Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2): With an Account of his Parliamentary Struggle, Politics and Teachings. Seventh EditionRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2): With an Account of his Parliamentary Struggle, Politics and Teachings. Seventh Edition
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Bradlaugh, Charles, 1833-1891
Mr Bradlaugh has often been accused of talking about the "unknowable,"
but a passage from this debate will show in what sense he used the
word--if, indeed, he ever did use it. Referring to the allegation of
creation, he said: "To me creation is a word without meaning; I only
know creation in relation to change. I do not mean by it origination of
substance; I only mean change of condition. I do not mean the bringing
into being that which was not; I only mean the conditioning existence
by characteristics by which I had not hitherto conditioned it. I cannot
conceive the possibility of a period when existence was less than it
is now. I do not mean that because I cannot conceive it, therefore
it is not true. But I do mean that, as I cannot conceive it, you who
say you can are bound to give me your conception of it. Understand me
clearly, I do not put any such monstrous proposition in this debate
as that the inconceivable is therefore the untrue, or that because a
position is inconceivable to me, therefore I have a right to call on
all other men to reject it. But I do put it, that you have no right
to call upon me to accept any position which is inconceivable to me;
that you are bound to tell me how you conceive it before you have a
right to ask me to accept that it is possible." I do not remember to
have heard Mr Bradlaugh speak of the "unknowable;" and that he should
use such a term is quite contrary to the whole of my experience of his
careful methods of speech. In any case the above will serve to show
that he would not be likely to put "any such monstrous proposition," as
that the to him "unknowable" was therefore unknowable to men with wider
means of knowledge.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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