HUMANITY'S GAIN from UNBELIEF By Charles Bradlaugh [Reprinted from the "North American Review" of March, 1889. ] LONDON FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1889. HUMANITY'S GAIN FROM UNBELIEF. As an unbeliever, I ask leave to plead that humanity has been realgainer from scepticism, and that the gradual and growing rejection ofChristianity--like the rejection of the faiths which preceded it--has infact added, and will add, to man's happiness and well being. I maintainthat in physics science is the outcome of scepticism, and that generalprogress is impossible without scepticism on matters of religion. Imean by religion every form of belief which accepts or asserts thesupernatural. I write as a Monist, and use the word "nature" as meaningall phenomena, every phænomenon, all that is necessary for the happeningof any and every phænomenon. Every religion is constantly changing, andat any given time is the measure of the civilisation attained by whatGuizot described as the _juste milieu_ of those who profess it. Eachreligion is slowly but certainly modified in its dogma and practice bythe gradual development of the peoples amongst whom it is professed. Each discovery destroys in whole or part some theretofore cherishedbelief. No religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is rathergradually out-grown. None see a religion die; dead religions are likedead languages and obsolete customs; the decay is long and--like theglacier march--is only perceptible to the careful watcher by comparisonsextending over long periods. A superseded religion may often be tracedin the festivals, ceremonies, and dogmas of the religion which hasreplaced it. Traces of obsolete religions may often be found in popularcustoms, in old wives' stories, and in children's tales. It is necessary, in order that my plea should be understood, that Ishould explain what I mean by Christianity; and in the very attempt atthis explanation there will, I think, be found strong illustration ofthe value of unbelief. Christianity in practice may be gathered fromits more ancient forms, represented by the Roman Catholic and the GreekChurches, or from the various churches which have grown up in the lastfew centuries. Each of these churches calls itself Christian. Someof them deny the right of the others to use the word Christian. SomeChristian churches treat, or have treated, other Christian churchesas heretics or unbelievers. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants inGreat Britain and Ireland have in turn been terribly cruel one tothe other; and the ferocious laws of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies, enacted by the English Protestants against English and IrishPapists, are a disgrace to civilisation. These penal laws, enduringlongest in Ireland, still bear fruit in much of the political mischiefand agrarian crime of to-day. It is only the tolerant indifference ofscepticism that, one after the other, has repealed most of the lawsdirected by the Established Christian Church against Papists andDissenters, and also against Jews and heretics. Church of Englandclergymen have in the past gone to great lengths in denouncingnonconformity; and even in the present day an effective sample ofsuch denunciatory bigotry may be found in a sort of orthodox catechismwritten by the Rev. F. A. Gace, of Great Barling, Essex, the popularityof which is vouched by the fact that it has gone through ten editions. This catechism for little children teaches that "Dissent is a greatsin", and that Dissenters "worship God according to their own eviland corrupt imaginations, and not according to his revealed will, andtherefore their worship is idolatrous". Church of England Christiansand Dissenting Christians, when fraternising amongst themselves, oftenpublicly draw the line at Unitarians, and positively deny that thesehave any sort of right to call themselves Christians. In the first half of the seventeenth century Quakers were flogged andimprisoned in England as blasphemers; and the early Christian settlersin New England, escaping from the persecution of Old World Christians, showed scant mercy to the followers of Fox and Penn. It is customary, in controversy, for those advocating the claims ofChristianity, to include all good done by men in nominally Christiancountries as if such good were the result of Christianity, while theycontend that the evil which exists prevails in spite of Christianity. I shall try to make out that the ameliorating march of the last fewcenturies has been initiated by the heretics of each age, though I quiteconcede that the men and women denounced and persecuted as infidels bythe pious of one century, are frequently claimed as saints by the piousof a later generation. What then is Christianity? As a system or scheme of doctrine, Christianity may, I submit, not unfairly be gathered from the Old andNew Testaments. It is true that some Christians to-day desire to escapefrom submission to portions, at any rate, of the Old Testament; but thisvery tendency seems to me to be part of the result of the beneficialheresy for which I am pleading. Man's humanity has revolted against OldTestament barbarism; and therefore