Theologico-Political Treatise 1862/Preface

men always act with understanding and discretion, or were fortune always propitious, they would never be the slaves of superstition. But as they frequently fall into straits and difficulties, and find no counsel in themselves, as they mostly strive without measure for the questionable favours of fortune, and in their vain aspirations after these are often tossed miserably betwixt hope and fear, so is their spirit commonly disposed to credulity. The mind involved in doubt, indeed, is easily swayed by every impulse, more especially when wavering between hope and fear, as in other moods it is but too apt to be self-sufficient and presumptuous.

No one, I imagine, can be ignorant of these, things, though I believe that few know themselves; for whoever has lived in the world must assuredly have seen that in prosperity the mass of mankind, however ill informed, seem to themselves so full of wisdom that they deem it an insult does any one presume to offer them advice; whilst in adversity they appear not to know whither to turn, but seek counsel and countenance from every one, and nothing can be suggested so vain, so unreasonable, so absurd, but they incline to follow it. The most inadequate causes, further, mostly suffice to make men now hope for better things, now fear for worse; for if aught occurs when they are depressed by fear which brings to mind some former good or ill that has befallen them, they forthwith imagine that it betokens a happy or a disastrous issue to their plight; and though the same thing may have occurred a hundred times before without a consequence, they still persist in calling it a lucky or an unlucky omen. If aught unusual happens, again, and their wonder is aroused, they believe it to be a prodigy, a portent, implying the displeasure or the anger of God, whom the superstitious then think it impious and irreligious not to seek to propitiate by vows and supplications. In this way do thousands of strange fancies take their rise, and as if all nature were delirious like themselves men interpret its processes in the most unreasonable manner.

Such being the state of things, we see that they who are most under the influence of superstitious feelings, and who covet uncertainties without stint or measure, more especially when they fall into difficulty or danger and cannot help themselves, are the persons who, with vows and prayers and womanly tears, implore the Divine assistance, who call reason blind, and human wisdom vain, and all forsooth because they cannot find an assured way to the vanities they desire! These are the men who credit the whisperings of fancy and their own puerile conceits, and call them divine promptings and responses, yea, who think that God turns his face from the wise, has written his decrees, not in the mind of man, but in the entrails of beasts, and has given the idiotic and insane among themselves, or the birds of the air, the power of foretelling events by instinct or divine inspiration! Such power has fear in making men irrational!

The mainspring of superstition, then, is fear; by fear, too, is superstition sustained and nourished. Were proof of this beyond what has just been said required, were particular illustrations of our position demanded, we have but to turn to history — to Quintus Curtius' Life of Alexander, for instance — to observe that the great commander first began to consult soothsayers when he had learned to mistrust fortune by reverses in the Cilician passes. After his triumph over Darius, however, he no longer troubled himself about seers and oracles; but when again alarmed by the defection of the Bactrians and the threatened hostility of the Scythians, whilst he himself lay sick on his bed disabled by a wound, he once more, as Q. Curtius says, "returned to the superstitious absurdities of soothsaying, and ordered Aristander, to whom he had confided his own scepticism on the subject, to inquire into the course of events by sacrifice" (Q. Curt., lib. v. § 4, and lib. vii. § 7). Many other instances of a parallel kind could be easily adduced to prove that men are chiefly assailed by superstition when suffering from fear, and that all they then do in the name of a vain religion is in fact but the vaporous product of a sorrowful spirit, the delirium of a mind overborne by terror. These instances would further show that seers and soothsayers have always had the greatest influence with the multitude in times of affliction, and of disaster to the State, and have then also been found most formidable to sovereign or ruling powers.

From the cause of superstition assigned it follows that all men are by nature disposed to be superstitious (whatever others may say who maintain that superstition arises from the confused idea men in general entertain of Deity); that superstition assumes a vast variety of shapes, that it is inconstant also, like all the other uneasy feelings and impulses of the mind, and that it can only be held in countenance by desire, deceit, hatred, and anger, since it has nothing in common with reason, but is the product of mere affection of the most obnoxious kind. How readily soever, therefore, men fall into any sort of superstition, with even as great difficulty are they to be kept true to the form it first assumes; yea, inasmuch as the mass of mankind are always equally miserable, therefore are they never long in the same mind; that generally pleases them best which is newest, and which supplies a sort of excitement they have not yet experienced, and this inconstancy is well known to have been the cause of innumerable commotions in States, and of many sanguinary wars; for, as Q. Curtius admirably observes (lib. iv. ch. 10), "Nothing more constantly sways the multitude than superstition." And superstition is in fact the cause why at one time nations have been led to worship their kings as gods, and at another to execrate them as prime pests of humanity. and why vast pains have always been taken to surround the true or false religions that have prevailed in the world, with such pomp and circumstance as should cause religious observance to be esteemed of greater moment than aught besides, and a matter to be regarded by all with the highest reverence. This purpose, though it have had success enough nearer home, seems to have been most thoroughly accomplished among the Turks, who even hold it unlawful to question or discuss anything, and whose minds are filled with so many prejudices that there is no room left for reason to find an entrance or curiosity to raise a doubt.

