book I

looked on the back of had, in flaming gold letters, the following inscription--"Blast the Antinomians!"[808] If a line had been drawn below the first word, Dr. Blast's history of the Antinomians would not have been so fearfully misinterpreted. It seems that neither the binder nor the arranger of the room had caught my reading. The book was removed before the catalogue of books of reference was printed.

AN ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXER.

Two systems of astronomy: first, the Newtonian system, showing the rise and progress thereof, with a short historical account; the general theory with a variety of remarks thereon: second, the system in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, showing the rise and progress from Enoch, the seventh from Adam, the prophets, Moses, and others, in the first Testament; our Lord Jesus Christ, and his apostles, in the new or second Testament; Reeve and Muggleton, in the third and last Testament; with a variety of remarks thereon. By Isaac Frost.[809] London, 1846, 4to.

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A very handsomely printed volume, with beautiful plates. Many readers who have heard of Muggletonians have never had any distinct idea of Lodowick Muggleton,[810] the inspired tailor, (1608-1698) who about 1650 received his commission from heaven, wrote a Testament, founded a sect, and descended to posterity. Of Reeve[811] less is usually said; according to Mr. Frost, he and Muggleton are the two "witnesses." I shall content myself with one specimen of Mr. Frost's science:

"I was once invited to hear read over 'Guthrie[812] on Astronomy,' and when the reading was concluded I was asked my opinion thereon; when I said, 'Doctor, it appears to me that Sir I. Newton has only given two proofs in support of his theory of the earth revolving round the sun: all the rest is assertion without any proofs.'--'What are they?' inquired the Doctor.--'Well,' I said, 'they are, first, the power of {396} attraction to keep the earth to the sun; the second is the power of repulsion, by virtue of the centrifugal motion of the earth: all the rest appears to me assertion without proof.' The Doctor considered a short time and then said, 'It certainly did appear so.' I said, 'Sir Isaac has certainly obtained the credit of completing the system, but really he has only half done his work.'--'How is that,' inquired my friend the Doctor. My reply was this: 'You will observe his system shows the earth traverses round the sun on an inclined plane; the consequence is, there are four powers required to make his system complete:

1st. The power of _attraction_. 2ndly. The power of _repulsion_. 3rdly. The power of _ascending_ the inclined plane. 4thly. The power of _descending_ the inclined plane.

You will thus easily see the _four_ powers required, and Newton has only accounted for _two_; the work is therefore only half done.' Upon due reflection the Doctor said, 'It certainly was necessary to have these _four_ points cleared up before the system could be said to be complete.'"

I have no doubt that Mr. Frost, and many others on my list, have really encountered doctors who could be puzzled by such stuff as this, or nearly as bad, among the votaries of existing systems, and have been encouraged thereby to print their objections. But justice requires me to say that from the words "power of repulsion by virtue of the centrifugal motion of the earth," Mr. Frost may be suspected of having something more like a notion of the much-mistaken term "centrifugal force" than many paradoxers of greater fame. The Muggletonian sect is not altogether friendless: over and above this handsome volume, the works of Reeve and Muggleton were printed, in 1832, in three quarto volumes. See _Notes and Queries, 1st Series_, v, 80; 3d Series, iii, 303. {397}

[The system laid down by Mr. Frost, though intended to be substantially that of Lodowick Muggleton, is not so vagarious. It is worthy of note how very different have been the fates of two contemporary paradoxers, Muggleton and George Fox.[813] They were friends and associates,[814] and commenced their careers about the same time, 1647-1650. The followers of Fox have made their sect an institution, and deserve to be called the pioneers of philanthropy. But though there must still be Muggletonians, since expensive books are published by men who take the name, no sect of that name is known to the world. Nevertheless, Fox and Muggleton are men of one type, developed by the same circumstances: it is for those who investigate such men to point out why their teachings have had fates so different. Macaulay says it was because Fox found followers of more sense than himself. True enough: but why did Fox find such followers and not Muggleton? The two were equally crazy, to all appearance: and the difference required must be sought in the doctrines themselves.

Fox was not a _rational_ man: but the success of his sect and doctrines entitles him to a letter of alteration of the phrase which I am surprised has not become current. When Conduitt,[815] the husband of Newton's half-niece, wrote a circular to Newton's friends, just after his death, inviting them to bear their parts in a proper biography, he said, "As Sir I. Newton was a _national_ man, I think every one ought to contribute to a work intended to do him justice." Here is the very phrase which is often wanted to signify that {398} celebrity which puts its mark, good or bad, on the national history, in a manner which cannot be asserted of many notorious or famous historical characters. Thus George Fox and Newton are both _national_ men. Dr. Roget's[816] _Thesaurus_ gives more than fifty synonyms--_colleagues_ would be the better word--of "_celebrated_," any one of which might be applied, either in prose or poetry, to Newton or to his works, no one of which comes near to the meaning which Conduitt's adjective immediately suggests.

The truth is, that we are too _monarchical_ to be _national_. We have the Queen's army, the Queen's navy, the Queen's highway, the Queen's English, etc.; nothing is national except the _debt_. That this remark is not new is an addition to its force; it has hardly been repeated since it was first made. It is some excuse that _nation_ is not vernacular English: the _country_ is our word, and _country man_ is appropriated.]

Astronomical Aphorisms, or Theory of Nature; founded on the immutable basis of Meteoric Action. By P. Murphy,[817] Esq. London, 1847, 12mo.

This is by the framer of the Weather Almanac, who appeals to that work as corroborative of his theory of planetary temperature, years after all the world knew by experience that this meteorological theory was just as good as the others.

