Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 35

Second Night

page 37

Second Night.

The Chairman, who was much applauded, said: Ladies and Gentlemen—It is with much satisfaction that I resume, my duties as chairman this evening. No one occupying this position could fail to be gratified with the high tone and excellent temper of the debate which we listened to last night (hear, hear), or, in noting as I did, the earnest, sustained, and intelligent attention of a large and much over-crowded audience (applause). I regard this as a healthful sign of the times. There are those who look upon such a discussion as this as dangerous and irreverent. I do not share in that opinion (hear, hear). There is an intelligence abroad that no longer permits men to cast the burden of their beliefs upon mere authority, but which compels them to seek for reasons for the faith that is in them (hear, hear). To those, I think, such discussion as this, maintained in the spirit of last evening, cannot fail to be useful. It is obvious that the first requisite of religion is, that it be true. Fear of the results of investigation, therefore, should deter no one from inquiry. That which is true in religion, cannot be shaken, and that which is false no one should desire to preserve (applause). Now, as you are aware, Mr. Armstrong in this discussion is charged with the duty of maintaining the proposition that it is reasonable in us to worship God. The negative of that proposition is supported by Mr. Bradlaugh. Under the arrangement for the debate, Mr. Bradlaugh is tonight entitled to half-an-hour for his opening, Mr. Armstrong to half-an-hour for his reply. After that a quarter-hour will be given to each alternately, until Mr. Armstrong will conclude the debate at ten o'clock. I have now great pleasure in asking Mr. Bradlaugh to open the discussion (applause).

Mr. Bradlaugh, who was very warmly received, said: In contending that it is not reasonable to worship God, it seemed to me that I ought to make clear to you, at any page 38 rate, the words I used, and the sense in which I used them, and to do that I laid before you last night several definitions, not meaning that my definitions should necessarily bind Mr. Armstrong, but meaning that, unless he supplied some other and better explanations for the words, the meaning I gave should be, in each case, taken to be my meaning all through. I did not mean that he was to be concluded by the form of my definition if he were able to correct it, or if he were able to give a better instead; but I think I am now entitled to say that he ought to be concluded by my definitions, and this, from the answer he has given (hear, hear). The answer was frank—very frank—(hear) and I feel reluctant to base more upon it than I ought to do in a discussion conducted as this has been. If I were meeting an antagonist who strove to take every verbal advantage, I might be tempted to pursue only the same course; but when I find a man speaking with evident earnestness, using language which seems to be the utter abandonment of his cause, I would rather ask him whether some amendment of the language he used might not put his case in a better position. His declaration was that he was perfectly incapable of saying whether the definition, which I had taken from Professsor Flint, of God, was correct or not (hear, hear). Now, I will ask him, and you, too, to consider the consequence of that admission. No definition whatever is given by him of the word "God." There was not even the semblance, or attempt of it. The only words we got which were akin to a definition, except some words which, it appears, I took down hastily, and which Mr. Armstrong abandoned in his next speech, the only words bearing even the semblance of a definition, are "an awful inscrutable somewhat" (laughter and hear, hear). Except these words, there have been no words in the arguments and in the speeches of Mr. Armstrong which enabled me, in any fashion, to identify any meaning which he may have of it, except phrases which contradict each other as soon as you examine them (applause). Now, what is the definition of which Mr. Armstrong says that he is incapable of saying whether or not it is correct? "That God is a self-existent, eternal being, infinite in power and wisdom, and perfect in holiness and goodness, the maker of heaven and earth." Now, does Mr. Armstrong mean that each division of the definition comes within his answer? Does he mean that in relation to no part of that which is predicated in this definition is he page 39 capable of saying whether it is correct or not? Because, if he does, he is answered by his own speech, as a portion of this defines God as being perfect in holiness and goodness, in power and wisdom; and it defines him as eternal in duration and infinite in his existence; and also defines him as being the creator of the universe. Now, if Mr. Armstrong means that "as a whole, I can't say whether it is correct or not," or if, in defending his position, he means that, having divided the definition in its parts, he cannot say. whether it is, in any one part, correct or not, then I must remind him that, in this debate, the onus lies upon him of saying what it is he worships, and what it is he contends it is reasonable of us to worship (hear, hear). If he cannot give us a clear and concise notion of what he worships, and of what he says it is reasonable for us to worship, I say that his case has fallen to the ground. It must be unreasonable to worship that of which you, in thought, cannot predicate anything in any way—accurately or inaccurately (applause). Mr. Armstrong evidently felt—I hope that you will not think that the feeling was justified—that there was a tendency on my part to make too much of, and to be too precise as to, the meaning of words used. Permit me to say it is impossible to be too precise; it is impossible to be too clear; it is impossible to be too distinct—(hear, hear)—especially when you are discussing a subject in terms which are not used by everybody in the same sense, and which are sometimes not used by the mass of those to whom you are addressing yourself at all (applause). It is still more necessary to be precise when many of those terms have been appropriated by the teachers of different theologies and mythologies, such teachers having alleged that the use of the words meant something which, on the face of it, contradicted itself, and by other teachers who, if they have not been self-contradictory, have attached meanings widely different to those given by their fellows (hear, hear). I will ask you, then, to insist with me that what is meant by God should be given us in such words that we can clearly and easily identify it (hear, hear). If you cannot even in thought identify God, it is unreasonable—absolutely unreasonable—to talk of worshipping "it" (applause). What is "it" you are going to worship? Can you think clearly what it is you are going to worship? If you can think clearly for yourself what it is, tell me in what words you think it. It may be that my brain may riot be skilled enough to fully comprehend that, but, at any rate, we shall then have an page 40 opportunity of testing for ourselves how little or how much clear thought you may have on the subject (laughter and applause). If you are obliged to state that it is impossible to put your thoughts in words so clear and so distinct that I may understand the meaning of it as clearly as you do, or that a person of ordinary capacity cannot comprehend the words in which you describe it—if that is impossible, then it is unreasonable to ask me to worship it (loud applause). I say it is unreasonable to ask me to worship an unknown quantity—an unrecognisable symbol expressing nothing whatever. If you know what it is you worship—if you think you know what it is you worship—I say it is your duty to put into words what you think you know (hear, hear). We have had in this debate some pleas put forward, which, if they had remained unchallenged, might have been some sort of pleas for the existence of a Deity, but each of those pleas has in turn failed. I do not want to use too strong a phrase, so I will say that each in turn has been abandoned. Take, for instance, the plea of beauty, harmony, and calmness of the world, as illustrated by lakes and mountains, to which I contrasted storms and volcanoes. Mr. Armstrong's reply to that was: "But this involves problems which are alike insoluble by Theist and Atheist." If it is so, why do you worship what is non-capable of solution? If there be no solution, why do you put that word "God" as representative of the solution which you say is unattainable, and ask me to prostrate myself before it and adore it? (applause). We must have consistency of phraseology. Either the problem is soluble—then the onus is upon you to state it in reasonable terms; or it is insoluble, and then you have abandoned the point you set out to prove, because it must be unreasonable to worship an insoluble proposition (applause). How do you know anything of that God you ask us to worship? I must avow that, after listening carefully to what has fallen from Mr. Armstrong, I have been unable to glean what he knows of God or how he knows it (hear, hear). I remember he has said something about a "voice of God," but he has frankly admitted that the voice in question has spoken differently and in contradictory senses in different ages (loud cries of "no, no,")—and those who say "no," will do better to leave Mr. Armstrong to answer for himself as to the accuracy of what I state (hear, hear). I say he frankly admitted that the voice he alluded to had spoken differently and contradictorily in different ages. (Renewed page 41 cries of "no"). I say yes, and I will give the evidence of my yes. (Cries of "no, no," "order," and "hear, hear.") I say yes, and