it would only " last. It is full of pleasant people and curious things, " and I think most men find no difficulty in turning their " minds away from its transient character." . . .

" I think religion would die with theology ; but as I " have said I think we could live very well without " religion." ..." Morality would be transformed " but not destroyed. Übi homines, ibi mores. Men can " never associate together without honouring and re- " warding and protecting in various ways temperance, " fortitude, benevolence, and justice. No individual " man can live in a society of any size without descerning " this fact, sharing more or less in the common feelings, " judging his own conduct according to them, and

" perceiving that his own personal interest is, to an " extent more or less considerable, bound up in the " general interest. That this state of things will here- " after produce, as it has in the past produced, a solid, " vigourous, useful kind of moral standard, reflected to " a great, perhaps to an increasing, degree in law " properly so called, seems practically certain." This is masculine good sense, of which we want more than at present exists to correct the reign of fuss and fad which just now controls so many well meaning people.

" The Evolution of Christianity " a work published last year by " Williams and Norgate," gives in a brief space a very excellent idea of the materials and reasons on which the scientific and historical school base their rejection of Christianity. Less elaborate than " Supernatural religion," the book in question is more readable, and brings out the essentially evolutionary nature of the process by which the originally merely moral teaching of Jesus became gradually converted into the elaborately dogmatic systems of later ages. It is just the sort of book that the clergy and those who denounce Freethinkers should read. Few will probably do so, for faith based on sentiment can only be preserved in its integrity by carefully refusing to " hear the other side."

The change in political feeling by which the Clerical party comes into power in Belgium, is apparently due to a conservative want of popularity arising from a series of errors on the part of the Liberals. The Liberals have rendered many distinguished services in legislation, the greatest being the establishment of a secular system of education. This law is now to be repealed if the advice of the ultramontane press and party be accepted. Yet Conservatism, even though tinctured with clericalism, hardly ever shows much zeal in the work of repealing liberal measures—recognizing the expediency of not going back. Belgium Conservatism may however be completely in the hands of the clergy, who have yet to learn, in every country of the world, the wisdom of moderation, and its line of action on this question, among others, will be watched with the keenest interest.

The Dunedin Tablet advises the Catholics to change their policy. They have not been successful in returning members of Parliament pledged to denominational education, and the reason is that they exposed their hand. In future they are to work silently, place every qualified Catholic on the roll, and when the next election comes round to punish, in the absence of a friend of Catholic claims, the old enemy by voting for the new. If any member has not supported the claims he is to be destroyed by the block vote at the first opportunity. Thus do the priests lay the snare in the sight of the bird ! Success is to follow on secrecy, and the secret is explained ! Is is unfortunate for the ecclesiastics that no amount of whipping up can destroy the feeling of independence among a portion of the Catholics who think the time has arrived when the clergy should be kept out of politics. But supposing a block vote possible, it would simply have the effect of provoking retaliation. It is a two-edged sword which cannot be used with safety to themselves by the interpreters of " the will of God " that does not will.

If there is one institution against which Freethought wages uncompromising war, it is the dreary Scotch Sabbath. Our opponents often misrepresent us by

saying that our aim is to so secularise the Sabbath as to introduce labor, and abolish its distinctive character. This we emphatically deny, knowing full well that hard-working humanity needs a recurrent day of rest and recreation. In recognising this need, we by no means admit its divine origin ; and we can demonstrate that its necessity was perceived by man long before the institution of the Mosaic Sabbath. But what we maintain is that it should be purely a day of recreation and rest, in the proper sense of the term ; that is, that, instead ot a man shutting himself up in a very often stuffy and ventilated building, listening to the dreary platitudes of a drowsy parson, the hell-fire denunciations of a perspiring ranter, or indulging in the dyspeptic and over-fed slumbers of an untimely nap ; he should refresh and rebuild the mental and physical frame by imbibing the pure air of heaven, or by some outdoor exercise, such as cricket, boating, tennis, or other healthful recreation. We sometimes give vent to a regretful sigh to think how probably the next generation, or at the most a few years hence, men and woman, boys and girls, will every 7th day enjoy the now almost unknown blessing of a true holiday,

How often the parrot cry is raised by the clergy that if we do away with Christianity we also abolish all morality and all check on crime. Surely it is but a poor compliment to humanity to suppose that men can only be kept from leading vicious lives by fear of future punishment or hope of reward. That faith and morals are not necessarily inseparable has been demonstrated over and over again, and also that faith has little or nothing to do with progress and civilisation. We opine that few Christians would hold out the hand of fellowship to Mormons, or deny that they are the followers of a most pernicious and damnable heresy ; yet we have it on the very best authoritythe authority of unfriendly reports—that crime is almost unknown amongst their own members ; that but for the Gentiles, i.e., Christians, in their midst, there would be no need for gaols or police ; and that, scarcely with an exception, the Gentiles own all the drinking-bars, gambling saloons, and brothels ! In having turned an arid, saline wilderness into a flourishing garden, their progress is demonstrated as a problem of Euclid. And yet there are Christians so devoid of humour as to deliberately preach in their midst the Gospel of conversion !

A recent return laid on the table of the House of Commons states that during the year 1883 forty-four poor wretches died of starvation in London alone ! It is said that sermons can be preached from stones, — how much more from this ghastly statement ? Think of it! ye well-fed, well-housed bishops, deans, and Christian clergy ! What has your faith done, what is it doing, to allay the fearful misery and crime of pauper London ? What avail is it to proclaim with trumpetblast that your wealthy bible societies issue their millions of bibles, in hundreds of foreign tongues, when thousands are starving in your midst ? A few generations hence the student of history will wonder at the strange anomaly of a faith spending its thousands of pounds, and sending its army of missionaries abroad to convey a doubtful benefit to the heathen, with such a field at its very doors ! Jesus of Nazareth said—- " Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." Take heart, poor, drunken, starved, and degraded wretches, for heaven knows you are poor enough, and great must be your reward hereafter !