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Characteristics of Secularism, part 3 · The Principles of Secularism

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  Chapter nine, Part three of the Principles of Secularism by George Jacob Holyoake.
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  This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter nine Characteristics of Secularism,
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  Part three fifteen. Yet some opponents have professed that secular cannot be distinguished from
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  Christian rights. Is this so? The right to think for ourselves has been
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  emphatically and reiterately declared to be a Christian right, It belongs essentially to Christianity.
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  Now, Christianity has no such right. It has the right to think
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  the Bible true and nothing else. The Christian has no right to think Christianity
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  untrue. However untrue it may appear. He dare not think it false.
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  He dared no more think it false than the Catholic dare differ from the dictum
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  of the Church, or the Mahommedan differ from the text of the Qur'an,
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  or the Hindu differ from the precepts of the Brahmin. Therefore, the Christian's
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  right to think for himself is simply a compulsion to believe. A right implies
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  relative freedom of action. But the Christian has no freedom. He has no
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  choice but to believe or perish everlastingly, the Christian right to think for himself
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  is therefore not the same as the secular right. We mean by the right
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  to think what the term right always implies, freedom and independence and absence of
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  all crime or danger of penalty. Through the honest exercise of thought and maintenance
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  of honest conclusions. Whether in favor of or against Christianity, our assertion is
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  that private judgment is free and guiltless. The Christian is good enough to say
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  we have a right to think think, provided we think rightly. But what
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  does he mean by rightly? He means that we should think as he thinks.
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  This is his interpretation of rightly. Whoever does not fall in with his
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  views is generally, in his vocabulary, a dishonest perverter of scripture. Now,
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  if we really have the right to differ, we have the right to
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  differ from the minister or from the Bible, if we seek good reason to
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  do so without being exposed to the censure of our neighbors or disapprobation of God.
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  The question is not does men give us the right to think for ourselves?
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  But does God give it to us? If we must come to a
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  given opinion, our private judgment is unnecessary. Let us know at once what
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  we are to believe, that we may believe it at once and secure safety.
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  If possible, disbelief in Christianity will lead to eternal perdition. The right
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  of private judgment is a snare. We had better be without that perilous privilege.
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  And we come to regard the Roman Catholic as penetrative when he paints private
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  judgment as the suggestion of Satan, and the Roman Catholic no less merciful than
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  consistent when he proscribes it. Altogether, we must feel astonishment at him who
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  declares the secular right to be essentially a Christian right, when it is quite
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  a different thing, is understood in an entirely different sense, and has an
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  application unknown and unadmitted by Christianity. This is not merely loose thinking. It
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  is reckless thinking. Sixteen. It has been asserted that the second right,
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  the right to differ, is also a Christian right. Christianity recognizes the claim
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  to difference of opinion. Christians are not careful to maintain uniformity at the expense
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  of private judgment. This is omitting a part of the truth. Christians often
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  permit difference of opinion upon details, but not upon essentials. And this is
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  the suppression made. The Christian may differ on points of church discipline, but
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  if he differ upon the essential articles of his creed, the minister at once
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  warns him that he is in danger of the judgment that any minister tried himself
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  and his congregation will soon warn him to depart, and also warn him of
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  that higher power who will bid him depart into outer darkness, where there will
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  be wailing and gnashing of teeth. With respect to the third right, the
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  right of asserting difference of opinion, this is declared to be not peculiar to
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  secularism that Christian churches, chapels, literature, and services are so many confirmations
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  of the statement that Christians claim the right of speaking what they think, whether
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  it be affirmative or negative. Yes, so long as what they speak agrees
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  with the Bible. This is the Christian limit. Yet this is the limit
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  which secularism expressly passes and discards. It is the unfettered right which makes Secularism
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  to differ from Christianity and to excel it. Seventeen, the right of private
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  judgment, always in said terms conceded to us, means nothing unless it leads
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  to a new understanding as to the terms in which we are to be addressed
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  in the Bible and the people. It is described as an insolence to ignore
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  Christianity. We do not understand this language. It would be insolence to deity
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  to ignore a message which we can recognize as coming from him. But it
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  may rather imply reverence for God to reject the reports of many who speak in
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  his name. Were we to require Christians to read our books or think as
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  we think, they would resent the requirement as an impertinence, And we have
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  yet to learn that it is less an impertinence when Christians make these demands of
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  us. If Christians are under no obligation to hold our opinions, neither are
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  we under obligation to hold theirs by our own act or at their solicitation.
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  We may study sacred writings, but at dictation, never so long as secularists
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  obey the laws enacted for the common security, So long as they perform the
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  duties of good citizens. It is nothing to Christians what opinions they hold.