I will give the evidence of my yes (hear, hear, and applause). Mr. Armstrong said that in one hundred years there had been a purification, and an amelioration, and a clearing away; and that that change had been vaster still since one thousand years ago (applause). He is responsible for admitting what I said about the definition of morality being different in one age and amongst one people to what it is in another age and amongst another people; and if that does not mean exactly what I put substantially to you, it has no meaning at all (loud applause). I strive not to misrepresent that which I have to answer; I will do my best to understand what it is that is urged against me. Those who hold a different judgment should try, at least, to suspend it until I have finished (hear, hear, and applause). In the Baird Lectures, to which I referred last night—and let me here say that I don't think that any complaint can be fairly made of my quoting from them—something was said last night about my using great men as an authority. Now I do not do that; but if I find that a man, whose position and learning gave him advantages with regard to a subject upon which I am speaking, and he has expressed what I wished to say better than I can do—if I use his language it is right I should say from where I have taken my words (hear, hear) And if I remember right, we had, last night, quotations from Charles Voysey, Professor Newman, Professor Blackie, and a host of similar writers on the other side. I take it they were given in the same fashion that I intended in giving the names of the writers of the quotations I have cited—not for the purpose of overwhelming me with their authority, but simply to inform me and you from whence were got the words used (hear, hear). Now, Professor Flint, in his book on Atheism, directed against the position taken up by men like myself, says: "The child is born, not into the religion of nature but into blank ignorance; and, if left entirely to itself, would probably never find out as much religious truth as the most ignorant of parents can teach it." Again, on page 23 he says: "The belief that there is one God, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness, has certainly not been wrought out by each one of us for himself, but has been passed on from man to man, from parent to child: tradition, education, common consent, the social medium, have page 42 exerted great influence in determining its acceptance and prevalence." Now, what I want to put to you from this is that, just as Max Müller and others have done, you must try to find out whether what is to be understood by the word "God" is to be worshipped or not, by tracing backwards the origin and growth of what is to-day called religion. You will have to search out the traditions of the world, should there fail to be any comprehensible meaning come from the other side. Now, what God is it that we are to worship? Is it the Jewish God? Is it the Mahometan God? Is it the God of the Trinitarian Christian? Is it one of the gods of the Hindus? Or is it one of the gods of the old Greeks or Italians, and, if so, which of them? And in each case from what source are we to get an accurate definition of either of those gods? Perhaps Mr. Armstrong will say that it is none of these. He will probably decline to have any of these Gods fastened upon him as the proper God to worship; but the very fact that there are so many different gods—different with every variety of people—contradictory in their attributes and qualities—the very fact that there is a wide difference in believers in a God makes it but right that I should require that the God we are asked to worship should be accurately defined (applause). In the current number of the Contemporary Review, Professor Monier Williams, dealing with the development of Indian religious thought, has a paragraph which is most appropriate to this debate. He says, on page 246: "The early religion of the Indo-Aryans was a development of a still earlier belief in man's subjection to the powers of nature and his need of conciliating them. It was an unsettled system, which at one time assigned all the phenomena of the universe to one first Cause; at another, attributed them to several Causes operating independently; at another, supposed the whole visible creation to be a simple evolution from an eternal creative germ. It was a belief which, according to the character and inclination of the worshipper was now monotheism, now tritheism, now polytheism, now pantheism. But it was not yet idolatry. Though the forces of nature were thought of as controlled by divine persons, such persons were not yet idolised. There is no evidence from the Vedic hymns that images were employed. The mode of divine worship continued to be determined from a consideration of human liking and dislikings. Every worshipper praised the gods page 43 because he liked to be praised himself. He honoured them with offerings because he liked to receive presents himself. This appears to have been the simple origin of the sacrificial system, afterwards closely interwoven with the whole religious system. And here comes the difficult question—What were the various ideas expressed by the term sacrifice? In its purest and simplest form it denoted a dedication of some simple gift as an expression of gratitude for blessings received. Soon the act of sacrifice became an act of propitiation for purely selfish ends. The favour of celestial beings who were capable of conferring good or inflicting harm on crops, flocks, and herds, was conciliated by offerings and oblations of all kinds. First, the gods were invited to join their worshippers at the every-day meal. Then they were invoked at festive gatherings, and offered a share of the food consumed. Their bodies were believed to be composed of ethereal particles, dependent for nourishment on the indivisible elementary essence of the substances presented to them, and to be furnished with senses capable of being gratified by the aroma of butter and grain offered in fire (homa); and especially by the fumes arising from libations of the exhilarating juice extracted from the Soma plant." I will allege that you cannot give me a definition of God that does not originate in the ignorance of man as to the causes of phenomena which are abnormal to him, and which he cannot explain. The wonderful, the extraordinary, the terrific, the mysterious, the mighty, the grand, the furious, the good, the highly beneficent—all these that he did not understand became to him God. He might have understood them on careful investigation had his mind then been capable for the search, but instead of that he attributed them to huge personifications of the Unknown—the word behind which to-day is God, and it is the equivalent for all he observed, but did not comprehend, for all that happened of which he knew not the meaning (applause). It was not education but ignorance which gave birth to the so-called idea of a God (hear, hear). And I will submit to you that, in truth, all forms of worship have arisen from exaggeration and misapplication of what men have seen in their fellow-men and fellow-women. A man found that a big furious man might be pacified and calmed by soothing words; that a big avaricious man might be satisfied and pleased with plenteous gifts; that this one might be compelled to do something by page 44 angry words or harsh treatment; and that this one could be won by supplications to comply with his wishes—and what he imagined or observed as to his fellows he applied to the unknown, thinking, no doubt, that that which he had found efficacious in the known experience, might also be efficacious in that in which he had no experience. And what did you find? You found the sailor at sea, who did not understand navigation, offering candles to his Deity, or special saint, and promising more offerings of a similar character if the Deity brought him safe into port. I say it is more reasonable to teach him how to steer than how to worship, and also more reasonable to know something about the science of navigation. That would prove much more serviceable than worship, for when he relied upon candles, he ran upon rocks and reefs, but as soon as he understood navigation, he could bring his own ship safely into port (applause). Prayer is spoken of by Mr. Armstrong as an act of worship. What does it imply? It implies a belief held on the part of the person who prays, that he may be noticed by the being to whom he prays; and it also implies that he is asking that being to do something which he would have left undone but for that prayer. Then does he think that he can influence the person whom he addresses by his rank or by his position? Does he think he can influence his Deity by his emotion? Does he think that as he would win a woman's love, so he would gain God, by passionate devotion? Does he think that, as he would frighten a man, so he would influence God through fear? Does he appeal to God's logic, or to his pity? Does he appeal to his mercy or to his justice? or does he hope to tell God one thing he could not know without the prayer? (loud applause.) I want an answer, here, clear and thorough, from one who says that prayer is a reasonable worship to be offered to God (renewed applause). Something was said last night about a cause being necessarily intelligent, and I think, in my speech afterwards, I challenged the assertion. Nothing was said to explain what was meant, nothing was done to further explain the matter, and although I defined what I meant by cause, and defined what I meant by intelligence, no objection was taken. Now, I have seen a hut crushed by an avalanche falling on it, as I have been crossing the Alps. Does Mr. Armstrong mean to tell me that the avalanche which crushed the hut was intelligent, or that it had an intelligent wielder? If