Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/63

16 these travellers are often mistaken. It seems surprising that so acute a philosopher as Locke (Essays, B. I. ch. 4, § 8) should prove a negative by hearsay, and assert on such evidence as Rhoe, Jo. de Léry, Martinière, Torry, Ovington, &c., that there were “whole nations amongst whom there was to be found no notion of a God, no religion.” See the able remarks of his friend Shaftesbury—who is most unrighteously reckoned a speculative enemy to religion—against this opinion, in his Characteristics, Lond. 1758, Vol. IV. p. 81, et seq.; 8th Letter to a Student, &c. Steller declares the Kamschatkans have no idea of a Supreme Being, yet gives an account of their mythology! See Pritchard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, Lond. 1841, et seq., Vol. IV. p. 499. So intelligent a writer as Mr Norton says that “in the popular religion of the Greeks and Romans there was no recognition of God.” Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, Boston, 1837, et seq., Vol. III. p. 13. This example shows the caution with which we are to read less exact writers, who deny that certain savages have any religion. See examples of this sort collected, for a different purpose, in Monboddo, Origin and Progress of Language, 2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1774, Vol. I. book ii. chap. 3, where see much more evidence to show that races of men exist with tails. Some writers seem to think Christianity is never safe until they have shown, as they fancy, that man cannot, by the natural exercise of his faculties, attain a knowledge of even the simplest and most obvious religious truths. Some foolish books have been based on this idea, which is yet the staple of many sermons. See on this head the valuable remarks of M. Comte ubi supra, Vol. V. p. 32, et seq.

It is not long since the whole nation of the Chinese were accused of Atheism, and that by writers so respectable as Le Père de Sainte Marie, and Le Père Longobardi. See, who will, Leibnitz's refutation of the charge, Opp. ed. Dutens, Vol. IV. part i. p. 170, et seq. Their observations have, in such cases, been superficial, made with but a slight knowledge of the manners and customs of the nation they treat. And, besides, their prejudice blinded their eyes. They looked for a regular worship, doctrines of religion, priests, temples, images, forms, and ceremonies. But there is one stage of religious consciousness in which none of these signs appear; and yet the religious element is at its work. The travellers, not finding the usual signs of worship, denied the existence of worship itself, and even of any religious consciousness in the nation. But if they had found a people ignorant of cookery and without the implements of that art, it would be quite as wise to conclude from this negative testimony that the nation never ate nor drank. On such evidence, the early Christians were convicted of Atheism by the Pagans, and subsequently the Pagans by the Christians.