Not having heard any argument whatever adduced in the last address, pertinent to the subject at issue, and Mr. Owen having dealt only in general assertions concerning human nature; having rejected the validity of all authority, and having admitted that his system is so different from the existing state of things, that we cannot reason from the one to the other--I now feel myself compelled to adopt some other course.

      Mr. Owen places me in a very singular predicament. Had I selected a proposition and pledged myself to prove it, I should have felt myself bound, by all controversial rules, to keep to that proposition, until I had either established it, or failed in the attempt. And if, on the other hand, my opponent had taken up an affirmative proposition, and confined himself to the proof of it, I should have felt myself bound to attend to every fact, argument, and demonstration adduced in its support, and either have rebutted them, or acknowledged my inability so to do. But in the singular predicament in which I am placed by Mr. Owen's course, unless I were to speak of angelic infants, with, or without wings; unless I should speak of subjects derogatory to the dignity of this discussion, I see not how I can take any notice of my opponent's last address. It is necessary that we should reciprocally reach some tangible point of disputation. I trust that Mr. Owen is only keeping back his strong arguments all this while. But if any stronger argument is yet to be offered, for the sake of the audience, as well as for my own sake, I should really be obliged to Mr. Owen if he would soon adduce it.

      If Mr. Owen possesses that moral courage or boldness for which his friends so much admire him, he ought to avow at once that all ideas of Deity, and all other spiritual existences, are entirely at variance with the beneficent objects which he has in contemplation to consummate. Let us suppose that Mr. Owen thinks and assumes that the idea of the providence of God, and all the ideas inseparably connected with a belief in the Christian religion, are diametrically opposed to the consummation of his beneficent objects. Assuming this to be Mr. Owen's real opinion, then it behooves him to give us some sort of argument, proof, or illustration, calculated to eradicate such ideas from our [88] minds. If Mr. Owen thinks that our religious (superstitious) ideas, and his social ideas can never exist together in the same mind, this ought to be his course. If he has no objection to the ideas which we entertain of spiritual existences, and of our relation to a spiritual world, he ought to concede to us the right of making deductions from them. But if, on the other hand, he conceives that these ideas interpose an impassable barrier to the admission of his principles into our minds, he ought to use his best exertions to banish these hostile ideas. But Mr. Owen not only eludes the onus probandi, which every advocate of an affirmative proposition tacitly and implicitly undertakes, but he cautiously avoids advancing anything for his opponent to disprove.

      Now I am at a loss to reconcile this equivocal course with what I must think is the honesty, frankness, and candor of my friend's character and disposition. I have advanced certain propositions predicated of all the popular systems of philosophy. I have inquired of my opponent whether he would admit the philosophy of Locke, or Hume, or of any of the philosophers of ancient or modern times, on the subject of man's intellectual and moral powers. To these requests I have not been able to elicit either assent or negation. I am still willing on these topics to join issue with Mr. Owen upon the doctrines of any skeptical philosopher of any school. But as yet he has not asserted one single first principle, except that "we are the creatures of circumstances." I reasonably expected that he would admit, or except to my analysis of the powers of the human mind; but Mr. Owen, according to his modus operandi, pretermits all notice of that analysis. Does my opponent approbate my analysis? Does he assent to its correctness? If so, his conclusions are at variance with his premises. I am apprehensive that it will be necessary for me to do one of two things--either to institute a regular argument demonstrative of this position, viz: "That it is impossible for man to originate any of those supernatural ideas which are developed in the Christian religion;" that is to say, I shall have to undertake to prove philosophically that man could not invent, or originate the idea of a God, a Spirit, a future state, or any of the positive institutions of religion; that he never could have invented or originated the ideas inseparably connected with the word priest, altar, sacrifice, etc., ergo, that these ideas and the words used to express them, are derivable only from an immediate and direct revelation; man having no power, according to any philosophic analysis of his intellectual powers, to originate any such ideas. This I must do, or take up the great question, "Whether we have reasonable grounds to believe the truth and certainty of the apostolic testimony." To one or other of these topics I shall be compelled to call your attention, if [89] my opponent will not adopt some systematical logical course of argumentation, bearing directly upon the point at issue. One or other of these topics, if permitted, I intend to take up in the afternoon.