the avalanche is intelligent, page 45 why does he think so? If the avalanche has an intelligent wielder, please explain to me the goodness of that intelligent wielder who dashes the avalanche on the cottage? (applause). If you tell me that it is a mystery which you cannot explain, I say it is unreasonable to ask me to worship such a mystery—(renewed applause)—and as long as you call it a mystery, and treat it as that which you cannot explain, so long you have no right to ask me to adore it. There was a time when man worshipped the lightning and thunder, and looked upon them as Deity. But now he has grown wiser, and, having investigated the subject, instead of worshipping the lightning as a Deity, he erects lightning-conductors and electric wires, and chains the lightning and thunder God; knowledge is more potent than prayer (applause). As long as they were worshipped science could do nothing, but now we see to what uses electricity has been brought. When they knew that the lightning-conductor was more powerful than the God they worshipped, then science was recognised the mighty master and ruler, instead of ignorant faith (applause). I have already submitted that there has not been the semblance of proof or authority for the existence of any being identifiable in words to whom it would be reasonable to offer worship, and I will show you the need for pressing that upon you. A strong statement was made last night which amounted to an admission that there was wrong here which should not be, and that, but for the hope on the part of the speaker that that wrong would be remedied at some future time, he would be in a state of terrible despair. He gave no reason for the hope, and no evidence why he held the hope. He only contended that things were so bad here that they would be indefensible except for the hope that they would be remedied. This admission is fatal to the affirmation of God to be worshipped in the way here mentioned. Then we had something said about experience. All experience must be experience of the senses: you can have no other experience whatever. To quote again from Max Müller: "All consciousness begins with sensuous perception, with what we feel, and hear, and see. Out of this we construct what may be called conceptual knowledge, consisting of collective and abstract concepts. What we call thinking consists simply in addition and subtraction of precepts and concepts. Conceptual knowledge differs from sensuous knowledge, not in substance, but in form only. As far as the material is con- page 46 cerned, nothing exists in the intellect except what existed before in the senses." It is the old proposition put in different forms by Locke, Spinoza, and others, over and over again, but it has to be taken with this qualification that you have innumerable instances of hallucinations of the senses. Delusions on religious matters are open to the remark that of all hallucinations of the senses—as Dr. H. Maudsley shows in the Fortnightly Review—of all hallucinations of the senses those on religious matters only keep current with the religious teachings of the day. Sight, touch, smell, hearing, feeling—all are the subject of illusion as is shown over and over again. Any man bringing as evidence to us the report of experience which is only of an abnormal character, is bound to submit it to a test which is something beyond in severity that which we should apply to normal events. The more abnormal it is the more particularity in detail do I wish, in order to examine it, so that I may be able to identify it; and the more curious the statement the more carefully do I wish to test it. Loose words in theology will not do, and here I submit that at present we stand, with, at any rate, on one side, nothing whatever affirmed against me. I gathered last night;—I hope incorrectly—I gathered last night—I hope the words were spoken incautiously—that Mr. Armstrong held it to be natural that a man should have to struggle against wrong, vice, and folly, for the purpose of bringing out the higher qualities, and that it was alleged that it was to that struggle we were indebted for our virtue. If that were a real thought on the part of Mr. Armstrong it is but a sorry encouragement to any attempts at reformation and civilisation. Why strive to remove misery and wrong if the struggle against them is conducive to virtue? It would take a long time to bring about any ameliorating change in society if such doctrine were widely held (loud applause).

The Rev. R. A. Armstrong, who was applauded on rising, said: Mr. Chairman and Friends—I wish, in justice to myself, to say that I freely offered Mr. Bradlaugh the choice of parts as to the order of speaking. I know not which way the balance of advantage lies; but after the speech we have listened to, I think you will agree with me that he who speaks first the second night has a considerable pull (laughter). Last night as I passed down that awful flight of stairs, which they must climb who, in this town, would soar from the nether world to the celestial realms of Secularism, I heard many page 47 comments, and among others one man just behind me said: "Oh! Armstrong is nowhere in Bradlaugh's hands. Bradlaugh can do just what he likes with him" (laughter). Now, my friend said the very truth in a certain sense. As a debater I am nowhere compared with Mr. Bradlaugh. He has fluency—I compute that in thirty minutes I can string together some 4,000 words, while, I fancy, Mr. Bradlaugh's score would be just about 6,000—so that to equalise our mere mechanical advantages I ought really to have three minutes to every two of his. If I have omitted many things which I ought to have said, it is due to this reason (laughter and hear, hear)—for I have not been silent during the time assigned to me. Of course, I do not complain of this. Then, to say nothing of Mr. Bradlaugh's powerful intellect, to which I do not pretend, and his wide reading, he is in constant practice at this work so new to me, so much so that I find almost every thought he expressed last night, and in almost—sometimes precisely—identical language, printed in his pamphlets, and much of it even spoken in one or other o his numerous debates. Take this, along with his prodigious memory, and you will see that the doctrine of Atheism has, indeed, in him, the very ablest defender that its friends could wish. And if what he says is not enough to demolish Theism, then you may be sure that Theism cannot be demolished (applause). But then, friends, I do want you not to look on this as a personal struggle between Mr. Bradlaugh and myself at all. I no more accept it in that light than I would accept a challenge from him to a boxing match, and I think you will all agree with me that in that case, in discretion I should show the better part of valour (hear, hear, and laughter). We are both speaking in all earnestness of what we hold to be the truth. Neither of us, I presume, in the least, expects to make converts on the spot: converts so quickly made would be like enough to be swayed back the other way next week. But we do desire that the seed of our words should sink into your minds; that you should give them your reverent attention, that, in due season, so far as they are good and true, they may ripen into matured convictions of the truth (applause). And now let me look back at the position in which this conference was left last night. I am the more at liberty to do so, as to-night Mr. Bradlaugh has only—or chiefly—done two things, namely, repeated some things which he said last night, and answered certain arguments of Professor Flint. That is perfectly fair, but it is equally fair page 48 for me to leave Professor Flint to answer for himself (hear hear, and applause). And I complain that Mr. Bradlaugh either did not listen to, or did not understand, what I endeavoured to put in plainest words about the function of that voice of God which we call conscience (hear, hear). Observe, that while in different climes and ages, ay, in the same man at different times, the conceptions of the particular deeds that come under the head of right differ, the idea of rightness itself, of rectitude, is always and invariably the same, from its first faint glimmer in the savage little removed comparatively from the lower animal, from which he is said to be developed, to the season of its clear shining, luminous and glorious, in hero, prophet, martyr, saint—in Elizabeth Fry, in Mary Carpenter, in Florence Nightingale. To speak metaphysically, the abstract subjective idea of right is the same and one, but our ideas of the concrete and objective right develop and progress ever towards a purer and more beautiful ideal. We have by our own powers to satisfy ourselves as best we can what is right. But when we have made up our minds, the voice of God sounds clear as a bell upon the soul and bids us do it (applause). This I stated again and again last night, yet to-night again Mr. Bradlaugh has confounded the two things. Mr. Bradlaugh raised a laugh with his story of the cannibal objecting to the tough, and choosing the tender meal. That cannibal, in so far, does but illustrate how a man is swayed by those lower instincts and desires which I rigorously and definitely distinguished and separated from conscience. Why Mr. Bradlaugh confounded this with a case of the deliverance of conscience I cannot think, because I am so sure it was neither to make you grin nor to confuse your minds (hear, hear). The latter part of the first night's debate turned on the mystery of evil. But Mr. Bradlaugh did not then venture to allege the possibility of a world in which noble character could be developed without the contact with suffering and pain (hear, hear). He said he was not called upon to make a world; happily not; but at any rate he should not question the excellence of the world in which