David Hume on God E-Book

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 478

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

A central problem for the non-specialist reader over the works of Hume today is that his mellifluous 18th century prose appears strange to our eyes and ears... What follows, therefore, is what the present editors did about it. The central purpose is to open to Hume's original target audience his writings on religious affairs; a subject which was of central importance to him – and which remains of perennial interest to humankind. David Hume's writings on history, politics and philosophy have shaped thought to this day. His bold scepticism ranged from common notions of the 'self ' to criticism of standard theistic proofs. He insisted on grounding understandings of popular religious beliefs in human psychology rather than divine revelation, and he aimed to disentangle philosophy from religion in order to allow the former to pursue its own ends. In this book, Professors David W Purdie and Peter S Fosl decipher some of Hume's most challenging texts for the modern reader, while preserving the sharp intellect and undaunted nerve for which Hume is famous. Hume's spirit is brought alive for contemporary times and his writing is made accessible for its intended audience: the general public.

Leseprobe

DAVID HUME

‘Sirius of the Scottish Enlightenment’

Philosopher; Historian; Essayist; Extrovert; Executive Chef; bon viveur

Friend to: Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith

Foe to: Autocracy, Oligarchy and religious Bigotry

Francophile: Student in Anjou, Diplomat in Paris

Advocated: Freedom of Trade, Speech and the Press

Supporter of Independence for the Americans

Believer in God, but not in Miracles or Prophecy

Admired by: Einstein, Voltaire and Kant

Citizen of Edinburgh’s New Town and Saviour of Princes Street...

In this book you will find David Hume’s thought and arguments unaltered – but with his mellifluous prose now attired in 21st century dress. Take him home and, as he suggests, apportion your belief solely to the evidence presented. Above all, follow his lifelong fight with superstition and ignorance – but NB ignore his hallux aureus.*

DAVID W PURDIE was born privately in Prestwick and educated publicly at Ayr Academy and Glasgow University. He is a Professor Emeritus of Hull University and is presently an Hon. Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities of the University of Edinburgh, where his field is the history and philosophy of the 18th century. David is Editor-in-Chief of The Burns Encyclopaedia, which covers the life and work of the poet Robert Burns, and editor of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and The Heart of Midlothian, both adapted for the modern reader. He is a former Chairman of the Sir Walter Scott Club. In non-academic mode, he is the co-author of The Ancyent & Healthfulle Exercyse, a history of golf, and of The Dean’s Diaries, an exposé of the goings-on at the (fictional) St Andrew’s College in Edinburgh.

PETER S FOSL is Professor of Philosophy at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he chairs the PPE program. Fosl is co-editor of the Dictionary of Literary Biography volumes on the history of British Philosophy, co-author with Julian Baggini of The Philosopher’s Toolkit and Ethics Toolkit, and he is author of Hume’s Scepticism: Pyrrhonian and Academic (forthcoming with Edinburgh University Press). Fosl has published numerous articles on the history of philosophy and on popular culture. He was a Fulbright student in Edinburgh and the David Hume Fellow of the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) during the 2013–4 academic year.

* golden big toe!

First published 2019

eISBN: 978-1-912387-75-5

The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made from low chlorine pulps produced in a low energy, low emission manner from renewable forests.

Printed and bound by Ashford Colour Press, Gosport

Typeset in 11 point Sabon by Lapiz

The authors’ right to be identified as authors of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Introduction and adaptation © David W Purdie and Peter S Fosl

Contents

David Hume: Timeline and Publications

Editors’ Preface

Introduction

The Natural History of Religion

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Of Miracles

Of A Particular Providence and of A Future State

Of Superstition and Enthusiasm

Of Suicide

Of the Immortality of the Soul

Endnotes

David Hume: Timeline and Publications

1711

Born in Edinburgh

1721–5

Studies at the University of Edinburgh

1735–7

Studies at Collège La Flèche, Anjou, France

1739–40

A Treatise of Human Nature (3 Vols.)

1741–2

Essays Moral and Political (2 Vols.)

1745

Fails to gain the Chair of Moral Philosophy, Edinburgh

1745–6

Tutor to Marquis of Annandale

1746–7

Secretary to Gen. James St Clair. Assault on Lorient

1748

Secretary of St Clair’s embassy to Vienna and Turin

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

A True Account of the Behaviour of Archd. Stewart Esq.

1749–51

At family seat of Ninewells, Scottish Borders

1751

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

1752–3

Riddle’s Land, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh

1752–7

Keeper of the Advocates’ Library

1753–62

Resident in Jack’s Land, Canongate, Edinburgh

1752

Political Discourses

1753

Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. 4 Vols.

1754–62

The History of Great Britain: 4 Vols.

1757

The Natural History of Religion. In: Four Dissertations

1762–71

Resident in James’s Court, Lawnmarket. Edinburgh

1763–6

Secretary, then Chargé d’Affaires, British Embassy, Paris

1766

Escorts Jean-Jacques Rousseau to England

1767–8

Under-Secretary of State, Northern Department

1769

Retirement to Edinburgh

1771–6

Resident at St Andrew Sq., New Town, Edinburgh

1776

Death of David Hume

1777

My Own Life

1779

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

1783

Of Suicide and Of the Immortality of the Soul

Editors’ Preface

DAVID HUME was a massive figure of the Enlightenment, both intellectually and physically. This brightest star in that constellation of genius was described in Bertrand Russell’s magisterial History of Western Philosophy as the greatest philosopher ever to write in the English language.

A true polymath, Hume was also an historian, an essayist on economics and politics, a diplomat and senior civil servant, who often entertained friends and neighbours in Scotland, Paris and London. A jovial host and chef de cuisine, he spread the best table and kept the finest wine cellar in Edinburgh’s elegant New Town. Here he received guests such as the economist Adam Smith, the jurist Lord Kames and the first American polymath Ben Franklin. They were regaled with wit, anecdote, philosophy and Soupe à la Reine, its recipe a present from Hume’s French ladyfriend Marie-Charlotte Hyppolyte de Campet de Saujon, Comtesse de Boufflers-Rouverel, no less.