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  We neither seek their counsel nor desire their sentiments, except they concede them on
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  terms of equality. The light by which we walk is sufficient for us.
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  And as at the last Day of which Christians speak, we shall there have,
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  according to their own showing to answer for ourselves. We prefer to think
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  for ourselves. And since they do not propose to take our responsibility, we
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  decline to take their doctrines. Where we are to be responsible, we will
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  be free, and no man shall dictate to us to opinions we shall hold.
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  We shall probably know as well as any Christian how to live with freedom
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  and to die without fear. It is in vain for Christians to tell us
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  that Newton and Locke differed from us. What is that to us? Unless
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  Newton and Locke will answer for us. The world may differ from a man,
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  but what is the world to him unless it will take his place at
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  the judgment day? Who is Paul or Apollus, or Matthew or Mark that
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  we should venture our eternal salvation on his word any more than on that of
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  a Mahomedan prophet or a Buddhist priest. Where the danger is our own,
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  the faith shall be our own. Secularism is not an act conceived in the
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  spirit of pride or vanity, or a self will or eccentricity or a singularity,
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  or stiff nakedness. It is simply well understood self defense. If men
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  have the right of private judgment, that right has set them free. And
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  we own no law but reason, no limits but the truth, and have
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  no fear but that of guilt. We may say we believe in honor,
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  which is respecting the truth, in morality, which is acting the truth,
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  in love, which is serving the truth, and in independence, which is
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  defending the truth. Eighteen Confucius declared that the foundation of all religion was reverence
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  and obedience. The religious sentiment is the intentional reverence of God. The Christian
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  is ever persuaded that there is only one way of doing this, and he
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  arrogantly assumes that he has that way, whereas the ways are as diverse as
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  human genius. That those who deny that secular truth meets the emotional part of
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  their nature settle what is the nature of the emotions they desiderate. The miser
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  wants money, the sensualist wants to cook, the scholar want's knowledge, and
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  the mother desires the life, growth, and happiness of her child. But
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  what can man want in a rational sense which nature and humanity may not supply
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  do we not meet the demand of the many when we show that secularism is
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  sufficient for progress, that it is moral and therefore sufficient for trust, that
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  it builds only upon the known, and is therefore reliable. It is the
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  highest and most unpresumptuous form of unconscious worship. It is practical reverence without the
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  arrogance of things theoretical homage. We at least feel confidence of this, that
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  the future, if it come, will not be miserable. There may be
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  a future. This remains to awaken interest and perennial curiosity. If nature be
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  conscious, it will still design the happiness of man which it now permits.
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  This assurance remains still in fear and teaching trust. Nineteen. In surveying the
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  position of Christianism in Great Britain, there is found to exist a large outlying
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  class daily increasing who for conscientious reasons, reject its cardinal tenets. Hence arises
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  the question our good citizenship and virtuous life on secular principles possible to these persons.
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  Secularism answers yes to these excluded by the letter of Scripture, by narrowness
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  of churches, by the intrinsic error, and moral repulsiveness of doctrine. Secularism
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  addresses itself to these. It is the word of recognition of concert and morality.
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  It points them to an educated conscience as a security of morals, to
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  the study of nature as a source of help, and seeks to win the
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  indifferent by appeals to the inherent goodness of human nature and the authority of reason,
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  which Christianism cannot use and dare not trust. If, however, the
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  secularist elects to walk by the light of nature, will he be able to
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  see? Is the light of nature a fitful lamp or a brief torch,
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  which accident may upset or agust extinguish. On the contrary, the light of
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  nature may burn steady, clear and full over the entire field of human life.
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  On this point we have the testimony of an adversary who was understood to
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  address us, a testimony as remarkable for its quality as for its felicity of
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  expression. There is the ethical mind, calm, level and clear, chiefly
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  intent on the good ordering of this life, judging all things by their tendency
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  to this end, and impatient of every oscillation of our nature that swings beyond
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  it. There is nothing low or unworthy in the attachment which keeps this spirit
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  close to the present world and watchful for its affairs. It is not a
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  selfish feeling, but often one intensely social and humane, not any mean fascination
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  with mere material interests, but a devotion to justice and right, and an
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  assertion of the sacred authority of human duties and affections. A man thus tempered
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  deals chiefly with this visible life and his comrades in it, because as nearest
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  to him, they are better known. He plants his standard on the present
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  as on advantage ground, where he can survey his field and maneuver all his
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  force and compute the battle. He is to fight, whatever his bearings fervors
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  towards beyond his range. He has no insensibility to the claims that fall within
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  his acknowledged province and that appeal to him in the native speech of his humanity.
