Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason

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Thomas Paine

(by Matthew Pratt)

THE AGE OF REASON

by Thomas Paine

TO MY FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I PUT the following work under your protection. It contains my opinions upon Religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. Your affectionate friend and fellow-citizen, THOMAS PAINE Luxembourg, 8th Pluvoise, Second Year of the French Republic, one and indivisible. January 27, O. S. 1794. PART FIRST

IT has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my

thoughts upon religion. I am well aware of the difficulties that

attend the subject, and from that consideration, had reserved it to

a more advanced period of life. I intended it to be the last

offering I should make to my fellow-citizens of all nations, and

that at a time when the purity of the motive that induced me to it,

could not admit of a question, even by those who might disapprove

the work.

The circumstance that has now taken place in France of the total

abolition of the whole national order of priesthood, and of everything

appertaining to compulsive systems of religion, and compulsive

articles of faith, has not only precipitated my intention, but

rendered a work of this kind exceedingly necessary, lest in the

general wreck of superstition, of false systems of government, and

false theology, we lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of the

theology that is true.

As several of my colleagues and others of my fellow-citizens of

France have given me the example of making their voluntary and

individual profession of faith, I also will make mine; and I do this

with all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of man

communicates with itself.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious

duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make

our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other

things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work,

declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not

believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by

the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the

Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian

or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to

terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe

otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine.

But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally

faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in

disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not

believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so

express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man

has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to

subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he

has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?

Soon after I had published the pamphlet Common Sense, in

America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the

system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system

of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever

it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so

effectually prohibited by pains and penalties, every discussion upon

established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that

until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priestcraft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more.

Every national church or religion has established itself by

pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain

individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus

Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as

if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

Each of those churches show certain books, which they call

revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God

was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that

their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say,

that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from

Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for

my own part, I disbelieve them all.

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I

proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the

word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such

a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case,

that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth,

and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is

revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and

consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a

revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in

writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first

communication- after this, it is only an account of something which

that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may

find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to

believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me,

and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two

tables of the commandments from the hands of God, they were not

obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it

than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than

some historian telling me so. The commandments carry no internal

evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural

intervention.*

*It is, however, necessary to except the declaration which says

that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children; it is

contrary to every principle of moral justice.

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of

hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former. I did not

see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe

it.

When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said,

or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a

man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told

him so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstance

required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; but

we have not even this- for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such

matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said

so- it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief

upon such evidence.

It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was

given to the story of Jesus Christ being the son of God. He was born

when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the

world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of

such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the

heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods.

It was not a new thing, at that time, to believe a man to have been

celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a

matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their

accounts, had cohabited with hundreds: the story, therefore, had

nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to

the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles,

or Mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The

Jews who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more,

and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited

the story.

It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the

Christian church sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. A

direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the

reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that

then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality,

which was about twenty or thirty thousand: the statue of Mary

succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus; the deification of heroes

changed into the canonization of saints; the Mythologists had gods for

everything; the Christian Mythologists had saints for everything;

the church became as crowded with one, as the Pantheon had been with the other, and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient Mythologists,

accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet

remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant

disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous

and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practised was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before; by the Quakers since; and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.

Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage,

or any thing else; not a line of what is called the New Testament is

of his own writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other

people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension,

it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His

historians having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner,

were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first

part of the story must have fallen to the ground.

The wretched contrivance with which this latter part is told

exceeds every thing that went before it. The first part, that of the

miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity; and

therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this advantage,

that though they might not be credited, they could not be detected.

They could not be expected to prove it, because it was not one of

those things that admitted of proof, and it was impossible that the

person of whom it was told could prove it himself.

But the resurrection of a dead person from the grave, and his

ascension through the air, is a thing very different as to the

evidence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a child in the

womb. The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken

place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the

ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon-day, to all Jerusalem at

least. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that

the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal;

and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only

evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of

it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead

of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are

introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all

the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears

that Thomas did not believe the resurrection, and, as they say,

would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration

himself. So neither will I, and the reason is equally as good for

me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.

It is in vain to attempt to palliate or disguise this matter.

The story, so far as relates to the supernatural part, has every

mark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it. Who were the authors of it is as impossible for us now to know, as it is for us

to be assured that the books in which the account is related were

written by the persons whose names they bear; the best surviving

evidence we now have respecting that affair is the Jews. They are

regularly descended from the people who lived in the times this

resurrection and ascension is said to have happened, and they say,

it is not true. It has long appeared to me a strange inconsistency

to cite the Jews as a proof of the truth of the story. It is just

the same as if a man were to say, I will prove the truth of what I

have told you by producing the people who say it is false.

That such a person as Jesus Christ existed, and that he was

crucified, which was the mode of execution at that day, are historical

relations strictly within the limits of probability. He preached

most excellent morality and the equality of man; but he preached

also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests, and

this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of

priesthood. The accusation which those priests brought against him was that of sedition and conspiracy against the Roman government, to which the Jews were then subject and tributary; and it is not improbable that the Roman government might have some secret apprehensions of the effects of his doctrine, as well as the Jewish priests; neither is it improbable that Jesus Christ had in contemplation the delivery of the Jewish nation from the bondage of the Romans. Between the two, however, this virtuous reformer and revolutionist lost his life.

It is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with another

case I am going to mention, that the Christian Mythologists, calling

themselves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which,

for absurdity and extravagance, is not exceeded by anything that is to

be found in the mythology of the ancients.

The ancient Mythologists tell us that the race of Giants made

war against Jupiter, and that one of them threw a hundred rocks

against him at one throw; that Jupiter defeated him with thunder,

and confined him afterward under Mount Etna, and that every time the

Giant turns himself Mount Etna belches fire.

It is here easy to see that the circumstance of the mountain, that

of its being a volcano, suggested the idea of the fable; and that

the fable is made to fit and wind itself up with that circumstance.

The Christian Mythologists tell us that their Satan made war

against the Almighty, who defeated him, and confined him afterward,

not under a mountain, but in a pit. It is here easy to see that the

first fable suggested the idea of the second; for the fable of Jupiter

and the Giants was told many hundred years before that of Satan.

Thus far the ancient and the Christian Mythologists differ very

little from each other. But the latter have contrived to carry the

matter much farther. They have contrived to connect the fabulous

part of the story of Jesus Christ with the fable originating from

Mount Etna; and in order to make all the parts of the story tie

together, they have taken to their aid the traditions of the Jews; for

the Christian mythology is made up partly from the ancient mythology

and partly from the Jewish traditions.

The Christian Mythologists, after having confined Satan in a

pit, were obliged to let him out again to bring on the sequel of the

fable. He is then introduced into the Garden of Eden, in the shape

of a snake or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into familiar

conversation with Eve, who is no way surprised to hear a snake talk;

and the issue of this tete-a-tete is that he persuades her to eat an

apple, and the eating of that apple damns all mankind.

After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one would

have supposed that the Church Mythologists would have been kind enough to send him back again to the pit; or, if they had not done this, that they would have put a mountain upon him (for they say that their faith can remove a mountain), or have put him under a mountain, as the former mythologists had done, to prevent his getting again among the women and doing more mischief. But instead of this they leave him at large, without even obliging him to give his parole- the secret of which is, that they could not do without him; and after being at the trouble of making him, they bribed him to stay. They promised him ALL the Jews, ALL the Turks by anticipation, nine-tenths of the world beside, and Mahomet into the bargain. After this, who can

doubt the bountifulness of the Christian Mythology?