he has attempted to disassociatethe Old Testament from Christianity. Unless Old and New Testaments areaccepted as God's revelation to man, Christianity has no higher claimthan any other of the world's many religions, if no such claim can bemade out for it apart from the Bible. And though it is quite true thatsome who deem themselves Christians put the Old Testament completely inthe background, this is, I allege, because they are out-growing theirChristianity. Without the doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, Christianity, as a religion, is naught; but unless the story of Adam'sfall is accepted, the redemption from the consequences of that fallcannot be believed. Both in Great Britain and in the United States theOld and New Testaments are forced on the people as part of Christianity;for it is blasphemy at common law to deny the scriptures of the Old andNew Testaments to be of divine authority; and such denial is punishablewith fine and imprisonment, or even worse. The rejection of Christianityintended throughout this paper, is therefore the rejection of the Oldand New Testaments as being of divine revelation. It is the rejectionalike of the authorised teachings of the Church of Rome and of theChurch of England, as these may be found in the Bible, the creeds, theencyclicals, the prayer book, the canons and homilies of either or bothof these churches. It is the rejection of the Christianity of Luther, ofCalvin, and of Wesley. A ground frequently taken by Christian theologians is that theprogress and civilisation of the world are due to Christianity; andthe discussion is complicated by the fact that many eminent servants ofhumanity have been nominal Christians, of one or other of the sects. Myallegation will be that the special services rendered to human progressby these exceptional men, have not been in consequence of their adhesionto Christianity, but in spite of it; and that the specific points ofadvantage to human kind have been in ratio of their direct opposition toprecise Biblical enactments. A. S. Farrar says (1) that Christianity "asserts authority overreligious belief in virtue of being a supernatural communicationfrom God, and claims the right to control human thought in virtue ofpossessing sacred books, which are at once the record and the instrumentof the communication, written by men endowed with supernaturalinspiration". 1 Farrar's "Critical History of Freethought". Unbelievers refuse to submit to the asserted authority, and deny thisclaim of control over human thought: they allege that every effort atfreethinking must provoke sturdier thought. Take one clear gain to humanity consequent on unbelief, i. E. In theabolition of slavery in some countries, in the abolition of the slavetrade in most civilised countries, and in the tendency to its totalabolition. I am unaware of any religion in the world which in the pastforbade slavery. The professors of Christianity for ages supported it;the Old Testament repeatedly sanctioned it by special laws; the NewTestament has no repealing declaration. Though we are at the close ofthe nineteenth century of the Christian era, it is only during thepast three-quarters of a century that the battle for freedom has beengradually won. It is scarcely a quarter of a century since the famousemancipation amendment was carried to the United States Constitution. And it is impossible for any well-informed Christian to deny that theabolition movement in North America was most steadily and bitterlyopposed by the religious bodies in the various States. Henry Wilson, inhis "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America"; Samuel J. May, in his"Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict"; and J. Greenleaf Whittier, in his poems, alike are witnesses that the Bible and pulpit, the Churchand its great influence, were used against abolition and in favor of theslaveowner. I know that Christians in the present day often declarethat Christianity had a large share in bringing about the abolitionof slavery, and this because men professing Christianity wereabolitionists. I plead that these so-called Christian abolitionists weremen and women whose humanity, recognising freedom for all, was in thisin direct conflict with Christianity. It is not yet fifty years sincethe European Christian powers jointly agreed to abolish the slave trade. What of the effect of Christianity on these powers in the centurieswhich had preceded? The heretic Condorcet pleaded powerfully for freedomwhilst Christian France was still slave-holding. For many centuriesChristian Spain and Christian Portugal held slaves. Porto Rico freedomis not of long date; and Cuban emancipation is even yet newer. It wasa Christian King, Charles 5th, and a Christian friar, who founded inSpanish America the slave trade between the Old World and the New. Forsome 1800 years, almost, Christians kept slaves, bought slaves, soldslaves, bred slaves, stole slaves. Pious Bristol and godly Liverpoolless than 100 years ago openly grew rich on the traffic. Daring theninth century week Christians sold slaves to the Saracens. In theeleventh century prostitutes were publicly sold as slaves in Rome, andthe profit