That my opponent labors under some sort of mental illusion is most apparent from his style of reasoning and argument. He has held two books before your eyes, and asked you if he did not hold one in either hand, and whether one plus one equal three. Now, in the name of common sense, what bearing had this ocular appeal upon the subject matter in controversy? What is the extent of the mental hallucination exhibited by Mr. Owen? It seems to me to be of a character with that of the herbalist, who would attempt to ascertain the specific [221] gravity of his simples by the use of a yard-stick; or like that of the vintner who should attempt to ascertain the number of cubic inches in one of his casks by the use of pounds avoirdupois. Of such a character is the illusion which perverts Mr. Owen's understanding. Is it an arithmetical question that we have before us? Or are we to test the verity of historic facts by the use of mathematical demonstrations? Have we uttered anything so absurd as the proposition that one book plus one book equal three books? But what was the argument to which my opponent alluded as involving this absurdity? So far from attempting any refutation of our arguments, I cannot discover that he makes the slightest allusion to them in his discourses. He does not deny that all religion is built upon faith. Now, is this proposition as contrary to the evidence of our senses, as that these two books make three books? I repeat that all religion purports to be established upon testimony; and I ask again, wherein is this proposition repugnant to reason? Wherein is it assimilated to the proposition that one book added to another makes three books? Why, this is equal ingenuity to the boy who tried to convince his father by his logic that the two ducks on the table made three: and after the old gentleman had heard the demonstration, he said to the lad's mother, "Do you take one duck and I will take the other, and Bob may have the third for his logic!" I am willing to concede to my opponent equal merit and reward for his logic; but I protest against it as altogether impertinent to the subject-matter of this debate. Indeed, I apprehended, from the confidence of my friend's manner, when he held up the two books, that he was about to apply some touchstone, or test, whereby I might be discomfited; but what was my surprise at only finding myself opposed by this same old sixth fact! And what is the mighty import of this sixth law? It does not even purport to be anything more than an assertion that our belief is independent of our volitions.

      But my opponent seems to imagine that his bare assertion of this fact is sufficient to carry conviction to every mind. Mr. Owen has asked me to believe Christianity untrue for five minutes. Now look at the illusion here. The question is not, Are we able to disbelieve, or discard our pre-existing belief from our minds at will? In order to see, it is as necessary to have rays of light as the organs of vision. Now if my opponent had asked me to believe for a moment that the sun was not now shining, and afterward triumphed at the impossibility of the thing, what would it all amount to? Would it prove that the fact of seeing was in all cases independent of volition? But I contend that our volitions have as much control over the mental as the [222] corporeal eye. I admit that frequently our eyesight is, perhaps, involuntarily exercised. But from these particular premises, am I to argue to the general conclusion, that in no case whatever is my belief, or my vision, under the control of my volition. Have I not documented with proof that my belief in testimony is as much under the control of my volition, as are my acquisitions in any department of science? I know, indeed, that if I am sitting in a room, and a person open the door, and suddenly present a monkey before my eyes, I cannot help seeing it. In like manner, a person may suddenly enter my room, and announce to me an interesting fact. From the high character of the narrator, and other adjuncts accompanying the fact, I may not be able to withhold my belief in it; but is it a logical conclusion from these particular premises, that I must necessarily, in every instance, acquire a knowledge of facts, and see monkeys without the least exercise of volition? It is contrary to all correct principles of reasoning to argue thus from particulars to generals. Who does not know that we may occasionally acquire knowledge without the exercise of volition? But our acquisitions of information, made in this way, do not constitute a thousandth part of our stock of knowledge acquired in the ordinary natural way, viz: by a voluntary exercise of our senses. Mr. Owen cannot sustain his position; because, for one case which he may adduce wherein belief is exercised independently of volition, we can produce hundreds wherein it is exercised voluntarily.

      But Mr. Owen affirms that this is not a metaphysical question: nevertheless a metaphysical question it certainly is. And yet my friend says he will rest the truth of his theory upon a metaphysical discrimination.

      [Mr. Owen said, "I contend that it is a question of fact, and not a metaphysical question."]

      [Mr. Campbell resumes--]

      Then, Mr. Chairman, it will be necessary to have a new vocabulary. But I am perfectly willing that the argument should be read by the public as my opponent has presented it. It will be for the public to decide whether it be metaphysical or not.

