Democritus

“ Colour itself is not objective; it is found not in the ultimate plenum and vacuum, but only in derived objects according to their physical qualities and relations.
4. Theology.—The system of Democritus was altogether anti-theistic. But, although he rejected the notion of a deity taking part in the creation or government of the universe, he yielded to popular prejudice so far as to admit the existence of a class of beings, of the same form as men, grander, composed of very subtle atoms, less liable to dissolution, but still mortal, dwelling in the upper regions of air. ”

“ Sextus Empiricus, explaining the doctrine of Democritus, says, “that sensible qualities, according to that philosopher, have nothing of reality but in the opinion of those who are differently affected by them, according to the different dispositions of their organs ”

“ But there lies a big mistake, my dear boy. Democritus was as much a philosopher as Heraclitus, and he lived fifty years longer. There is a good deal of philosophy behind a laugh, and we put our gargoyles on the outside of our churches. ”

“ Look to the developments of modern thought, to some of the speculations of modern science, to the spirit which animates much of our popular literature, not in our country but in all countries, even in the schools of the prophets and among men who are "more advanced," as they think, in learning, and if you do not see a tendency to the revival of an attractive but exploded philosophy,--the philosophy of Democritus ”

“ To return to the early philosophers, who were mostly materialists, the record of their speculations is an interesting chapter in the history of rationalism. Two great names may be selected, Heraclitus and Democritus, because they did more perhaps than any of the others, by sheer hard thinking, to train reason to look upon the universe in new ways and to shock the unreasoned conceptions of common sense. ”

“ Democritus also taught, that the images of objects are emanations of the Deity, and are themselves divine; and that our very mental ideas are so too. Whether the doctrine be true or erroneous is not here a subject of inquiry: the present purpose being merely to show the analogy between the principles of Mallebranche and those of the ancients. ”

“ Then you have recourse to those natural philosophers who are so greatly ridiculed in the Academy, but whom you will not even now desist from quoting. And you tell us that Democritus says that there are a countless number of worlds, and that there are some which are not only so like one another, but so completely and absolutely equal in every point, that there is no difference whatever between them, and that they are quite innumerable; and so also are men. ”

“ And, therefore, the natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of Nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me (as far as I can judge by the recital and fragments which remain unto us) in particularities of physical causes more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato; ”

“ But here we have the theory of Democritus combined with that of Prodicus in that it is maintained that from the skies come also those things that benefit men, and that they are on this account also a suitable dwelling-place for the gods. ”

“ Whoever you may be, I caution you against rashly defaming the author of this work, or cavilling in jest against him. Nay, do not silently reproach him in consequence of others' censure, nor employ your wit in foolish disapproval, or false accusation. For, should Democritus Junior prove to be what he professes, even a kinsman of his elder namesake, or be ever so little of the same kidney, it is all over with you: he will become both accuser and judge of you in your spleen, will dissipate you in jests, pulverise you into salt, and sacrifice you, I can promise you, to the God of Mirth.
I further advise you, not to asperse, or calumniate, or slander, Democritus Junior, who possibly does not think ill of you, lest you may hear from some discreet friend, the same remark the people of Abdera did from Hippocrates, of their meritorious and popular fellow-citizen, whom they had looked on as a madman; ”

“ In the countries in which this intellectual disintegration has been, as it were, consecrated, since the commencement of the revolutionary era in the sixteenth century, by the political preponderance of Protestantism, diversities of thought, without being less intense, have been much more numerous, the popular mind having given itself over, in the absence of any energetic spiritual authority, to the indefinite discussion of religious opinions, which, of course, are at once the vaguest and the most discordant of all. ”

“ But now another very keen temptation beset me, respecting the doctrine of eternal election, and its attendant reprobation. This was painted to me, in the most horrible terms, as the most cruel and unjust act, such as could never be attributed to a merciful God. Erroneous books, preachers, professors, carnal reason, and the devil, all combined to oppose it. A very plain reason that the doctrine is of God—or else such would never oppose it; if the doctrine was of the world, the world would love its own—but, because it is of God, therefore they hate it. ”

“ To find people who believe honestly in antiquated prejudices, you must go to the people who have been trained to believe them. An ecclesiastical seminary can manage to drill the pupils into professing absurdities from which average common sense would shrink, and only supply logical machinery for warring against reason. The reference to enlightened aristocracies is common enough; but I cannot discover that, "taken in a lump," any particular aristocracy cannot be as narrow-minded, short-sighted, and selfish, as the most rampant democracy. ”

“ Instead of being only the description of a strong and just ruler, an exceptional man, indeed a unique man—the liberating Messiah whom the Jews longed for—the description now becomes that of the ordinary Christian. Every one is expected to show these ruling qualities, just because he is a Christian. Here then is the banner of democracy unfurled, ages before it had come into practical politics! Democracy has as a matter of fact always followed in the wake of Christianity, and has never existed in any but Christian nations. ”

“ It seems to me that it cannot last, as nothing can endure, or ought to endure, that is not founded upon principle; and its principle I have not discovered. In nothing, whether it be religion, or government, or manners, sacred or political or social life, do I find faith; and if there be no faith, how can there be duty? Is there such a thing as religious truth? Is there such a thing as political right? ”

“ Since when have they forgotten that if the Roman or any other church plants the seed of superstition, liberty sows broadcast the seed of enlightenment? [Applause.] Do they no longer believe in the invincible spirit of inquiry, which characterizes the reformatory age? If the struggle be fair, can the victory be doubtful? As to religious fanaticism, it will prosper under oppression; it will feed on persecution; it will grow strong by proscription; but it is powerless against genuine democracy. ”