went to the Church. It is said that William Wilberforce, the abolitionist, was a Christian. But at any rate his Christianity was strongly diluted with unbelief. As an abolitionist he did not believe Leviticus xxv, 44-6; he musthave rejected Exodus xxi, 2-6; he could not have accepted the manypermissions and injunctions by the Bible deity to his chosen people tocapture and hold slaves. In the House of Commons on 18th February, 1796, Wilberforce reminded that Christian assembly that infidel and anarchicFrance had given liberty to the Africans, whilst Christian and monarchicEngland was "obstinately continuing a system of cruelty and injustice". Wilberforce, whilst advocating the abolition of slavery, found the wholeinfluence of the English Court, and the great weight of the EpiscopalBench, against him. George III, a most Christian king, regardedabolition theories with abhorrence, and the Christian House of Lordswas utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. When Christianmissionaries some sixty-two years ago preached to Demerara negroes underthe rule of Christian England, they were treated by Christian judges, holding commission from Christian England, as criminals for sopreaching. A Christian commissioned officer, member of the EstablishedChurch of England, signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves aslate as the year 1824. In the evidence before a Christian court-martial, a missionary is charged with having tended to make the negroesdissatisfied with their condition as slaves, and with having promoteddiscontent and dissatisfaction amongst the slaves against theirlawful masters. For this the Christian judges sentenced the Demeraraabolitionist missionary to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. The judges belonged to the Established Church; the missionary was aMethodist. In this the Church of England Christians in Demerara wereno worse than Christians of other sects: their Roman Catholic Christianbrethren in St. Domingo fiercely attacked the Jesuits as criminalsbecause they treated negroes as though they were men and women, inencouraging "two slaves to separate their interest and safety from thatof the gang", whilst orthodox Christians let them couple promiscuouslyand breed for the benefit of their owners like any other of theirplantation cattle. In 1823 the _Royal Gazette_ (Christian) of Demerarasaid: "We shall not suffer you to enlighten our slaves, who are by law ourproperty, till you can demonstrate that when they are made religious andknowing they will continue to be our slaves. " When William Lloyd Garrison, the pure-minded and most earnestabolitionist, delivered his first anti-slavery address in Boston, Massachusetts, the only building he could obtain, in which to speak, wasthe infidel hall owned by Abner Kneeland, the "infidel" editor of the_Boston Investigatory_ who had been sent to gaol for blasphemy. EveryChristian sect had in turn refused Mr. Lloyd Garrison the use of thebuildings they severally controlled. Lloyd Garrison told me himself howhonored deacons of a Christian Church joined in an actual attempt tohang him. When abolition was advocated in the United States in 1790, therepresentative from South Carolina was able to plead that the Southernclergy "did not condemn either slavery or the slave trade"; and Mr. Jackson, the representative from Georgia, pleaded that "from Genesis toRevelation" the current was favorable to slavery. Elias Hicks, the braveAbolitionist Quaker, was denounced as an Atheist, and less than twentyyears ago a Hicksite Quaker was expelled from one of the SouthernAmerican Legislatures, because of the reputed irreligion of theseabolitionist "Friends". When the Fugitive Slave Law was under discussion in North America, largenumbers of clergymen of nearly every denomination were found ready todefend this infamous law. Samuel James May, the famous abolitionist, wasdriven from the pulpit as irreligious, solely because of his attackson slaveholding. Northern clergymen tried to induce "silver tongued"Wendell Philips to abandon his advocacy of abolition. Southern pulpitsrang with praises for the murderous attack on Charles Sumner. Theslayers of Elijah Lovejoy were highly reputed Christian men. Guizot, notwithstanding that he tries to claim that the Church exertedits influence to restrain slavery, says ("European Civilisation", vol. I. , p. 110): "It has often been repeated that the abolition of slavery among modernpeople is entirely due to Christians. That, I think, is saying too much. Slavery existed for a long period in the heart of Christian society, without its being particularly astonished or irritated. A multitudeof causes, and a great development in other ideas and principles ofcivilisation, were necessary for the abolition of this iniquity of alliniquities. " And my contention is that this "development in other ideas andprinciples of civilisation" was long retarded by Governments in whichthe Christian Church was dominant. The men who advocated liberty wereimprisoned, racked, and burned, so long as the Church was strong enoughto be merciless. The Rev. Francis Minton, Hector of Middlewich, in his recent earnestvolume (1) on the struggles of labor, admits that "a few centuriesago slavery was acknowledged throughout Christendom to have the divinesanction. .. . 