he lives unless he can at least conceive a better—(loud applause)—and I say that where evil had never been, or what we call evil, manliness, bravery, generosity, sympathy, tenderness, could never be (applause). A world without temptation would be a world without virtue (hear, hear). A world all pleasurable would be a world without goodness, and even the pleasurable itself page 49 would cease by sheer monotony to give any pleasure at all. A world not developed out of the conflict of good and evil, or joy and pain, would necessarily be an absolutely neutral world, without emotion of any sort. Unless the whole tint is to be neutral, you must have light and shade; and the only test by which to judge whether the power controlling the world is good or evil—God or Devil, as Mr. Bradlaugh says—applause)—is to note whether light or darkness preponderates; and not only that, but whether the movement, the tendency, the development, the drift of things is towards the gradual swallowing up of darkness by the light, or light by darkness; whether freedom, happiness, virtue, are in the procession of the ages losing their ground, or slowly, surely winning ever fresh accession (applause). I take it, then, that if we are to have a final predominance of goodness—nay, even of happiness, if you make that the highest good—it can only be by these things winning their way by degrees out of the evil which is their shadow. And I invite you once more to test this from experience. My own experience, clear and sure, and that of every other devout man, is simply this: that whatever sorrow, whatever pain we suffer, though it wring our very heart, the time is sure to come when, looking back thereon, we thank God that it was given us, perceiving that it was good, not evil, that befel us, being the means, in some way or other, of our further advance in happiness or goodness, or nearness to our heavenly Father. You tell me it is. all very well for me; but you point to those whose lot is cast in less pleasant places, and ask me what of them? Is God good to them? Well, I will take you to a dark and dismal cellar beneath the reeking streets of a mighty city. And this picture is not drawn from fancy, it is a photograph from the life of one I know of In that dark and poor abode you shall enter, and you shall see an aged woman to whom that spot is home. She is eaten up with disease, the inheritance, doubtless, of her forefathers' sin. For fifty years her simple story has been of alternations between less pain and more. Beside her are two orphan children, no kith or kin of hers, but adopted by her out of the large love which she nurtures, in her heart, to share the pence she wins from the mangle, every turn of which is, to her, physical pain. Well, surely, she knows nought of God, has none of those "experiences" which Mr. Bradlaugh treats as if they were luxuries confined to the comfortable Theist in his easy-chair, or on his softly-pillowed bed. Ay, but she is rising from her knees to page 50 turn to the dry crust on the board, which is all she has to share with the children. And what says she as you enter? "Oh, sir, I was only thanking God for his goodness, and teaching these poor children so." Now, if Mr. Bradlaugh is right in declaring we can know nought of God, then that old woman ought never to have eased her laden heart by the outburst of her prayer, ought to have cast out of her as a freak of lunacy the peace that stole upon her there as she rose from her knees, ought to have shunned teaching those children, whose lot was like to be as hard as hers, one word about the reliance that she had on God (applause). Instead of that she taught the prosperous man who stumbled down the broken stair into her abode, a lesson of trust and faith in the goodness and presence of God, which he never forgot as long as he lived (hear, hear and applause). I sat the other day beside a dying girl. Her body was in hideous pain, but her face was lit with a light of beauty and of love which told a wondrous tale of her spirit's life. She died, and her mother and her sisters weep to-day. But a new love, a new gentleness, a new sense of the nearness of the spirit-world has already blossomed in their home, and, I am not sure that they would call her back even if their voices could avail. So it is; this woe which we call evil is the sacred spring of all that is beautiful and good (hear, hear). To the Atheist the world's sorrow must, indeed, be insupportable. If he be sincere and have a heart, I do not know how he can ever eat and drink and make merry, still less how he can make a jest and raise a titter in the very same speech in which he dwells with all the skill of practised eloquence upon that woe (applause). If I were an Atheist I hardly think I could ever throw off the darkness of this shadow. But, believing in God, whom I personally know, and know as full of love, I am constrained to trust that, though this evil be a mystery the full significance of which I cannot understand, and though relatively to the little sum of things here and now it seem great, yet that relatively to the whole plan and sum of the universe it is very small, and that that poor child, born of sin and shame, who knew no better than to steal the loaf, shall one day wear a diadem of celestial glory, and be by no means least in the Kingdom of Heaven. And when I see the Atheist smiling, laughing, having apparently a light heart in him, I am bound to suppose that he too, somehow, trusts that goodness and happiness are going to win in the end—that page 51 is, that goodness is the ultimately overruling power. And if he believes that, he believes in the power which men call God (applause). Now, Mr. Bradlaugh has castigated me with some severity for not obliging him with definitions. It is impossible, he says, to be too precise in the use of words, and I agree with him. But by definitions I cannot make the simplest words in the English language more plain to you (hear, hear). He, himself, has given us some specimens of definitions which I do not think have made things much clearer than they were before. There are three words of importance in the title of this debate, and I will try, since Mr. Bradlaugh has experienced difficulty in understanding me, whether I can tell him more distinctly what I mean by them. Those three words are "reasonable," "worship," "God." When I say it is reasonable to do a thing, I do not mean that I can demonstrate to you with the precision of mathematics that every proposition, the truth of which is assumed in that act, is true; but I do mean that the propositions, on the assumption of which the act proceeds, are, at least, sufficiently probable to win the verdict of an unbiassed judgment, and that the act itself is likely to be found to be a good. Mr. Bradlaugh himself has defined "worship" as including "prayer, praise, sacrifice, offerings, solemn services, adoration, and personal prostration." If Mr. Bradlaugh will kindly occupy his next fifteen minutes by defining to me exactly what he means by each of those terms, I may be better able to tell him whether I include them all in worship, and whether he has left anything out. But at present I do not find that any one of them is simpler or more comprehensible than the term worship, while "prayer, praise, sacrifice, and offerings," each might mean at least two very different things; "solemn services" is hopelessly vague; "adoration," as I understand it, is included in some of the others; and before we know what "personal prostration" means, we must define "person"—no easy matter—and then explain what we mean by the "prostration" of that person (laughter and applause). Meanwhile, I have described, at the very outset, that energy of my soul which I call worship, namely, that in which I address myself to God as to one immeasurably surpassing me in goodness, in wisdom, in power, in love (hear, hear). I don't think this is plainer than the good old Saxon word "worship;" I think that word conveys a pretty clear meaning to most men. But Mr. Bradlaugh finds it easier to page 52 understand long phrases than simple Saxon words; and my only fear now is that he will want me to define all the words in my definition—(laughter)—and though I am ready enough to do that, I fear it would take a week (renewed laughter, and hear, hear). God:—You ask me to define God, and you say I have not in any way done so. You quote the metaphysical definition of Flint, and want me to enter into metaphysics. What do you mean by defining? Do you mean to draw a circle round God, so as to separate him from all else? If you do, I reply, I can't; because, as far as I can see, or my imagination can extend, I discern no boundaries to God. But if you mean to ask simply what I mean by God, I mean—and I said this again and again last night—the source of the command that comes to me to do right, to abjure wrong; the source of the peace that comes to me even in pain, when I have done right, and of the remorse that comes to me even in prosperity when I have done ill. I mean also the source—which I believe to be identical—of the wondrous sense of a divine presence which seizes me in the midst of nature's sublimest scenes—ay, and even of nature's awful catastrophes. I mean also the source of the moral and spiritual strength that comes to me in response to the worship which my soul pours forth; and if you want to know what I mean by my soul, I mean myself. What else besides the source of these things God maybe, I cannot tell you. It is only so—in his relation to me—that I directly know him. Beyond that he is the subject of philosophy, but not of immediate knowledge. I believe him to be very much more; but that does not affect the reasonableness of worshipping him, and that is the subject of our debate (hear, hear). So that I cannot define God in the way I can define Nottingham, or