Pagan held in contempt; that they oppress and disdain each with the most rancorous animosity: the Christian burns the Jew at what is called an Auto-de-fé, because he clings to the faith of his fathers; the Roman Catholic condemns the Protestant to the flames, and makes a conscience of massacring him in cold blood; this re-acts in his turn; sometimes the various sects of Christians league together against the incredulous Turk, and for a moment suspend their own bloody disputes that they may chastise the enemies to the true faith: then, having glutted their revenge, return with redoubled fury, to wreak over again their infuriated vengeance on each other.'

The thirteenth chapter argues as follows, against the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and a future state:

'In old age, man extinguishes entirely, his fibres become rigid, his nerves lose their elasticity, his senses are obtunded, his sight grows dim, his ears lose their quickness, his ideas become unconnected, his memory fails, his imagination cools, what, then, becomes of his soul? Alas! it sinks down with the body, it gets benumbed as this loses its feeling, becomes sluggish as this decays in activity; like it, when enfeebled by years, it fulfils its functions with pain; this substance, which is deemed spiritual, which is considered immaterial, which it is endeavoured to distinguish from matter, undergoes the same revolutions, experiences the same vicissitudes, submits to the same modifications as does the body itself. In despite of this proof of the materiality of the soul, of its indentity with the body so convincing to the unprejudiced, some thinkers have supposed that although the latter is perishable, the former does not perish; that this portion of man enjoys the especial privilege of Immortality; that it is exempt from dissolution; free from those changes of form all the beings in nature undergo: in consequence of this, man is persuaded himself that this privileged soul does not die.

'It will be asked, perhaps, by what road has man been conducted to form to himself gratuitous ideas of another world? I reply, that it is a truth man has no idea of a future life; they are the ideas of the past and the present, that furnish his imagination with the materials of which he constructs the edifice of the regions of futurity. Hobbes says, "We believe that, that which is will always be, and that the same causes will have the same effects." Man in his actual state has two modes of feeling-one, that he approves; another, that he disapproves: thus persuaded that these two modes of feeling must accompany him even beyond his present existence, he placed in the regions of eternity two distinguished abodes; one destined to felicity; the other to misery: the one must contain those who obey the calls of superstition, who believe in its dogmas; the other is a prison, destined to avenge the cause of heaven on all those who shall not faithfully believe the doctrines promulgated by the ministers of a vast variety of superstitions. Has sufficient attention been paid to the fact that results as a necessary consequence from this reasoning; which on examination will be found to have rendered the first place entirely useless, seeing, that by the number and contradiction of these various systems, let man believe which ever he may, let him follow it in the most faithful manner, still he must be ranked as an infidel, as a rebel to the divinity; because he cannot believe in all; and those from which he dissents, by a consequence of their own creed, condemn him to the prison-house? Such is the origin of the ideas upon a future life, so diffused among mankind. Everywhere may be seen an Elysium, and a Tartarus, a Paradise and a Hell; in a word, two distinguished abodes, constructed according to the imagination of the enthusiasts who have invented

them; who have accommodated them to their own peculiar prejudices, to the hopes, to the fears of the people who believe in them. The Indian figures the first of these abodes as one of inaction, of permanent repose, because, being the inhabitant of a hot climate, he has learned to contemplate rest as the extreme of felicity: the Mussulman promises himself corporeal pleasures, similar to those that actually constitute the object of his research in this life: each figures to himself that on which he has learned to set the greatest value.'

6

As for the miserable abode of souls, the imagination of fanatics, who were desirous of governing the people, strove to assemble the most frightful images to render it still more terrible; fire is of all beings that which produces in man the most pungent sensation; not finding anything more cruel, the enemies to the several dogmas were to be everlastingly punished with this torturing element: fire, therefore, was the point at which their imagination was obliged to stop; the ministers of the various systems agreed pretty generally, that fire would one day avenge their offended divinities: thus, they painted the victims to the anger of the gods, or rather those who questioned their own creeds, as confined in fiery dungeons; as perpetually rolling into a vortex of bituminous flames; as plunged in unfathomable gulfs of liquid sulphur; making the infernal caverns resound with their useless groanings, with their unavailing gnashing of teeth. But it will, perhaps, be inquired, how could man reconcile himself to the belief of an existence accompanied, with eternal torments; above all, as many according to their own superstitions had reason to fear it for themselves? Many causes have concurred to make him adopt so revolting an opinion: in the first place, very few thinking men have ever believed such an absurdity, when they have deigned to make use of their reason; or, when they have accredited it, this notion was always counterbalanced by the idea of the goodness, by a reliance on the mercy, which they attributed to their respective divinities: in the second place, those who were blinded by their fears never rendered to themselves any account of these strange doctrines which they either received with awe from their legislators, or which were transmitted to them by their fathers: in the third place, each sees the object of his terrors only at a favourable distance; moreover, superstition promises him the means of escaping the tortures he believes he has merited.'