Having thus made an insurrection and a battle in Heaven, in

which none of the combatants could be either killed or wounded- put

Satan into the pit- let him out again- giving him a triumph over the

whole creation- damned all mankind by the eating of an apple, these

Christian Mythologists bring the two ends of their fable together.

They represent this virtuous and amiable man, Jesus Christ, to be at

once both God and Man, and also the Son of God, celestially

begotten, on purpose to be sacrificed, because they say that Eve in

her longing had eaten an apple.

Putting aside everything that might excite laughter by its

absurdity, or detestation by its profaneness, and confining

ourselves merely to an examination of the parts, it is impossible to

conceive a story more derogatory to the Almighty, more inconsistent

with his wisdom, more contradictory to his power, than this story is.

In order to make for it a foundation to rise upon, the inventors

were under the necessity of giving to the being whom they call

Satan, a power equally as great, if not greater than they attribute to

the Almighty. They have not only given him the power of liberating

himself from the pit, after what they call his fall, but they have

made that power increase afterward to infinity. Before this fall

they represent him only as an angel of limited existence, as they

represent the rest. After his fall, he becomes, by their account,

omnipresent. He exists everywhere, and at the same time. He occupies the whole immensity of space.

Not content with this deification of Satan, they represent him

as defeating, by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of the creation,

all the power and wisdom of the Almighty. They represent him as having compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity either of

surrendering the whole of the creation to the government and

sovereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption by

coming down upon earth, and exhibiting himself upon a cross in the

shape of a man.

Had the inventors of this story told it the contrary way, that is,

had they represented the Almighty as compelling Satan to exhibit

himself on a cross, in the shape of a snake, as a punishment for his

new transgression, the story would have been less absurd- less

contradictory. But instead of this, they make the transgressor

triumph, and the Almighty fall.

That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived

very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime), is

what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to

believe it, and they would have believed anything else in the same

manner. There are also many who have been so enthusiastically

enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to

man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the

idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the

absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more unnatural anything

is, the more it is capable of becoming the object of dismal admiration.

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do

they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a

fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born- a world

furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up

the sun, that pour down the rain, and fill the earth with abundance?

Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still

goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in

future, nothing to us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other

subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man

become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice

of the Creator?

I know that this bold investigation will alarm many, but it

would be paying too great a compliment to their credulity to forbear

it on their account; the times and the subject demand it to be done.

The suspicion that the theory of what is called the Christian Church

is fabulous is becoming very extensive in all countries; and it will

be a consolation to men staggering under that suspicion, and

doubting what to believe and what to disbelieve, to see the object

freely investigated. I therefore pass on to an examination of the

books called the Old and New Testament.

These books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelation

(which, by the by, is a book of riddles that requires a revelation

to explain it), are, we are told, the word of God. It is, therefore,

proper for us to know who told us so, that we may know what credit

to give to the report. The answer to this question is, that nobody can

tell, except that we tell one another so. The case, however,

historically appears to be as follows:

When the Church Mythologists established their system, they

collected all the writings they could find, and managed them as they

pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such

of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New

Testament are in the same state in which those collectors say they

found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed

them up.

Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books out

of the collection they had made should be the WORD OF GOD, and which should not. They rejected several; they voted others to be doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha; and those books which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted otherwise, all the people, since calling themselves Christians, had believed otherwise- for the belief of the one comes from the vote of the other. Who the people were that did all this, we know nothing of; they called themselves by the general name of the Church, and this is all we know of the matter.

As we have no other external evidence or authority for believing

these books to be the word of God than what I have mentioned, which is no evidence or authority at all, I come, in the next place, to examine the internal evidence contained in the books themselves.

In the former part of this Essay, I have spoken of revelation; I

now proceed further with that subject, for the purpose of applying

it to the books in question.

Revelation is a communication of something which the person to

whom that thing is revealed did not know before. For if I have done

a thing, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me I have

done it, or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it, or to write it.

Revelation, therefore, cannot be applied to anything done upon

earth, of which man himself is the actor or the witness; and

consequently all the historical and anecdotal parts of the Bible,

which is almost the whole of it, is not within the meaning and compass

of the word revelation, and, therefore, is not the word of God.

When Samson ran off with the gate-posts of Gaza, if he ever did so

(and whether he did or not is nothing to us), or when he visited his

Delilah, or caught his foxes, or did any thing else, what has

revelation to do with these things? If they were facts, he could

tell them himself, or his secretary, if he kept one, could write them,

if they were worth either telling or writing; and if they were

fictions, revelation could not make them true; and whether true or

not, we are neither the better nor the wiser for knowing them. When we contemplate the immensity of that Being who directs and governs the incomprehensible WHOLE, of which the utmost ken of human sight can discover but a part, we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry

stories the word of God.

As to the account of the Creation, with which the Book of

Genesis opens, it has all the appearance of being a tradition which

the Israelites had among them before they came into Egypt; and after

their departure from that country they put it at the head of their

history, without telling (as it is most probable) that they did not

know how they came by it. The manner in which the account opens

shows it to be traditionary. It begins abruptly; it is nobody that

speaks; it is nobody that hears; it is addressed to nobody; it has

neither first, second, nor third person; it has every criterion of

being a tradition; it has no voucher. Moses does not take it upon

himself by introducing it with the formality that he uses on other

occasions, such as that of saying, "The Lord spake unto Moses,

saying."

Why it has been called the Mosaic account of the Creation, I am at

a loss to conceive. Moses, I believe, was too good a judge of such

subjects to put his name to that account. He had been educated among The Egyptians, who were a people as well skilled in science, and particularly in astronomy, as any people of their day; and the silence and caution that Moses observes in not authenticating the account, is a good negative evidence that he neither told it nor believed it The case is, that every nation of people has been world-makers, and the Israelites had as much right to set up the trade of world-making as any of the rest; and as Moses was not an Israelite, he might not choose to contradict the tradition. The account, however, is harmless; and this is more than can be said of many other parts of the Bible.

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.

We scarcely meet with anything, a few phrases excepted, but what

deserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, till we come to the

miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous publications, the

Psalms, and the Book of Job, more particularly in the latter, we

find a great deal of elevated sentiment reverentially expressed of the

power and benignity of the Almighty; but they stand on no higher

rank than many other compositions on similar subjects, as well

before that time as since.

The Proverbs which are said to be Solomon's, though most

probably a collection (because they discover a knowledge of life which

his situation excluded him from knowing), are an instructive table

of ethics. They are inferior in keenness to the proverbs of the

Spaniards, and not more wise and economical than those of the American Franklin.

All the remaining parts of the Bible, generally known by the

name of the Prophets, are the works of the Jewish poets and

itinerant preachers, who mixed poetry,* anecdote, and devotion

together- and those works still retain the air and style of poetry,

though in translation.

*As there are many readers who do not see that a composition is

poetry unless it be in rhyme, it is for their information that I add

this note.

Poetry consists principally in two things- imagery and

composition. The composition of poetry differs from that of prose in

the manner of mixing long and short syllables together. Take a long

syllable out of a line of poetry, and put a short one in the room of

it, or put a long syllable where a short one should be, and that line

will lose its poetical harmony. It will have an effect upon the line

like that of misplacing a note in a song. The imagery in these books,

called the Prophets, appertains altogether to poetry. It is

fictitious, and oft en extravagant, and not admissible in any other

kind of writing than poetry. To show that these writings are composed

in poetical numbers, I will take ten syllables, as they stand in the

book, and make a line of the same number of syllables, (heroic

measure) that shall rhyme with the last word. It will then be seen

that the composition of these books is poetical measure. The instance

I shall produce is from Isaiah:

"Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth!"