Europe, or the earth (hear, hear). I cannot tell how much is included in his being; how much, if any, is excluded. I can tell you what he is to me, in relation to me—and that is the only way in which any entity can be defined—and I can tell you what other men testify by word, by deed, by martyrdom, he is to them (hear, hear). Beyond that I have no instruments by which to measure; and therefore I take up no pen with which to write down the measurements, or define (applause). But Mr. Bradlaugh says if we cannot exactly define an object we are incapable of exact thought or belief concerning it. Did Mr. Bradlaugh do algebra at school? That most exact and prosaic science con- page 53 sists largely in reasoning about unknown quantities; that is, about some x or y, of which you only know that it has some one or perhaps two definite relations to certain other things. You don't know what x or y is in itself—only some function by which it is related to a and b and c. From that relation you reason, and sometimes from it you get by subtle processes to infer a vast deal more, and it will perhaps prove just from that relation that x must be such and such a number, or that it must be infinite. Does Mr. Bradlaugh say we can have no exact thought about the x in the algebraic equation, before we have worked out the whole sum? Yes, we know it in its relations or some of them. Yet the very essence of algebra is that x is undefined. The human soul is the a, b, or c, the well-known, the familiar; God is the x, related won-drously thereto, yet none has ever yet worked out that sum. The supremest philosophers, who here are school-boys indeed, have only displayed workings on their slates which, to use again mathematical language, show that x approaches towards a limit which is equal to infinity (hear, hear). But Mr. Bradlaugh says there should be no belief in that which we cannot define. Now, I challenge Mr. Bradlaugh in all respect and sincerity to define himself (applause). If he declines or fails, I will not say we must cease to believe in Mr. Bradlaugh, but that is the necessary inference from his maxims. Mr. Bradlaugh says all experience must be the experience of the senses. By which sense does he experience love, indignation, or all the varied sentiments which bind him to his fellow-men and women (applause)? Mr. Bradlaugh told us in his concluding speech last night that no experience of another man's can be anything at all to him until tested by his own. Is, then, a man born blind unreasonable if he believes that others have experience of some wonderful sensation, making objects very vividly present to them, which they call sight? Shall the man born deaf say he does not believe there is such a thing as sound? I know not whether Mr. Bradlaugh has any personal experience of the heat of the torrid zone. Does he believe it? Has he tested the height of Mont Blanc? If not, does he hold his belief in suspense as to whether it is 15,000 feet high or not? The fact is the enormous majority of the beliefs on which we act every day of our lives with perfect confidence are founded either on sheer Faith, untested and by us untestable, or on Testimony, that is the recorded experience of others which we have not tested. But Mr. Brad- page 54 laugh says that if the alleged experience of another is "abnormal" we must not believe it. He did not define "abnormal," and I want to know who is to be judge whether my experience of the command that comes to me in conscience is abnormal or not. Mr. Bradlaugh? This audience? With confidence I accept the verdict of any gathering of my fellow-men and women, knowing that my experience herein has a sure echo in their own. But Mr. Bradlaugh says, if someone said a room ran a race, you would call him a lunatic. That argument means nothing, or else it means that Martineau and Newman, and all great and good who have recognised God—ay, and Voltaire and Thomas Paine—Theists both—are to be counted lunatics (hear, hear). Time has prevented—I hope it may not still prevent—my stating clearly what I mean, when I proceed on philosophical grounds to allege my belief that there is an intelligent cause. "Intelligent" I shall not stop to define, unless I am challenged to it, because I presume intelligence in you (applause). "If there were no such supreme intelligence," says Mr. Voysey, "the universe, supposing it to be self-evolved (and of course unconscious, since it is not intelligent) has only just come into self-consciousness through one of its parts—viz., man. It had been, so to speak, asleep all these cycles of ages till man was born and his intellect dawned upon the world, and, for the first time, the universe realised its own existence through the intelligent consciousness of one of its products. I do not think absurdity could go further than that. If there be no self conscious intelligence but man, then the universe is only just now, through man, becoming aware of its own existence" (hear, hear, and applause). "Cause," Mr. Bradlaugh, I think, has defined, in language which included the words, "means towards an end." A mean or means, however, is, by the very conception of the word, the second term in a series of three of which the end is the third, and "means" implies some power making use of those means, and that power is the first term in the series. Now, I claim that cause is that first term, whether there be two more, or only one. By "cause" I mean—and you mean, if you will search your thought—the initiating power, that which begins to produce an effect. Now, my mind is so constituted that to speak to me of a power which initiates effects, yet is not conscious, intelligent, is sheer nonsense: therefore I hold the power which displays itself as one in the page 55 uniformity of the laws of nature, and lies behind all phenomena—the growth of the grass, the rush of the cataract, the breath of the air, the stately sailing of the stars through their geometric paths, to be intelligent, conscious, to do it all by distinct purpose; and I can in no way otherwise conceive. I conceive this source of the geometric motion of all the spheres and of the minutest dance of protoplasm in the nettle's sting as always, everywhere, of purpose producing these effects. And the worship which I gave God as I know him in relationship to me is refined and glorified by the conception which thus dawns on me of his being. And in the words of François Marie Arouet Voltaire, I commune thus with myself: "Where," says he, "is the eternal geometrician? Is he in one place, or in all places without occupying space? I know not. Has he arranged all things of his own substance? I know not. Is he immense without quantity and without quality? I know not. All I know is, that we must adore him and be just" (loud applause).

Mr. Bradlaugh: It is perfectly true that what I have said here I have said before, and very much of what I have said I have printed before. I am quite sure that Mr. Armstrong did not intend that as any blame upon me. [Mr. Armstrong: Certainly not.] In fact, if any advantage accrued, it would accrue to him, because, having what I had to say on the subject to refer to, he would be better able to answer it by previous preparation. Why I mention it is because one person seemed to think that it was very reprehensible on my part to say here anything that was not perfectly new. I make no claim to originality, but try to say the truest thing I can in the clearest way I can (hear, hear, and applause). Then I am told that I did not pay attention enough to what was said last night about the functions of the voice of God. I have been told to-night that the idea of righteousness and rectitude has always been one and the same amongst all human beings, from the savage to the highest intellect. If telling me so is evidence of it, then, of course, I must be content. But, unfortunately, I am not content, but say that the evidence is all the other way (hear, hear, and a laugh). I have read carefully Wake's latest book on the evolutions of morality, tracing out the growth of notions of morality amongst savages. I have read Tylor, Broca, Lubbock, Agassiz, Gliddon, Pritchard, Lawrence, and I think I am familiar with the best of ancient and modern authors on the subject; and I say it is page 56 absolutely contrary to the fact that the notions of morality are, and always have been identical from the lowest savage to the highest intellect. It is absolutely contrary to the fact that one and the same idea of right always and everywhere prevails (hear, hear). It is not a question of my opinion; it is a question of the conclusive evidence laboriously collected on the subject, and I am sorry to have to put it in that plain and distinct way (hear, hear). Then I am told, and I am sure Mr. Armstrong would not have said that unless he thought he did, that he carefully separated last night the lower instincts which were not included in conscience from the higher mental qualities. But to my memory this was not so, and I have read the whole of the speeches to-day in the reporter's notes, and I must say I found nothing of the kind. Now we have a greater difficulty. How much and how many—how much of the mental instincts, and how many of the mental faculties—are we to class as going to make up conscience, and how much not? I do not pretend to make the classification. It rests upon the person who has the burden of proof here. I deny there has been, as yet, even an attempt at classification, and I call for some statement which shall enable me to understand that; without it is to be foregone. Then I had it returned upon me that I had no right to criticise this world unless I could conceive a better. The very act of criticism involves the conception of the better. When I point out something insufficient or wrong, that criticism implies the conception of something conceivably better