If, however, it be the grand object in despotisms to have mankind deceived, and means of terror always at hand by which they may be coerced; if religion be there made the pretext for inducing citizens to fight for slavery as though it were salvation, and it is not held base but highly becoming to venture limb and life for the vain-glory of one man, I can think of nothing more disastrous for a free State than the imposition of such a system upon it. I hold that it is in every way repugnant to the general weal to fill the minds of the community with prejudices, or to seek to coerce them save by the laws. And as to those seditious movements that take place under pretext of religion, they only become possible because laws are passed upon speculative matters, and because opinions are made subjects of punishment like crimes. The propounders and defenders of such laws indeed are moved by no regard for the public safety, but only by the desire of reaching their opponents and sacrificing them to their vengeance. Were it otherwise, were the law of the land to declare nothing criminal but overt act, seditious movements could not be undertaken under the cloak of religion; were words free and where they involved no threat to be spoken with impunity, controversy could never be turned into rebellion. As we however have the rare felicity of living in a State where entire freedom of opinion prevails, where all may worship God in their own way, and where nothing is held sweeter, nothing more precious, than such liberty, I have thought that I should undertake no ungrateful nor useless task did I show that such noble privileges might always be conceded, not only with safety to the State and to true religion, but further that they could not be denied without compromising the interests of true piety and good government. And this is indeed the main purpose of my Treatise, in the arrangement of which I have deemed it especially necessary in the first instance to discuss the principal prejudices that surround the subject of Religion; in other words, to point out and wipe away the traces of the ancient slavery that surround this momentous subject. After this I have considered the erroneous conceptions entertained in regard to the rights and privileges of sovereign powers, which certain parties, with the most barefaced licence, and under pretext of religion, have arrogated to themselves, striving to turn the minds of the multitude, still held in the bondage of a heathen superstition, from their natural rulers, and to sink the world again into a state of abject slavery. Before indicating the order in which I have set the several parts of my work, however, I shall beg to be allowed to say a few words on the causes which have induced me to write at all.

I have often wondered within myself that men who boast of the great advantages they enjoy under the Christian dispensation — the peace, the joy they experience, the brotherly love they feel towards all in its exercise — should nevertheless contend with so much acrimony, and show such intolerance and unappeasable hatred towards one another. If faith had to be inferred from action rather than profession, it would indeed be impossible to say to what sect or creed the majority of mankind belonged. Christian, Turk, Jew, and Heathen, in fact, are not to be recognized save by complexion and habiliment, or by their frequenting this or that place of public worship, and the profession of this or of that system of opinion, each being wont to swear by the dictates of one master or another. As regards life and conversation it is the same with all. Inquiring into such a state of things, I have been led to conclude that it is due to this: The majority of mankind regard the ministry of their Church as a dignity, its offices as benefices, and its priests or pastors as objects of the highest reverence. With the vulgar, such is the sum and substance of religion. As soon, indeed, as abuses had crept into the Christian Church, every worthless person seemed seized with a desire to administer its offices, and the propagation of a Divine Religion was made to subserve the ends of sordid avarice and base ambition; its temples were degraded into show-houses; orators, not teachers, appeared in the pulpits, for no one really thought of instructing the people in their duties, but only of carrying off applause for rhetorical power, and of attacking opponents; and as the subjects of discussion were mostly novelties and paradoxical propositions (these taking greatest hold on the vulgar, and being most admired of them), endless disputes arose, and such hatred and envy and uncharitableness were engendered as no length of time has yet been able to abate. I do not wonder, therefore, that nothing by and by was found to remain of the primitive religion but its trappings and outward forms, in which the vulgar seem rather to flatter God than to adore him, and their faith degenerates into mere credulity and prejudice — and what prejudice! such as makes brutes of rational men, opposes obstacles of all kinds to the entertainment of freedom of opinion, and the use of those faculties by which alone truth is to be distinguished from error; obstacles, of which the purpose is, as it seems, entirely to extinguish the light of the understanding in the soul. Piety, great God! and religion are thus turned into foolish mysteries, and men who contemn reason and reject understanding as corrupt in nature are strangely believed to be possessed of heavenly light! Had they, in truth, but one spark of that divine fire, they would not babble as they do, but would cease from their arrogant ravings, learn to worship God with reverence and understanding, and as they now excel in hate would be seen distinguished among all for humility and loving kindness; they would no longer persecute those who conscientiously differ from them in opinion; and were it the eternal salvation of these, and not their own fame and worldly estate, that was in question, they would rather be found to pity and compassionate them. Did a single ray of the divine light reach these men, it would moreover show itself in their doctrine; but I confess that whilst with them I have never been able sufficiently to admire the unfathomable mysteries of Scripture, I have still found them giving utterance to nothing but Aristotelian and Platonic speculations, artfully dressed up and cunningly accommodated to Holy "Writ, lest the speakers should show themselves too plainly to belong to the sect of the Grecian heathens. Nor was it enough for these men to discourse with the Greeks; they have further taken to raving with the Hebrew prophets, which sufficiently proclaims that they have known nothing of the divineness of Scripture even in their dreams. The more they have abandoned themselves to their mystical reveries, indeed, the more plainly have they shown that they do not so much believe in as assent to the Scriptures; a conclusion that further appears in this, that they mostly assume as the basis of all inquiry into the true meaning of the Bible, that it is everywhere inspired and literally true. But this is the very matter in debate, and should first appear from a careful examination and close criticism of the text; whereby, indeed, a right understanding of Scripture is much more certainly attained than by any amount of human ingenuity and gratuitous speculation.