'Tis God himself that calls attention forth.

Another instance I shall quote is from the mournful Jeremiah, to

which I shall add two other lines, for the purpose of carrying out the

figure, and showing the intention the poet:

"O! that mine head were waters and mine eyes"

Were fountains flowing like the liquid skies;

Then would I give the mighty flood release,

And weep a deluge for the human race.

There is not, throughout the whole book called the Bible, any word

that describes to us what we call a poet, nor any word that

describes what we call poetry. The case is, that the word prophet,

to which latter times have affixed a new idea, was the Bible word

for poet, and the word prophesying meant the art of making poetry.

It also meant the art of playing poetry to a tune upon any

instrument of music.

We read of prophesying with pipes, tabrets, and horns- of

prophesying with harps, with psalteries, with cymbals, and with

every other instrument of music then in fashion. Were we now to

speak of prophesying with a fiddle, or with a pipe and tabor, the

expression would have no meaning or would appear ridiculous, and to

some people contemptuous, because we have changed the meaning of the word.

We are told of Saul being among the prophets, and also that he

prophesied; but we are not told what they prophesied, nor what he

prophesied. The case is, there was nothing to tell; for these prophets

were a company of musicians and poets, and Saul joined in the concert, and this was called prophesying.

The account given of this affair in the book called Samuel is,

that Saul met a company of prophets; a whole company of them! coming down with a psaltery, a tabret, a pipe and a harp, and that they prophesied, and that he prophesied with them. But it appears

afterward, that Saul prophesied badly; that is, he performed his

part badly; for it is said, that an "evil spirit from God"* came

upon Saul, and he prophesied.

*As those men who call themselves divines and commentators, are

very fond of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the meaning of the first part of the phrase, that of an evil spirit from God. I keep to my text- I keep to the meaning of the word prophesy.

Now, were there no other passage in the book called the Bible than

this, to demonstrate to us that we have lost the original meaning of

the word prophesy, and substituted another meaning in its place,

this alone would be sufficient; for it is impossible to use and

apply the word prophesy, in the place it is here used and applied,

if we give to it the sense which latter times have affixed to it.

The manner in which it is here used strips it of all religious

meaning, and shows that a man might then be a prophet, or he might

prophesy, as he may now be a poet or a musician, without any regard to the morality or immorality of his character. The word was originally a term of science, promiscuously applied to poetry and to music, and not restricted to any subject upon which poetry and music might be

exercised.

Deborah and Barak are called prophets, not because they

predicted anything, but because they composed the poem or song that

bears their name, in celebration of an act already done. David is

ranked among the prophets, for he was a musician, and was also reputed to be (though perhaps very erroneously) the author of the Psalms. But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not called prophets; it does not appear from any accounts we have that they could either sing, play music, or make poetry.

We are told of the greater and the lesser prophets. They might

as well tell us of the greater and the lesser God; for there cannot be

degrees in prophesying consistently with its modern sense. But there

are degrees in poetry, and therefore the phrase is reconcilable to the

case, when we understand by it the greater and the lesser poets.

It is altogether unnecessary, after this, to offer any

observations upon what those men, styled prophets, have written. The

axe goes at once to the root, by showing that the original meaning

of the word has been mistaken and consequently all the inferences that have been drawn from those books, the devotional respect that has been paid to them, and the labored commentaries that have been written upon them, under that mistaken meaning, are not worth disputing about. In many things, however, the writings of the Jewish poets deserve a better fate than that of being bound up, as they now are with the trash that accompanies them, under the abused name of the word of God.

If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we

must necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but

of the utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or

accident whatever, in that which we would honor with the name of the

word of God; and therefore the word of God cannot exist in any written or human language.

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words

is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation

necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the

mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of

willful alteration, are of themselves evidences that the human

language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of

the word of God. The word of God exists in something else.

Did the book called the Bible excel in purity of ideas and

expression all the books that are now extant in the world, I would not

take it for my rule of faith, as being the word of God, because the

possibility would nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon. But

when I see throughout the greater part of this book scarcely

anything but a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the

most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator by

calling it by his name.

Thus much for the Bible; I now go on to the book called the New

Testament. The New Testament! that is, the new will, as if there could

be two wills of the Creator.

Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ to

establish a new religion, he would undoubtedly have written the system himself, or procured it to be written in his life-time. But there is no publication extant authenticated with his name. All the books

called the New Testament were written after his death. He was a Jew by birth and by profession; and he was the son of God in like manner that every other person is- for the Creator is the Father of All.

The first four books, called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, do not

give a history of the life of Jesus Christ, but only detached

anecdotes of him. It appears from these books that the whole time of

his being a preacher was not more than eighteen months; and it was

only during this short time that these men became acquainted with him. They make mention of him at the age of twelve years, sitting, they say, among the Jewish doctors, asking and answering them questions. As this was several years before their acquaintance with him began, it is most probable they had this anecdote from his parents. From this time there is no account of him for about sixteen years. Where he lived, or how he employed himself during this interval, is not known. Most probably he was working at his father's trade, which was that of a carpenter. It does not appear that he had any school education, and the probability is, that he could not write, for his parents were extremely poor, as appears from their not being able to pay for a bed when he was born.

It is somewhat curious that the three persons whose names are

the most universally recorded, were of very obscure parentage. Moses

was a foundling; Jesus Christ was born in a stable; and Mahomet was

a mule driver. The first and last of these men were founders of

different systems of religion; but Jesus Christ founded no new system.

He called men to the practice of moral virtues and the belief of one

God. The great trait in his character is philanthropy.

The manner in which he was apprehended shows that he was not

much known at that time; and it shows also, that the meetings he

then held with his followers were in secret; and that he had given

over or suspended preaching publicly. Judas could not otherwise betray him than by giving information where he was, and pointing him out to the officers that went to arrest him; and the reason for employing and paying Judas to do this could arise only from the cause already mentioned, that of his not being much known and living concealed.

The idea of his concealment not only agrees very ill with his

reputed divinity, but associates with it something of pusillanimity;

and his being betrayed, or in other words, his being apprehended, on

the information of one of his followers, shows that he did not

intend to be apprehended, and consequently that he did not intend to

be crucified.

The Christian Mythologists tell us, that Christ died for the

sins of the world, and that he came on purpose to die. Would it not

then have been the same if he had died of a fever or of the small-pox,

of old age, or of anything else?

The declaratory sentence which, they say, was passed upon Adam,

in case he eat of the apple, was not, that thou shall surely be

crucified, but thou shalt surely die- the sentence of death, and not

the manner of dying. Crucifixion, therefore, or any other particular

manner of dying, made no part of the sentence that Adam was to suffer, and consequently, even upon their own tactics, it could make no part of the sentence that Christ was to suffer in the room of Adam. A fever would have done as well as a cross, if there was any occasion for either.

The sentence of death, which they tell us was thus passed upon

Adam must either have meant dying naturally, that is, ceasing to live,

or have meant what these Mythologists call damnation; and,

consequently, the act of dying on the part of Jesus Christ, must,

according to their system, apply as a prevention to one or other of

these two things happening to Adam and to us.

That it does not prevent our dying is evident, because we all die;

and if their accounts of longevity be true, men die faster since the

crucifixion than before; and with respect to the second explanation

(including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitute

for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind), it is

impertinently representing the Creator as coming off, or revoking

the sentence, by a pun or a quibble upon the word death. That

manufacturer of quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bear

his name, has helped this quibble on by making another quibble upon

the word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams; the one who sins in

fact, and suffers by proxy; the other who sins by proxy, and suffers

in fact. A religion thus interlarded with quibble, subterfuge, and pun

has a tendency to instruct its professors in the practice of these

arts. They acquire the habit without being aware of the cause.