if that were changed. If you want, now, an illustration of something possibly better, I would point to the famine in China. There, actually, millions of people are dying for want of food, and, for the purpose of sustaining life a little longer in themselves, the members of families are eating their own relations. If I were God I should not tolerate that—(applause)—nor could I worship a God who does. Mr. Armstrong, in his speech, pointed out what he terms an intelligent purpose. It may be for an intelligent purpose that millions of the Chinese should die of starvation, and actually eat one another for want of food; but if it is, I cannot understand the goodness of the intelligent purposer. You cannot take one illustration and say that it is the work of an intelligent person, and then take another and say that it is not. If it is the intelligence of God displayed in one case it must be in another, unless Mr. Armstrong contends that page 57 there are a number of Gods, amongst which number there must be a good many devils (laughter and loud applause). There are many things of a similar kind I could point out, and ask the same question with regard to; where is the intelligence of God as displayed in permitting the Bulgarian atrocities, the Russo-Turkish war, the Greek insurrection—or in the world nearer home, its crime, misery, and want (hear, hear, and applause). I do not draw the same moral from the story of the starving woman that Mr. Armstrong would draw. While you thank God for the crime, pauperism, misery, and poverty, I say that you are degrading yourself. The Atheist deplores the misery, the poverty, and the crime, and does all he can to prevent it by assisting the sufferers to extricate themselves, instead of spending his time in blessing and praising a God for sending the woe and attributing it to his superior intelligence (applause). Then there was an astounding statement which came more in the sermon part of the speech than in the argumentative portion of it (laughter). Perhaps that may account for the wealth of its assumption, and also for deficiency of its basis. It was that freedom, happiness, and virtue, through the power of God, were continually winning their way. How is it that an intelligent and omnipotent God does not look after them more, and see that they overcome opposition a little faster than they have done? Mr. Armstrong says that I fight shy of experience. I don't do anything of the kind. I fight shy of experience which will not submit itself to any test; I fight shy of experience which cannot bear examination and investigation; I fight shy of such experience only. Our friend gives us the experience of a dying girl. Now, I do not mean to say that every religion in the world has not been a consolation to dying people—that belief in a God has not been a consolation to persons who have enjoyed the full power of their mental faculties on their death-beds. Since I was in America some time ago I saw a copy of a sermon preached by a New York clergyman, who had attended, what he believed to be the dying bed of an Atheist, and he said that he hoped that Christians would learn to die as bravely and as calmly as the Atheist seemed prepared to die. Luckily that Atheist did not die. He is alive tonight to answer for himself (applause and hear, hear). I don't think an illustration of personal experience in that way can go for much. The man and woman who die in possession of their faculties, with strong opinions, will generally die page 58 strong in those opinions. Men have been martyred for false gods as well as for the one you would have me worship. It is useless to make this kind of an appeal in a discussion, in which there was room and need for much else. Heavenly stars, a crown, and that kind of thing are not as certain as they ought to be in order to be treated as material in this discussion. And then Mr. Armstrong says what he would do and how he would feel if he were an Atheist. Charles Reade wrote a novel, which he entitled "Put yourself in his Place." Mr. Armstrong has been trying to put himself in the Atheist's place, but he has not been very successful (hear, hear). The Atheist does not think that all the evil which exists in this world is without remedy; he does not think that there is no possible redemption from sorrow, or that there is no salvation from misery (hear, hear). He thinks and believes that the knowledge of to-day a little, and to-morrow more, and the greater knowledge of the day that will yet come, will help to redeem, will help to rescue the inhabitants of this world from their miserable position: and further, that this is not to be in some world that is to come, but in the world of the present, in which the salvation is self-worked out (loud applause). The Atheist will not make promises of something in the future as a compensation for the present miseries of man. Instead of saying that for prayers and worship the poor woman or man will have the bread of life in future, he tries to give her and him the strength to win bread here to sustain and preserve life as long as it is possible to do so (applause). The diadems, too—which our friend has to offer to the poor—which are to be worn in heaven by those who have had no clothes here—possess no attraction to the Atheist; therefore he does not offer them, but, instead, tries to develop such self-reliant effort as may clothe and feed those who are naked and hungry while they are here. He directs his efforts towards human happiness in the present, and believes that in the future humanity must be triumphant over misery, want, and wrong (applause). A diadem of celestial glory may or may not be a very good thing; of that I do not look upon myself as a judge, so long as I have no belief in its possibility. That there is much misery and suffering in the world I know, and it rests with Mr. Armstrong to prove whether it is better to try and remedy it here or to worship its author in the doubtful endeavour to obtain as recompense a crown of celestial glory (hear, hear, and applause). But which page 59 God is it that we are to worship? Is it the Mahometan God, or the Jewish God? Is it one of the Gods of the Hindus? Is it the Christian's God? If so, which sect of Christians? You must not use phrases which mean different things in different mouths (hear, hear). Then we come to definitions, and, having objected that there was no necessity for defining, or having objected that defining would not make things more clear, with the skill and tact of a practical debater, my friend goes through every word (laughter). Prayer, we were told, has two distinct meanings. Might I ask in which sense it was used in the first speech made last night? You did not tell us then that prayer had two senses. I ask why you did not tell us? I might have thought it was one fashion when you meant another. I ask what meaning you meant when you used it? What two senses has prayer towards God?—in which of the two senses did you use prayer—and, knowing it had two meanings, why did you not tell us in which sense you used it? Then praise, too, you said, is to thank God for his goodness; and as you used the word many times last night you knew what you meant by it, having relied upon it so firmly that it seemed to be an evidence of God's existence (applause). By sacrifice I mean an act of real cowardice. The coward does not dare to pay in his own person for the wrong which he has done, so he offers something or somebody weaker in his stead. He tries by offering a sacrifice to avert the vengeance which would fall—and, according to his creed, ought to fall—upon himself. Sacrifice is the act of a coward (applause). Offerings are of flowers, of fruits; offerings of young animals, lambs, kids; sometimes the offerings are things which come the nearest to their hands; sometimes the sacrifice consists of inanimate things which had a special value to the worshipper; sometimes the first fruits of their fields or flocks, which they offer to the source, as they think, of the plenty in those fields and flocks. In later times, offerings have got to be much more complex; but even now you will still find them, in modified fashions, in the Churches of England and Rome. The mutual system is that which operates in every form of worship which makes any sort of claim to religion. The word "worship" was only used as a general word which covers the whole of those forms, leaving our friends to select and repudiate, and in any case the burden is on Mr. Armstrong to make the meaning clear (hear, page 60 hear). I read the whole of the speeches of last night without finding any repudiation or question about the definitions I presented; and I submit it is scarcely fair, after what has passed, to ask me to further define them at this late stage of the debate. I should have had no objection had it been invited at the earliest outset (applause). Well, now, we have worship defined as "the energy of my soul." Well, but you have not explained your soul. Why do you call it soul? Where is its place in your body? Is there anything about soul you can notice so as to enable me to know anything at all about it? Will you take your definition of soul from Voltaire, whom you have quoted against me? When you reply, will you tell us what Voltaire, Professor Newman, Paine, or Martineau say upon the subject of God, and in which of their writings you will find that which all the others would accept as a definition? You must remember the Theist of Paine's time is not the Theist of to-day, and I want you to tell us what are the specific opinions of each of those you have quoted—of Francis William Newman, of John William Newman, of Martineau, of Thomas Paine, of Voltaire—as to the questions I have asked (applause). Which of the Gods is it that I am to understand Mr. Armstrong as defending and asking me to worship (loud applause)?

