HumanitiesWeb.org - Age of Reason I. (Chapter XVII - Of the Means Employed in All Time, and Almost Universally, to Deceive the Peoples.) by Thomas Paine
Age of Reason I. Chapter XVII - Of the Means Employed in All Time, and Almost Universally, to Deceive the Peoples.
by Thomas Paine
Having thus shown the irreconcileable inconsistencies between the
real word of God existing in the universe, and that which is called
the word of God, as shown to us in a printed book that any man might
make, I proceed to speak of the three principal means that have been
employed in all ages, and perhaps in all countries, to impose upon
mankind.
Those three means are Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy, The first two
are incompatible with true religion, and the third ought always to be
suspected.
With respect to Mystery, everything we behold is, in one sense, a
mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery: the whole vegetable
world is a mystery. We cannot account how it is that an acorn, when
put into the ground, is made to develop itself and become an oak. We
know not how it is that the seed we sow unfolds and multiplies
itself, and returns to us such an abundant interest for so small a
capital.
The fact however, as distinct from the operating cause, is not a
mystery, because we see it; and we know also the means we are to use,
which is no other than putting the seed in the ground. We know,
therefore, as much as is necessary for us to know; and that part of
the operation that we do not know, and which if we did, we could not
perform, the Creator takes upon himself and performs it for us. We
are, therefore, better off than if we had been let into the secret,
and left to do it for ourselves.
But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, the word
mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than obscurity can
be applied to light. The God in whom we believe is a God of moral
truth, and not a God of mystery or obscurity. Mystery is the
antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention that obscures
truth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never invelops itself
in mystery; and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped, is
the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.
Religion, therefore, being the belief of a God, and the practice of
moral truth, cannot have connection with mystery. The belief of a
God, so far from having any thing of mystery in it, is of all beliefs
the most easy, because it arises to us, as is before observed, out of
necessity. And the practice of moral truth, or, in other words, a
practical imitation of the moral goodness of God, is no other than
our acting towards each other as he acts benignly towards all. We
cannot serve God in the manner we serve those who cannot do without
such service; and, therefore, the only idea we can have of serving
God, is that of contributing to the happiness of the living creation
that God has made. This cannot be done by retiring ourselves from the
society of the world, and spending a recluse life in selfish devotion.
The very nature and design of religion, if I may so express it, prove
even to demonstration that it must be free from every thing of
mystery, and unincumbered with every thing that is mysterious.
Religion, considered as a duty, is incumbent upon every living soul
alike, and, therefore, must be on a level to the understanding and
comprehension of all. Man does not learn religion as he learns the
secrets and mysteries of a trade. He learns the theory of religion by
reflection. It arises out of the action of his own mind upon the
things which he sees, or upon what he may happen to hear or to read,
and the practice joins itself thereto.
When men, whether from policy or pious fraud, set up systems of
religion incompatible with the word or works of God in the creation,
and not only above but repugnant to human comprehension, they were
under the necessity of inventing or adopting a word that should serve
as a bar to all questions, inquiries and speculations. The word
mystery answered this purpose, and thus it has happened that
religion, which is in itself without mystery, has been corrupted into
a fog of mysteries.
As mystery answered all general purposes, miracle followed as an
occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the mind, the
latter to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, the other the
legerdemain.
But before going further into this subject, it will be proper to
inquire what is to be understood by a miracle.
In the same sense that every thing may be said to be a mystery, so
also may it be said that every thing is a miracle, and that no one
thing is a greater miracle than another. The elephant, though larger,
is not a greater miracle than a mite: nor a mountain a greater
miracle than an atom. To an almighty power it is no more difficult to
make the one than the other, and no more difficult to make a million
of worlds than to make one. Every thing, therefore, is a miracle, in
one sense; whilst, in the other sense, there is no such thing as a
miracle. It is a miracle when compared to our power, and to our
comprehension. It is not a miracle compared to the power that
performs it. But as nothing in this description conveys the idea that
is affixed to the word miracle, it is necessary to carry the inquiry
further.