If Jesus Christ was the being which those Mythologists tell us

he was, and that he came into this world to suffer, which is a word

they sometimes use instead of to die, the only real suffering he could

have endured, would have been to live. His existence here was a

state of exilement or transportation from Heaven, and the way back

to his original country was to die. In fine, everything in this

strange system is the reverse of what it pretends to be. It is the

reverse of truth, and I become so tired of examining into its

inconsistencies and absurdities, that I hasten to the conclusion of

it, in order to proceed to something better.

How much or what parts of the books called the New Testament, were written by the persons whose names they bear, is what we can know nothing of; neither are we certain in what language they were

originally written. The matters they now contain may be classed

under two beads- anecdote and epistolary correspondence.

The four books already mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

are altogether anecdotal. They relate events after they had taken

place. They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what others did

and said to him; and in several instances they relate the same event

differently. Revelation is necessarily out of the question with

respect to those books; not only because of the disagreement of the

writers, but because revelation cannot be applied to the relating of

facts by the person who saw them done, nor to the relating or

recording of any discourse or conversation by those who beard it.

The book called the Acts of the Apostles (an anonymous work) belongs

also to the anecdotal part.

All the other parts of the New Testament, except the book of

enigmas called the Revelations, are a collection of letters under

the name of epistles; and the forgery of letters has been such a

common practice in the world, that the probability is at least

equal, whether they are genuine or forged. One thing, however, is much less equivocal, which is, that out of the matters contained in those books, together with the assistance of some old stories, the Church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and revenue, in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.

The invention of purgatory, and of the releasing of souls

therefrom by prayers bought of the church with money; the selling of

pardons, dispensations, and indulgences, are revenue laws, without

bearing that name or carrying that appearance. But the case

nevertheless is, that those things derive their origin from the

paroxysm of the crucifixion and the theory deduced therefrom, which

was that one person could stand in the place of another, and could

perform meritorious service for him. The probability, therefore, is

that the whole theory or doctrine of what is called the redemption

(which is said to have been accomplished by the act of one person in

the room of another) was originally fabricated on purpose to bring

forward and build all those secondary and pecuniary redemptions

upon; and that the passages in the books, upon which the idea or

theory of redemption is built, have been manufactured and fabricated

for that purpose. Why are we to give this Church credit when she tells

us that those books are genuine in every part, any more than we give

her credit for everything else she has told us, or for the miracles

she says she had performed? That she could fabricate writings is

certain, because she could write; and the composition of the

writings in question is of that kind that anybody might do it; and

that she did fabricate them is not more inconsistent with

probability than that she could tell us, as she has done, that she

could and did work miracles.

Since, then no external evidence can, at this long distance of

time, be produced to prove whether the Church fabricated the doctrines called redemption or not (for such evidence, whether for or against, would be subject to the same suspicion of being fabricated), the case can only be referred to the internal evidence which the thing carries within itself; and this affords a very strong presumption of its being a fabrication. For the internal evidence is that the theory or doctrine of redemption bas for its base an idea of pecuniary Justice, and not that of moral Justice.

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to

put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and

pay it for me; but if I have committed a crime, every circumstance

of the case is changed; moral Justice cannot take the innocent for the

guilty, even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose Justice to

do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the

thing itself; it is then no longer Justice, it is indiscriminate

revenge.

This single reflection will show, that the doctrine of

redemption is founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to that

of a debt which another person might pay; and as this pecuniary idea

corresponds again with the system of second redemption, obtained

through the means of money given to the Church for pardons, the

probability is that the same persons fabricated both the one and the

other of those theories; and that, in truth there is no such thing

as redemption- that it is fabulous, and that man stands in the same

relative condition with his Maker as he ever did stand since man

existed, and that it is his greatest consolation to think so.

Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently and

morally than by any other system; it is by his being taught to

contemplate himself as an outlaw, as an outcast, as a beggar, as a

mumper, as one thrown, as it were, on a dunghill at an immense

distance from his Creator, and who must make his approaches by

creeping and cringing to intermediate beings, that he conceives either

a contemptuous disregard for everything under the name of religion, or becomes indifferent, or turns what he calls devout. In the latter

case, he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation of it; his

prayers are reproaches; his humility is ingratitude; he calls

himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill; and all the

blessings of life by the thankless name of vanities; he despises the

choicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF REASON; and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself.

Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility and this

contempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest

presumptions; he finds fault with everything; his selfishness is never

satisfied; his ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on himself

to direct the Almighty what to do, even in the government of the

universe; he prays dictatorially; when it is sunshine, he prays for

rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sunshine; he follows the

same idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the amount of

all his prayers but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind,

and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say: Thou

knowest not so well as I.

But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God- no

revelation? I answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is a

revelation.

THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this

word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God

speaketh universally to man.

Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable

of being used as the means of unchangeable and universal

information. The idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as they

say, the glad tidings to all nations, from one end of the earth to the

other, is consistent only with the ignorance of those who knew nothing

of the extent of the world, and who believed, as those

world-saviours believed, and continued to believe for several

centuries (and that in contradiction to the discoveries of

philosophers and the experience of navigators), that the earth was

flat like a trencher, and that man might walk to the end of it.

But how was Jesus Christ to make anything known to all nations? He could speak but one language which was Hebrew, and there are in the world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two nations speak the same language, or understand each other; and as to translations, every man who knows anything of languages knows that it is impossible to translate from one language to another, not only without losing a great part of the original, but frequently of mistaking the sense; and besides all this, the art of printing was wholly unknown at the time Christ lived.

It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any

end be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end cannot be

accomplished. It is in this that the difference between finite and

infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man frequently fails in

accomplishing his ends, from a natural inability of the power to the

purpose, and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply power

properly. But it is impossible for infinite power and wisdom to fail

as man faileth. The means it useth are always equal to the end; but

human language, more especially as there is not an universal language, is incapable of being used as an universal means of unchangeable and uniform information, and therefore it is not the means that God useth in manifesting himself universally to man.

It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a

word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language,

independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and

various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every

man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it

cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does

not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or

not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It

preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God

reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.

Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed! Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, but the Scripture called the Creation.

The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of a

first cause, the cause of all things. And incomprehensible and

difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he

arrives at the belief of it from the tenfold greater difficulty of

disbelieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that

space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It

is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration

of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time

when there shall be no time.

In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in

itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself Every man

is an evidence to himself that he did not make himself; neither

could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of his

race; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself; and it

is the conviction arising from this evidence that carries us on, as it

were, by necessity to the belief of a first cause eternally

existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we

know of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this first

cause man calls God.

It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.

Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding

anything; and, in this case, it would be just as consistent to read

even the book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How, then, is

it that those people pretend to reject reason?

Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible that convey

to us any idea of God, are some chapters in Job and the 19th Psalm;

I recollect no other. Those parts are true deistical compositions, for

they treat of the Deity through his works. They take the book of

Creation as the word of God, they refer to no other book, and all

the inferences they make are drawn from that volume.

I insert in this place the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased into English

verse by Addison. I recollect not the prose, and where I write this

I have not the opportunity of seeing it.

"The spacious firmament on high,

With all the blue ethereal sky,

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,

Their great original proclaim.

The unwearied sun, from day to day,

Does his Creator's power display;

And publishes to every land

The work of an Almighty hand.