1 "Capital and Wages", p. 19. Neither the exact cause, nor the precise time of the decline of thebelief in the righteousness of slavery can be defined. It was doubtlessdue to a combination of causes, one probably being as indirect as therecognition of the greater economy of free labor. With the decline ofthe belief the abolition of slavery took place. " The institution of slavery was actually existent in Christian Scotlandin the 17th century, where the white coal workers and salt workers ofEast Lothian were chattels, as were their negro brethren in the SouthernStates thirty years since; they "went to those who succeeded to theproperty of the works, and they could be sold, bartered, or pawned". (1)"There is", says J. M. Robertson, "no trace that the Protestant clergyof Scotland ever raised a voice against the slavery which grew up beforetheir eyes. And it was not until 1799, after republican and irreligiousFrance had set the example, that it was legally abolished. " 1 "Perversion of Scotland, " p. 197. 2 "Capital and Wages ", pp. 15, 16. Take further the gain to humanity consequent on the unbelief, or ratherdisbelief, in witchcraft and wizardry. Apart from the brutality byChristians towards those suspected of witchcraft, the hindrance toscientific initiative or experiment was incalculably great so long asbelief in magic obtained. The inventions of the past two centuries, andespecially those of the 18th century, might have benefitted mankind muchearlier and much more largely, but for the foolish belief in witchcraftand the shocking ferocity exhibited against those suspected ofnecromancy. After quoting a large number of cases of trial andpunishment for witchcraft from official records in Scotland, J. M. Robertson says: "The people seem to have passed from cruelty to crueltyprecisely as they became more and more fanatical, more and more devotedto their Church, till after many generations the slow spread of humanscience began to counteract the ravages of superstition, the clergyresisting reason and humanity to the last". The Rev. Mr. Minton concedes that it is "the advance of knowledge whichhas rendered the idea of Satanic agency through the medium of witchcraftgrotesquely ridiculous". He admits that "for more than 1500 years thebelief in witchcraft was universal in Christendom", and that "the publicmind was saturated with the idea of Satanic agency in the economy ofnature". He adds: "If we ask why the world now rejects what was once sounquestioningly believed, we can only reply that advancing knowledge hasgradually undermined the belief". In a letter recently sent to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ against modernSpiritualism, Professor Huxley declares, ". .. That the older form of the same fundamental delusion--the belief inpossession and in witchcraft--gave rise in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries to persecutions by Christians of innocent men, women, and children, more extensive, more cruel, and more murderous thanany to which the Christians of the first three centuries were subjectedby the authorities of pagan Rome. " And Professor Huxley adds: "No one deserves much blame for being deceived in these matters. We areall intellectually handicapped in youth by the incessant repetition ofthe stories about possession and witchcraft in both the Old and the NewTestaments. The majority of us are taught nothing which will help us toobserve accurately and to interpret observations with due caution. " The English Statute Book under Elizabeth and under James was disfiguredby enactments against witchcraft passed under pressure from theChristian churches, which Acts have only been repealed in consequence ofthe disbelief in the Christian precept, "thou shaft not suffer a witchto live". The statute 1 James I, c. 12, condemned to death "allpersons invoking any evil spirits, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit", orgenerally practising any "infernal arts". This was not repealed untilthe eighteenth century was far advanced. Edison's phonograph would 280years ago have insured martyrdom for its inventor; the utilisation ofelectric force to transmit messages around the world would have beenclearly the practice of an infernal art. At least we may plead thatunbelief has healed the bleeding feet of science, and made the road freefor her upward march. Is it not also fair to urge the gain to humanity which has been apparentin the wiser treatment of the insane, consequent on the unbelief inthe Christian doctrine that these unfortunates were examples either ofdemoniacal possession or of special visitation of deity? For centuriesunder Christianity mental disease was most ignorantly treated. Exorcism, shackles, and the whip were the penalties rather than the curatives formental maladies. From the heretical departure of Pinel at the closeof the last century to the position of Maudsley to-day, every stepillustrates the march of unbelief. Take the gain to humanity in theunbelief not yet complete, but now largely preponderant, in the dogmathat sickness, pestilence, and