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  He so reverences veracity, honor, and good faith as to expect them
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  like the daylight, and he is of their violation with a flush of scorn.
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  His word is a rock, and he expects that yours will not be
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  a Quicksand if you are lax, you cannot hope for his trust but if
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  you are in trouble, you easily move his pity and the sight of a
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  real oppression. Though the sufferer be no ornamental hero, but black, unsightly,
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  and disreputable, suffices perhaps to set him to work for life, that
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  he may expunge the disgrace from the records of mankind. Such man as he
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  constitute for our world its moral center of gravity. And whoever would compute the
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  path of improvement that has brought it thus far on its way, or trace
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  its sweep into a brighter future, must take account of their steady mass.
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  The effect of this style of thought and taste on the religion of its possessor
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  is not difficult to trace. It may, no doubt stop short of avowed
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  and conscious religion Altogether, its basis being simply moral, and its scene temporal,
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  its conditions may be imagined as complete without any acknowledgment of higher relations.
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  Twenty Nature is that which is is the primary subject of study. The study
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  of nature reveals the laws of nature. The laws of nature furnished safe guidance
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  to humanity. Safe guidance is to help available in daily life, to happiness
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  self contained, to service which knows how to labor and to wait for authority.
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  Nature refers us to experience and to reason for help. To science the
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  nearest available help of man. Science implies disciplined powers on the part of the
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  people and concert in their use to realize the security and sufficiency necessary to happiness.
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  Happiness depends on moral no less than on physical conditions. The moral condition
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  is the full and fearless discharge of duty. Duty is devotion to the right.
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  Right is that which is morally expedient. That is morally expedient, which
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  is conducive to the happiness of the greatest numbers. The service of others is
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  the practical form of duty, and endurance in the service of others the highest
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  form of happiness. It is pleasure, peace, security, and desert.
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  Twenty one. We believe there is sufficient soundness in secular principles to make way
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  in the world. All that is wanted is that advocates of them shall have
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  clear notions of the value of method in their work. To the novice in
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  advocacy, policy seems a crime. At least many so describe it unable himself
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  to see his way. The tyroh fights it everything and everybody equally, and
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  too vain to own his failure, he declares that the right way, not
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  knowing that progress is an art, and an art requiring the union of many
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  qualities, he denies all art, cries down policy, and erects plundering into
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  a virtue. Compare the way which Havelock reached lucknow and the way in which
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  Sir Colin Campbell performed the same feat, and you see the difference between courage
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  without and courage with strategy. It was because magnitude existed which were inaccessible and
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  incapable of direct measurement, that mathematics arose. Finding direct measurements so often impossible,
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  men were compelled to find means of ascertaining magnitude and distance indirectly. Hence
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  mathematics became a scientific policy. Mathematics is but policy of measurement, Grammar but
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  the policy of speech, Logic but the policy of reason, Arithmetic but the
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  policy of calculation. Temperance but the policy of health, Trigonometry but the policy
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  of navigation, roads but the policy of transit, Music but the policy of
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  controlling sound. Art but the policy of beauty, law but the policy of
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  protection. Discipline but the policy of strength, Love but the policy of affection.
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  An enemy may object to our having a policy because it suits his purpose.
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  That we should be without one, but that a friend should object to
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  our having a policy is one of those incredible infatuations which converts partisans into unconscious
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  traitors. The policy adopted may be a bad policy, and no policy at
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  all is idiocy. If a policy be bad, criticize and amended. But
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  to denounce all policy is to commit your cause to the providence of bedlam.
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  If therefore, throughout all intelligent control of nature and humanity, policy is the
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  one supreme mark of wisdom, why should it be dishonorable to study the policy
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  of opinion. He who consistently objects to policy would build railway engines without safety
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  valves and dismiss them from stations without drivers. He would abolish turnpike roads and
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  streets and leave us to find our way at random. He would recommend that
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  vessels be made without helms and sail without captains, that armies fight without discipline,
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  and artillery men should fire before loading, and when pointing their guns should
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  aim at nothing in fine. A man without policy, honestly and intelligently opposed
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  to policy, would build his house with the roof downwards and plant his trees
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  with the roots in the air. He would kick his friend and hug his
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  enemy. He would pay wages to servants who would not work. Govern without
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  rule, speak without thought, think without reason, act without purpose. Be
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  a knave by accident and a fool by design. End of Chapter nine,
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  Part three, End of the Principles of Secular ISSAK by George Jacob Holyoake,
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  read in September twenty twenty three by A Bay. Thanks for listening.