Mankind have conceived to themselves certain laws, by which what they
call nature is supposed to act; and that a miracle is something
contrary to the operation and effect of those laws. But unless we
know the whole extent of those laws, and of what are commonly called
the powers of nature, we are not able to judge whether any thing that
may appear to us wonderful or miraculous, be within, or be beyond, or
be contrary to, her natural power of acting.
The ascension of a man several miles high into the air, would have
everything in it that constitutes the idea of a miracle, if it were
not known that a species of air can be generated several times
lighter than the common atmospheric air, and yet possess elasticity
enough to prevent the balloon, in which that light air is inclosed,
from being compressed into as many times less bulk, by the common air
that surrounds it. In like manner, extracting flashes or sparks of
fire from the human body, as visibly as from a steel struck with a
flint, and causing iron or steel to move without any visible agent,
would also give the idea of a miracle, if we were not acquainted with
electricity and magnetism; so also would many other experiments in
natural philosophy, to those who are not acquainted with the subject.
The restoring persons to life who are to appearance dead as is
practised upon drowned persons, would also be a miracle, if it were
not known that animation is capable of being suspended without being
extinct.
Besides these, there are performances by slight of hand, and by
persons acting in concert, that have a miraculous appearance, which,
when known, are thought nothing of. And, besides these, there are
mechanical and optical deceptions. There is now an exhibition in
Paris of ghosts or spectres, which, though it is not imposed upon the
spectators as a fact, has an astonishing appearance. As, therefore,
we know not the extent to which either nature or art can go, there is
no criterion to determine what a miracle is; and mankind, in giving
credit to appearances, under the idea of their being miracles, are
subject to be continually imposed upon.
Since then appearances are so capable of deceiving, and things not
real have a strong resemblance to things that are, nothing can be
more inconsistent than to suppose that the Almighty would make use of
means, such as are called miracles, that would subject the person who
performed them to the suspicion of being an impostor, and the person
who related them to be suspected of lying, and the doctrine intended
to be supported thereby to be suspected as a fabulous invention.
Of all the modes of evidence that ever were invented to obtain belief
to any system or opinion to which the name of religion has been
given, that of miracle, however successful the imposition may have
been, is the most inconsistent. For, in the first place, whenever
recourse is had to show, for the purpose of procuring that belief
(for a miracle, under any idea of the word, is a show) it implies a
lameness or weakness in the doctrine that is preached. And, in the
second place, it is degrading the Almighty into the character of a
show-man, playing tricks to amuse and make the people stare and
wonder. It is also the most equivocal sort of evidence that can be
set up; for the belief is not to depend upon the thing called a
miracle, but upon the credit of the reporter, who says that he saw
it; and, therefore, the thing, were it true, would have no better
chance of being believed than if it were a lie.
Suppose I were to say, that when I sat down to write this book, a
hand presented itself in the air, took up the pen and wrote every
word that is herein written; would any body believe me? Certainly
they would not. Would they believe me a whit the more if the thing
had been a fact? Certainly they would not. Since then a real miracle,
were it to happen, would be subject to the same fate as the
falsehood, the inconsistency becomes the greater of supposing the
Almighty would make use of means that would not answer the purpose
for which they were intended, even if they were real.
If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely out of the
course of what is called nature, that she must go out of that course
to accomplish it, and we see an account given of such a miracle by
the person who said he saw it, it raises a question in the mind very
easily decided, which is, -- Is it more probable that nature should
go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never
seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have good
reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same
time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one, that the reporter
of a miracle tells a lie.
The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large
enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvellous; but it would
have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle, if Jonah had
swallowed the whale. In this, which may serve for all cases of
miracles, the matter would decide itself as before stated, namely, Is
it more probable that a man should have, swallowed a whale, or told a
lie?
But suppose that Jonah had really swallowed the whale, and gone with
it in his belly to Nineveh, and to convince the people that it was
true have cast it up in their sight, of the full length and size of a
whale, would they not have believed him to have been the devil
instead of a prophet? or if the whale had carried Jonah to Nineveh,
and cast him up in the same public manner, would they not have
believed the whale to have been the devil, and Jonah one of his imps?
