Arthur B. Moss

“ All actions either have an evil or a good result. Every deed leaves its indelible impress on the book of Nature, from which no leaves can be torn and nothing can be expunged. And remember, too, that the man who makes his fellow-creatures happy cannot displease a god who is good; and a god who is not good is neither deserving of admiration nor service.
An infinite and all-powerful god cannot need the assistance of man; but man needs the assistance of his brothers and sisters to diffuse the glorious light of knowledge through the world ”

“ Surely an infinite fiend could not do worse; and if I thought that Nature were intelligent, that Nature knew of the suffering she inflicted on all kinds of living beings and had the power to prevent it, but would not, I would curse Nature even though the curse involved for me a sudden and painful death. ”

“ But these gods were of no more service to man than those that preceded them. If man advanced it was by his own effort, by virtue of using his intelligence, by strife, warfare, and by suffering.
Neither Nature nor the gods taught man to be truthful, honest, just, nor even to be clean. No god came to tell him that he must not lie, nor steal, nor murder.. All virtues are acquired, all are the result of education. ”

“ And I say that the world is indebted far more to those who built houses, made clothes, navigated ships, made machinery, wrote books, than to all the gods and their clerical representatives the world has ever known. Belief in god never helped a man to supersede the sailing vessel by the steamship, the old coach by the railroad, the scythe by the reaping machine, nor the fastest locomotion by the telegraph wires. ”

“ When it is remembered, however, that if man is indebted in any way to Jahveh for his existence, he owes him only the exact equivalent of the benefits he has received, I think it will be seen that on the whole man's indebtedness to this deity is very small indeed.
Was Adam indebted to Jahveh for the imperfect nature which compelled him to commit the so-called sin which imperilled the future destiny of human race? Were all the "miserable sinners"—the descendants of the first pair—indebted to Jahveh for their "corrupt" natures? ”

“ In fact he advanced in the road of civilisation only in proportion as he offered ceaseless war against the hurtful forces of nature, using one force to counteract the destructive character of another. Think what the earth must have been without a solitary house upon it, without a man who yet knew how to till the soil! ”

“ And so it must now be said that man is master of Nature, and he finds that she is just as good as a servant as she was bad as a master.
But the earth is not yet a Paradise. Theology is not yet entirely banished; the debris of the decayed beliefs still cumber our path and impede our progress. There is even now much that remains to be done. Plenty of labor to be performed. Ignorance, poverty, and crime and misery still exist and exert their evil influence in the world. The philanthropist and the reformer have still their work to do. ”

“ It is the same in Nature. You can go back, and back, and back through successive causes and effects, but you will never come to a "first cause"; you will not be able to say "here is the end of Nature, and here the beginning of something else." There is no brick wall to mark the boundary line of Nature. You cannot "look through Nature up to Nature's God,"—the poet Pope notwithstanding—for Nature seems endless, and you can neither penetrate her heights nor fathom her depths. And I have one other word to say in reference to this à priori method, before finally disposing of it. ”

“ Think of the many who are killed or injured on railways every year. Think of men and boys who injure or destroy their limbs in machinery during the performance of their daily work. Think of the thousands who find a premature and watery grave. In one of our London workhouses I saw recently a young man who had met with a dreadful accident; who had had his hand frightfully lacerated by a circular saw, which will prevent him from ever working again. Think of his suffering. Think of the misery his wife and children will have to bear on account of it. ”

“ He was neither all-wise, nor all-good, nor all-powerful, and he was only a finite being. And how can it be pretended by sensible persons that a finite man living on the earth, born of a woman, and dying like any other ordinary being, could possibly be the infinite god of the Universe? ”

“ The design argument therefore is purely an argument drawn from experience. But what experience has man of god? Speaking for myself I can say that I have absolutely no experience of him at all, and I am not acquainted with anybody who has. Man does not know god as a designer or constructor; he neither knows of his capabilities, nor his existence; and he therefore cannot reasonably say that god is the designer of anything.
The human eye is very often adduced by the Theist as an illustration of design. Now nobody can deny that the eye is a delicate, complicated, and beautiful structure ”

“ Some said that god's existence was self-evident to every intelligent mind; others that Nature and men could not have come by "chance"; that they must have had a cause; some said that the harmony existing in the universe proved god's existence; others that everybody except fools "felt in their hearts" that there was a god. But these imaginary proofs did not always convince. At last there came forth philosophers who said that there was a mode of reasoning, the adoption of which "leads irresistibly up to the belief in god," and that that mode was called the mode à priori. ”

“ Men having given up the worship of Nature, began to study her; they found that by diligent investigation, and the application of their augmented knowledge, they were able to beautify the world, and render their lives happy. Then we began to have great scientific discoveries. Navigation, steam-power, telegraphy, electricity; by a knowledge of the use of these powers man has been able to conquer the destructive character of many natural forces, and to transfer a world of misery into a home of comparative comfort. ”

“ And so it is said that when we look around the world and see how beautifully things are designed, the eye to see, the ear to hear; how admirably things are adapted the one to the other, are we not justified by similar reasoning in concluding that these are the productions of an almighty and infinite designer? Briefly stated that is the argument. Now let me examine it. And in the first place it will be observed that it is assumed that there is a great resemblance between the works of Nature and the artistic works of man. ”