Weighing these things in my mind, and seeing that our natural understanding was not only despised as a guide, but even condemned as the well-spring of impiety by many, and further, that human commentaries were frequently substituted for divine decrees, that credulity was accounted faith, that philosophical controversies were waged with the utmost heat, both in the pulpit and before the judge, and that out of these sprang the most cruel hatreds and dissensions, seditious movements, and other acts which it were tedious to enumerate here, I resolved with myself forthwith to examine the Scriptures anew, in a spirit of entire freedom and without prejudice, to affirm nothing as to their meaning and to acknowledge nothing in the shape of doctrine, which I did not find most plainly set down in their pages. Fortified with these resolutions, I drew up "A method of studying and interpreting the sacred volume" for myself, and guided by this I set out by inquiring in the way of preliminary, What is Prophecy? and In what manner may God have revealed himself to the prophets? Why were these men accepted of God? was it because they had sublime ideas of God and Nature? or was it because of their signal piety? Having satisfied myself on these points, I found it easy to determine that the authority of the prophets was only of weight in those things that regard the usages of life and virtuous conduct, and that in other directions their opinions do not much concern us. These conclusions formed, I next inquired why the Jews were called the chosen people of God? and when I had discovered that it was only because God had selected a certain district or country wherein they might dwell securely and commodiously, this led on to the further inference that the laws revealed to Moses by God were nothing more than a code appropriate to the peculiar state or empire of the Hebrews; consequently, that no nation but themselves need be held bound to receive this code, nor even the Jews themselves to observe its precepts, save whilst their empire endured. Moreover, in order that I might know from Scripture whether the human heart and understanding were naturally corrupt, I proceeded to inquire whether the Roman Catholic system of religion, or the Divine law propounded by the prophets and apostles to the whole human race, was different from the religion which the light of nature teaches? Next I asked whether miracles happened in contravention of the order of nature or not? and whether the Being and the Providence of God were more certainly declared by miracles than by the things which we clearly and distinctly understand by their first causes? But when I had found nothing that Scripture taught which expressly contradicted, nay, nothing which did not entirely accord with reason and understanding, and saw, moreover, that the prophets taught none but plain and simple things which could readily be apprehended by all, and that their communications were made in a style and manner, and enforced by references and reasons, that are most apt to move the popular mind to devotion to God, I fully persuaded myself that Scripture left reason absolutely free, and had nothing in common with, no dependence on, Philosophy, but that this as well as that must support itself on its own footing.