"Soon as the evening shades prevail,

The moon takes up the wondrous tale,

And nightly to the list'ning earth

Repeats the story of her birth;

While all the stars that round her burn,

And all the planets, in their turn,

Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

"What though in solemn silence all

Move round this dark terrestrial ball?

What though no real voice, or sound,

Amidst their radiant orbs be found?

In reason's ear they all rejoice

And utter forth a glorious voice,

Forever singing, as they shine,

THE HAND THAT MADE US IS DIVINE."

What more does man want to know than that the hand or power that made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe this

with the force it is impossible to repel, if he permits his reason

to act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course.

The allusions in Job have, all of them, the same tendency with

this Psalm; that of deducing or proving a truth that would be

otherwise unknown, from truths already known.

I recollect not enough of the passages in Job to insert them

correctly; but there is one occurs to me that is applicable to the

subject I am speaking upon. "Canst thou by searching find out God?

Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"

I know not how the printers have pointed this passage, for I

keep no Bible; but it contains two distinct questions that admit of

distinct answers.

First,- Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes because, in the

first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have existence;

and by searching into the nature of other things, I find that no other

thing could make itself; and yet millions of other things exist;

therefore it is, that I know, by positive conclusion resulting from

this search, that there is a power superior to all those things, and

that power is God.

Secondly,- Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? No;

not only because the power and wisdom He has manifested in the

structure of the Creation that I behold is to me incomprehensible, but

because even this manifestation, great as it is, is probably but a

small display of that immensity of power and wisdom by which

millions of other worlds, to me invisible by their distance, were

created and continue to exist.

It is evident that both these questions were put to the reason

of the person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed; and it is only by admitting the first question to be answered

affirmatively, that the second could follow. It would have been

unnecessary and even absurd, to have put a second question, more

difficult than the first, if the first question had been answered

negatively. The two questions have different objects; the first refers

to the existence of God, the second to his attributes; reason can

discover the one, but it falls infinitely short in discovering the

whole of the other.

I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to

the men called apostles, that conveys any idea of what God is. Those

writings are chiefly controversial; and the subjects they dwell

upon, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better suited to the

gloomy genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not impossible they

were written, than to any man breathing the open air of the

Creation. The only passage that occurs to me, that has any reference

to the works of God, by which only his power and wisdom can be

known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Christ as a remedy

against distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil

not, neither do they spin." This, however, is far inferior to the

allusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm; but it is similar in idea, and

the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the modesty of the man.

As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species

of Atheism- a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to

believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up

chiefly of Manism with but little Deism, and is as near to Atheism

as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an

opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon introduces her

opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this

means a religious, or an irreligious, eclipse of light. It has put the

whole orbit of reason into shade.

The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning everything

upside down, and representing it in reverse, and among the revolutions it has thus magically produced, it has made a revolution in theology.

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole

circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the

study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his

works, and is the true theology.

As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the

study of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the

works or writings that man has made; and it is not among the least

of the mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, that

it has abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, like a

beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the hag

of superstition.

The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits

to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in

the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the

original system of theology. The internal evidence of those orations

proves to a demonstration that the study and contemplation of the

works of creation, and of the power and wisdom of God, revealed and

manifested in those works, made a great part in the religious devotion

of the times in which they were written; and it was this devotional

study and contemplation that led to the discovery of the principles

upon which what are now called sciences are established; and it is

to the discovery of these principles that almost all the arts that

contribute to the convenience of human life owe their existence. Every

principal art has some science for its parent, though the person who

mechanically performs the work does not always, and but very seldom, perceive the connection.

It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human

invention; it is only the application of them that is human. Every

science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and

unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and

governed. Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.

For example: Every person who looks at an almanac sees an

account when an eclipse will take place, and he sees also that it

never fails to take place according to the account there given. This

shows that man is acquainted with the laws by which the heavenly

bodies move. But it would be something worse than ignorance, were

any Church on earth to say that those laws are a human invention. It

would also be ignorance, or something worse, to say that the

scientific principles by the aid of which man is enabled to

calculate and foreknow when an eclipse will take place, are a human

invention. Man cannot invent a thing that is eternal and immutable;

and the scientific principles he employs for this purpose must be, and

are of necessity, as eternal and immutable as the laws by which the

heavenly bodies move, or they could not be used as they are to

ascertain the time when, and the manner how, an eclipse will take

place.

The scientific principles that man employs to obtain the

foreknowledge of an eclipse, or of anything else relating to the

motion of the heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in that part of

science which is called trigonometry, or the properties of a triangle,

which, when applied to the study of the heavenly bodies, is called

astronomy; when applied to direct the course of a ship on the ocean,

it is called navigation; when applied to the construction of figures

drawn by rule and compass, it is called geometry; when applied to

the construction of plans or edifices, it is called architecture; when

applied to the measurement of any portion of the surface of the earth,

it is called land surveying. In fine, it is the soul of science; it is

an eternal truth; it contains the mathematical demonstration of

which man speaks, and the extent of its uses is unknown.

It may be said that man can make or draw a triangle, and therefore

a triangle is a human invention.

But the triangle, when drawn, is no other than the image of the

principle; it is a delineation to the eye, and from thence to the

mind, of a principle that would otherwise be imperceptible. The

triangle does not make the principle, any more than a candle taken

into a room that was dark makes the chairs and tables that before were invisible. All the properties of a triangle exist independently of the figure, and existed before any triangle was drawn or thought of by

man. Man had no more to do in the formation of these properties or

principles, than he had to do in making the laws by which the heavenly

bodies move; and therefore the one must have the same Divine origin as the other.

In the same manner, as it may be said, that man can make a

triangle, so also, may it be said, he can make the mechanical

instrument called a lever; but the principle by which the lever acts

is a thing distinct from the instrument, and would exist if the

instrument did not; it attaches itself to the instrument after it is

made; the instrument, therefore, cannot act otherwise than it does

act; neither can all the efforts of human invention make it act

otherwise- that which, in all such cases, man calls the effect is no

other than the principle itself rendered perceptible to the senses.

Since, then, man cannot make principles, from whence did he gain a knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not only to

things on earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so immensely

distant from him as all the heavenly bodies are? From whence, I ask,

could he gain that knowledge, but from the study of the true theology?

It is the structure of the universe that has taught this knowledge

to man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of every

principle upon which every part of mathematical science is founded.

The offspring of this science is mechanics; for mechanics is no

other than the principles of science applied practically. The man

who proportions the several parts of a mill, uses the same

scientific principles as if he had the power of constructing a

universe; but as he cannot give to matter that invisible agency by

which all the component parts of the immense machine of the universe

have influence upon each other, and act in motional unison together,

without any apparent contact, and to which man has given the name of attraction, gravitation, and repulsion, he supplies the place of

that agency by the humble imitation of teeth and cogs. All the parts

of man's microcosm must visibly touch; but could he gain a knowledge

of that agency, so as to be able to apply it in practice, we might

then say that another canonical book of the Word of God had been

discovered.

If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also could he

alter the properties of the triangle, for a lever (taking that sort of

lever which is called a steelyard, for the sake of explanation) forms,

when in motion, a triangle. The line it descends from (one point of

that line being in the fulcrum), the line it descends to, and the cord

of the arc which the end of the lever describes in the air, are the

three sides of a triangle. The other arm of the lever describes also a

triangle; and the corresponding sides of those two triangles,

calculated scientifically, or measured geometrically, and also the

sines, tangents, and secants generated from the angles, and

geometrically measured, have the same proportions to each other, as

the different weights have that will balance each other on the

lever, leaving the weight of the lever out of the case.

