show his idea of man and society to be a rotten lie,
what proof would you have? . . . perhaps the charming results of a
century of Jesuitocracy, as they were represented on a French stage
in the year 1793? I can't answer his arguments, you see, or yours
either; I am an Englishman, and not a controversialist. The only
answer I give is John Bull's old dumb instinctive "Everlasting No!"
which he will stand by, if need be, with sharp shot and cold steel--
"Not that; anything but that. No kingdom of Heaven at all for us,
if the kingdom of Heaven is like that. No heroes at all for us, if
their heroism is to consist in their being not-men. Better no
society at all, but only a competitive wild-beast's den, than a sham
society. Better no faith, no hope, no love, no God, than shams
thereof." I take my stand on fact and nature; you may call them
idols and phantoms; I say they need be so no longer to any man,
since Bacon has taught us to discover the Eternal Laws under the
outward phenomena. Here on blank materialism will I stand, and
testify against all Religions and Gods whatsoever, if they must
needs be like that Roman religion, that Roman God. I don't believe
they need--not I. But if they need, they must go. We cannot have a
"Deus quidam deceptor." If there be a God, these trees and stones,
these beasts and birds must be His will, whatever else is not. My
body, and brain, and faculties, and appetites must be His will,
whatever else is not. Whatsoever I can do with them in accordance
with the constitution of them and nature must be His will, whatever
else is not. Those laws of Nature must reveal Him, and be revealed
by Him, whatever else is not. Man's scientific conquest of nature
must be one phase of His Kingdom on Earth, whatever else is not. I
don't deny that there are spiritual laws which man is meant to obey-
-How can I, who feel in my own daily and inexplicable unhappiness
the fruits of having broken them?--But I do say, that those
spiritual laws must be in perfect harmony with every fresh physical
law which we discover: that they cannot be intended to compete
self-destructively with each other; that the spiritual cannot be
intended to be perfected by ignoring or crushing the physical,
unless God is a deceiver, and His universe a self-contradiction.
And by this test alone will I try all theories, and dogmas, and
spiritualities whatsoever--Are they in accordance with the l