Born in 1711 into a family of minor Border gentry whose estate of Ninewells lay close to the Berwickshire town of Chirnside, Hume was educated privately and then at the University of Edinburgh. Rejecting the law as a profession, he decamped to Paris, Rheims and finally to the Loire valley in Anjou. There, after several years of study at the Collège Royal de La Flèche he published in 1739, still aged only 28, A Treatise of Human Nature his first great work of philosophy. This was an attempt to introduce into human affairs the then evolving empirical methods of scientific enquiry pioneered in England by Francis Bacon, John Locke and Isaac Newton.

There followed a series of Essays on moral and political and subjects and then his two great Enquiries. The first, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) was a revision of Part I of his original Treatise while his revision of Part II, An Enquiry into the Principals of Morals (1751) was, in his own words, ‘of all my works, unquestionably the best.’ It was while the latter Enquiry was in press that Hume completed drafts of the two books on religion which are at the core of the present work. Hume carried out a major critique of religious theory and practice on two broad fronts and in two major works: first, in the Natural History of Religion (1757), he examined the origin of religious beliefs and observances in human societies. In his subsequent Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published posthumously in 1779, he enquired: do such beliefs and behaviours have a foundation in Reason?

In Section X of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) which was entitled Of Miracles, Hume had examined the phenomenon of miraculous occurrences, while in Section XI, entitled Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State, he addressed the question of the existence of a definable and executive Deity and of an afterlife. In Four Dissertations (1757), his Natural History of Religion was published alongside three Essays: On the Passions, On Tragedy and On the Standard of Taste. His initial intention had been to publish five essays, including On Suicide and On the Immortality of the Soul, but when advance copies of this work provoked considerable alarm among his friends as well as his publisher, Andrew Millar, Hume had them removed. An allegation that Hume considered the soul to be mortal, ie to perish at death, had been one of the six ‘Remonstrances’ mounted by the Kirk, successfully, against his 1745 application for the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.

The central issue of whether religious belief has a logical foundation was addressed by Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779). It takes the form of a report, by an observer, of the dialogue between three fictional discussants examining the question of the existence and, in particular, the nature of a Deity.

Loosely based on Cicero’s celebrated De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), Hume’s participants in the Dialogues are:

Demea, an orthodox believer who advances arguments a priori;

Cleanthes, advocating the ‘Argument by Design’ ie a posteriori;

Philo, a sceptic whose positions are generally close to those of Hume.

Considered too sensitive for publication in his lifetime, the MS was consigned to his literary executor Adam Smith who likewise withheld it from the public. In 1779, some three years after Hume’s death it was finally published by his advocate nephew and namesake, later Professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh.

Hume kept his central religious positions to himself. He was no theist, but no atheist either. Most likely he was a mitigated deist, believing as do many scientists today, that some as yet undetermined agency triggered the massive detonation and subsequent inflation of the ‘singularity’, popularly the Big Bang, which produced the Universe around us.

In 1763, the perceptive Sir James MacDonald of Sleat, Baronet, wrote home from Paris where his friend ‘le bon David’ Hume was Secretary to our Embassy, saying,

poor Hume, who on your side of the water was thought to have too little religion, is here thought to have too much…

As always, Hume was the personification of his own ‘just man, who proportions belief to the evidence.’ That evidence is set out in this work on all aspects of religious belief and activity. Hume invites you to be just – ie just that!

Introduction

A CENTRAL PROBLEM for the non-specialist reader over the works of Hume today is that his mellifluous 18th century prose appears strange to our eyes and ears in terms of syntax, grammar and punctuation. Sentences can be very long; commas terminate each phrase; sentences often end with the verb, as in German, while main and subordinate clauses jockey with each other for precedence. These difficulties are relatively minor and may be obviated without disturbing in any way the majestic flow of the man’s thought and argument. There is, however, a much more serious problem: the very meaning of the words deployed by Hume.

We may be clear on the contemporary 18th century meanings of all Hume’s terms through Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755) published two years before The Natural History of Religion (NHR) and available through the Advocates Library in Edinburgh of which Hume was the Keeper.

Johnson’s title page proclaims the Dictionary to be a work:,

In which the WORDS are deduced from their ORIGINALS

AND

ILLUSTRATED in their DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS

Johnson was unwittingly stating the present problem. Hume’s texts illustrate the different significations of words between his day and ours. The lapse of two and a half centuries has brought some dramatic and many subtle changes in the precise meaning of many of Hume’s substantives, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. To remain true to his intent, the modern reader’s attention requires to be drawn to shifts in meaning significant enough (NB the word’s own shift) to derail the flow of argument.

Finally, it is clear both from his letters to his London publisher William Strahan and from his repeated revisions to his texts that Hume himself was much concerned with enhancing the lucidity of his work. We have sought to continue that process by the following dual approach.

It is worth pointing out that Hume himself edited the texts of others. In Section XIII of the Natural History, an extract from Vol. II of Chevalier Ramsay’s Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion has been altered both stylistically and to a lesser degree in substance.

TL Beauchamp, editor of the Clarendon Edition of Hume’s works, states that his editing was ‘progressive’ over the eight editions of the Natural History of Religion which appeared in his lifetime.

