A Letter to Sir Samuel Shepherd, Knt., His Majesty's Attorney General: Upon the Subject of His Prosecutions of Richard Carlile, for Publishing Paine's Age of ReasonAnonymous
Philosophy
A Letter to Sir Samuel Shepherd, Knt., His Majesty's Attorney General: Upon the Subject of His Prosecutions of Richard Carlile, for Publishing Paine's Age of Reason
Anonymous
Blasphemy -- Great Britain; Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809. Age of reason; Shepherd, Samuel, Sir, 1760-1840; Trials (Blasphemy) -- Great Britain
When you declaim upon the too great prevalence of infidelity, you speak
a language which implies the insane and monstrous notion that natural
belief is dependent upon the will; whereas it is the known and suggested
reasons which always naturally determine the assent. A man is no more
culpable merely for what he believes, than he is for discovering by the
taste that sugar is sweet and aloes bitter. Your slang when you speak of
infidelity and belief, as virtues or vices, reprehensible or laudable,
would be quite unintelligible to us, if we were not already acquainted
with the tricks and machinations of priests to create prejudice, or
frighten people into an assent to points, which they dare not trust and
submit to the test of fair inquiry.
If the Creator were to require an assent without a sufficient reason to
determine it, he would demand what is contrary to the structure of the
human mind, which was formed by himself: thus he would disorder his own
work, which is a thing incredible. If he has suggested reasons which
would not have been otherwise thought of, let Jesus's priests produce
them, and let them be examined. Then the prosecutions of Deists would be
superfluous, for they would be forced to: believe when the reasons were
found cogent enough. But no such reasons have been hitherto produced:
reason or no reason, the assent is still required. And how shall such
an assent without reasons sufficient be distinguished from what is
universally allowed, by physicians and all others, to be insanity and
mental derangement?
"That the propagators of infidelity are instigated by the Devil." This
assertion, very usual from men in your office, Mr. Attorney-General, you
are unable to prove. And hereby you remind us, that Jesus's followers
universally admit the very absurd notion of two principles in the
universe, a good and a bad one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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