      In the prosecution of my argument, I had advanced so far as to demonstrate, I trust, that the Jewish religion was divine, and that all its rites were in their nature symbolical and prophetic; that the sacrifice of a lamb, the building of an altar, the consecration of the priesthood, and the whole ritual of Moses were symbolical, and prophetic of Christianity; that this ritual was designed to have a twofold operation: first, upon the generation then living; and secondly, upon posterity. [223] With the first to keep up the constant recollection of the divine institutions of their religion. Your children, says Moses, will ask you what is the meaning of your eating the paschal lamb; and then you must tell them the circumstances by which you became a nation. And such was the import of every one of the Jewish institutions. When they paid their five shekels per head for the redemption of the first-born, their children were to be informed that these first-born were the ransomed of the Lord; and this tribute was rendered in perpetual commemoration of that event. This is implied in the rendition of this tribute up to the present time. Their successors were also to be informed that the Pentecost was solemnly observed as commemorative of the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai; the feast of the tabernacles for so many days to commemorate that they once dwelt in tents in the wilderness; that on the fifteenth day after their redemption they heard the voice of God promulgating the law--had seen all the accompaniments of the divine presence, and received the autograph of their constitution from the Lord.

      All these things the children of the Israelites were to be taught; and they were so contrived as to be equally prospective and retrospective, so as to preserve and conduct forward the miraculous evidences of their religion. Hence the deliverance of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, their Pentecost, and every part of their ritual, looked forward to, and anticipated a new state of things, in which a certain system of existing realities was to correspond with the past. Was there ever presented an exhibition of wisdom and evidence comparable to this? Every part of the ritual operates as a commemoration of its divine institution, and to produce faith in all future generations. It was designed to stand for a perpetual monument of their miraculous history to the nations; and its consummation in the development of that order which enters into the constitution of the Christian religion was as natural as the production of the bird from its shell. And thus the consummation of its every type is portrayed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. On these accounts we consider these memorials as of high moral power and dignity, and the facts which they commemorate as rational and demonstrably established. You have seen what all the gatherings and gleanings of my opponent, during a period of forty years, have enabled him to bring forward against these evidences.

      With regard to the means employed for the preservation and perpetuation of these holy oracles, there were not only the temple and tabernacle, but men set apart to take care of the record; and the necessity [224] of their care emphatically impressed upon them. This was the way to preserve it from interpolation. No man dare touch it at peril of his life; and this is the reason why Uzzah was struck dead for touching the chest, in which was the sacred deposit, to represent the majesty of that power which guarded it.

      Now, in process of time, the copy of this record began to be read in every synagogue. Their land, like other countries, in time, became too small for its population. In consequence, they emigrated, and carried with them their religion, their history, and law to the ends of the earth. These migrations caused the Jewish scriptures to be translated into the Greek language, about three hundred years before the birth of Christ. By the order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the whole writings of Moses and the Prophets were translated by seventy-two Jews, for the benefit of the foreign-born Jews, and of the proselytes made from other nations. Thus by this singular wisdom were these oracles handed to every nation under heaven; insomuch that the learned sages of Greece became conversant with these oracles. The Jews traversing all parts of the earth, carried along with them their religious peculiarities; thus all nations were called to bear witness to the truth of these sacred scriptures. This singular people, when contrasted with the philosophic nations of Greece and Rome in their notions of God, exhibit a phenomenon which can only be explained on the admission of a supernatural revelation being bestowed upon them.

      The Greeks and Romans had cultivated philosophy very extensively. Their languages exhibit the most polished intellectual refinement, and express every ramification of human thought; they not only invented, but compounded and remodified words so that any idea whatever could be forcibly expressed thereby. They had cultivated science to an extent far beyond any other nations; but they had, nevertheless, a thousand foolish superstitions composing their mythology. But here were a people called Jews, ignorant of, and condemning philosophy, who considered the Greeks absolutely stupid and blind in matters of religion. Yes, the acute, the polished, and refined Greeks were sots in theological matters; but the Jews, destitute of philosophic taste and acquirements, were nevertheless in possession of a religion every way honorable to the character of the Creator and Governor of the World. Now, how is this to be accounted for? A polished nation, like the Greeks, embracing a system full of theological absurdities; and, on the other hand, the rude and unlettered Jews holding the only rational views of the Creator, and contending for the unity and spirituality of God!! [225]

      But this same people, being a traveling people, carried their oracles with them everywhere; and by this universal promulgation of them communicated to all nations the confident expectation that some wonderful person was to be born, through whose influence there was to be brought about a universal revolution in society; through whom a new order of things was to arise, and the world be blest thereby. For this universal promulgation of the Jewish record, all nations fondly cherished the idea, that at the very time of the actual birth of the Messiah, a person in that character should appear in the land of Judea; the Roman Poet¹ sings of it; all nations had arrived at a uniformity and universality of anticipation in this matter, and in the reign of Augustus, there was not a nation which was not as fully prepared as the Jews to anticipate the advent of the Messiah.

[COD 221-226]