Mr. Armstrong: Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—I am somewhat at a loss as to which of the numerous questions I am to answer first. I shall not take them in any logical order, but simply pick out of my note-book the most important of them. Mr. Bradlaugh has said that the act of criticism of the world implied the conception of a better world. Mr. Bradlaugh has tried to describe his conception of the better world, and I have tried in my previous speeches to show that he would not make it better. And I again submit that, instead of being better, it would be worse (hear, hear). He says he does not draw the same conclusion from that poor woman in the cellar that I do. He says that while you are content to suffer, you degrade yourself. Now, there are two kinds of content. You may be content like the sloth or the sluggard, or you may be content like that poor woman, who while trying to improve her position, still remained poor to the end of her days, and yet at the same time felt the peace of God in her heart. Does the belief in a God, as a fact, make men less energetic and vigorous in improving page 61 their own condition, or trying to improve that of others? I don't believe it does (applause). I believe you have Theists as well as Atheists, who devote their kindly sympathies to the good of their fellow creatures. They are content in one sense and discontent in another sense. They have that holy discontent which makes them anxious to remedy the world's evil, and that content which makes them see God, who is working from evil to good (applause). We have been told by Mr. Bradlaugh what the Atheist will do; how he will give the bread of this life to the hungry child; the Theist will do the same (applause). The Theist will—but no, I will not institute these comparisons; we are each, I feel sure, striving to do our best; so I won't enter into comparisons (rounds of applause). He says it is unreasonable to worship an insoluble proposition. A proposition is a grammatical term signifying a statement, and I am not aware that I asked anyone to worship a statement or proposition at all. I have called upon you to worship God (applause). He says I did not separate the lower instincts from the higher mental qualities in man. I do not say I did. But I did separate the lower instincts from the voice of God in conscience. I said that it was entirely distinct from the lower instincts in man. I said that the voice had a right to command and rule these lower instincts (hear, hear). He asks me which God it is that I am preaching. I will tell you what God I ask you to worship—the best that you can conceive, whatsoever it is (applause). I want you all to worship the best that you can conceive (rounds of applause). If the Hindu's idea is the best he can conceive, let him, by all means, worship it (hear, hear). If the Jew's God is the best he can imagine, let him pay homage to it. If the Christian's idea of God is the highest he can conceive, let him be true to it and worship it, and it will make him a nobler man (applause). It is not mere names which signify in a matter of this kind. Though each sect may give him different names, it is still the same God (hear, hear). Mr. Bradlaugh wants to know which of them all I uphold as God; which of the different types I acknowledge, or ask you to acknowledge. Is it the God of Martineau, of Newman, of Parker, or of whom else? I say it is that which is common among them all—namely, the conception of goodness and excellence which you will find in every one of their definitions. It is that God which they page 62 all recognise, and concerning which they only go wrong when they begin to try and define it metaphysically (hear, hear). Mr. Bradlaugh wants me to define God; further than I have done so, I cannot. In the words of the Athanasian Creed an attempt is made to define the undefinable. The Athanasian Creed tries to explain the whole of that which overrules the universe instead of describing simply that which is in relationship to you. I have always been under the supposition that that was a practice of the theologian which had greatly retarded the progress of the world. Mr. Bradlaugh spoke of prayer as implying a hope—a hope to induce God to do what he would not do without prayer; and he wanted to know in what sense I used the word "prayer" in my speeches. I have not used the word "prayer" without describing what I meant. At least, I have not done so to my knowledge; if I have, I am sorry for it (applause). Mr. Bradlaugh says that prayer implies a hope of inducing God to do what he would not do without it. For my part, I doubt whether some things that have been called prayers, such as the prayers for the recovery of the Prince of Wales—(loud hisses and laughter)—for wet weather, and for fine weather, have very much influenced the divine counsels (hear, hear and applause). But what do I mean by prayer? As I have said before, the addressing of my soul to this power which I feel and recognise above me; and the law of the answer of prayer—and it is as much a law as any law of nature—is that they who do thus energise themselves towards God become thereby more susceptible to the energising of God towards them. The law is that he who energises or addresses himself towards God, consciously, reverently, and of set purpose, thereby sets at motion a law by which he becomes more susceptible to God's addressing of himself to him, and so he gains to himself the strength, moral and spiritual, which we find in prayer (hear, hear). Mr. Bradlaugh picked out one of the words from his own definition of worship. By sacrifice he said he meant the act of a man who was too cowardly to bear the result of his own actions. As far as that definition goes, I may say I do not include it in my idea of worship (applause). Now, sir, I have striven to the best of my power to be precise and clear in my words. It is true I have not dealt with the matter from a platform purely metaphysical. I am a positivist in most things, understanding by a positivist one who founds his philosophy on observed phenomena. I have passed out page 63 of the stage in which men believe that theological theories will solve all the. problems of the universe. I have passed out of the stage in which Mr. Bradlaugh now is, in which metaphysics are looked upon as the best ground of reasoning we can have. I have passed into the stage in which positive thought, the recognition of phenomena, is recognised as the best starting-point we can have from which to get at the truth. Auguste Comte traces the progress of the thought of the world and of the individual from the theological stage to the metaphysical stage, and from that to the positive stage. I invite Mr. Bradlaugh to look at things from that stage, and to see whether he cannot make his thoughts clearer by the use of the positive method than by the use of the metaphysical (loud applause).

Mr. Bradlaugh,: The curious thing is that I have never used the word metaphysics, and I have offered to affirm no proposition that does not relate to phenomena. I am astounded to hear that I am a metaphysician (laughter and applause). Is it because I only used language which I can make clear that my opponent gave me that title? It is because he does not use language that is related to phenomena that he is obliged to commend his Theism by speaking of it as a problem which is insoluble (applause). I have not done anything, as far as my case is concerned, except use language relating to phenomena. Now, I have only a few moments, and this speech will be my last in this debate. I would, therefore, like you to see the position in which we stand. I am told that the improvement I would suggest would in no sense tend to virtue. I must refer again to the state of things in China, where the members of the same family are eating each other for want of food. Would it not tend to virtue if their condition was remedied (applause)? I wish my friend and myself to look at things from this point of view, and, as he is in the positive way of thinking, let him put himself in the same state as they are, and then ask whether an amendment of the condition would not tend to greater virtue (renewed applause). What God is it that we are to worship? Oh, the God it is reasonable to worshipis the best we can conceive—but no conception has yet been put before us. You have been told a great deal about stars, but the more important facts and arguments still remain unchallenged (hear, hear). Now, I am asked, does belief in God hinder philanthropy? Yes, when it is held as those do hold it in some parts of the world, who page 64 think that God has designed, in his thought and intelligence, and for good purposes, that a famine should take place, such as the one in China (hear, hear). There are at least people among the Mahometans and the Hindus whose virtue has been clearly shown to have suffered much more from religion than from civilisation (applause). The case put as to prayer is one which I think has something peculiar about it. We are told first of the law of prayer, which is said to be as much a law of nature as any other law. Well, now, by law of nature (Mr. Armstrong: Hear, hear)—I don't know if I am misrepresenting you—I only mean observed order of happening (pouring water from glass); I do not mean that there has been some direction given that this water shall fall, but that, given the conditions, the event ensues. Law of nature is order of sequence or concurrence, the observed order of phenomena. What observed order of phenomena is there in the order of prayer? When the prayer prays "himself he sets a law in motion." Is this so? We are told that the prayer for the recovery of the Prince of Wales did not much tend to alter the divine counsel. Mr. Armstrong did not tell you how he knew that. His own admission here proves that prayer is sometimes offered in vain, taking the observed order of its phenomena (hear, hear). He spoke of the holy discontent in pious men which set them to seek to remedy evil. Holy discontent against the state of things which God in his intelligent purpose has caused! Then the holy discontent is dissatisfaction with God's doings. How can you worship the God with whom you are dissatisfied (applause)? But what is the truth of the matter? In the early ages of the world man saw the river angry and prayed to the river-god; but science has dispelled the river-god, and has substituted for prayer, weirs, locks, dykes, levels, and flood-gates (hear, hear). You see the same thing over the face of nature wherever you go. What you have found is this: that in the early ages of the world gods were frightful, gods were monstrous, gods were numerous, because ignorance predominated in the minds of men. The things they came in contact with were not understood, and no investigation then took place; men worshipped. But gradually men learned first dimly, then more clearly, and god after god has been demolished as science has grown. The best attempt at conception of God is always the last conception of him, and this because God has to give way to science. The best conception of God is page 65 in substituting humanity for deity, the getting rid of, and turning away from, the whole of those conceptions and fancies which men called God in the past, and which they have ceased to call God now (applause). Mr. Armstrong thought that it was because men had given different names to God that I tried to embarrass him by bidding him choose between them. It was not so; it is the different characteristics and not the different names that I pointed out as a difficulty. We have gods of peace, gods of