SIR, IF

you

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REPUBLICAN.

Nov. 3, 1823.

will insert the following corrections in the next number of your "Republican," you will particularly oblige me.

In No. 17, Vol. VIII. of "The Republican," in a letter signed J. E. C.

Page 519, line 8, from bottom, for then, read though. 520, line 5, from bottom, for Asiatic, read Arctic. 521, line 16, from top, for is, read has.

SIR,

line 12, from bottom, for now, read new.

523, line 12, and 13 from top, for, hence all the attributes of such beings are easily deduced, read, hence are all the attributes of such Being easily deduced.

I CANNOT avoid the opportunity, to make two or three observations on your note, public or private, as you may think proper. In the first place let me observe, and I hope without offence, that though I did not expect you to deliver up the Castle of Atheism at discretion, I did not expect that when driven from your material citadel, you would have taken refuge in your subterranean passages, recesses and gloomy caverns of security. I did not know that I had entered into any compact, whereby I was bound to dissect or analyze intellect, or tell you what it was, I thought it sufficient, to shew it was a real existence however generated, composed or produced; a self-moving power and free, within a certain circle, and which if no circle or restraint existed would be infinite, in short, I thought it sufficient to shew it, and develope its source, without exhibiting its component parts; perhaps some superior genius may arise that may decompose intellect, and sound as well as light, but light is light, and intellect will be intellect, and sound will be sound: light is still no more than useful, intellect will be no more than very valuable, and sound can be composed into nothing more agreeable than music. The microscope will shew the veins and fibres of the oak, but it will add nothing to its strength.

In the next place, I have to say, your organ and your pianoforte are not so much out of tune, as perhaps you imagine. You say we see intellect, but we cannot see how the organ is produced which produces the intellect." This tells to proof, you should have been the last to have said thus much*. Not mine:

* I beg pardon of J. E. C. I am not disposed to withhold an atom of truth for the sake of a system of words. I do not talk about God. Let J. E. C. exhibit his.

but your God remember is matter, there is nothing in existence but matter, intellect is matter. Ergo: Intellect is your God, there is no difficulty: the only difficulty is in reconciling your God with my God, you do not know how your God acts, nor I mine; but you set some value on intellect; I say it is the master key, the power of powers, or only power; where there is nothing to oppose, intellect must exercise sovereignty*, must be superior to that which is inert, the laws of all nature could be sooner reversed than this position; and this position so simple, once acknowledged, all I ask flows from it, for this intelligent or intellectual power, being uncontrolled, can exhibit his powers, or proportions of his power, by what means or process, or for what duration he pleases. What is there to say to an all-powerful intellectual being, thou shalt not be intelligent, till thou hast assumed a mortal form, or caused thyself to emanate from an organic structure, what is to say to him, this or that is essential to thee and thou canst not alter it. Thus whatever formed this organic structure, possessed all the powers with which it is endued, and could have exhibited them by other means;. thus all you can say amounts to this, he cannot work a contradiction, he cannot make any thing to exist and not exist at the same time, but he appoints certain means to which the existence of those things are attached, but we know nothing of their connection but by experience. Thus, Sir, one sound is attached to, or produced, if you please, by your organ, another by your piano-forte, and neither of them will sound in vacuo; this does not surprise you because it is known and common, but if you were to go a thousand miles from land, or say mid-way on the Pacific Ocean, and was to hear your organ or your piano-forte, you would indeed be surprised: but if it had been always heard there, it would be ranked only among the common occurrences not yet accounted for, divested of the terrors and destruction accompanying the volcano, the earthquake, and the tornado. We should seek for, or expect there was, a cause certainly, as well as there must be for these and the attraction of gravity; but experience alone must guide us to it, we cannot infer what any secondary cause must be, from an effect, and though we can often discover by such inference what it is, yet we know of no means essentail to the end, beyond abstract quantity and number. Thus the first cause can only be known by his works, but his works having made us acquainted with intellect, we recognize it as the highest possible or only active or actual power, for as I have before said, that which has it not must be a passive, that which has it limited, must be a subject.

Here, Sir, I meant to close, but recollecting you have said in your note "Let J. E. C. prove that non-intellectual power can

* What is intellect? I shall keep you to that question until you answer. + Give proof of such a being and then argue about its attributes.

not produce the organs of intellect." Though I think I have sufficiently done this, yet for the sake of good manners, I will repeat, that if non-intellectual power could produce intellect, it would be no longer non-intellectual.

All property produced belongs to the producer: but you are still thinking of the music and the musician, you do not keep the property together, if you had the art to make the instrument and the musician and compose the music, you would be neither music, musicjan, nor instrument, but you must necessarily possess the power of all.

With respect to your echo, Sir, in my humble opinion, I think, that is not in point, or if it is, it makes a point against you. You, I humbly conceive, compare an echo to intellect, why, that is spiritualizing it beyond spirit, whereas, you say it is material. I conclude by saying, I trust that temperate discussion will never alter the respect and consideration of

To Mr. Carlile.