The problem of modernising a classic text for a modern readership is not new. It was articulated 22 centuries ago by Cicero, one of whose dialogues, De natura deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), served as one of Hume’s models for his own Dialogues. In his Brutus, a history of Greek and Roman oratory Cicero says:

Why must the works of Lysias and Hyperides1 be so fondly courted, while Cato2 is overlooked? His language indeed has an antiquated air… but that was the language of his time. If we change and modernise it, add improvements of number and cadence, give an easier turn to his sentences and regulate the structure and connection of his words… you will discover no-one who can claim the preference to Cato…3

Throughout his life, David Hume continually revised his works to enhance their lucidity as described by his fellow philosopher and economist Adam Smith, also his literary executor. Here, Smith writes to Hume’s publisher William Strahan in London just after the philosopher’s death in the summer of 1776:

Upon his return to Edinburgh… he continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his works for a new Edition. He felt that satisfaction so sensibly when reading, a few days before, Lucian’s Νεκρικοι διαλογοι [Dialogues of the Dead]. Among all the excuses to Charon for not entering his boat, he could not find one that fitted him…

He diverted himself with inventing jocular excuses he might make to Charon, and with imagining the surly answers.

‘Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me a little time, that I may see how the public receives the alterations.’ But Charon would answer,

‘When you have seen the effect of these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end of such excuses; Step into the boat!’

To paraphrase Hume’s subtitle to his Treatise of Human Nature,1 this work is an attempt to introduce an experimental method of redaction into Humean subjects.

Primary revisions were proposed by a grammarian (David Purdie). Each revision was then critically examined by a professional philosopher and Hume scholar (Peter Fosl) charged with ensuring that Hume’s original intention and flow of argument are undisturbed. Emendation was kept to the absolute minimum required for restoration of clarity. For example, italicisation was used solely to maintain fidelity to the argument. We thus present a translation of his works on religion into modern English, while conserving the streaming and precision of Hume’s original thought. Also conserved, we trust, is the eloquence and lucidity of the original, together with the literary context of the neo-classical era of its composition. To this end, footnotes accompany those terms whose meaning has shifted since Hume put quill to parchment. Virtually all footnoted references to shifts of meaning, represented by asterisks throughout, cite Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (SJ).

The project underlying this book was stimulated by an exchange during the Press Conference at the Hume Tercentenary Colloquium in 2011 at the University of Edinburgh. A journalist asked why Hume’s works were little read now by the general public for whom he wrote. He was told that although Hume wrote with great clarity, he did so in the language of the mid-18th century. Subsequent evolution in English grammar, syntax and punctuation plus alterations in meaning and purposive expression, had veiled his works from modern eyes. Undeterred, the journalist then asked what was being done about this. To this there was no answer.

What follows, therefore, is what the present editors did about it. The central purpose is to open to Hume’s original target audience his writings on religious affairs; a subject which was of central importance to him – and which remains of perennial interest to humankind.

1 Two of the ten celebrated Greek ‘Attic Orators’ of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.

2 M. Porcius Cato (The elder) 234–149 BCE. Statesman, moralist and orator.

3 M. Tullius Cicero, Brutus, 67.

1 An Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects.

The Natural History of Religion

EDITORS’ NOTE: The text of David Hume’s dedication of this work to his friend and cousin1 is unaltered. In the interests of clarity, some footnotes have been provided.

TO: The Reverend Mr Hume,

Author of Douglas, a Tragedy.

My Dear Sir,

It was the practice of the antients to address their compositions only to friends and equals, and to render their dedications monuments of regard and affection, not of servility and flattery. In those days of ingenious and candid liberty, a dedication did honour to the person to whom it was addressed, without degrading the author. If any particular appeared towards the patron, it was at least the partiality of friendship and affection.

Another instance of true liberty, of which antient times can alone afford us an example, is the liberty of thought that engaged men of letters, however different in their abstract opinions, to maintain a mutual friendship and regard; and never to quarrel about principles, while they agreed in inclinations and manners. Science was often the subject of disputation, never of animosity. Cicero, an Academic,2 addressed his philosophical treatises, sometimes to his close friends Brutus, a Stoic;3 or to Atticus, an Epicurean.

I have been seized with a strong desire of renewing these laudable practices of antiquity, by addressing the following dissertations to you, my good friend: For such I will ever call and esteem you, notwithstanding the opposition, which prevails between us, with regard to many of our speculative tenets. These differences of opinion I have only found to enliven our conversation; while our common passion for science and letters served as a cement to our friendship. I still admired your genius, even when I imagined, that you lay under the influence of prejudice; and you sometimes told me, that you excused my errors, on account of the candour and sincerity, which, you thought, accompanied them.

But to tell truth, it is less my admiration of your fine genius, which has engaged me to make this address to you, than my esteem of your character and my affection to your person. That generosity of mind which ever accompanies you; that cordiality of friendship, that spirited honour and integrity, have long interested me strongly in your behalf, and have made me desirous, that a monument of our mutual amity should be publicly erected, and, if possible, be preserved to posterity.

I own too, that I have the ambition to be the first who shall in public express his admiration of your noble tragedy of Douglas; one of the most interesting and pathetic pieces that was ever exhibited on any theatre.

Should I give it preference to the Merope of Maffei,1 and to that of Voltaire,2 which it resembles in its subject; should I affirm, that it contained more fire and spirit than the former, more tenderness and simplicity than the latter; I might be accused of partiality: And how could I entirely acquit myself, after the professions of friendship, which I have made you? But the unfeigned tears which flowed from every eye, in the numerous representations which were made of it on this theatre; the unparalleled command, which you appeared to have over every affection of the human breast: These are incontestable proofs, that you possess the true theatrical genius of Shakespeare and Otway,3 refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one, and licentiousness of the other.

My enemies, you know, and, I own, even sometimes my friends, have reproached me with the love of paradoxes and singular opinions; and I expect to be exposed to the same imputation, on account of the character, which I have here given of your Douglas. I shall be told, no doubt, that I had artfully chosen the only time, when this high esteem of that piece could be regarded as a paradox, to wit, before its publication; and that not being able to contradict in this particular the sentiments of the public, I have, at least, resolved to go before them. But I shall be amply compensated for all these pleasantries, if you accept this testimony of my regard, and believe me to be, with the greatest sincerity,

Dear Sir,

Your most affectionate Friend & humble Servant,

David Hume.    Edinburgh, 3 Jan. 1757

INTRODUCTION

While every enquiry regarding religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular that challenge our attention: the question of religion’s foundation in reason; and the question of its origin in human nature. Happily, the first and most important question is also provided with the most obvious, or at least the clearest, solution. The whole fabric of Nature attests an intelligent Author. After serious reflection, no rational enquirer can suspend belief for a moment in the primary principles* of genuine theism1 and religion.