The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related in
the New Testament, is that of the devil flying away with Jesus
Christ, and carrying him to the top of a high mountain; and to the
top of the highest pinnacle of the temple, and showing him and
promising to him all the kingdoms of the world. How happened it that
he did not discover America? or is it only with kingdoms that his
sooty highness has any interest.
I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ to believe
that he told this whale of a miracle himself: neither is it easy to
account for what purpose it could have been fabricated, unless it
were to impose upon the connoisseurs of miracles, as is sometimes
practised upon the connoisseurs of Queen Anne's farthings, and
collectors of relics and antiquities; or to render the belief of
miracles ridiculous, by outdoing miracle, as Don Quixote outdid
chivalry; or to embarrass the belief of miracles, by making it
doubtful by what power, whether of God or of the devil, any thing
called a miracle was performed. It requires, however, a great deal of
faith in the devil to believe this miracle.
In every point of view in which those things called miracles can be
placed and considered, the reality of them is improbable, and their
existence unnecessary. They would not, as before observed, answer any
useful purpose, even if they were true; for it is more difficult to
obtain belief to a miracle, than to a principle evidently moral,
without any miracle. Moral principle speaks universally for itself.
Miracle could be but a thing of the moment, and seen but by a few;
after this it requires a transfer of faith from God to man to believe
a miracle upon man's report. Instead, therefore, of admitting the
recitals of miracles as evidence of any system of religion being
true, they ought to be considered as symptoms of its being fabulous.
It is necessary to the full and upright character of truth that it
rejects the crutch; and it is consistent with the character of fable
to seek the aid that truth rejects. Thus much for Mystery and Miracle.
As Mystery and Miracle took charge of the past and the present,
Prophecy took charge of the future, and rounded the tenses of faith.
It was not sufficient to know what had been done, but what would be
done. The supposed prophet was the supposed historian of times to
come; and if he happened, in shooting with a long bow of a thousand
years, to strike within a thousand miles of a mark, the ingenuity of
posterity could make it point-blank; and if he happened to be
directly wrong, it was only to suppose, as in the case of Jonah and
Nineveh, that God had repented himself and changed his mind. What a
fool do fabulous systems make of man!
It has been shewn, in a former part of this work, that the original
meaning of the words prophet and prohesying has been changed, and
that a prophet, in the sense of the word as now used, is a creature
of modern invention; and it is owing to this change in the meaning of
the words, that the flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and
phrases and expressions now rendered obscure by our not being
acquainted with the local circumstances to which they applied at the
time they were used, have been erected into prophecies, and made to
bend to explanations at the will and whimsical conceits of sectaries,
expounders, and commentators. Every thing unintelligible was
prophetical, and every thing insignificant was typical. A blunder
would have served for a prophecy; and a dish-clout for a type.
If by a prophet we are to suppose a man to whom the Almighty
communicated some event that would take place in future, either there
were such men, or there were not. If there were, it is consistent to
believe that the event so communicated would be told in terms that
could be understood, and not related in such a loose and obscure
manner as to be out of the comprehension of those that heard it, and
so equivocal as to fit almost any circumstance that might happen
afterwards. It is conceiving very irreverently of the Almighty, to
suppose he would deal in this jesting manner with mankind; yet all
the things called prophecies in the book called the Bible come under
this description.
But it is with Prophecy as it is with Miracle. It could not answer
the purpose even if it were real. Those to whom a prophecy should be
told could not tell whether the man prophesied or lied, or whether it
had been revealed to him, or whether he conceited it; and if the
thing that he prophesied, or pretended to prophesy, should happen, or
some thing like it, among the multitunic of things that are daily
happening, nobody could again know whether he foreknew it, or guessed
at it, or whether it was accidental. A prophet, therefore, is a
character useless and unnecessary; and the safe side of the case is
to guard against being imposed upon, by not giving credit to such
relations.
Upon the whole, Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy, are appendages that
belong to fabulous and not to true religion. They are the means by
which so many Lo heres! and Lo theres! have been spread about the
world, and religion been made into a trade. The success of one
impostor gave encouragement to another, and the quieting salvo of
doing some good by keeping up a pious fraud protected them from
remorse.