Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/218

Rh Look at these—

I. "There is no higher law!" That Is the proclamation of objective atheism; it is the selfish materialism of Hobbes, Hume, of De la Mettrie, and Helvetius, gone to seed. You have nothing to rely on above the politicians and their statutes: if you suffer, nothing to appeal to—but the ballot-box. The speculative materialism of Comte resolves man into blood and bone and nerves. The speculative atheism of Feuerbach resolves deity into the blind force of a blind universe, working from no love as motive, with no plan as method, and for no purpose as ultimate end. But both of these, materialistic Comte and atheistic Feuerbach, bow them down before the eternal laws of matter and mind: "These," say they, "we must keep always, come what may." But the prominent politicians of America,—they mocked at the law of nature and the constitution of mind; they outdid the "French materialism" of Comte, and the "Germanic atheism" of Feuerbach. Pardon me for saying Germanic atheism! He violated his nation's consciousness before he called himself an atheist; and then is not so in heart, only in head; it is the blood of pious humanity which runs in his nation's veins. The sailor, the machinist, and the farmer recognise a law of God writ in the matter they deal with, whereto they seek to Conform ; but the American politician has no objective restraint. No God is to check the momentum of his ambition. II. Here is the next axiom: "Religion has nothing to do with politics." That is subjective atheism, with a political application. If there be no law inherent in mind and matter above any wicked statute of a tyrant, still the instinctive religious sense of man looks up with reverence, faith, and love, and thinks there is a God, and a higher law. Materialistic Comte and atheistic Feuerbach, and those accomplished translators who set such works over to the English soil, confess to the natural religious emotions, give them sure place in all human affairs ; but in one of the most important of human transactions, where the welfare of millions of men is at stake, the American politicians declare that "Religion has nothing to do with politics; it makes men mad." Politic Felix trembled before Paul,