But the second question, concerning the origin of religion in human nature, presents greater difficulty. Belief in invisible, intelligent power is diffused generally among humanity at all places and in all ages.2 However, it has neither been so universal as to preclude exceptions, nor has it been to any degree uniform in the ideas that it has suggested. If travellers and historians may be believed, some nations have been discovered that actually entertain no sentiments* of religion.1 Furthermore, no two nations – and scarcely any two people – have ever found their beliefs on the subject to agree precisely.

It would appear, therefore, that religious sentiment does not spring from an original instinct or primary impression of human nature, such as that giving rise to self-love, affection between the sexes, love of progeny and gratitude or resentment. This is because every one of this class of instincts has been found to be absolutely universal in all nations and ages, as well as being invariably found in inflexible pursuit of a precisely determined objective.

The most basic religious principles must thus be secondary. As such, they may easily be perverted by various accidents** and causes. Also, their operation may be entirely prevented in some cases by an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances. What those principles are that give rise to original religious belief and what are those accidents and causes that direct its operation, is the subject of our present enquiry.

SECTION I:

That Polytheism was the primary Religion.

It appears to me that if we consider the improvement of human society from its rude beginnings to states of greater perfection, polytheism, or idolatry, was and necessarily must have been, the first religion of humanity.2 This opinion I shall attempt to confirm by the following arguments.

It is an incontestable matter of fact that 1,700 years ago, all humankind were polytheists.3 The doubtful and sceptical principles of a few philosophers, or the theism (a none too pure theism) of one or two nations, form no objection worth regarding. Behold then, the clear testimony of history. The farther we move back into antiquity, the more we find humanity plunged into polytheism. There are no marks or symptoms of any more perfect* religion. The most ancient records of the human race present us with the polytheistic system as the popular and established creed. The north, the south, the east and the west give unanimous testimony to the fact. Can there be any opposition to such comprehensive evidence?

As far back as writing or history reaches, humankind in ancient times appears universally to have been polytheistic. Shall we assert that in still more ancient times, before the knowledge of letters or the discovery of any art or science, people entertained the principles of pure theism?1 In other words, shall we assert that, while still ignorant and barbarous, they discovered truth, but fell into error as soon as they acquired learning and politeness? Such an assertion contradicts all appearances not only of probability, but also our present experience concerning the principles and opinions of barbarous nations. The native tribes of America, Africa and Asia are all idolaters. There is not a single exception to this rule.

Indeed, let a traveller visit any unknown region and find its inhabitants cultivated in the arts and sciences. While on that account there would still be odds against their being theists, the point could not be established without further inquiry. However, were the inhabitants found to be ignorant and barbarous, then without any religious enquiry the traveller might declare them idolaters with scarcely the possibility of error.

It seems certain that according to the natural progression of human thought, people must first entertain a grovelling, familiar notion of superior powers before advancing to the concept of one perfect Being who bestowed order on the whole frame** of Nature. We may just as reasonably imagine that people inhabited palaces before huts, or studied geometry before agriculture; as assert that the Deity appeared to them a pure spirit, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, before being conceived as a powerful, though limited, Being with human passions***, appetites, limbs and organs. The mind ascends gradually from inferior to superior. By abstracting from what is imperfect, it forms an idea of perfection. Slowly distinguishing the nobler parts of its own frame from the grosser, it learns to transfer only the former parts, now much elevated and refined, to its Divinity.

Nothing could disturb this natural progress of thought, except some obvious and invincible argument that might lead the mind straight to the pure principles of theism by making it leap over, at one bound, the vast gulf between the human and the divine nature. I accept that the order and frame of the Universe affords just such an argument when accurately examined. However, I cannot believe that this consideration could have influenced humankind when forming its first crude notions of religion.

The origins of objects familiar to us never strike our attention or curiosity. However extraordinary or surprising these objects may be in themselves, they are passed over by the raw and uneducated multitude with little examination or enquiry. Adam, as described by Milton,1 rising suddenly in Paradise in the full perfection of his faculties, would naturally be astonished at the glorious appearance of Nature: the heavens; the air; the earth; his own organs and members*. He would be moved to ask: from whence had this wonderful world arisen?

Barbarous and impoverished humanity, however, had no time to admire the regular** face of Nature at the first emergence of society. Oppressed by numerous wants and passions, they had no time to enquire into the origins of objects to which they had been gradually accustoming from infancy.

On the contrary, the more regular and uniform, ie the more perfect that Nature appears, the more are people familiarised to it and the less inclined to scrutinise and examine it. In contrast, the birth of an abnormal infant excites people’s curiosity and is deemed a prodigy.2 Its novelty alarms them and immediately sets them a-trembling, sacrificing and praying. But an animal complete in all its limbs and organs is to them an ordinary spectacle. It produces no religious opinion or affection. Ask whence that animal arose, and you will be told: from the copulation of its parents. And whence came these parents? From the copulation of theirs. A few removes satisfy popular curiosity, setting the objects at such a distance that people lose sight of them entirely. Do not imagine that they will so much as ask whence came the first animal – much less, whence the whole system or united fabric of the Universe? Or, if you were to put such a question to people generally, do not expect that they will employ their minds with any anxiety upon a subject so remote, so uninteresting and so greatly beyond the limit of their abilities.

Furthermore, if by reasoning from the model supplied by Nature, people were first led into the belief of one supreme Being, they would never have abandoned that belief in order to embrace polytheism. Indeed, those same principles of reason that had first produced and then diffused so magnificent an opinion over humankind would have been easily capable of preserving it. The initial discovery and proof of any doctrine is much more difficult than the subsequent supporting and retaining of it.

