Heresy: Its Utility And Morality. A Plea And A JustificationBradlaugh, Charles
Religion
Heresy: Its Utility And Morality. A Plea And A Justification
Bradlaugh, Charles
Free thought; Heresy
back from the phenomena of the moment to the eternal noumenon or
noumena--from the conditioned to the absolute. Nearly two thousand years
before, the same method had been taught by Aristotle in opposition to
Plato, and probably long thousands of years before the grand Greek,
pre-historic schoolmen had used the method; it is natural to the human
mind. The Stagirite was the founder of a school, Bacon the teacher and
populariser for a nation. Aristotle's Greek was known to few, Bacon's
eloquent English opened out the subject to the many whom he impregnated
with his own confidence in the grand progressiveness of human thought.
Lewes says; "The spirit of his philosophy was antagonistic to Theology,
for it was a spirit of doubt and search; and its search was for visible
and tangible results." Bacon himself, in his essay on Superstition,
says: "Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety,
to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral
virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these,
and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore Atheism
did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as
looking no further; and we see the times inclined to Atheism, as the
time of Augustus Caesar were civil times; but superstition hath been
the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new _primum mobile_ (the
first motive cause), that ravisheth all the spheres of government." It
is true that he also wrote against Atheism, and this in strong language,
but his philosophy was not used for the purpose of proving theological
propositions. He said: "True philosophy is that which is the faithful
echo of the voice of the world, which is written in some sort under the
dictation of things, which adds nothing of itself, which is only the
rebound, the reflection of reality." It has been well said that the
words "Utility and Progress" give the keynotes of Bacon's teachings.
With one other extract we leave his writings. "Crafty men," he says,
"contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for
they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and
above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor
to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse; but to
weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested. Reading maketh a full man;
conference a ready man; and writing an exact man; and therefore, if a
man write little, he need have a great memory; if he confer little, he
need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much
cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise;
poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral,
grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend." He was the father of
experimental philosophy. In one of his suggestions as to the force
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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