Flowers of Freethought (First Series)Foote, G. W. (George William)
Religion
Flowers of Freethought (First Series)
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Free thought
Let us take an instance. Suppose some one asserts that a man can jump
over the moon. No one can demonstrate that the feat is impossible. It
is _possible_, in the sense that _anything_ is possible. But this is
theoretical logic. According to practical logic it is impossible, in the
sense that no rational man would take a ticket for the performance.
Why then does Professor Huxley press the "possibility" of miracles
against his Freethinking friends? He is not advancing a step beyond
David Hume. He is merely straining logical formulæ in the interest of
the Black Army.
Now let us take another instance. In a recent letter to the _Times_,
with respect to the famous letter of the thirty-eight clergymen who
have given the Bible a fresh certificate, Professor Huxley is once more
careful to point out that science knows nothing of "the primal origin"
of the universe. But who ever said that it did? Atheists, at any
rate, are not aware that the universe ever _had_ an origin. As to
the "ultimate cause of the evolutionary process," it seems to us
mere metaphysical jargon, as intolerable as anything in the mounding
phraseology of the theologians.
But this is not all. Professor Huxley delivers himself of the following
utterance: "In fact it requires some depth of philosophical incapacity
to suppose that there is any logical antagonism between Theism and
the doctrine of Evolution." This is food and drink to a paper like
the _Christian World_. But what does it mean? Certainly there is no
antagonism between the terms "Theism" and "Evolution." They do not
fight each other in the dictionary. But is there not antagonism between
Evolution and any kind of Theism yet formulated? The word "God" means
anything or nothing. Give your God attributes, and see if they are
consistent with Evolution. That is the only way to decide whether there
is any "logical antagonism" between Evolution and Theism. The trouble
begins when you are "logical" enough to deal in definitions; and the
only definition of God that will stand the test of Evolution is "a sort
of a something."
We leave Professor Huxley to present that highly edifying Theistic
conclusion to his old theological opponents, and, if he likes, to flaunt
it in the faces of his Freethinking friends. But is it really worth
while for Samson to grind chaff for the Philistines? We put the question
to Professor Huxley with all seriousness. Let him teach truth and smite
falsehood, without spending so much time in showing that they harmonise
when emptied of practical meaning. A sovereign and a feather fall with
equal rapidity in a vacuum; and if you take away fact and experience,
one proposition is as "possible" as another. But why should a great man
waste his energies in propagating such a barren truism?
THE GOSPEL OF FREETHOUGHT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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