Just as there is a great difference between historical facts and speculative opinions, so the knowledge of the one is not propagated in the same manner as the other.1 An historical fact, passed down by oral tradition2 from the initial eye-witnesses and contemporaries, is progressively disguised* by every successive narration and may eventually retain very little, if any, resemblance to its original truth.

Such human factors as the frailty of memories; love of exaggeration and supine carelessness** soon pervert accounts of historical events, unless corrected by books and writing. Here, argument or reasoning has little or no place, never recalling truth once it has escaped from those narrations. It is thus that the fables of Hercules3 Theseus4 and Bacchus5 are believed to have been originally true history, corrupted thereafter in transmission.

But with regard to speculative opinions, the case is far different. If these opinions are founded on arguments so clear and obvious that they convince the generality of humankind, then those very arguments that first diffused them will still preserve their original purity. If the arguments are more abstruse and more remote from common understanding, then the opinions they support will remain confined to a few persons. Consequently, as soon as people abandon the contemplation of the arguments, their opinions will immediately be lost and buried in oblivion.

Whichever side of this dilemma we take, it appears impossible that theism could, through the exercise of reason, have been the primary religion of the human race; only afterwards, through corruption of that reason, giving birth to polytheism and the varied superstitions1 of the heathen world.

Reason, when self-evident, prevents these corruptions. When abstruse, however, it keeps its principles entirely beyond the knowledge of the commonality who alone are liable to corrupt any principle or opinion.

SECTION II:

Origin of Polytheism.

If we wish to indulge our curiosity by enquiring into the origins of religion, we must turn our thoughts towards polytheism as the primitive* religion of uninstructed humanity.

Were people led into the apprehension** of an invisible, intelligent Power by a contemplation of the works of Nature, they could never possibly entertain any conception other than that of one single Being who bestowed both existence and order on the Universe, adjusting its parts according to a regular plan or connected system. To persons of a certain turn of mind, it may not appear altogether absurd that several independent beings endowed with superior wisdom might collaborate in the development and execution of one regular plan. This, however, is an arbitrary supposition. Even if accepted as possible, it is admittedly unsupported by probability nor necessity. All things in the Universe are evidently integral; everything is adjusted to everything else; one design prevails throughout. This uniformity leads the mind to acknowledge one Author because the idea of different authors, with no distinction between attributes or operations, only perplexes the imagination while bestowing no satisfaction on the understanding.

The statue of Laocoön1 was, as we learn from Pliny, the work of three artists.2 If not told this, however, we should certainly never have imagined that such a group of figures, cut from one stone and united in one plan, was not the contrivance and work of a single sculptor. It is surely not a natural and obvious supposition to ascribe a single effect to a combination of several causes.

On the other hand, if we leave the works of Nature and trace the foot-steps of invisible power in the various and contrary events of human life, we are necessarily led into polytheism and to the acknowledgment of several limited and imperfect deities. Storms and tempests ruin what is nourished by the sun. The sun destroys what is fostered by the dews and rains. War may be favourable to a nation afflicted with famine through the inclemency of the seasons. Illness and plague may depopulate a kingdom amidst the most profuse plenty. The same nation is not, at the same time, equally successful at sea and on land. Currently triumphant over its foes, a nation may later have to submit to the military success of those enemies. In short, the behaviour of events, or what we call the plan of a particular Providence,3 is full of variety and uncertainty. Thus, if we suppose it to be directly controlled by any intelligent beings, we must acknowledge a contrariety* in their designs and intentions. We must also accept a constant combat of opposite powers and, within the same power, a repentance or change of intention arising either from impotence or from levity.**

Each nation has its tutelary*** deity with each element being subjected to its invisible power or agency. Not only is the province of each god separate from that of another, but also the operations of the same god are not always certain and invariable. Today it protects; tomorrow it abandons us. Prayers and sacrifices, rites and ceremonies, well or ill-performed, are the sources of favour or enmity and produce all the good or ill-fortune of humankind.

We may conclude, therefore, that in all nations that have embraced polytheism, the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of Nature, but from concern for the events of life and from the incessant hopes and fears that actuate the human mind. Accordingly, we find that idolaters separate the provinces of their deities. They then have recourse to that particular invisible agent to whose authority they are currently and directly subjected and whose province is to superintend the actions upon which they are immediately engaged. Thus Juno1 superscript tis invoked at marriages; Lucina at births2; Neptune receives the prayers of mariners, Mars those of warriors.

The farmer cultivates his fields under the protection of Ceres while the merchant acknowledges the authority of Mercury.3 Each natural event is believed governed by some intelligent agent. Nothing prosperous or adverse can happen in life without that agent being the subject of specific prayers or thanksgivings.4

It must be accepted that in order to sustain people’s attention beyond the present course of events, or to lead them to infer invisible intelligent power, they must be actuated by some motive. This must be one that prompts thought and reflection, thus provoking their first enquiry. But to what motive, or passion, shall we turn in order to explain an effect of such mighty consequence? Not speculative curiosity surely, or the pure love of truth. Such motives are far too refined for such gross conceptions. They would lead to enquiries concerning the fabric and construction of Nature, a subject too large and comprehensive for their then narrow capacities. No passions, therefore, can be supposed to work upon barbarous peoples except the ordinary emotions of human life: anxious concern for happiness and dread of future misery; terror of death; thirst for revenge; appetite for food and other necessaries. Agitated by such hopes and fears and especially the latter, it is with a trembling curiosity that people scrutinize the evolution of future situations and examine the various and contrary events of human life. It is in this disordered scene, with eyes still more disordered and astonished, that they perceive the first faint traces of Divinity.

SECTION III:

The same Subject continued.