      We have taken a peep into the different systems of the Free Thinkers (as they glory in the name) of the ancient and modern schools. And now let me ask: What have the skeptics to propose us in room of the Bible? Can they concur in any substitute? Can they offer any system of Nature, or of human nature? If they recommend theism, they cannot find any two of themselves to concur in defining that system. If they would have us become atheists, they cannot harmonize in any one scheme, on which men can reason. Indeed, Mr. Owen seems to think that all that is necessary is to pull down Christianity by reiterated assertions, that it is predicated of principles at variance with the nature of men. And having demolished this palladium of all refined social enjoyment, and having extinguished all the lights of immortality, man must not dare to think of his origin, because it does not "interest him to know anything about it;" nor must he think of his destiny, as that cannot afford him any relish for the animal enjoyments of his system. He must not act either the philosopher, or the Christian. If he were to reason from effect to cause, he might be confounded with some insoluble difficulty upon such a question as: Whether the first man was an infant or an adult; or. Whether there was an acorn or an oak first. Such questions as these might lead him to others more unanswerable still; as. Whether the first man invented language himself, and taught it to his offspring, or whether there was a convention of men co-existent, who agreed upon names for everything, before any of them could speak? But it will be best under the new economy, to teach, that it is a sin, or something worse, for persons to have, or to indulge, any curiosity upon such topics.

      Although the skeptic may, in argument, be constrained to admit that no innate appetite or desire in man is so strong as the desire of knowledge; yet under the new system, he must be taught to view the gratification of this desire as a sin against his own happiness if ever it transcends the properties of matter. Everything about spirit and a spiritual system must be the forbidden fruit in the gardens of sensual pleasure, which are to be cultivated under the new social system.

      These systems of Nature and human nature, framed by physical men, who have just their five senses to guide them, teach man to consider himself by no means a privileged being amidst the animals around him. He must not consider himself superior to the horse on which he rides; for if he should think about superiority, this might involve him in great difficulties, and cause him to inquire to whom he might [90] be indebted for the high rank he occupies in the scale of being. And whether he be superior or inferior, is a problem with them which has not yet been satisfactorily solved. And should it ever occur to him that there is a real difference in animals, not only in figure and size, but also in sagacity, in genius, taste, imagination, reason, etc.; he must never inquire why or how the earth once threw up a small crop of each and never attempted to do it a second time: and by what peculiar concourse of chemical agents and atoms, the first crop were men; and the last, apes, or insects.

      Nothing astonishes me more than the impotency of philosophy in all matters and things pertaining to a spiritual system: to the origin and nature of all those relations in which mankind stand to the Creator and toward one another as immortal beings. And how men reared and educated within the precincts of revelation, can exhibit so many raw and undisciplined ideas of human nature, to say nothing of the future and unseen world, is still more astonishing. To hear all the skeptics, too, in one conclave assembled, declare their perfect ignorance of the fundamental springs and principles of all their own laws of nature; and, indeed, of the origin of all things and their destiny: to see them predicate all their system of infidelity of such acknowledged ignorance--and then upbraid Christianity, as if predicated of ignorance of God and man, is a contradiction, or inconsistency, for which I can find no parallel in the whole range of my acquaintance with men and things. If, as they confess, they neither know, nor can know, the origin of this earth and all things upon it, how or why do they presume to deny the Mosaic account of it!! They profess not to know anything about it; why, then, attempt to deny, or oppose the only account of it in the world, which, without philosophy, but with the authority of a sacred historian, presents a credible history of it?

      And here it is not unworthy of remark that all the traditionary accounts of the origin of the universe extant in all nations, evidently, however, stolen from the Mosaic, pretend not to offer their account as a theory, but as a narrative derived from the original inhabitants of the world, who had it first of all from the Creator himself. I presume the world was more than three thousand years old before there was a single theory offered, or a speculation upon its origin. All the ancient accounts are narratives, either in prose or verse. No explanations are offered--no speculations presented. They were not the conclusions of reasoners or philosophers, but the declarations of a witness, and of a superhuman one--not a single traditionary account which does not presuppose an original witness of the creation, and imply the necessity of a supernatural revelation upon the origin of things. The first [91] philosophers who presumed to theorize upon this subject, if they demonstrated anything, clearly demonstrated this, that their conclusions were wiser than their premises. In other words, that they were in possession of previous information upon the subject which they did not derive from reason; and, in defiance of the rules of logic, they had more truth in the deductions than in the data which they assumed. They always remind me of a lad at school who had stolen a penknife, and when pushed by his examiners to account for the knife found in his pocket, in answer to the question How he came by the knife, answered, that he "found it growing on a tree." As just and logical is the reason given for many of those ideas declared by philosophers to have been derived from their own reasonings, but evidently stolen from other sources, either from the volume of Revelation itself or from streams flowing from it.

      What an honor does the philosopher Mirabaud bestow on the savages, who, he says, invented all the religions in the world! vol. 2, p. 13, 14: "In short, it is upon these rude foundations, that are built all the religious systems of the world: although invented originally by savages they have yet the power of regulating the fate of the most civilized nations. These systems, so ruinous in their principles, have been variously modified by the human mind, of which the essence is to labor incessantly upon unknown objects; it always commences by attaching to them a very great importance, which afterward it never dares examine coolly."