It may also be said, that man can make a wheel and axis; that he

can put wheels of different magnitudes together, and produce a mill.

Still the case comes back to the same point, which is, that he did not

make the principle that gives the wheels those powers. That

principle is as unalterable as in the former case, or rather it is the

same principle under a different appearance to the eye.

The power that two wheels of different magnitudes have upon each

other, is in the same proportion as if the semi-diameter of the two

wheels were joined together and made into that kind of lever I have

described, suspended at the part where the semi-diameters join; for

the two wheels, scientifically considered, are no other than the two

circles generated by the motion of the compound lever.

It is from the study of the true theology that all out knowledge

of science is derived, and it is from that knowledge that all the arts

have originated.

The Almighty Lecturer, by displaying the principles of science

in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to

imitation. It is as if He had said to the inhabitants of this globe,

that we call ours, "I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and

I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science and

the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, AND LEARN FROM MY MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO EACH OTHER."

Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, that his

eye is endowed with the power of beholding to an incomprehensible

distance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of space? Or

of what use is it that this immensity of worlds is visible to man?

What has man to do with the Pleiades, with Orion, with Sirius, with

the star he calls the North Star, with the moving orbs he has named

Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, if no uses are to follow

from their being visible? A less power of vision would have been

sufficient for man, if the immensity he now possesses were given

only to waste itself, as it were, on an immense desert of space

glittering with shows.

It is only by contemplating what he calls the starry heavens, as

the book and school of science, that he discovers any use in their

being visible to him, or any advantage resulting from his immensity of

vision. But when he contemplates the subject in this light he sees

an additional motive for saying, that nothing was made in vain; for in

vain would be this power of vision if it taught man nothing.

As the Christian system of faith has made a revolution in

theology, so also has it made a revolution in the state of learning.

That which is now called learning, was not learning originally.

Learning does not consist, as the schools now make it consist, in

the knowledge of languages, but in the knowledge of things to which

language gives names.

The Greeks were a learned people, but learning with them did not

consist in speaking Greek, any more than in a Roman's speaking

Latin, or a Frenchman's speaking French, or an Englishman's speaking

English. From what we know of the Greeks, it does not appear that they knew or studied any language but their own, and this was one cause of their becoming so learned: it afforded them more time to apply themselves to better studies. The schools of the Greeks were schools of science and philosophy, and not of languages; and it is in the knowledge of the things that science and philosophy teach, that

learning consists.

Almost all the scientific learning that now exists came to us from

the Greeks, or the people who spoke the Greek language. It, therefore, became necessary for the people of other nations who spoke a different language that some among them should learn the Greek language, in order that the learning the Greeks had, might be made known in those nations, by translating the Greek books of science and philosophy into the mother tongue of each nation.

The study, therefore, of the Greek language (and in the same

manner for the Latin) was no other than the drudgery business of a

linguist; and the language thus obtained, was no other than the means, as it were the tools, employed to obtain the learning the Greeks had. It made no part of the learning itself, and was so distinct

from it, as to make it exceedingly probable that the persons who had

studied Greek sufficiently to translate those works, such, for

instance, as Euclid's Elements, did not understand any of the learning

the works contained.

As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead languages, all the useful books being already translated, the languages are become useless, and the time expended in teaching and learning them is wasted. So far as the study of languages may contribute to the progress and communication of knowledge, (for it has nothing to do with the creation of knowledge), it is only in the living languages that new knowledge is to be found; and certain it is that, in general,

a youth will learn more of a living language in one year, than of a

dead language in seven, and it is but seldom that the teacher knows

much of it himself. The difficulty of learning the dead languages does

not arise from any superior abstruseness in the languages

themselves, but in their being dead, and the pronunciation entirely

lost. It would be the same thing with any other language when it

becomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists does not

understand Greek so well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecian

milkmaid; and the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman or

milkmaid of the Romans; it would therefore be advantageous to the

state of learning to abolish the study of the dead languages, and to

make learning consist, as it originally did, in scientific knowledge.

The apology that is sometimes made for continuing to teach the

dead languages is, that they are taught at a time when a child is

not capable of exerting any other mental faculty than that of

memory; but that is altogether erroneous. The human mind has a natural disposition to scientific knowledge, and to the things

connected with it. The first and favorite amusement of a child, even before it begins to play, is that of imitating the works of man. It builds houses with cards or sticks; it navigates the little ocean of a bowl of water with a paper boat, or dams the stream of a gutter and contrives something which it calls a mill; and it interests itself in the fate of its works with a care that resembles affection. It afterwards goes to school, where its genius is killed by the barren study of a dead language, and the philosopher is lost in the linguist.

But the apology that is now made for continuing to teach the

dead languages, could not be the cause, at first, of cutting down

learning to the narrow and humble sphere of linguistry; the cause,

therefore, must be sought for elsewhere. In all researches of this

kind, the best evidence that can be produced, is the internal evidence

the thing carries with itself, and the evidence of circumstances

that unite with it; both of which, in this case, are not difficult

to be discovered.

Putting then aside, as a matter of distinct consideration, the

outrage offered to the moral justice of God by supposing him to make

the innocent suffer for the guilty, and also the loose morality and

low contrivance of supposing him to change himself into the shape of a

man, in order to make an excuse to himself for not executing his

supposed sentence upon Adam- putting, I say, those things aside as

matter of distinct consideration, it is certain that what is called

the Christian system of faith, including in it the whimsical account

of the creation- the strange story of Eve- the snake and the apple-

the ambiguous idea of a man-god- the corporeal idea of the death of a

god- the mythological idea of a family of gods, and the Christian

system of arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three, are all

irreconcilable, not only to the divine gift of reason that God hath

given to man, but to the knowledge that man gains of the power and

wisdom of God, by the aid of the sciences and by studying the

structure of the universe that God has made.

The setters-up, therefore, and the advocates of the Christian

system of faith could not but foresee that the continually progressive

knowledge that man would gain, by the aid of science, of the power and wisdom of God, manifested in the structure of the universe and in

all the works of Creation, would militate against, and call into

question, the truth of their system of faith; and therefore it

became necessary to their purpose to cut learning down to a size

less dangerous to their project, and this they effected by restricting

the idea of learning to the dead study of dead languages.

They not only rejected the study of science out of the Christian

schools, but they persecuted it, and it is only within about the

last two centuries that the study has been revived. So late as 1610,

Galileo, a Florentine, discovered and introduced the use of

telescopes, and by applying them to observe the motions and

appearances of the heavenly bodies, afforded additional means for

ascertaining the true structure of the universe. Instead of being

esteemed for those discoveries, he was sentenced to renounce them,

or the opinions resulting from them, as a damnable heresy. And,

prior to that time, Vigilius was condemned to be burned for

asserting the antipodes, or in other words that the earth was a globe,

and habitable in every part where there was land; yet the truth of

this is now too well known even to be told.

If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, it

would make no part of the moral duty of man to oppose and remove them. There was no moral ill in believing the earth was flat like a

trencher, any more than there was moral virtue in believing that it

was round like a globe; neither was there any moral ill in believing

that the Creator made no other world than this, any more than there

was moral virtue in believing that he made millions, and that the

infinity of space is filled with worlds. But when a system of religion

is made to grow out of a supposed system of creation that is not true,

and to unite itself therewith in a manner almost inseparable

therefrom, the case assumes an entirely different ground. It is then

that errors not morally bad become fraught with the same mischiefs

as if they were. It is then that the truth, though otherwise

indifferent itself, becomes an essential by becoming the criterion

that either confirms by corresponding evidence, or denies by

contradictory evidence, the reality of the religion itself. In this

view of the case, it is the moral duty of man to obtain every possible

evidence that the structure of the heavens, or any other part of

creation affords, with respect to systems of religion. But this, the

supporters or partisans of the Christian system, as if dreading the

result, incessantly opposed, and not only rejected the sciences, but

persecuted the professors. Had Newton or Descartes lived three or four hundred years ago, and pursued their studies as they did, it is most probable they would not have lived to finish them; and had Franklin drawn lightning from the clouds at the same time, it would have been at the hazard of expiring for it in the flames.

Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals;

but, however unwilling the partisans of the Christian system may be to

believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true that the age

of ignorance commenced with the Christian system. There was more

knowledge in the world before that period than for many centuries

afterwards; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, as

already said was only another species of mythology, and the

mythology to which it succeeded was a corruption of an ancient

system of theism.*

*It is impossible for us now to know at what time the heathen

mythology began; but it is certain, from the internal evidence that it

carries, that it did not begin in the same state or condition in which

it ended. All the gods of that mythology, except Saturn, were of

modern invention. The supposed reign of Saturn was prior to that which is called the heathen mythology, and was so far a species of theism, that it admitted the belief of only one God. Saturn is supposed to have abdicated the government in favor of his three sons and one daughter, Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune, and Juno; after this, thousands of other Gods and demi-gods were imaginarily created, and the calendar of gods increased as fast as the calendar of saints and the calendars of courts have increased since.

All the corruptions that have taken place in theology and in

religion, have been produced by admitting of what man calls revealed

religion. The Mythologists pretended to more revealed religion than

the Christians do. They had their oracles and their priests, who

were supposed to receive and deliver the word of God verbally, on

almost all occasions.

Since, then, all corruptions, down from Moloch to modern

predestinarianism, and the human sacrifices of the heathens to the

Christian sacrifice of the Creator, have been produced by admitting of

what is called revealed religion, the most effectual means to

prevent all such evils and impositions is not to admit of any other

revelation than that which is manifested in the book of creation,

and to contemplate the creation as the only true and real word of

God that ever did or ever will exist; and that everything else, called

the word of God, is fable and imposition.

It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to no other

cause, that we have now to look through a vast chasm of many hundred years to the respectable characters we call the ancients. Had the progression of knowledge gone on proportionably with that stock that before existed, that chasm would have been filled up with characters rising superior in knowledge to each other; and those ancients we now so much admire would have appeared respectably in the background of the scene. But the Christian system laid all waste; and if we take our stand about the beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that long chasm to the times of the ancients, as over a vast sandy desert, in which not a shrub appears to intercept the

vision to the fertile hills beyond.

It is an inconsistency scarcely possible to be credited, that

anything should exist, under the name of a religion, that held it to

be irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of the

universe that God has made. But the fact is too well established to be

denied. The event that served more than any other to break the first

link in this long chain of despotic ignorance is that known by the

name of the Reformation by Luther. From that time, though it does

not appear to have made any part of the intention of Luther, or of

those who are called reformers, the sciences began to revive, and

liberality, their natural associate, began to appear. This was the

only public good the Reformation did; for with respect to religious

good, it might as well not have taken place. The mythology still

continued the same, and a multiplicity of National Popes grew out of

the downfall of the Pope of Christendom.

Having thus shown from the internal evidence of things the cause

that produced a change in the state of learning, and the motive for

substituting the study of the dead languages in the place of the

sciences, I proceed, in addition to several observations already

made in the former part of this work, to compare, or rather to

confront, the evidence that the structure of the universe affords with

the Christian system of religion; but, as I cannot begin this part

better than by referring to the ideas that occurred to me at an

early part of life, and which I doubt not have occurred in some degree

to almost every person at one time or other, I shall state what

those ideas were, and add thereto such other matter as shall arise out

of the subject, giving to the whole, by way of preface, a short

introduction.

My father being of the Quaker profession, it was my good fortune

to have an exceedingly good moral education, and a tolerable stock

of useful learning. Though I went to the grammar school,* I did not

learn Latin, not only because I had no inclination to learn languages,

but because of the objection the Quakers have against the books in

which the language is taught. But this did not prevent me from being

acquainted with the subject of all the Latin books used in the school.

*The same school, Thetford In Norfolk that the present

Counsellor Mingay went to and under the same master.

The natural bent of my mind was to science. I had some turn, and I

believe some talent, for poetry; but this I rather repressed than

encouraged, as leading too much into the field of imagination. As soon

as I was able I purchased a pair of globes, and attended the

philosophical lectures of Martin and Ferguson, and became afterward

acquainted with Dr. Bevis, of the society called the Royal Society,

then living in the Temple, and an excellent astronomer.

I had no disposition for what is called politics. It presented

to my mind no other idea than as contained in the word Jockeyship.

When therefore I turned my thoughts toward matter of government, I had to form a system for myself that accorded with the moral and

philosophic principles in which I have been educated. I saw, or at

least I thought I saw, a vast scene opening itself to the world in the

affairs of America, and it appeared to me that unless the Americans

changed the plan they were pursuing with respect to the government

of England, and declared themselves independent, they would not only

involve themselves in a multiplicity of new difficulties, but shut out

the prospect that was then offering itself to mankind through their

means. It was from these motives that I published the work known by

the name of Common Sense, which was the first work I ever did publish; and so far as I can judge of myself, I believe I should never have been known in the world as an author, on any subject whatever, had it not been for the affairs of America. I wrote Common Sense the

latter end of the year 1775, and published it the first of January,

1776. Independence was declared the fourth of July following.

Any person who has made observations on the state and progress

of the human mind, by observing his own, cannot but have observed that there are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts - those

that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking,

and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always

made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking

care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth

entertaining, and it is from them I have acquired almost all the

knowledge that I have. As to the learning that any person gains from

school education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put him

in a way of beginning learning for himself afterward. Every person

of learning is finally his own teacher, the reason of which is that

principles, being a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be

impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the

understanding and they are never so lasting as when they begin by

conception. Thus much for the introductory part.

From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea and acting

upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the Christian

system or thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew which

it was, but I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age,

hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee

of the Church, upon the subject of what is called redemption by the

death of the Son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the

garden, and as I was going down the garden steps (for I perfectly

recollect the spot) I revolted at the recollection of what I had

heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act

like a passionate man, that killed his son when he could not revenge

himself in any other way, and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached

such sermons. This was not one of that kind of thoughts that had

anything in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious

reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do

such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of

doing it. I believe in the same manner at this moment; and I

moreover believe, that any system of religion that has anything in

it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.

It seems as if parents of the Christian profession were ashamed to

tell their children anything about the principles of their religion.

They sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them of the

goodness of what they call Providence, for the Christian mythology has

five deities- there is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy

Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Nature. But the Christian

story of God the Father putting his son to death, or employing people

to do it (for that is the plain language of the story) cannot be told

by a parent to a child; and to tell him that it was done to make

mankind happier and better is making the story still worse- as if

mankind could be improved by the example of murder; and to tell him

that all this is a mystery is only making an excuse for the

incredibility of it.

How different is this to the pure and simple profession of

Deism! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists

in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in

his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral,

scientifical, and mechanical.

The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true

Deism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by

the Quakers; but they have contracted themselves too much, by

leaving the works of God out of their system. Though I reverence their

philanthropy, I cannot help smiling at the conceit, that if the

taste of a Quaker could have been consulted at the creation, what a

silent and drab-colored creation it would have been! Not a flower

would have blossomed its gayeties, nor a bird been permitted to sing.