We are placed in this world as if in a great theatre where the true sources and causes of every event are entirely concealed from us. Neither do we have either sufficient wisdom to foresee – or power to prevent – those ills with which we are continually threatened. We hang in perpetual suspense between life and death, health and sickness, plenty and want. These are distributed amongst the human species by secret and unknown causes whose operation is often unexpected and always inexplicable. These unknown causes then become the constant object of our hopes and fears. The emotions being kept in perpetual alarm by an anxious anticipation of events, the imagination is equally employed in forming ideas of those powers upon which we are entirely dependent.

Suppose people could dissect Nature according to the most probable, or at least the most intelligible philosophy. They would then find that these unknown causes are nothing other than the particular fabric and structure of minute parts of their own bodies and of external objects. They would also discover that all the events about which they are so much concerned are produced by regulated and constant machinery. However, such understanding exceeds the comprehension of the uneducated, who can only conceive of the unknown causes in a general and confused manner. However, since their imagination is perpetually employed on the subject, it naturally labours to form some particularly distinct idea of them. The more they consider these unknown causes themselves, together with the uncertainty of their operation, the less satisfying are their enquiries. However unwillingly, they would have had to abandon such an arduous attempt at understanding, were it not for the propensity of human nature to lead to a system that gives them at least some satisfaction.

There is a universal tendency among human beings to conceive all other beings to be like themselves. Furthermore, they tend to transfer to every object those qualities with which they are familiar and of which they are intimately conscious. Thus do we find human faces on the Moon and armies in the clouds. We also have a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, to ascribe everything that hurts or pleases us, to malice or to goodwill respectively. Hence the frequency and beauty of prosopopoeia1 in poetry, where trees, mountains and streams are personified, and the inanimate parts of Nature acquire sentiment2 and passion. Although these poetical figures and expressions do not inspire actual belief, they serve at least to illustrate a certain tendency in the imagination, without which they could neither be beautiful nor natural. Nor is a river-god or a Hamadryad3 always taken for a merely poetical or imaginary personage. It may sometimes enter the real creed of the uneducated multitude, while each grove or field is held to be possessed of a particular genius or invisible power that inhabits and protects it.4 Indeed, philosophers cannot entirely exempt themselves from this natural frailty, having often ascribed to inanimate matter the horror of a vacuum, together with sympathies, antipathies and other natural human emotions. The absurdity is not less when we cast our eyes upwards. Transferring human passions and infirmities to the Deity (as is too common) we represent it as jealous and revengeful, capricious and partial, in short like a wicked and foolish person in every respect, except in superior power and authority.

No wonder then that humankind, absolutely ignorant of causes yet anxious concerning future outcomes, should acknowledge dependence on invisible powers possessing sentiment and intelligence. Those unknown causes continually engaging their thoughts are all perceived to be of the same kindred, or species.5 Nor is it long before we ascribe to them thought, reason, emotion and sometimes even human limbs and figures, in order to give them a greater resemblance to ourselves.

Superstition increases proportionately to the degree to which the course of a person’s life is governed by the unexpected. This is particularly observed in gamesters and sailors. These most abound in frivolous6 and superstitious beliefs despite being the least capable of all regarding serious reflection.

The gods, says Coriolanus in Dionysius,1 have an influence in every affair, but above all in war where the outcome is so uncertain. However, all human life is subject to fortuitous accidents, especially before the institution of order and good government. It is therefore natural that superstition should have prevailed everywhere in barbarous ages, making people enquire concerning those invisible powers controlling their happiness or misery. Superstitious people, ignorant of astronomy and the anatomy of plants and animals, are not curious2 enough to observe the admirable adjustment of ultimate causes. They remain unacquainted with a first and supreme Creator, that infinitely perfect Spirit who, alone and by almighty will, bestowed order on the whole system of Nature. Such a magnificent idea is too big for their narrow conceptions which are neither able to observe the beauty of the work, nor to comprehend the grandeur of its Author. They conceive their deities, however potent and invisible, to be a species of human creatures, perhaps elevated from among common humanity, but retaining human passions and appetites, together with corporeal limbs and organs. Such limited beings, although masters of human fate, are hence incapable of extending their influence everywhere. They thus require to be vastly multiplied to cover the sheer variety of events happening over the whole face of Nature, every place being stored with a crowd of local deities. It is thus that polytheism has prevailed – and still prevails – among the greatest part of uninstructed humankind.

The following lines of Euripides are so much to the present purpose that I cannot forbear quoting them:

There is nothing secure in the world; no glory, no prosperity. The gods throw all life into confusion… so that all of us, from ignorance and uncertainty, may pay them the more worship and reverence.3

Any of the human emotions may lead us into the notion of invisible, intelligent power. Hope will do this as well as fear; gratitude as well as affliction. However, if we examine our own hearts or observe what passes around us, we shall find that people are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the pleasant passions. Prosperity is calmly received as our due and few questions are asked concerning its cause or author. It begets cheerfulness, activity, alacrity and a lively enjoyment of every social and sensual pleasure. While in this state of mind, individuals have little leisure1 or inclination to think of the unknown, invisible regions. On the other hand, each disastrous accident alarms them and starts them enquiring into the principles whence it arose. Apprehensions spring up with regard to futurity. The mind, now sunk into apathy, terror and melancholy, has recourse to every method of appeasing those secret intelligent powers upon whom our fortunes are entirely supposed to depend.

No subject matter is more frequent with all popular2 divines than the advantages of affliction in bringing people to a due sense of religion. This they do by subduing that confidence and sensuality* which, in times of prosperity, make them forgetful of a divine providence. Nor is this topic confined to modern religions; the ancients also employed it. Thus the Greek historian Diodorus:

Fortune has never liberally and without envy bestowed an unmixed happiness on humankind. With all her gifts she has always conjoined some disastrous circumstance, in order to chastise people into a reverence for the gods whom, in a continued course of prosperity, they are apt to neglect and forget.3

What age or period of life is the most addicted to superstition? The weaker and more timid. Which sex? The same answer must be given. Thus Strabo writes:4

The leaders and examples of every kind of superstition are the women. These excite the supplications and the observance of religious days. It is rare to meet with one that lives apart from the females, yet is addicted to such practices. Nothing can, for this reason, be more improbable than the account given of an order of men among the Getes who practised celibacy and were, notwithstanding, the most religious fanatics.1

This is a process of reasoning that would lead us to entertain a bad idea of the devotion of monks. However, we know by experience, perhaps not so common in Strabo’s day, that one may practise celibacy and profess chastity and yet maintain the closest connections and most entire sympathy with that timorous and pious sex.