“ How many men can you get fairly to consider the political position of his opponent? He not only doubts the rightness and the sense of it, but he is ready to deny it. How many people can you get fairly to weigh the position of one who occupies a religious home different from their own? And these religious prejudices, being bound up with the tenderest and noblest sentiments, feelings, and traditions of the human heart, become the strongest of all, and so are in more danger of standing in the way of human progress than anything else in all the world. ”

“ This dogma was composed of an aggregate of somewhat inconsistent elements. Nature, the rights of man, liberty, equality, the social contract, hatred of tyrants, and popular sovereignty formed the articles of a gospel which, to its disciples, was above discussion. The new truths had found apostles who were certain of their power, and who finally, like believers all the world over, sought to impose them by force. No heed should be taken of the opinion of unbelievers; they all deserved to be exterminated. ”

“ Theocracy must be the creed of one class, and atheism of the second. The advocates of good moral principles, such as truth, freedom of religion, knowledge, limitation of power and equal Fights, cannot be atheists; and the advocates of evil moral principles, such as fraud, force, ignorance, despotism and exclusive privileges, cannot be believers. ”

“ In the department of conscience, see what a love of justice developes itself in all Christendom; see the results of this for the last hundred years ; in the reform of laws, of constitutions, in the great political, social, and domestic revolutions of our time. Men have clearer ideas of justice; they would have a church without a bishop, a State without a king, society without a lord, and a family without a slave. From this troublesome conscience comes the uneasiness of the Christian world. A revolution is a nation's act of penitence, of resolution, and of prayer,—its agony and bloody sweat. ”

“ Where is their conscience, then, when, for the sake of money, they disseminate the works of Renan, Strauss, Büchner, and other infidels and atheists, which are sapping the foundations of religion and morality, and poisoning the public mind? Where is the public conscience [pg 575] which tolerates this? And why do not the Protestant periodicals, newspapers, synods and conventions, pulpits and lecturing rostrums, resound with a cry of alarm, warning and denunciation? Have they lost all interest and all courage in the matter, or are they going over to the enemy? ”

“ Before I examine or refute these Doctrines, I must a little make some Observations upon his Words.
10First, He saith, that by the law of God, Power is immediately in the People; hereby he makes God to be the immediate Author of a Democratical Estate; for a Democrasy is nothing else but the Power of the Multitude. If this be true, not only Aristocracies, but all Monarchies are altogether unlawful, as being ordained (as he thinks) by Men, whenas God himself hath chosen a Democracy. ”

“ Christianity is a denaturalisation of gregarious morality: under the power of the most complete misapprehensions and self-deceptions. Democracy is a more natural form of it, and less sown with falsehood. It is a fact that the oppressed, the low, and whole mob of slaves and half-castes, will prevail. ”

“ We are meeting again the oldest and the strongest political plea of the demagogue, so often shown to be the most fallacious and dangerous doctrine that has ever appeared among men, that the people are infallible and can do no wrong, that their cry must be taken as the voice of God, and that whatever at any time seems to be the will of the majority, however ignorant and prejudiced, must be accepted as gospel. ”

“ Democracy is Christianity made natural: a sort of "return to Nature," once Christianity, owing to extreme anti-naturalness, might have been overcome by the opposite valuation. Result: the aristocratic ideal begins to lose its natural character ("the higher man," "noble," "artist," "passion," "knowledge"; Romanticism as the cult of the exceptional, genius, etc. etc.) .
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When the "masters" may also become Christians.—It is of the nature of a community (race, family, herd, tribe) to regard all those conditions and aspirations which favour its survival, as in themselves valuable ”

“ All which opinions are a contradiction to religion and scripture, an affront to common-sense, and utterly destructive of all civil and religious liberty, and of all human happiness: Nor would any of them, or any like them, have ever entered into the heart of any man, unless he were first deceived, or found his account in deceiving. ”

“ And when the despots and Statesmen of the old world tell us they cannot understand our institutions—and our Government which are the peculiar results of Liberty they declare the honest truth of their minds. It is foolishness unto them; a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; just as Christianity in her simplicity and purity was to the philosophers of Greece and Rome, as well as to the Jewish scribe, pharisee and priest. ”

“ The sensational school quite naturally produced the demagogic party, and the theological school became quite as naturally absolutism, safe to borrow from time to time the mask of the demagogue in order the better to reach its ends, as in philosophy it is by scepticism that it undertakes to restore theocracy. ”

“ We do not feel a religious respect for ‘institutions of democracy’ in their current form, we do not believe in their axiomatic role, as do those who see ‘institutions of democracy’ as a monument for and by themselves. ”

“ Must a revolution be equally necessary in the case of two sorts of Government, and two sorts of Religion, which are the very reverse of each other? opposite in their genius, unlike in their fundamental principles, and widely different in each of their component parts.
That despotism, priestcraft, intolerance, and superstition, are terrible evils, no candid Christian it is presumed will deny; but, blessed be God, though these mischiefs are not yet entirely banished from the face of the earth, they have scarcely any existence in this country. ”

“ The belief in a divine regulation of political affairs, in a mystery in the existence of the State, is of religious origin : if religion dis- appears, the State will inevitably lose its old veil of Isis, and will no longer arouse veneration. The sovereignty of the people, looked at closely, serves also to dispel the final fascination and superstition in the realm of these sentiments; modern democracy is the historical form of the decay of the State. ”

“ Moreover it would be a crime to distort this name of Christian Democracy to politics, for although democracy, both in its pliilological and philosophical significations, implies popular government, yet in its present apphcation it is so to be employed that, removing from it all political significance, it is to mean nothing else than a benevolent and Christian movement in behalf of the people. ”