Quitting these reflections, I proceed to other matters. After I

had made myself master of the use of the globes and of the orrery,*

and conceived an idea of the infinity of space, and the eternal

divisibility of matter, and obtained at least a general knowledge of

what is called natural philosophy, I began to compare, or, as I have

before said, to confront the eternal evidence those things afford with

the Christian system of faith.

*As this book may fall into the hands of persons who do not know

what an orrery is, it is for their information I add this note, as the

name gives no idea of the uses of thing. The orrery has its name

from the person who invented it. It is a machinery of clock-work,

representing the universe in miniature, and in which the revolution of

the earth round itself and round the sun, the revolution of the moon

round the earth, the revolution of the planets round the sun, their

relative distances from the sun, as the centre of the whole system,

their relative distances from each other, and their different

magnitudes, are represented as they really exist in what we call the

heavens.

Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system, that

this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation, yet

it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account

of the Creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart

of that story, the death of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise,

that is, to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least

as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian system of

faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mind

like feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot be held together in

the same mind, and he who thinks that he believes both, has thought

but little of either.

Though the belief of a plurality of worlds was familiar to the

ancients, it’s only within the last three centuries that the extent

and dimensions of this globe that we inhabit have been ascertained.

Several vessels, following the tract of the ocean, have sailed

entirely round the world, as a man may march in a circle, and come

round by the contrary side of the circle to the spot he set out

from. The circular dimensions of our world, in the widest part, as a

man would measure the widest round of an apple or ball, is only

twenty-five thousand and twenty English miles, reckoning sixty-nine

miles and a half to an equatorial degree, and may be sailed round in

the space of about three years.*

*Allowing a ship to sail, on an average, three miles in an hour,

she would sail entirely round the world in less than one year, if

she could sail in a direct circle; but she is obliged to follow the

course of the ocean.

A world of this extent may, at first thought, appear to us to be

great; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which it is

suspended, like a bubble or balloon in the air, it is infinitely

less in proportion than the smallest grain of sand is to the size of

the world, or the finest particle of dew to the whole ocean, and is

therefore but small; and, as will be hereafter shown, is only one of a

system of worlds of which the universal creation is composed.

It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the immensity of

space in which this and all the other worlds are suspended, if we

follow a progression of ideas. When we think of the size or dimensions

of a room, our ideas limit themselves to the walls, and there they

stop; but when our eye or our imagination darts into space, that is,

when it looks upward into what we call the open air, we cannot

conceive any walls or boundaries it can have, and if for the sake of

resting our ideas, we suppose a boundary, the question immediately

renews itself, and asks, what is beyond that boundary? and in the same manner, what is beyond the next boundary? and so on till the

fatigued imagination returns and says, There is no end. Certainly,

then, the Creator was not pent for room when he made this world no

larger than it is, and we have to seek the reason in something else.

If we take a survey of our own world, or rather of this, of

which the Creator has given us the use as our portion in the immense

system of creation, we find every part of it- the earth, the waters,

and the air that surrounds it- filled and, as it were, crowded with

life, down from the largest animals that we know of to the smallest

insects the naked eye can behold, and from thence to others still

smaller, and totally invisible without the assistance of the

microscope. Every tree, every plant, every leaf, serves not only as

a habitation but as a world to some numerous race, till animal

existence becomes so exceedingly refined that the effluvia of a

blade of grass would be food for thousands.

Since, then, no part of our earth is left unoccupied, why is it to

be supposed that the immensity of space is a naked void, lying in

eternal waste? There is room for millions of worlds as large or larger

than ours, and each of them millions of miles apart from each other.

Having now arrived at this point, if we carry our ideas only one

thought further, we shall see, perhaps, the true reason, at least a

very good reason, for our happiness, why the Creator, instead of

making one immense world extending over an immense quantity of

space, has preferred dividing that quantity of matter into several

distinct and separate worlds, which we call planets, of which our

earth is one. But before I explain my ideas upon this subject, it is

necessary (not for the sake of those who already know, but for those

who do not) to show what the system of the universe is.

That part of the universe that is called the solar system (meaning

the system of worlds to which our earth belongs, and of which Sol,

or in English language, the Sun, is the centre) consists, besides

the Sun, of six distinct orbs, or planets, or worlds, besides the

secondary called the satellites or moons, of which our earth has one

that attends her in her annual revolution around the Sun, in like

manner as the other satellites or moons attend the planets or worlds

to which they severally belong, as may be seen by the assistance of

the telescope.

The Sun is the centre, round which those six worlds or planets

revolve at different distances therefrom, and in circles concentrate

to each other. Each world keeps constantly in nearly the same track

round the Sun, and continues, at the same time, turning round itself

in nearly an upright position, as a top turns round itself when it

is spinning on the ground, and leans a little sideways.

It is this leaning of the earth (23.5 degrees) that occasions

summer and winter, and the different length of days and nights. If the earth turned round itself in a position perpendicular to the plane or level of the circle it moves in around the Sun, as a top turns

round when it stands erect on the ground, the days and nights would be always of the same length, twelve hours day and twelve hours night, and the seasons would be uniformly the same throughout the year.

Every time that a planet (our earth for example) turns round

itself, it makes what we call day and night; and every time it goes

entirely round the Sun it makes what we call a year; consequently

our world turns three hundred and sixty-five times round itself, in

going once round the Sun.*

*Those who supposed that the sun went round the earth every 24

hours made the same mistake in idea that a cook would do in fact, that should make the fire go round the meat, instead of the meat turning round itself toward the fire.

The names that the ancients gave to those six worlds, and which

are still called by the same names, are Mercury, Venus, this world

that we call ours, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They appear larger to

the eye than the stars, being many million miles nearer to our earth

than any of the stars are. The planet Venus is that which is called

the evening star, and sometimes the morning star, as she happens to

set after or rise before the Sun, which in either case is never more

than three hours.

The Sun, as before said, being the centre, the planet or world

nearest the Sun is Mercury; his distance from the Sun is thirty-four

million miles, and he moves round in a circle always at that

distance from the Sun, as a top may be supposed to spin round in the

track in which a horse goes in a mill. The second world is Venus;

she is fifty-seven million miles distant from the Sun, and

consequently moves round in a circle much greater than that of

Mercury. The third world is this that we inhabit, and which is

eighty-eight million miles distant from the Sun, and consequently

moves round in a circle greater than that of Venus. The fourth world

is Mars; he is distant from the Sun one hundred and thirty-four

million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle greater than

that of our earth. The fifth is Jupiter; he is distant from the Sun

five hundred and fifty-seven million miles, and consequently moves

round in a circle greater than that of Mars. The sixth world is

Saturn; he is distant from the Sun seven hundred and sixty-three

million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle that surrounds

the circles, or orbits, of all the other worlds or planets.

The space, therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of space,

that our solar system takes up for the several worlds to perform their

revolutions in round the Sun, is of the extent in a straight line of

the whole diameter of the orbit or circle, in which Saturn moves round

the Sun, which being double his distance from the Sun, is fifteen

hundred and twenty-six million miles and its circular extent is nearly

five thousand million, and its globular contents is almost three

thousand five hundred million times three thousand five hundred

million square miles.*

*If it should be asked, how can man know these things? I have

one plain answer to give, which is, that man knows how to calculate an

eclipse, and also how to calculate to a minute of time when the planet

Venus, in making her revolutions around the sun will come in a

straight line between our earth and the sun, and will appear to us

about the size of a large pea passing across the face of the sun. This

happens but twice in about a hundred years, at t