SECTION IV:

Deities not considered as Creators or Formers of the world.

The only point of theology where we shall find almost universal agreement is that there exists in the world, invisible, intelligent power. In popular systems of theology, however, there is the widest difference as to whether this power is supreme or subordinate; and whether confined to one Being or distributed among several. There is further disagreement as to what attributes, qualities, associations and principles of action are ascribable to such beings on all of these points.

Before the revival of letters,2 our ancestors in Europe believed – as we do at present – that there was one supreme God, the author of Nature. Its power, though in itself uncontrollable, was however often exerted by the interposition of angels and subordinate ministers who executed its sacred purposes. However, our ancestors believed that all Nature was also full of other invisible powers such as fairies, goblins, elves and sprites. These beings were stronger and mightier than people, though much inferior to the celestial beings who surrounded the throne of God.

Now, suppose that in those ages, anyone were to deny the existence of God and the angels. Would not this impiety have justly deserved the appellation of atheism,3 even though they still accepted, by some odd capricious reasoning, that the popular stories of elves and fairies were accurate and well-grounded? The difference between such a person and a genuine theist is infinitely greater than that between him and someone who absolutely denies all invisible intelligent power. It is a fallacy to place, through the casual resemblance of names, such opposite opinions under the same denomination, when unaccompanied by any conformity of meaning.

To anyone who considers the matter fairly, it will appear that all the gods of polytheists are no better than the elves or fairies of our ancestors, equally undeserving of pious worship or veneration. Polytheists, as pretended* religionists, are thus really a species of superstitious atheists. They acknowledge no being that corresponds to our idea of the Deity; no first principle of mind or thought; no supreme government and administration; no divine construction or intention in the fabric of the world.

The Chinese beat their idols when their prayers are not answered.1 The deities of the Laplanders are any large stones of extraordinary shape with which they meet.2 Egyptian mythologists, in order to account for animal worship, said that the gods, pursued by the violence of Earth-born humans who were their enemies, had been obliged to disguise themselves as beasts.3 The Caunii, a nation in Asia Minor, having resolved to admit no strange** gods, would regularly assemble fully armed and beat the air with their lances. They proceeded in that manner to their frontiers in order, they said, to expel foreign deities.4 ‘Not even the immortal gods,’ said some German nations to Caesar, ‘are a match for the Suevi.’5

In Homer, Dione says to Venus, wounded by Diomedes:

Many ills, my daughter, have the gods inflicted on people – and many ills, in return, have people inflicted on the gods.1

We only have to open any classic author to meet with these gross representations of the deities. Longinus observes with reason that such ideas of the divine nature, if literally taken, contain a true atheism.2

Some writers have expressed surprise that the impieties of Aristophanes should have been tolerated, indeed publicly acted and applauded by the Athenians.3 The latter were a people so superstitious and so fiercely protective of their public religion that, at the same time, they were executing Socrates for his imagined incredulity. These writers, however, do not believe that Aristophanes’ ludicrously familiar images of the gods appeared impious, or were the genuine lights by which the ancients conceived their divinities.

What conduct can be more criminal, or mean, than that of Jupiter in the Amphitryon?4 Yet that play, representing his gallant* exploits, was imagined so agreeable to him that it was always acted in Rome by public authority when the State was threatened with pestilence, famine, or any general calamity.5 The Romans supposed that, like all old lechers, he would be highly pleased with this recital of his former feats of prowess and vigour and that there was no more appropriate topic upon which to flatter his vanity.

Xenophon6 says that in wartime the Lacedaemonians always put up their petitions to the gods very early in the morning. This was in order to be ahead of their enemies by being the first of the day’s petitioners, thus preengaging the gods in their favour. We gather from Seneca the Younger that it was usual for worshippers in the temples to try to influence the beadle or sexton so as to obtain a seat near the image of the deity. This was in order to be best heard in their prayers and applications to it.1

The people of Tyre, besieged by Alexander, threw chains over their statue of Hercules to prevent that deity from deserting to the enemy.2 Augustus, having twice lost his fleet in storms, forbad the carrying of Neptune in processions with the other gods, reckoning that he had thus sufficiently revenged himself.3 After the death of Germanicus the people were so enraged at their gods that they stoned them in their temples and openly renounced all allegiance to them.4

To ascribe the origin and fabric of the Universe to these imperfect beings never enters into the imagination of any polytheist or idolater. Hesiod, whose writings together with those of Homer contained the canonical system of the heathens, supposes both gods and people to have sprung equally from the unknown powers of Nature. Throughout the whole of Hesiod’s Theogony, Pandora5 is the only instance of a creation, a voluntary production, formed by the gods merely to despite* Prometheus who presented humankind with stolen celestial fire. Indeed, ancient mythologists seem to have always embraced the idea of birth out of something else,6 rather than a full-blown creation or formation. Thus they accounted for the origin of the Universe.

Ovid lived in a learned age and had been instructed by philosophers in the principles of a divine creation, or formation of the world. Finding that such an idea would not agree with the popular mythology of his writings he left it, as it were, loose and detached from his system. Quisquis fuit ille deorum1 says he, dissipated the chaos and introduced order. He knew it could neither be Saturn, nor Jupiter, nor Neptune, nor any of the received* deities of paganism. His theological system had taught him nothing upon that score and he leaves the matter equally undetermined.