Now that I may demonstrate these conclusions systematically, and set the whole matter at rest, I first show in what way Scripture is to be interpreted, insisting that the whole of our knowledge of the spiritual matters contained therein is to be derived from Scripture itself, and not from what is known to us by the light of our natural understanding. I then speak of the prejudices that have arisen from the vulgar having worshipped the Book of Scripture rather than the Word of God — the vulgar, abandoned to superstition and loving the relics of time more than eternity itself! After this I show that the Word of God was revealed in no set or certain number of books, but is the simple conception of the Divine mind imparted to the prophets, and that it is proclaimed to consist mainly in love and obedience to God with the whole heart and mind, and in the practice of justice and charity to our neighbour. I then exhibit the teachings of Scripture as in accordance with the capacity and opinions of those to whom the prophets and apostles were wont to preach this, the true Word of God. They spoke in a way that should excite no repugnance in the minds of their hearers, in a style that should lead to a ready acceptance of their doctrines. The foundations of faith next made known, I conclude that the end and object of revealed knowledge is nothing but obedience, and is so distinct from natural knowledge as well in its objects as in its grounds and means as to have nothing in common with it, but that each may possess its own province without clashing, and neither need be subordinate to the other. Further, as one man differs notably from another in capacity and disposition, as one agrees and another disagrees with this or that opinion, as one is moved to devotion by that which disposes another to laughter, I conclude that freedom of opinion belongs of right to all, and that the privilege of interpreting articles of faith is to be left to every man according to his capacity, no one being adjudged pious or impious save by his works. On this footing will all be able to obey God with unconstrained mind, and justice and charity be held in universal estimation.

After thus proclaiming that which the Divine Law, as revealed, allows to all, I proceed to another part of my subject, and argue that this liberty may be conceded with safety to the peace of the State and the rights of the sovereign or ruling powers; that it ought always to be enjoyed, and that it cannot be denied without great peril to the peace and much damage to the well-being of the whole commonwealth. In the demonstration of this principle, I begin with a summary of the natural rights of man, which I show extend as far as the desires and power of the individual extend, and that no one is bound by natural law to live according to the pleasure of another, but that every one is by natural title the rightful asserter of his own independence. I show, besides, that no one can truly cede this right unless he transfer the power of defending himself to another; and that he necessarily acquires this right absolutely to whom is transferred the right of each individual to live in his own way and to defend himself; hence I prove that whoever holds the sovereign or supreme authority in the State has a title to all he can command, and is the sole arbiter of right and liberty, the other members of the body politic being bound to act exclusively on his decrees. But as no one can so divest himself of the right of self-defence as to cease to be a man, I conclude that no individual can be absolutely deprived of the whole of his natural rights; but that he still retains something by the law of nature, as it were, of which he cannot be deprived without danger to the State, and which is therefore either tacitly conceded to him, or is expressly bargained for with the sovereign authority. Having advanced so far, I go on to consider the Hebrew Republic particularly, in order to show in what way and by whose command religion acquired the force of a right, and take occasion by the way of discussing other matters that seem to me worthy of special attention. In conclusion, I show that whoever holds the reins of the sovereign or supreme power in the State is not only the arbiter of civil right, but is also the judge and interpreter in religious matters, and alone has the title to decree what shall be held just or unjust, what shall be reputed pious or profane; and I wind up by avowing my conviction that he or they govern best who concede to every one the privilege of thinking as he pleases and of saying what he thinks.

This is a summary, philosophical reader, of what I now present for your examination; and I trust it will prove not ungrateful to you, by reason of the excellence and importance of the argument as a whole, as well as of its several parts, to the number of which I could readily have added. But I must not have this Preface grow to the size of a volume, especially as I know that the matters I handle are sufficiently interesting to persons of philosophic and inquiring minds. To others indeed I do not commend this Treatise, there being nothing in it which I could hope would by any possibility give them pleasure; for I know full well how pertinaciously those prejudices stick to the mind which have been embraced by it as a kind of religion; I know, too, that it is impossible to divest the vulgar mind of superstition and puerile fear; I know, in fine, that by the vulgar constancy is accounted contumacy, and that they are never governed by reason, but always moved to praise or blame by impulse or affection. I invite not the vulgar, therefore, nor those whose minds like theirs are full of prejudices, to the perusal of this book. I would much rather they neglected it entirely than, by misconstruing its purpose and contents after the fashion usual with them, that they proved troublesome, and, whilst advantaging themselves in nothing, became obnoxious to those who would show a freer spirit in their philosophy, stood not this one obstacle in the way: The idea that Reason should be subordinate to Theology. To these I would fain believe that my work may indeed be serviceable.

In conclusion, since many may have neither the time nor the inclination to read all I have written, I take occasion to say here, as I do at the end of my Treatise, that I have written nothing which I have not carefully considered, and which I have not submitted to the chief authorities of my native country. Should aught however that I have said be held to contravene the laws of the State, or to be opposed to the common good, I would have it impugned and rectified; for I know that I am man and liable to err; but I have taken great pains not to err, and I have been especially solicitous so to express myself, as that all I have written should be found in harmony with the laws of my country and with piety and good manners.