famine were manifestations of divineanger, the results of which could neither be avoided nor prevented. The Christian Churches have done little or nothing to dispel thissuperstition. The official and authorised prayers of the principaldenominations, even to-day, reaffirm it. Modern study of the laws ofhealth, experiments in sanitary improvements, more careful applicationsof medical knowledge, have proved more efficacious in preventing ordiminishing plagues and pestilence than have the intervention of thepriest or the practice of prayer. Those in England who hold the oldfaith that prayer will suffice to cure disease are to-day termed"peculiar people", and are occasionally indicted for manslaughter whentheir sick children die, because the parents have trusted to God insteadof appealing to the resources of science. It is certainly a clear gain to astronomical science that the Churchwhich tried to compel Galileo to unsay the truth has been overborne bythe growing unbelief of the age, even though our little children areyet taught that Joshua made the sun and moon stand still, and that forHezekiah the sun-dial reversed its record. As Buckle, arguing for themorality of scepticism, says (1): 1 "History of Civilisation", vol. I, p. 345. "As long as men refer the movements of the comets to the immediatefinger of God, and as long as they believe that an eclipse is one of themodes by which the deity expresses his anger, they will never be guiltyof the blasphemous presumption of attempting to predict suchsupernatural appearances. Before they could dare to investigate thecauses of these mysterious phænomena, it is necessary that they shouldbelieve, or at all events that they should suspect, that the phænomenathemselves were capable of being explained by the human mind. " As in astronomy so in geology, the gain of knowledge to humanity hasbeen almost solely in measure of the rejection of the Christian theory. A century since it was almost universally held that the world wascreated 6, 000 years ago, or at any rate, that by the sin of the firstman, Adam, death commenced about that period. Ethnology and Anthropologyhave only been possible in so far as, adopting the regretful words ofSir W. Jones, "intelligent and virtuous persons are inclined to doubtthe authenticity of the accounts delivered by Moses concerning theprimitive world". Surely it is clear gain to humanity that unbelief has sprung up againstthe divine right of kings, that men no longer believe that the monarchis "God's anointed" or that "the powers that be are ordained of God". Inthe struggles for political freedom the weight of the Church was mostlythrown on the side of the tyrant. The homilies of the Church of Englanddeclare that "even the wicked rulers have their power and authority fromGod ", and that "such subjects as are disobedient or rebellious againsttheir princes disobey God and procure their own damnation". It canscarcely be necessary to argue to the citizens of the United States ofAmerica that the origin of their liberties was in the rejection of faithin the divine right of George III. Will any one, save the most bigoted, contend that it is not certain gainto humanity to spread unbelief in the terrible doctrine that eternaltorment is the probable fate of the great majority of the human family?Is it not gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty ofthe wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot in life whichprovidence had awarded them? If it stood alone it would be almost sufficient to plead asjustification for heresy the approach towards equality and liberty forthe utterance of all opinions achieved because of growing unbelief. At one period in Christendom each Government acted as though only onereligious faith could be true, and as though the holding, or at anyrate the making known, any other opinion was a criminal act deservingpunishment. Under the one word "infidel", even as late as Lord Coke, were classed together all who were not Christians, even though they wereMahommedans, Brahmins, or Jews. All who did not accept the Christianfaith were sweepingly denounced as infidels and therefore _hors de laloi_. One hundred and forty-five years since, the Attorney-General, pleading in our highest court, said (1): "What is the definition of aninfidel? Why, one who does not believe in the Christian religion. Thena Jew is an infidel. " And English history for several centuries priorto the Commonwealth shows how habitually and most atrociously Christiankings, Christian courts, and Christian churches, persecuted and harassedthese infidel Jews. There was a time in England when Jews were suchinfidels that they were not even allowed to be sworn as witnesses. In1740 a legacy left for establishing an assembly for the reading ofthe Jewish scriptures was held to be void (2) because it was "for thepropagation of the Jewish law in contradiction to the Christian religion". It is only in very modern times that municipal rights have beenaccorded in England to Jews. It is barely thirty years since they havebeen allowed to sit in Parliament. In 1851, the late Mr. Newdegate indebate (3) objected "that they should have sitting in that House anindividual who