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The conspiracy of the Bullionists as it affects the present system of the money laws. By Caleb Quotem. Birmingham, 1847, 8vo. (pp. 16).

This pamphlet is one of a class of which I know very little, in which the effects of the laws relating to this or that political bone of contention are imputed to deliberate conspiracy of one class to rob another of what the one knew ought to belong to the other. The success of such writers in believing what they have a bias to believe, would, if they knew themselves, make them think it equally likely that the inculpated classes might really believe what it is _their_ interest to believe. The idea of a _guilty_ understanding existing among fundholders, or landholders, or any holders, all the country over, and never detected except by bouncing pamphleteers, is a theory which should have been left for Cobbett[818] to propose, and for Apella to believe.[819]

[_August_, 1866. A pamphlet shows how to pay the National Debt. Advance paper to railways, etc., receivable in payment of taxes. The railways pay interest and principal in money, with which you pay your national debt, and redeem your notes. Twenty-five years of interest redeems the notes, and then the principal pays the debt. Notes to be kept up to value by penalties.]

THEISM INDEPENDENT OF REVELATION.

The Reasoner. No. 45. Edited by G.J. Holyoake.[820] Price _2d._ Is there sufficient proof of the existence of God? 8vo. 1847.

This acorn of the holy oak was forwarded to me with a manuscript note, signed by the editor, on the part of the {400} "London Society of Theological Utilitarians," who say, "they trust you may be induced to give this momentous subject your consideration." The supposition that a middle-aged person, known as a student of thought on more subjects than one, had that particular subject yet to begin, is a specimen of what I will call the _assumption-trick_ of controversy, a habit which pervades all sides of all subjects. The tract is a proof of the good policy of letting opinions find their level, without any assistance from the Court of Queen's Bench. Twenty years earlier the thesis would have been positive, "There is sufficient proof of the non-existence of God," and bitter in its tone. As it stands, we have a moderate and respectful treatment--wrong only in making the opponent argue absurdly, as usually happens when one side invents the other--of a question in which a great many Christians have agreed with the atheist: that question being--Can the existence of God be proved independently of revelation? Many very religious persons answer this question in the negative, as well as Mr. Holyoake. And, this point being settled, all who agree in the negative separate into those who can endure scepticism, and those who cannot: the second class find their way to Christianity. This very number of _The Reasoner_ announces the secession of one of its correspondents, and his adoption of the Christian faith. This would not have happened twenty years before: nor, had it happened, would it have been respectfully announced.

There are people who are very unfortunate in the expression of their meaning. Mr. Holyoake, in the name of the "London Society" etc., forwarded a pamphlet on the existence of God, and said that the Society trusted I "may be induced to give" the subject my "consideration." How could I know the Society was one person, who supposed I had arrived at a conclusion and wanted a "_guiding word_"? But so it seems it was: Mr. Holyoake, in the _English {401} Leader_ of October 15, 1864, and in a private letter to me, writes as follows:

"The gentleman who was the author of the argument, and who asked me to send it to Mr. De Morgan, never assumed that that gentleman had 'that particular subject to begin'--on the contrary, he supposed that one whom we all knew to be eminent as a thinker _had_ come to a conclusion upon it, and would perhaps vouchsafe a guiding word to one who was, as yet, seeking the solution of the Great Problem of Theology. I told my friend that 'Mr. De Morgan was doubtless preoccupied, and that he must be content to wait. On some day of courtesy and leisure he might have the kindness to write.' Nor was I wrong--the answer appears in your pages at the lapse of seventeen years."

I suppose Mr. Holyoake's way of putting his request was the _stylus curiae_ of the Society. A worthy Quaker who was sued for debt in the King's Bench was horrified to find himself charged in the declaration with detaining his creditor's money by force and arms, contrary to the peace of our Lord the King, etc. It's only the _stylus curiae_, said a friend: I don't know _curiae_, said the Quaker, but he shouldn't style us peace-breakers.

The notion that the _non_-existence of God can be _proved_, has died out under the light of discussion: had the only lights shone from the pulpit and the prison, so great a step would never have been made. The question now is as above. The dictum that Christianity is "part and parcel of the law of the land" is also abrogated: at the same time, and the coincidence is not an accident, it is becoming somewhat nearer the truth that the law of the land is part and parcel of Christianity. It must also be noticed that _Christianity_ was part and parcel of the articles of _war_; and so was _duelling_. Any officer speaking against religion was to be cashiered; and any officer receiving an affront without, in the last resort, attempting to kill his opponent, was also to be cashiered. Though somewhat of a book-hunter, I {402} have never been able to ascertain the date of the collected remonstrances of the prelates in the House of Lords against this overt inculcation of murder, under the soft name of _satisfaction_: it is neither in Watt,[821] nor in Lowndes,[822] nor in any edition of Brunet;[823] and there is no copy in the British Museum. Was the collected edition really published?

[The publication of the above in the _Athenaeum_ has not produced reference to a single copy. The collected edition seems to be doubted. I have even met one or two persons who doubt the fact of the Bishops having remonstrated at all: but their doubt was founded on an absurd supposition, namely, that it was _no business of theirs_; that it was not the business of the prelates of the church in union with the state to remonstrate against the Crown commanding murder! Some say that the edition was published, but under an irrelevant title, which prevented people from knowing what it was about. Such things have happened: for example, arranged extracts from Wellington's general orders, which would have attracted attention, fell dead under the title of "Principles of War." It is surmised that the