Your humble Servant,

J. E. C.

P. S. I think on reperusing this it can do no harm at least, if you can afford it a place in your Republican.

Note. Before I proceed further: I call upon J. E. C. to say what he means by Atheism: as this is a word to which different men attach different ideas. I understand, that he is as much of an Atheist to me as I am to him. I want him to write about things aud not about words which ⚫ have no known relation to things. All he says about "subterranean passages, recesses and gloomy cavern of security," is to me quite unintelligible. In fact, without meaning to offend, I must say, that to the major part of his sentences I cannot attach an idea. This may be the result of my stupidity for, I acknowledge that all kinds of "spiritual things" are repugnant to my notions." His answer about intellect does not increase my knowledge; nor can I see upon what his ideas of that word rest.

66

Respecting the echo. I introduced it as a specimen of music or sound resulting from an arrangement of material substances, and an action of the agitated air upon those substances. I meant it as an example of the fallacy of talking about spirits or fancied intellectual powers, since we now know its cause and can create echoes at discretion; whereas, our ancestors knew not but this too was a spiritual intellectual and mimicking being!

J. E. C. evidently shrinks from an examination of his own words, he is not pleased at being asked "What is intellect." Bur I see no other means of convincing him of the fallacy of his present notions, but to call upon him for proofs and explanations upon all the undefined words that he uses. In his attempts to find out what he means by Atheist and Intellect, he will, perhaps, learn that he can attach no tangible meaning to them; that they are words used by mere sufferance.

I introduce some extracts of a letter I have just received from a London Frieud, which I expect will induce J. E. C. to take a metaphysical journey on a new road.

Oct. 21, 1823.

I HAVE a curious anecdote to relate to you, shewing the progress of Infidel opinions. A Lady, a friend of mine, not the Lady of whom you have before heard, but another very extraordinary woman, of great acquirements and singular wisdom, this Lady has ONE CHILD, she has a young woman whose business it is to look after the child. When this young woman first came into the family, she requested time might be allowed her to go to church. once on each Sunday. An arrangement was of course made, and she went regularly to church. During the summer, my friend took a small place in the country, and while there she observed that her nurse-maid did not go to church. One day she said to her: I observe that you have not been to church since we have been in the country, how is that? The servant laughed, and said: Oh! Ma'am! I do not care for going to church so as I used to do. Why? My father has shewn me that it is absurd. Your Father? Oh yes! he has convinced me that all religion is an imposition on the understanding. Well, what is your father? My father keeps a small respectable public house in Street, and once a week,

a number of his neighbours assemble as a club, not to drink much, but to read and discuss, they have a great many books, and they are none of them Christians; I really believe that, vast numbers of the working people are leaving off being Christians.

I thought this anecdote too characteristic of the time to withI hold it from you."

The parson who visited you was weakness itself, this he was sure to be, if you kept him to his proofs. All the proofs lies with them; all any one has to do is, to confess his ignorance, to say he has not the evidence necessary to establish the points he is called upon to believe, and then he at once poses the parson. A man, who attempts to shew what by reason cannot be shewn, must be always weak, just as you yourself are, when you explain to Mrs. Fry how intellect is produced.

"We do not say that any kind of matter thinks, but we say that it is the organization that the matter feeds, that thinks." Now I can conceive nothing more vague, inconclusive, nonsensical, and superstitious than this, your creed. Matter cannot think; this includes two assumptions, neither of which can be proved. "Organization thinks." Organization is a word which means construction, a putting together of parts or pieces. As you have here used it, an assemblage of various things constituting one general thing, call it a man, and then it means having brought together the several parts which compose him-that is, mind, a general term, by which we are given to understand, that a man is not an homogeneous mass, but consists of parts. Organization is then a word which designates no thing. It is then merely a word, and now comes the question, can a word think, can organization think. You will say no, that is, you will say no, if you shake yourself, and look again at the words as you have printed them. I can find, any one can find, as good words to make a soul of as you can find to account for the production of intellect. When you are wise enough to know how much you really do know, and how much you do not know, your propensity to acount for many things will leave you, and you will then cease to mislead others. I can see clearly what it was that led you to account for thought. It is your notion of cause and effect. This you do not understand. You suppose there is a connection between what you call a cause, and its effect. Whether there be a connection or not is what we can never know, what we know is this, a circumstance occurs, which is followed by another circumstance, and this being often repeated, we conclude that it will always be so: that is, we infer so; why it should be so we do not know; all we know is, the result, whence our inference. Why, what we call a cause, should produce what we call an effect, we do not know, because we do not know the connection between what we call the cause and the effect. Thus you see that we only substitute a word, and nothing but a word, when we talk of cause and effect. I will that my arm shall rise, and it does rise. Do I know the cause, no, not 1, do I know of any connection between my will and the action, not I, indeed. What then do I know, nothing, as to cause and effect? Nothing. I infer the one from the other, all I know is the inference. And for all purposes that are useful this is sufficient. The why and the wherefore is of no importance, and if there be a why and a wherefore it is undiscoverable. You will think of this but will not conclude that I am correct, perhaps you may not clearly comprehend me; but, if you think and re-think, you will, in time, convince yourself that you do not know, one thing, and that you can only know another thing, and you will cease to use words which do not convey ideas. "Organization thinks,” can convey no idea. Some part of the letter to Mrs. Fry are excellent. But the introductory part is weak. Your correspondent