Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation: Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert SpencerJones, Jesse Henry
Religion
Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation: Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer
Another fault in Mr. Spencer's philosophy, one which he will be less
willing to admit, perhaps, than the above, and, at the same time, one
which will be more likely forcibly to move a certain class of mind, is,
that it is in direct antagonism to human nature. Not only is the Bible a
falsehood and a cheat, if Mr. Spencer's philosophical system is true,
but human nature is equally a falsehood and a cheat. To specify. Human
nature universally considers God, or its gods, as persons; or, in other
words, all human beings, or at least with very rare exceptions,
spontaneously ascribe personality to Deity. This position is in no wise
negatived by the fact of the Buddhist priesthood of India, or of a class
of philosophical atheists in any other country. Man is endowed with the
power of self-education; and if an individual sees, in the religion in
which he is brought up, some inconsistency, which he, thinking it, as it
may be, integral, for philosophical reasons rejects, and all religion
with it, he may educate himself into speculative atheism. But no child
is an atheist. Not even Shelley became such, until he had dashed against
some of the distorted and monstrous _human_ theologies of his day. But
counting all the Buddhists, and all the German atheists, and all the
English atheists, and all the American atheists, and all other atheists
wherever they may be found, they will not number one tenth of the human
race. On what ground can the unanimity of the other nine tenths be
accounted for? There appears none possible, but that the notion that God
is a person, _is organic in human nature_. Another equally universal and
spontaneous utterance of mankind is, that there is a likeness, in some
way, between God and man. There are the grossest, and in many instances
most degrading modes of representing this; but under them all, and
through them all, the indelible notion appears. The unanimity and
pertinacity of this notion, appearing in every part of the globe, and
under every variety of circumstance, and reappearing after every
revolution, which, tearing down old customs and worships, established
new ones, can without doubt only be accounted for on the precise ground
of the other,--that the notion _is organic in man_. A third utterance of
the human race, standing in the same category with these two, is, that
the Deity can be propitiated by sacrifice. This also has had revolting,
yea most hideous and unrighteous forms of expression, even to human
sacrifices. But the notion has remained indestructible through all ages,
and must therefore be accounted for, as have been the others. Over
against the I AM, which human nature presents and the Bible supports;
over against Him in whose image man and the Bible say man was created;
and over against Him who, those two still agreeing witnesses also
affirm, is moved by his great heart of Love to have mercy on those
creatures who come to him with repentance, Mr. Spencer gives us, as the
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