Diodorus Siculus, beginning his historical work by enumerating the most reasonable opinions concerning the origin of the world, makes no mention of a Deity or intelligent Mind.2

However, it is evident from his History that he was much more prone to superstition than to irreligion. Talking of the Ichthyophagi,3 a nation in India, he says that there being such great difficulty in accounting for their descent, we must conclude them to be aborigines4 They have thus no beginning to their descent, having propagated their race from all eternity, as some physiologers5 have justly observed in their works on the origin of Nature.6

Diodorus adds:

But in such subjects as these, that exceed all human capacity, it may well happen that those who discourse the most, know the least. They reach a specious appearance of truth in their reasonings while extremely wide of the real truth and matters of fact.7

To our eyes, this is a strange sentiment to be embraced by a professed and zealous religionist. The same author, who can thus account for the origin of the world without a Deity, esteems it impious to explain the common accidents of life from physical causes! Earthquakes, inundations and tempests he devoutly ascribes to the anger of Jupiter or Neptune; plain proof of whence he derived his ideas of religion.

But it was merely by accident that, in ancient times, the question of world origins ever entered into religious systems, or was examined by theologians. Philosophers alone professed to deliver such systems, but it was also pretty late before even they came to the notion of a Mind or supreme Intelligence as the first Cause of all. To account for the origin of things without a Deity was so far from impiety in those days that Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus and others who embraced that system of universal origins, did so unchallenged. Indeed, Anaxagoras, the first undoubted theist among the philosophers, was perhaps also the first ever to be accused of atheism.1 It will be easy to give a reason why Thales, Anaximander and those early philosophers – who really were atheists – might be orthodox in the pagan creed; and why Anaxagoras and Socrates, though real theists, must have naturally been reckoned impious in ancient times.

The blind, unguided powers of Nature, if they could produce humankind, might also produce such beings as Jupiter and Neptune. These beings, the most powerful and intelligent in the world, would be proper objects of worship. But where a supreme Intelligence is admitted as the first Cause of all, these capricious beings – if existing at all – must appear highly subordinate and dependent. Consequently, they must be excluded from the ranks of deities. Plato2 assigns this reason for the imputation* thrown at Anaxagoras, namely his denying the divinity of the stars, planets and other created objects.

We are told by Sextus Empiricus3 that Epicurus, when a boy, was reading with his tutor these lines of Hesiod:

Eldest of beings, Chaos first arose;

Next Earth, wide – stretch’d, the seat of all…4

The young scholar first displayed his inquisitive genius, by asking, ‘And whence Chaos?’ – only to be told that he must turn to philosophers for a solution to such questions. After this hint, Epicurus abandoned philology** – and indeed all other studies – in order to devote himself to the study of philosophy. Here alone he could anticipate satisfaction in dealing with such sublime subjects.

With philologists and mythologists scarcely ever displaying much penetration, the common run of humanity were never likely to push their researches far, or to derive their systems of religion from reason. Even the philosophers who discoursed on such topics readily assented to the grossest theories, accepting the joint origin of gods and people from: night; chaos; fire; water; air, or from whatever they had established to be the ruling element.

Nor was it only in respect of their first origin, that the gods were supposed dependent on the powers of Nature. Throughout the whole period of their existence they were subjected to the dominion of fate or destiny.

Think of the force of necessity,’ says Agrippa to the Roman people, ‘that force to which even the gods must submit.’1

The younger Pliny, conforming to this way of thinking, tells us that amidst the darkness, horror, and confusion of the first eruption of Vesuvius, several individuals concluded that all Nature was going to wrack, with both gods and humans perishing together in one common ruin.2

It would be a great complaisance* indeed, were we to dignify with the name of religion such an imperfect system of theology as polytheism, putting it on a level with later systems founded on more just and sublime principles.

For my part, I can scarcely accept that the principles of even Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch and certain other Stoics and Academics are worthy of the honourable appellation of theism, despite being much more refined than pagan superstition. For if heathen mythology resembles the ancient European system of spiritual beings, excluding God and angels and leaving only fairies and sprites; so the creed of these philosophers may equally and fairly be said to exclude a Deity – and to leave us with only angels and fairies.

SECTION V:

Various Forms of Polytheism: Allegory, Hero-Worship

Our present business is chiefly to consider the gross polytheism of common humanity and to trace1 its various appearances in the principles of human nature whence they are derived. Whoever learns2 by argument of the existence of invisible intelligent power is reasoning from the admirable construction of natural objects and regards the world as the workmanship of that divine Being, the original Cause of all things. The common polytheist, however, is so far from accepting that idea, that he deifies every part of the Universe, conceiving all conspicuous productions of Nature to be themselves real divinities. The sun, moon, and stars are all gods according to this system. Fountains are inhabited by nymphs, and trees by Hamadryads.3 Even monkeys, dogs, cats and other animals may become sacred and generate religious veneration. Hence, however strong the propensity to believe in an invisible, intelligent power in Nature, polytheists have an equally strong tendency to focus their attention on sensible* and visible objects. It is in order to reconcile these opposite inclinations that they unite the invisible power with some visible object.

Furthermore, the distribution of distinct areas of responsibility to the various deities results in the entry of allegory, both physical and moral, into the common systems of polytheism. Thus the god of war will naturally be represented as furious, cruel, and impetuous; the god of poetry as elegant, polite, and amiable and the god of merchandise, especially in early times, as thievish and deceitful.

The allegories conjectured by Homer and other mythologists have, I accept, often been so strained that people of sense tend to reject them as entirely imaginary, the conceptions of critics and commentators. On the slightest reflection, however, it is undeniable that allegory really has a place in heathen mythology: Cupid is the son of Venus; the Muses are the daughters of Memory; Prometheus is the wise brother and Epimetheus the foolish1 Hygeia, goddess of health, is the daughter of Aesculapius, god of medicine. Who cannot but observe allegory in these and in many other instances?