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concerned, there is little difference between the man who denies, and the man who does not own, a creating Mind. Their condition is essentially the same, inasmuch as they are both without God, and both consequently Atheists. When you say that you have enquired, and found no evidence to shew you there is a supreme creative Intelligence, you differ very little from another person, who, being of a bolder turn of mind, declares that he too has enquired, and is sure there is not a supreme creative Intelligence. Essentially, these are but different forms of the same statement. Now what, then, are Mr. Owen's declarations? 'The cause of the universe is ' unknown,'* 'whence the power which designs, or what its attributes, no man has yet ascertained.' The doctrine then is that there is a cause, but that cause is unknown to us. This I consider a form of Atheism. An unknown cause is, to the person to whom it is unknown, no cause at all. What do we mean by a cause? A cause is that which we recognize as the producer of certain effects. And making this recognition, we acknowledge its adequacy to give birth to the effects in question. In other words, we know its qualities, and consider them as the sufficient forerunners of the facts for which we have to account. So that to assert, in any case, the existence of a cause, is to assert the existence of certain qualities, and also to assert the exertion of those qualities in bringing about the given result. When, therefore, you declare one thing to be the cause of another, you declare that it possesses qualities competent to produce the effect in question. And to affirm that something is the cause of the universe, and then to declare that of that something you know nothing, is to take from the word cause all meaning, to trifle with language, or to employ a contradiction in terms. A cause, so far

Book of the New Moral World, p. 5.

+ 1bid. p. 97.

as it is acknowledged to be the cause of any effect, must be known. There may be mysteries connected with it into which you cannot penetrate, but as of these you know, so also you assert, nothing. What you declare is, that a certain power is adequate to the production of a certain effect; and if you proceed to add that this acknowledged cause is unknown, you shew that you do not understand the terms you employ, and are darkening counsel with words without knowledge. And Socialism must make its election between the word cause and the word 'unknown'; if it retains the first, and acknowledges a cause, then consistency exacts the rejection of the term unknown; if it will keep the word unknown, it can by no possibility have a right to the word cause. An unknown cause is as incompatible a combination of ideas, as white blackness, finite infinity, the hidden discovered, the bright obscure. Whatever is a cause to me, must be known as that cause, and as possessed of the attributes requisite in the case. And as Owenism knows nothing of the cause of the universe, it can recognize a cause only in name; it uses a word, but professes to have no ideas to attach to it, and is consequently without God; in other words, a form of Atheism.

*

This conclusion cannot be subverted but by evading the question, and the attempt has been made. It has been replied-'If the circumstance of a cause being unknown be a proof of its own existence, we must believe that effects can be produced without causes. What then? Does my reasoning go to show that Socialism, by denying the attributes of the Deity, blots the Deity himself out of the universe? A cause being unknown is no proof of its non-existence. Galvanism existed ages before it was known. But its existence was then only known when its qualities were known; and now it can

Haslam's Reply.

be recognised as the cause of given effects only by those to whom its qualities are not unknown, but known. My position is, that an unknown cause is no cause at all to those to whom it is unknown. And the very words employed establish the point. Take a case. It was lately stated in the newspapers, that the hands of a clock denoting true time were exhibited in a shop window in London, unaccompanied by any machinery. An ignorant rustic looks at the wonder, concludes it must have a cause, but knows not what that cause is. The philosopher investigates the case, and assigns magnetism as the cause. He has discovered something equal to the production of the effects. But, to the rustic, magnetism is not the cause of the movement of the hands. He knows nothing of its existence, its qualities, or their application in the case; and therefore, failing to recognise it as the cause, he is without the real cause, and has nothing more than a vague feeling that something or other must occasion the effects. To him the cause is unknown; and to him, in consequence, whatever it may be in fact and to a wiser man, magnetism is no cause at all. And of what service to him is the blind admission that the movement of the hands must have had a cause? Does it afford him one glimpse of light on the subject? Can it explain the phenomena ? Will it enable him to construct a similar machine? And so with him who says the universe has had a cause, and with the same breath affirms that of that cause he knows nothing;-what knowledge or impulse can he draw from his admission? It is only so far as we know the qualities of causes, whether physical or moral, that we can turn them to our own benefit. A watch or a steam engine, in the hands of a barbarian, would either prove useless, or be dashed to pieces.

My friends, there is no mystery in the word cause; either it means nothing, or it means that which is capable of producing the given effect. You therefore ac

knowledge either an unknown nothing, or an unknown power capable of producing the universe. Now, to declare that a power is at once unknown and capable of producing a certain effect, is to assert a palpable contradiction. Unknown capacities doubtless may exist; but powers have no existence to those to whom they are unknown. America existed before Columbus discovered it; but to all the ancient world it was unknown, and as such had no existence. The blood circulated through the frame as much of the ignorant Roman as of the enlightened Harvey. To the first the existence of its circulation was not, with the other it was, the proximate cause of life. In fact, the idea of causation is one which rises in and belongs exclusively to the mind; and he who acknowledges no connexion between certain preceding qualities and certain consequent effects, admits, in any given case, no cause whatever, has not, indeed, formed the idea of cause, has not brought his mind into that condition in which the acknowledgment of a cause consists. In other words, acknowledgment is indispensable. You must acknowledge or admit certain qualities as the immediate precursors of certain effects, or you allow no cause. But acknowledgment and ignorance are incompatible states of mind; acknowledged qualities, unknown qualities, are discordant and opposite statements: that which is unknown to a mind it cannot acknowledge. Socialism, then, cannot acknowledge the cause of the universe, since of that cause it professes to know nothing. At the very utmost, it can only erect another altar to the unknown God.'

We shall find our assertion, that Socialism is a form of Atheism, confirmed, if we look a little farther into the language it employs respecting this unknown cause. Avowed Atheism itself is not so insane as to deny a cause of the universe. Its office has generally been to confound the Deity in some way with his works. Ac

cordingly, Socialism tells us that it is of no importance whether men call the cause of the universe matter or spirit, because such names alter nothing, explain nothing." Matter, then, may be assigned as the cause of the universe. In other words, the sun, moon, and stars, the earth and the seas, may have produced themselves. What is this but rank Atheism? Then notice the reason-such names alter nothing, explain nothing;''-we may therefore say, matter contrives, matter fears, matter hopes. There is, consequently, no distinction between the steam engine and him who brought it to perfection; essentially they are the same, made up of the same essential qualities, in whatever accidental shapes they may appear; and as, according to this wise philosophy, the shapes are accidental, we must not be surprised if that which is essential to both should some day exert its power, and man pass into a steam engine, and a steam engine into a man.

In the passage on which I am now animadverting, we have the whole question which is at issue between the Theist and the Atheist; and it is simply this, whether the cause of the universe is matter or mind; in other words, that which thinks, or that which is incapable of thought. Is there an Intelligence that designed and executed the wonderful mechanism which we see on every side-or did that mechanism produce itself? Matter or mind must be the cause of the universe. Now we can conceive of mind being the cause of matter, but not matter the cause of mind. The greater may produce the less, not the less the greater. That which has not a certain quality, cannot impart that quality. The brute earth does not think, and could not therefore give birth to thinking men. In society around us, it is the human mind which brings forth all the creations we be

*No. 82, New Moral World.

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