war, gods of love, a god of this people, or of that tribe, a god of the Christians, a god of misery, of terror, of beneficence—these are all different suppositions held by men of the gods they have created. It has well been said that the gods have not created the men, but the men have created the gods, and you can see the marks of human handicraft in each divine lineament (applause). I cannot hope, pleading here tonight, to make many converts. I can and do hope that all of you will believe that the subject treated wants examination far beyond the limits of this short debate. I have a very good hope indeed, and really believe that some good has been done when it can be shown that two men of strong opinions, and earnest in their expressions, can come together without one disrespectful word to each other, or want of respect in any way; without any want of due courtesy to the other', and with a great desire to separate the truth and the falsehood (applause). If there has been unwittingly anything disrespectful on my part, I am sorry for it. I have to thank Mr. Armstrong for coming forward in the manner in which he has done, and I can only ask all to use their services in making the spread of virtue, truth, and justice easier than it has been. I am aware that I have nominally a vast majority against me, but I do not fear on that ground, and still shall continue to point out falsehood wherever I may find it. At any rate, the right of speech is all I ask, and that you have conceded. I have only an earnest endeavour to find out as much as I can that will be useful to my fellows, and to tell them as truly as I can how much grasp. It is for you—with the great harvest of the unreaped before you—who can do more than I, to gather and show what you have gathered; it is for you who have more truth to tell it more efficiently; and when you answer me I put it to you that so far as the world has redeemed itself at all it has only redeemed itself by shaking off in turn the Theistic religions which have grown and decayed. So far, it seems page 66 to be a real and solid redemption (applause). When religion was supreme through the ignorance of men, the people were low down indeed, and a few devoted men had to grapple with the hereafter theory and all the content with present wrong which the belief in it maintained. Take a few hundred years ago, when there was little or no scepticism in the world. Only a very few able to be heretical—the mass unable and too weak to doubt or endure doubt. Look at the state of things then, and look at it now. Could a discussion like this have taken place then? No. But it can since the printing-press has helped us; it can since the right of speech has been in good part won. Two hundred years ago it could not have been. Two hundred years ago I could not have got the mass of people together to listen as you have listened last night and to-night, and had not men treated your religion as I treat it, we should not have the right of meeting even now (applause). If you want to convince men like myself, hear us; answer us if you can—say what you have to say without making it more bitter than we can bear. We must believe it if it is reasonable, and if not we must reject it. So long as there is any wrong to redeem we shall try to redeem it ourselves (applause). We may be wrong in this, but at least we do our part. I do not mean that in the same ranks as my friend there are not men as sincere and as earnest, men as devoted, men as human-redemption seeking as myself, but I, or the best of those for whom I plead, urge that their humanity is not the outcome of their theology (applause). Then their experience of right, their hope of life, and their experience of truth rest entirely on what they do here. And I will ask you this: do you not think it is quite possible, as Lessing says, that he who thinks he grasps the whole truth may not even grasp it at all? like the one deceived by the juggler's trick, he may think he holds something in his hand, but when it is opened it is empty (hear, hear). Take the truth as you can—not from me, not from him, not from any one man. There is none of the bad which is all bad, none of the good all good, none of the truth all true: it is for you to select, to weigh, to test for yourselves (hear, hear). Many of us stumble in trying to carry the torch in dark places in the search for truth, but even in our trembling steps the sparks we scatter may enable some to find the grains of truth we miss ourselves (loud and prolonged applause).

Mr. Armstrong: Mr. Bradlaugh, the body to which I belong also have the majority against them; over that page 67 we can shake hands. Let us try, each in our own way, as may best seem to us, to serve what we hold to be true (applause). Depend upon it, whether there be a God or not, we each shall do best so. If there be no God, then you tell me I shall still do well to serve humanity. And if there be a God, he will gather you also, my brother, to his arms, so long as you are true—true and absolutely sincere in those convictions which come to you from the reason which he has given you (loud applause). You have told us that while religion held sway men were down-trodden. While superstition held sway it is true they were (applause); while false ideas of a cruel and lustful God held sway, it is true they were (applause); but just in proportion as men's thoughts of God have purified and clarified, just in proportion as they have restored to Christianity its sweet meaning, just in that proportion religion has risen to be a power in the world of all that is good and sweet and holy (applause). Now, sir, to speak of what I said about the prayers for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. I said I thought they had been of little avail. But the prayer for spiritual purity from a Christian man does win its answer by a law—a law of nature, I will now say, since you have defined a law of nature as the observed sequence of phenomena; but I dared not so call it until I knew what your definition of nature might be. But let us come back from these philosophisings, in which it is so easy to go wrong, to the test of experience. Mr. Bradlaugh says I do not submit the experiences of which I have spoken, to the test. I invite you to test them, and see whether Mr. Bradlaugh has upset them or not. If you test them fairly and then find them false, then come and tell me so. They are neither uncommon nor abnormal experiences, but the experiences of nearly every man and woman. It may be that their hearing is dull, but still they know the voice. You all know those in which the initiative comes from God, the voice of conscience, of which I spoke; you all know the solemn feeling which comes over you in the presence of the majesty of nature. You all may know the other things in which you have to take the initiative. Heed those things whether you believe they come from God or not, and you all may know the other—that of worship—and its answer. My contention solely is, that it would be reasonable for you to seek for that experience, that it is reasonable in us to practise it (hear, hear). And now I will tell you a little story for the end of this debate, of a little page 68 family of children; and as I shall not found any argument upon it, I do not think it will be unfair. They sat one Christmas Eve in a chamber where the wintry gloom of early twilight fell. The eldest son sat and talked of the goodness of their father, and how, from the earliest days he could recollect, his tenderness had sheltered him, and how he seemed to have a heart to love every little child all through the world, and how he was surely even now preparing some sweet surprise for them every one But John, the second boy, had lived all his life at a school on the far sea coast, where he had been sent, that rough ocean breezes might strengthen his weakly frame, and now, tanned and burly, he had just come home for Christmas, and he had not even seen his father yet. And he said he did not believe they had a father; that Theophilus, declaring he had seen him, was nothing to him, for if there was one thing he had learned at school, it was not to trust the experience of other people till tested by his own. But Edward said he, too, knew they had a father; he, too, had seen him, but he was very stern, and he thought they could all do as well without him, and what could be more unkind than to leave them there in twilight solitude on Christmas Eve. And little Tom sat apart in the very darkest corner of the room, with a tear-stained face, crying as if his heart would break, over the hard sums set him there to do, and thinking that his brothers were a selfish lot of fellows, to talk and talk, and not care for him and his hard task. And Theophilus had just come to steal his arm around little Tom's waist, and dry his tears, and try if he could not help him to do his sum, when the door of the next room was thrown open and a blaze of light flashed upon their faces, and one after the other they all rushed in and beheld their father standing by such a glorious Christmas-tree as boys never beheld before. And for each and all there were gifts so rare and precious—the very things they had longed for all the by-gone half. And for John, who had been so far away and had not known his father, there was a grasp of the father's hand so strong and tender, and a kiss from the father's lips so sweet and loving, that he felt as if he had known that dear father all his life; and as for little Tom, all his tears were dissolved in rippling laughter, and he quite forgot his sum, for on his brow was set the brightest coronet on all the tree, and they told him he should be king through all the long Christmas-day to follow. And now, dear friends, may the peace of page 69 God which passeth all understanding, that peace which the perishing things of the world can neither give nor take away, that peace promised to the weary by our dear brother, Jesus Christ, even in the midst of all his suffering and woe, be with you for ever. Amen (applause).

Mr. Armstrong having sat down, rose again and said,—And now, Mr. Chairman, I desire to move to you the hearty thanks of this meeting for your conduct in the chair, for your impartial manner of ruling over us, and the kind words you have spoken. I thank you, Mr. Bradlaugh, for the courtesy and fairness with which you have conducted your part in this debate; and I thank you, sir, for presiding over us (applause).

Mr. Bradlaugh: I second that motion. I cannot say that we can thank you for your fairness, for, fortunately, you have had no opportunity of showing it. But I thank you most heartily for accepting a position which might have been one of great difficulty and the taking of which may cause you to be misrepresented. I also thank Mr. Armstrong for having met me, and for the kindly manner in which he has spoken (applause).

The vote of thanks was put and carried unanimously.

The Chairman: Ladies and Gentlemen,—the thanks which have been given to me are due rather to the gentlemen who have spoken. I cannot but praise the admirable way in which they have rendered my position almost a sinecure. This debate has shown that a subject of such great importance can be discussed fairly, liberally, honestly, as this has been, and that no danger threatens him who occupies the chair, or those who lay their honest and earnest views before you. I feel that I have derived much knowledge from the truth which has been laid before us; and I do feel that there is a growing interest in things of this sort, which is itself a proof that discussions of this kind are very useful (applause).