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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 35

Mischief IV.—Suborning Unwarranted Belief

Mischief IV.—Suborning Unwarranted Belief.

Akin to the foregoing mischief, though not precisely identical, is the distorting influence which religion exercises, by numbering belief in the catalogue of duties and merits— page 98 disbelief in that of crimes and offences. It has been already explained how, in the divine classification of human actions, disbelief is characterized as the most heinous of all trespasses, and belief as very meritorious, though not to a corresponding extent. The severest penalties are supposed and proclaimed to await the former; very considerable rewards to follow the latter.

So far as these threats and premiums are operative at all, the effect must be, to make a man believe that which he would not naturally have believed, and disbelieve that which he would not naturally have disbelieved. But in the natural state of things, a man assents to that which he thinks is supported by the best evidence—dissents from what appears to be refuted by the best evidence. Under such circumstances, there is nothing to guide his choice except the evidence. By holding out rewards to the former, and punishments to the latter, you introduce a lateral and extraneous force, which either wholly shuts out, or partially disturbs, the influence of the respective proofs. So far, therefore, as the reward is at all effective, it entices him to believe upon inadequate proof—so far as the punishment acts, it deters him from disbelieving upon adequate disproof.

Consult the analogy of common life. Is not the offer of a bribe to the judge universally reprobated, as disposing him to wrong and unauthorized decision? Is not a threatening letter to jurors recognized as tending to the same end? You might indeed allege, that the judge was honest, and the jurors intrepid; and, therefore, that bribe and threat were both ineffectual. But it would be impossible to controvert the pernicious tendency of these methods, supposing them to have any influence at all upon the verdict.

The religious premium offered for faith, tends in like manner to corrupt the judgment of an individual, and to foist in, by means of his hopes and partiality, a belief which unbiassed reason would not have tolerated. The penalties denounced against unbelief co-operate most powerfully, by enlisting his fears in behalf of the same self-deceit or hypocrisy.

There are, indeed, limits to the influence of rewards and punishments in thus engendering factitious belief. No man can, while this book is in his hand, make himself believe page 99 that it is not there. But though he cannot thus drive off sensation at pleasure; yet in matters where the truth does not obtrude itself so immediately, but must be gathered from various and wide-spread fragments of evidence, he can withdraw his thoughts from some, and fasten them upon others, almost to an unlimited extent. Hope and fear, constitute a motive for this undue preference; and his mind gravitates almost unconsciously towards the gainful side, as it shrinks from the terrors of the opposite prospect. He dwells on the positive proof of the promising doctrine, and sends his invention out in quest of additional reasons: while the negative is never permitted to occupy his attention for an instant. No wonder that the former, by thus exclusively absorbing the mind, assume a disproportionate value and magnitude, and appear irresistible, merely because nothing of an opposite tendency is allowed to join issue with them.

Such are the unjust and distorted movements of the intellect, which an interest in the result generally produces; and which the rewards and punishments respectively attached to belief or disbelief, must of course contribute to produce also.

This sort of reward, indeed, operates as a direct bounty upon credulity—that is, upon belief unsupported by sufficient and self-convincing evidence. The weaker the evidence, the greater is the merit in believing. This follows irresistibly. For if it is necessary to encourage belief by an artificial bounty, it would be useless to apply this stimulus to any doctrine which would of itself command the assent of mankind. The bounty must go where it is most needed; that is, to the support of doctrines which have little or no support of their own—and the largest slice of it to those which require the greatest encouragement, and would stand the least chance of being credited without it. Hence the less reason there is for receiving the doctrine, the larger share of merit will be awarded to the believer; and the tendency of the religious premium is thus to give birth to the most sweeping and indiscriminate credulity.

When assent or dissent has thus become a question of profit and loss, and not of reason, the believer is interested in bringing into contempt the guide whom he has deserted. He accordingly speaks in the most degrading terms of the page 100 fallibility and weakness of human reason, and of her incapacity to grasp any very lofty or comprehensive subject. It thus becomes a positive merit to decide contrary to reason, rather than with her.

But, with regard to provision of pleasure, and escape of pain in the present life, reason is admitted to be our only safe director. Whatever, therefore, throws discredit upon her, or makes mankind neglect or mistrust her decisions, places the mind in a state less likely to discern and follow the true path of human happiness. The rewards and punishments, which religion affixes respectively to belief and unbelief, have the most direct tendency to this state of blindness and confusion. They cannot fail to engender a habit of credulity; as well as a reluctance to examine, and an inability to poise, conflicting testimony. Of all mental qualities, this credulity is the weakest and most fatal, rendering a man an easy prey to deceit and error, and thereby exposing him to incessant disappointment and loss.

Suppose government were to offer large rewards to all who believed in witches, or in the personality and marvellous feats of Hercules or Jack the Giant-killer—and to threaten proportionate punishments to all disbelievers. No one would question that these offers and threats, if they were at all effective, would contribute to produce a general perversion of intellect—and that they would mislead men's judgments in numerous other cases besides that one to which they immediately applied. Error, when once implanted, uniformly and inevitably propagates its species.

Precisely the same in all cases, is the effect of erecting belief into an act of merit, and rendering unbelief punishable. You either produce no result at all; or you bribe and suborn a man into believing what he would not otherwise have believed—that is, what appears to him inadequately authenticated.