regarded our Redeemer as an impostor". Lord ChiefJustice Raymond has shown (4) how it was that Christian intolerance wasgradually broken down. "A Jew may sue at this day, but heretofore hecould not; for then they were looked upon as enemies, but now commercehas taught the world more humanity. " Lord Coke treated the infidel as one who in law had no right of anykind, with whom no contract need be kept, to whom no debt was payable. The plea of alien infidel as answer to a claim was actually pleaded incourt as late as 1737. (5) In a solemn judgment, Lord Coke says (6):"All infidels are in law _perpetui inimici_; for between them, as withthe devils whose subjects they be, and the Christian, there is perpetualhostility". Twenty years ago the law of England required the writer ofany periodical publication or pamphlet under sixpence in price to givesureties for £800 against the publication of blasphemy. I was the lastperson prosecuted in 1868 for non-compliance with that law, which wasrepealed by Mr. Gladstone in 1869. Up till the 23rd December, 1888, aninfidel in Scotland was only allowed to enforce any legal claim in courton condition that, if challenged, he denied his infidelity. If he liedand said he was a Christian, he was accepted, despite his lying. If hetold the truth and said he was an unbeliever, then he was practicallyan outlaw, incompetent to give evidence for himself or for any other. Fortunately all this was changed by the Royal assent to the Oaths Act on24th December. Has not humanity clearly gained a little in this strugglethrough unbelief? 1 Omychund v. Barker, 1 Atkyns 29. 2 D'Costa. D'Pays, Amb. 228. 3 Hansard cxvi. 381. 4 Lord Raymond's reports 282, Wells v. Williams. 5 Ramkissenseat v. Barker, 1 Atkyns 61. 6 Coke's reports, Calvin's ease. For more than a century and a-half the Roman Catholic had in practiceharsher measure dealt out to him by the English Protestant Christian, than was even during that period the fate of the Jew or the unbeliever. If the Roman Catholic would not take the oath of abnegation, which toa sincere Romanist was impossible, he was in effect an outlaw, and the"jury packing" so much complained of to-day in Ireland is one of thehabit survivals of the old bad time when Roman Catholics were thus bylaw excluded from the jury box. The _Scotsman_ of January 5th, 1889, notes that in 1860 the Rev. Dr. Robert Lee, of Greyfriars, gave a course of Sunday evening lectures onBiblical Criticism, in which he showed the absurdity and untenablenessof regarding every word in the Bible as inspired; and it adds: "We well remember the awful indignation such opinions inspired, and itis refreshing to contrast them with the calmness with which they arenow received. Not only from the pulpits of the city, but from the press(misnamed religious) were his doctrines denounced. And one eminentU. P. Minister went the length of publicly praying for him, and for thestudents under his care. It speaks volumes for the progress madesince then, when we think in all probability Dr. Charteris, Dr. Lee'ssuccessor in the chair, differs in his teaching from the Confession ofFaith much more widely than Dr. Lee ever did, and yet he is consideredsupremely orthodox, whereas the stigma of heresy was attached to theother all his life. " And this change and gain to humanity is due to the gradual progress ofunbelief, alike inside and outside the Churches. Take from differingChurches two recent illustrations: The late Principal Dr. LindsayAlexander, a strict Calvinist, in his important work on "BiblicalTheology", claims that "all the statements of Scripture are alike to bedeferred to as presenting to us the mind of God ". Yet the Rev. Dr. Of Divinity also says: "We find in their writings [i. E. , in the writings of the sacred authors]statements which no ingenuity can reconcile with what modern researchhas shown to be the scientific truths--i. E. , we find in them statementswhich modern science proves to be erroneous. " At the last Southwell Diocesan Church of England Conference at Derby, the Bishop of the Diocese presiding, the Rev. J. G. Richardson said ofthe Old Testament that "it was no longer honest or even safe to deny that this nobleliterature, rich in all the elements of moral or spiritual grandeur, given--so the Church had always taught, and would always teach--underthe inspiration of Almighty God, was sometimes mistaken in its science, was sometimes inaccurate in its history, and sometimes only relative andaccommodatory in its morality. It assumed theories of the physicalworld which science had abandoned and could never resume; it containedpassages of narrative which devout and temperate men pronounceddiscredited, both by external and internal evidence; it praised, orjustified, or approved, or condoned, or tolerated, conduct which theteaching of Christ and the conscience of the Christian alike condemned. " Or, as I should urge, the gain to humanity by unbelief is that "theteaching of Christ" has been modified, enlarged, widened, and humanised, and that "the conscience of the Christian" is in quantity and qualitymade fitter for human progress by the ever increasing additions ofknowledge of these later and more heretical days.