We conclude by quoting the following eloquent passage:

'O Nature! sovereign of all beings! and ye, her adorable daughters, Virtue, Reason, and Truth! remain for ever our revered protectors. It is to you that belong the praises of the human race; to you appertains the homage of the earth. Show us, then, O Nature! that which man ought to do, in order to obtain the happiness which thou makest him desire. Virtue! animate him with thy beneficent fire! Reason! conduct his uncertain steps through the paths of life. Truth! let thy torch illumine his intellect, dissipate the darkness of his road.........Banish error from our mind, wickedness from our hearts, confusion from our footsteps. Cause knowledge to extend its salubrious reign, goodness to occupy our souls, serenity to dwell in our bosoms.........Let our eyes, so long either dazzled or blindfolded, be at length fixed upon those objects we ought to seek. Dispel for ever those mists of ignorance, those hideous phantoms, together with those seducing chimeras, which only serve to lead us astray. Extricate us from that dark abyss into which we are plunged by superstition, overthrow the fatal empire of delusion, crumble the throne of falsehood, wrest from their polluted hands the power they have usurped.' 'I.'

JOHN WATTS, PRINTER, 147, FLEET STREET.

WITH THE

FREETHINKERS.

EDITED BY 'ICONOCLAST,' ANTHONY COLLINS, & JOHN WATTS.

No. 11.]

Sunday, March 1, 1857.

DAVID

HUME.

[Price 1d.

LORD BROUGHAM has rendered service not only to 'Letters,' but also to Freethought, by his admirable Lives,' incomparably the best we have of Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Gibbon, etc. From Lord Brougham we learn (whose life in this sketch we follow) that David Hume, related to the Earl of Hume's family, was born in Edinburgh, in April, 1711. Refusing to be made a lawyer, he was sent, in 1734, to a mercantile house in Bristol. The desk not suiting the embryo historian's genius, we find him in 1737 at La Flèche, in Anjou, writing his still-born Treatise on Human Nature;' which in 1742, in separate Essays, attracted some notice. Keeper and companion to the Marquis of Annandale in 1745, private secretary to General St. Clair, in 1747, he visited on embassy the courts of Vienna and Turin. While at Turin he completed his 'Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding,' the Treatise on Human Nature' in a new form. Returned to Scotland, he published his Political Discourses' in 1752, and the same year his Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.' The Essays, Moral and Metaphysical,' are the form in which we now read these speculations. In 1752, Hume became librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. In 1754, he published the first volume of his "History of England.' In 1755, appeared his Natural History of Religion.' In 1763 he accompanied the British ambassador to Paris. In 1765 he became chargé d'affaires. In 1766 he was appointed Under Secretary of State under Marshal Conway. In 1775 he was seized with a mortal disease, which he bore without any abatement of his cheerfulness; and on the 25th of August, le bon David,' as he was styled in Paris, died, to use his own words, having no enemies-except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians'-which was something to his honour, and a testimony of the usefulness of his life.

David Hume was the first writer who gave historical distinction to Great Britain. Lord John Russell remarked in a speech at Bristol, in October, 1854:-'We have no other "History of England" than Hume's......When a young man of eighteen asks for a "History of England," there is no resource but to give him Hume.' Hume was the author of the modern doctrines of politics and political economy, which now rule the world of science. He was the sagacious unfolder of truth, the accurate and bold discoverer of popular error.' More than a sceptic, he was an Atheist. Such is Lord Brougham's judgment of him.

Hume carried Freethought into high places. In originality of thought, grace of style, and logical ability, he distanced all rival writers on religion in his time, and what is of no small importance, his life was as blameless as his intellect was unapproachable.

[Published Fortnightly.]

Our first extract from his writings is a felicitous statement of the pro and con. on the questions of polygamous and single marriages:—

