Year: 1873

Extract from John Stuart Mills Autobiography.


was brought up from the first with
out any religious belief in the ordinary
acceptation of the term. :. =, ed
ucated in the creed of Scotch Presby-
terianism, had by his own studies and
reflections been early led 70 reject, not
only the belief in Revelation, but the
foundations of what is commonly called
natural religion. have heard him say
that the turning point of his mind on
the subject was reading Buffers
analogy" That work, of which he
always continued to speak with respect,
kept him, as he said, for considerable
time believer in the divine authority
of Christianity, by proving to him that,
whatever are the difficulties in beliving
that the Old and New Testaments pro-
ceed from or record the acts of per-
fectly wise and good being, the same and
still greater difficulties stand in the way
of the belief that being Of such
character can have been the maker of
the univerre. He considered Buffers
argument az conclusive against the only
opponents for whom it was intended.
Those who admit an onnipotent as well
as perfectly just and benenevo!ent maker
and ruler of such world as this, can
say little against Chris ianity but what
can with at least equal force be retor.ed
against themselves. Finding, Therefore,
no halting place in Deism, he remained
in = state of ..perplexity until, doubtless
after many struggles, he yielded 20 the
conviction that concerning the origin Of
things nothing whatever can be known.
This is the only correct statement of his
opinion, for dogmatic atheism he looked
upon as absurd, as most of those whom
the world has considered Atheists have
always done. These particulars are i'm
portant because they show that my faith
er's rejection of all that is called relig-
ious belief was not, as many might sup
pose, primarily matter of logic and
evidence; the grounds of it were moral
still more than Intellectual He found
it inn Ossible to believe that world so
full Of evil was the work of an author
combining infinite power with perfect
goodness and righteousness. His intel
lect spurned the subtleties by which men
attempt TO blind themselves to this open
contradiction. The Sabaap or Mani
chnan theory of a good and evil princi-
pie struggling against each other for the
government of the universe he would
not have equally condemned, and / have
heard him express surprise that no one
revived it in our time. He would have
regarded it as mere hypothesis, but he
would have ascribed to it no depraving
influence. As it was, his aversion to re-
Hgion, in the sense usually attached to
of Lucretius-he regarded it with the
feelings due, not to a mere mental delu-
sion, but to great moral evil. He
looked upon it as the greatest enemy of
morality; first by setting up fictitious ex-
cellencies-bel:ef in creeds, devotional
feelings, and ceremonies not connected
with the good of human-kind-an
causing these to be accepted as substi-
tutes for genuine virtues; but, above all,
by radically vitiating the standard of
morals; making it consist in doing the
viii of being on whom it lavishes in
deed all the phrases of adulation, but
whom in sober truth it depicts as emil
nently hateful. l have hundred times
heard him say that ali ages and nations
have represented their gods as wicked,
in a constantly increasing pro-
gression; that mankind have gone on ad-
ding trait after trait till they reached
the most perfect conception of wicked
ness which the human mind can devise,
and have called this God, and prostrated
themselves before it. This ne plus ultra
of wickedness he considered to be en-
bodied in what is commonly presented
to mankind as the creed of Christianity.
Think Che used to say) of being who
would make a hell-who would create
the race with the infalliable foreknowl-
edge, and therefore with the intention,
that the great majority of them were 20
be consigned to horrible and everlasting
torment! The time, believe, is drawing
near when this dreadful conception of
an object of worship will be no longer
identified with Christianity; and when
all persons, with any sense of moral
good and evil, will look upon it with the
same Indignation with which my father
regarded it. My father was as we'll
aware as any one that Christians do not


in general, undergo the demoralizing
consequences which seem inherent in
such a creed, in the manner or to the
extent which might have been expected
from it. The same slovenliness of
thought, and the subjection of the rea-
son to fears, wishes, and affections, which
enable them to accept a theory involv-
ing a contradiction in terms, prevent
them from perceiving the logical. conse-
quences of the theory. Such is the fac
ility with which mankind believe at one
and the same times things inconsistent
with one another, and so few are those
who draw from what they receive as
truths any consequences but those rec
commended to them by their feelings,
that multitudes have held the undoubt-
ing belief in an Omnipotent Author of
He'll, and have nevertheless identified
that being with the best conception they
were able to form of perfect goodness.
Their worship was not paid to the de-
mon which such Being as they imag-
ined would really be, but to their own
ideal of excellence. The evil is that
such belief keeps the ideal wretched-
ly low; and opposes the most obstinate
resistance to all thought which has a
tendency to raise it higher. Believers
shrink from every train of ideas which
would lead the mind to clear concep-
ton and an elevated standard of excel
lence, because they feel (even when they
do not distinctly see) that such stand
ard would conflict with many of the