Infidelity in the US
I for one, can say I was once “a believer,” and I have not lost the knowledge—if knowledge it may be called—which made me such, but I have acquired MORE, and this has made me an infidel.
This is an 1833 editorial by Dr. Charles Knowlton, a frequent contributor to the Boston Investigator. There are several letters from Knowlton like this one, that are usually not connected with him; although no one has really tried to collect his writings yet. All the spelling and emphasis is from the 1833 original. I don’t have the exact date, but I’ll swing back around to the Antiquarian Society and pick it up sometime. This is nearly 200 years old, but a lot of the material about the state of religion and infidelity in America could have been written last week:
“INFIDELITY IN THE UNITED STATES.”
Such is the caption of an article in the Boston Mercantile of the 8th inst. Which article is such a heterogenus [sic] compound of error, truth, and scandal, that it must be attended to; else—as warm weather is approaching—it may shock the SENSE of—some good people! And cause them to turn aside from the broad, free road to truth and MENTAL INDEPENDENCE, in which so many are now beginning to walk.
The writer commences by expressing his opinion, that a free government cannot long exist unless the people are under the influence of the “moral principles of the christian religion.” MORAL principles, ha? What does the fellow mean? Hasn’t he the pluck to say religious principles, in these days of dawning reason and free enquiry? Surely he means religious principles, else why fall into libeling the infidels as if at a days work—as if he expected to make money by it?
Doesn’t he know there is nothing in the bible but paper and black marks? Moral principles are in the man. They are what experience in the world, or what eventually amounts to the same thing—they are what REASON has taught him. And hence it is, that when he meets with an EXPRESSION of them in the bible or any other book, he approves of it. No man admits it is right, for instance, to “do unto others as we would have others do unto us,” because he finds these words, or this precept, in the bible; but because reason has already taught him this moral truth. He as readily assents to this position—this expression of what reason has taught him, when he meets it in the writings of its original author, Confucius, as when he reads it in the new Testament.
Religious principles are what reason does not teach, and hence men differ about them. A religious man may or may not be moral; and a man may be moral, but not religious. When the words MORALITY and RELIGION are properly defined, it will be seen that there is a very marked distinction between them. There are no MORAL principles in the christian religion, any more than there are white hairs in black hairs. But as both white and black hairs may exist on the same head, so may expressions of moral principles and of religious notions, be bound up in the same book.
Now as moral principles are the result of experience—as they are what the great Book of Nature teaches, and as infidels read this book—if not more freely certainly less hampered by prejudice, than others; it is but reasonable to suppose, that, of the two, their moral principles are the best.
At any rate, their avowal of unpopular opinions, as a general thing argues in favour of their honesty. Morality is their only stay—their only claim on public favour. They have no cloak to cover their iniquities—no influential priests to hush up disgraceful affairs. And it is not their privilege to beg the widows’ mite; to demand tithes; to anathematize the philosopher and deprive him of his oath; to stop the mail, (if possible) to shut up shops, and arrest all labor, one day in seven, for the good of souls!
Verily, Verily, I would advise the man of the Mercantile to eat a little mustard! That he may talk no more about the “moral principles of the christian religion” being essential to a FREE government. Does not all history show that where “superstition in fashion” has had the greatest sway, government has been the most oppressive and tyrannical?
“We cannot persuade ourselves,” says the man of the Mercantile, “that the public generally are aware of the immense number (good!) of those who now fight under the black banners of Tom Pain[e] and Robert Owen.” Black banners! Alas, the charges to which our language is subject. I have ever thought that black is emblematical of darkness—ignorance; but here it is coupled with the idea of light—knowledge. What but knowledge sends the dark veil of superstition, which is so industriously drawn over the understandings of almost all persons while young. I for one, can say I was once “a believer,” and I have not lost the knowledge—if knowledge it may be called—which made me such, but I have acquired MORE, and this has made me an infidel.
Speaking of the progress if infidelity, in the United States, the Mercantile says, on the authority of the “Spirit of the Pilgrims,” that “in 1828, the Owen infidels commenced publishing in New York the Free Enquirer, and in 1832 they had enlisted in their cause TWENTY PERIODICALS!” This is cheering. Our march is onward. We have began at the bottom—we are based on truth which dreads not but courts investigation. We have no expensive ceremonies. We free the mind of all its superstitious fears. The happiness of mankind is our object.
“And,” continues the man of Mercantile, “the citizens of Boston are probably aware that Julien Hall has been the scene of their blasphemous and disgusting services.” From what he has said of the MORAL principles of the christian RELIGION! I am not surprised to find that he is not sensible, that blasphemy consists only in speaking disrespectfully of a god in whom you believe. It is not blasphemy for christians to call Mahomet an imposter; nor for infidels to call Moses’ god a tyrant. As to the expression “HAS BEEN the scene” &c. it was doubtless designed to misrepresent. The public may rest assured that free enquiry is steadily on the advance in Boston. Julien Hall continues to be crowded by those who are in search of truth as it is in nature; and their organ, the Investigator, is spreading far and wide.
Having spoken of the progress of infidelity, the Mercantile proceeds to lay before his readers what he calls the leading principles of this “new school of irreligionists.” I shall but briefly notice some of his most glaring misrepresentations. First, That we hold “such a thing as moral truth cannot exist.” This is a lie, unless some very novel meaning is attached to the term, MORAL TRUTH.
Second, “that there is no proof that the soul is immaterial, or that it will survive the body.” We say there is no soul, and challenge all the world to adduce any evidence of the existence of such a thing.
Third, “They deny wholly the doctrine of free moral agency, and the consequent doctrine of responsibility, so that there is no such thing as virtue,—no such thing as crime.” We say there are no effects without causes, either without the head or within, and that one effect as necessarily follows its cause as another. Consequently, man, philosophically speaking, is no more a free agent than a time piece, yet we say, and consistently too, that, morally speaking man is responsible to man for his actions. As to the words virtue and crime, we give them an obvious and certain meaning. We say virtue consists in virtuous conduct or actions, and that virtuous actions are such as are conducive to our own happiness or that of others. Vice or crime we give the opposite meaning. We do NOT say that, “in our actions we ought to be governed by no motive but the desire of doing what will be most useful of agreeable to ourselves individually.” This is but another willful lie.
We do not say “that commerce ought to be DESTROYED; and only a VERY FEW of us hold “that property ought to be equally divided.”
As to “promiscuous intercourse,” so much harped upon by our opponents, as they have said ten times more about it than we have, I, of a truth, begin to believe it accords with their feelings, and that on this account their aim is to make people believe that many enlightened and distinguished characters approve of it. And as to the Slander cast upon the once Miss Frances Wright, while it can do us no harm, it is that which has mostly led me to “answer a fool according to his folly,” in the style of this communication.
C.K.