      Priests and savages, with him, are the most puissant characters. In spite of all the philosophers, from Epicurus down to Mr. Owen, the priests and the savages give laws and customs, religious and moral, to the most civilized nations of the globe. One would expect, upon this theory, to find that the nearer man approached the savage state the more exact his views of all religious relations, duties, and obligations! And if this be true, the converse must; the greater the philosopher, the less the saint; the more civilized, the less religious is man. I must here give Hobbes credit for one truism. "If men," says he, "found their interest in it, they would doubt the truth of Euclid's Elements." I would add, they will, for the same reason too, believe almost anything--even that savages civilized the world!

      As the hour of adjournment has almost arrived, I will only add another proof of Bacon's maxim, viz: "that the worst of all things is deified error," taken from the materialist Mirabaud. It is his deification of nature:--

      "We cannot doubt the power of nature; she produces all the animals we see, by the aid of the combination of matter which is in continual [92] action; the harmony that subsists between the parts of these animals is a consequence of the necessary laws of their nature and of their combination; as soon as this accord ceases, the animal is necessarily destroyed. What becomes then of the wisdom, of the intelligence, or the goodness of the pretended cause to whom they ascribe the honor of this so much boasted harmony? These animals, so marvelous, which are said to be the work of an immutable God, are they not continually changing, and do they not always finish by decaying? Where is the wisdom, the goodness, the foresight, and the immutability of a workman who appears only to be occupied with deranging and breaking the springs of those machines which are announced to us as the chefs d'oeuvres of his power and of his ability? If this God cannot do otherwise, he is neither free nor omnipotent. If he changes his will, he is not immutable. If he permits those machines, which he has rendered sensible, to experience pain, he wants goodness. If he has not been able to render his works more solid, it is that he wants the ability. In seeing that animals, as well as all the other works of the divinity decay, we cannot prevent ourselves from concluding therefrom, either that everything Nature does is necessary, and is only a consequence of its laws, or that the workman who made it is destitute of pain, of power, of stability, of ability, of goodness."--vol 2, p. 144.

      "Nature is the cause of everything; she is self-existent; she will always exist; she is her own cause; her motion is a necessary consequence of her necessary existence; without motion, we could have no conception of nature; under this collective name we designate the assemblage of matter acting in virtue of its own peculiar energies."--P. 176, vol. 2.

      "Let us keep ourselves to the nature which we see, which we feel, which acts upon us, of which, at least, we know the general laws. If we are ignorant of her detail, and the secret principles which she employs in her complicated works, nevertheless, let us be certain that she acts in a permanent, uniform, analogous, and necessary manner. Let us, then, observe this nature; let us never quit the routine which she describes for us; if we do, we shall infallibly be punished with numberless errors, with which our mind would find itself blinded, and of which numberless sorrows would be the necessary consequence. Let us not adore, let us not flatter after the manner of men, a Nature who is deaf, and who acts necessarily, and which nothing can derange the course. Do not let us implore a whole which can only maintain itself by the discord of elements, from whence the universal harmony and the stability of the whole has birth. Let us consider that we are sensible parts of a whole destitute of feeling, in which all the forms and [93] the combinations are destroyed after they are born, and have subsisted for a longer or shorter time. Let us look upon nature as an immense elaboratory which contains everything necessary for her to act, and produce all those works which are displayed to our eyes. Let us acknowledge her power to be inherent in her essence. Do not let us attribute her works to an imaginary cause, which has no other existence than in our brain. Rather let us forever banish from our mind a phantom calculated to disturb it, and to prevent our pursuing the simple, natural, and certain means which can conduct us to happiness. Let us, then, re-establish this nature, so long mistaken in her legitimate rights; let us listen to her voice, of which reason is the faithful interpreter; let us impose silence on that enthusiasm and imposture which, to our misfortune, have drawn us aside from the only worship suitable to intelligent beings."--P. 178, vol. 2.

      Who preaches implicit faith and blind adoration now? The infatuated sage tells you that you must believe without evidence; that Nature never errs--even when mysteries impenetrable hide her operations! And you must worship and adore her goddess, just because she is blind and cannot see you--because she is deaf and cannot hear you! But to suppose that Nature is either rational, good, or kind, would be most abhorrent to all his philosophy. Blind Fate and inexorable Necessity is all that is to be feared, loved, adored, hated, or what you please. You owe her nothing; and, after all, she is a "pure abstract being" who has no existence save in the brain of such crazed philosophers! Sic transit gloria philosophiae! But, if permitted, this afternoon, we will see what right reason or true philosophy teaches on this subject.

[COD 88-94]