A man, in conjoining himself to a woman, is bound to her according to the terms of his engagement. In begetting children, he is bound, by all the ties of nature and humanity, to provide for their subsistence and education. When he has performed these two parts of duty, no one can reproach him with injustice or injury. And as the terms of his engagement, as well as the methods of subsisting his offspring, may be various, it is mere superstition to imagine that marriage can be entirely uniform, and will admit only of one mode or form. Did not human laws restrain the natural liberty of men, every particular marriage would be as different as contracts or bargains of any other kind or species. As circumstances vary, and the laws propose different advantages, we find, that in different times and places, they impose different conditions on this important contract. In Tonquin, it is usual for the sailors, when the ship comes into the harbour, to marry for the season; and, notwithstanding this precarious engagement, they are assured, it is said, of the strictest fidelity to their bed, as well as in the whole management of their affairs, from those temporary spouses. I cannot, at present, recollect my authorities; but I have somewhere read, that the Republic of Athens, having lost many of its citizens by war and pestilence, allowed every man to marry two wives, in order the sooner to repair the waste which had been made by these calamities. The poet Euripides happened to be coupled to two noisy vixens, who so plagued him with their jealousies and quarrels, that he became ever after a professed woman hater; and is the only theatrical writer, perhaps the only poet, that ever entertained an aversion to the sex..... The advocates for polygamy may recommend it as the only effectual remedy for the disorders of love, and the only expedient for freeing men from that slavery to the females which the natural violence of our passions has imposed upon us. By this means alone can we regain our right of sovereignty; and, sating our appetite, re-establish the authority of reason in our minds, and, of consequence, our own authority in our families. Man, like a weak sovereign, being unable to support himself against the wiles and intrigues of his subjects, must play one faction against another, and become absolute by the mutual jealousy of the females. To divide and to govern is an universal maxim; and by neglecting it, the Europeans undergo a more grievous and a more ignominious slavery than the Turks or Persians, who are subjected indeed to a sovereign that lies at a distance from them, but in their domestic affairs rules with an uncontrollable sway. On the other hand, it may be urged with better reason, that this sovereignty of the male is a real usurpation, and destroys that nearness of rank, not to say equality, which nature has established between the sexes. We are, by nature, their lovers, their friends, their patrons. Would we willingly exchange such endearing appellations for the barbarous title of master and tyrant? In what capacity shall we gain by this inhuman proceeding? As lovers, or as husbands? The lover is totally annihilated; and courtship, the most agreeable scene in life, can no longer have place where women have not the free disposal of themselves, but are bought and sold like the meanest animal. The husband is as little a gainer, having found the admirable secret of extinguishing every part of love, except its jealousy. No rose without its thorn; but he must be a foolish wretch indeed, that throws away the rose and preserves only the thorn. But the Asiatic manners are as destructive to friendship as to love. Jealousy excludes men from all intimacies and familiarities with each

other. No one dares bring his friend to his house or table, lest he bring a lover to his numerous wives. Hence, all over the East, each family is as much separate from another as if they were so many distinct kingdoms. No wonder then that Solomon, living like an Eastern prince, with his seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, without one friend, could write so pathetically concerning the vanity of the world. Had he tried the secret of one wife or mistress, a few friends, and a great many companions, he might have found life somewhat more agreeable. Destroy love and friendship, what remains in the world worth accepting?'

Next we quote his famous statement of the principle of utility in morals:There has been a controversy started of late much better worth examination, concerning the general foundation of morals; whether they be derived from reason or from sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgment of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human species. The ancient philosophers, though they often affirm that virtue is nothing but conformity to reason, yet, in general, seem to consider morals as deriving their existence from taste and sentiment. On the other hand, our modern inquirers, though they also talk much of the beauty of virtue, and deformity of vice, yet have commonly endeavoured to account for these distinctions by metaphysical reasonings, and by deductions from the most abstract principles of the understanding. Such confusion reigned in these subjects, that an opposition of the greatest consequence could prevail between one system and another, and even in the parts of almost each individual system; and yet nobody, till very lately, was ever sensible of it. The elegant Lord Shaftesbury, who first gave occasion to remark this distinction, and who, in general, adhered to the principles of the ancients, is not, himself, entirely free from the same confusion......In all determinations of morality, the circumstance of public utility is ever principally in view; and wherever disputes arise, either in philosophy or common life, concerning the bounds of duty, the question cannot, by any means, be decided with greater certainty, than by ascertaining, on any side, the true interests of mankind. If any false opinion, embraced from appearances, has been found to prevail; as soon as farther experience and sounder reasoning have given us juster notions of human affairs, we retract our first sentiment, and adjust anew the boundaries of moral good and evil. Giving alms to common beggars is naturally praised; because it seems to carry relief to the distressed and indigent; but when we observe the encouragement thence arising to idleness and debauchery, we regard that species of charity rather as a weakness than a virtue. Tyrannicide, or the assassination of usurpers and oppressive princes, was highly extolled in ancient times; because it both freed mankind from many of these monsters, and seemed to keep the others in awe whom the sword or poinard could not reach. But history and experience having since convinced us, that this practice increases the jealousy and cruelty of princes, a Timoleon and a Brutus, though treated with indulgence on account of the prejudices of their times, are now considered as very improper models for imitation. Liberality in princes is regarded as a mark of beneficence. But when it occurs, that the homely bread of the honest and industrious is often thereby converted into delicious cates for the idle and the prodigal, we soon retract our heedless praises. The regrets of a prince, for having lost a