“ Now in Nature there is a permanent and a changeable-element, but man only takes cognisance of the changeable or phenomenal element; of the substratum underlying phenomena he knows and can know nothing whatever; that is, man does not know what matter and force are in themselves in the abstract, he only knows them in the concrete, as they affect him through the medium of his senses.
Now I allege that nearly all the mistakes of theology have arisen from the ignorance of man in regard to Nature and her mode of operation. Let us consider for a moment a few facts in reference to man. ”

“ But Nature heareth not man's protests or appeals—she is blind to his sufferings and deaf to his prayers.
Oh, but it's said: "See what harmony there is in the Universe:" per se there is neither harmony nor chaos in Nature; we call that harmony which pleasantly affects us, and that chaos which does the reverse. Some Theist may say: "Suppose that I grant that I cannot prove that god exists, what then? You cannot prove your own existence, and yet you believe that you exist." I am well aware that I cannot prove my own existence ”

“ But though the monotheist believed only in one god, that did not prevent others from believing in an entirely different deity. The ancient Jew worshipped Jahveh, but that did not prevent the Baalites from having a god of their own, to whom they could appeal in the hour of need. And just let me here observe that the early monotheist always worshipped an anthropomorphic or man-like deity. And he worshipped such a god because man was the highest being of whom he had any conception. His god was always the counterpart of himself and reflected all the characteristics of his own nature. ”

“ Naturally enough man's first objects of worship were fetishes—gods of wood, stone, trees, fire, water. By-and-bye, however, he came to worship living beings; in fact, any animal that he thought was superior in any way to himself was converted into an object of worship. But none of these gods were of any assistance to him in promoting his advancement in the world. And neither did he receive any assistance from the spontaneous action of Nature. ”

“ One Stephenson is worth a thousand priests—one Edison of more value to the world than all the gods ever pictured by the imagination. And we must not forget the men who freed the human intellect from the fetters of a degrading superstition. ”

“ The first method—à priori—invariably takes the form of an attempt to establish what is called a "Great First Cause."
When it is said that there must be a "first cause" to account for the existence of Nature, such language, to say the least, shows a total misapprehension of the meaning of the word "cause," as used by scientific men. "First cause," as applied to Nature as a whole, remembering the definition I have given, is an absurdity. Cause and effect apply only to phenomena. Each effect is a cause of some subsequent effect, and each cause is an effect of some antecedent cause. ”

“ Man simply moulds natural objects into certain forms; they are then called artificial objects. We know that man designs watches and telescopes; it is a fact within our experience. But there is not the slightest similarity between the process of manufacture and the natural process of growth; so that when we see various objects of Nature, we do hot conclude, however harmoniously the parts may work together, that they were designed. We know a manufactured article from a natural object, we could not mistake the one for the other. ”

“ Mill says: "The sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them, including not only all that happens, but all that is capable of happening—the unused capabilities of matter being as much a part of the idea of Nature as those which take effect." But the word Nature is often used, and rightly used, to distinguish the "natural" from the "artificial" object—that is, to indicate the difference between a thing produced spontaneously by Nature, from a thing wrought by the skill and labor of man. ”

“ Now, either god does not wish man to believe in him, or if he does he lacks the power to produce conviction. O Theist—you who profess to be conversant with the ways of the almighty—explain to me, now, how it is that in proportion as men cultivate their minds and reason on theological questions that the tendency is for them to disbelieve even in the ethereal deity of modern Theism. ”

“ If god only "helps those who help themselves," he might as well leave the helping alone, because even as we find the world to-day, the whole of life seems to be based on the principle that, "unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have in abundance, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." ”

“ I deny that man has ever been in any way indebted to such a god, and I say moreover that such a deity never had any real existence, except in the base imaginations of ignorant and brutal men. But the next stage was from the material to the spiritual god. Many ages must have elapsed before this more elevating though equally absurd belief became to be accepted, even by a small minority of mankind. ”

“ Think how many are born blind and how many become sightless on account of disease. Think of the deaf and the dumb, and of the poor idiots who pass a dreary and useless existence in asylums. Then think of the accidents to which all men are liable. ”

“ If you would be happy you must act virtuously—act as you would desire all others to do to promote your happiness. Say to yourselves: "if every one were to act as I am doing, would the world be benefited?" and if you come to the opinion that the world would not be improved by such conduct, depend upon it your actions are not good. Remember that once you perform a deed in Nature it is irrevocable ”

“ But it must not be supposed that the artificial object forms no part of Nature. All art belongs to Nature. Art simply means the adaptation, the moulding into certain forms of the things of Nature, and therefore the artistic productions of man are included in the comprehensive sense of the term Nature which I just now used. ”

“ Up to now it would be pretty safe to say that man was destitute of all ideas concerning the existence of god or gods. But he advances one stage further, and his thoughts begin to take something like definite shape. He forms for himself a theory as to the cause of the events happening about him. And now the reign of the gods begins. Man is still a naked savage ”

“ Man knows nothing whatever of cause except in the sense' that in the immediate antecedent of an effect. Man's experience is of effects; these he takes cognisance of; of these he has some knowledge, but of cause, except as a means to an end, he has none. But this brings me to the second mode of reasoning in proof of God's existence, the à posteriori and this has one advantage in its favor, and that is, that it is a scientific method. It reasons from known effects up to the supposed causes of them. Now this generally assumes the form, no matter under what guise, of the famous "design argument." ”