(January, 1879.) Professor Blackie is a man with whom we cannot be angry, however greatly his utterances are calculated to arouse that feeling. He is so impulsive, frank, and essentially good-natured, that even his most provoking words call forth rather a smile of compassion than a frown of resentment. Those who know his character and position will yield him the widest allowance. His fiery nature prompts him to energetic speech on all occasions. But when his temper has been fretted, as it frequently is, by the boisterous whims of his Greek students in that most boisterous of universities, it is not surprising if his expressions become splenetic even to rashness. The ingenuous Professor is quite impartial in his denunciations. He strikes out right and left against various objects of his dislike. Everything he dissents from receives one and the same kind of treatment, so that no opinion he assails has any special reason to complain; and every blow he deals is accompanied with such a jolly smile, sometimes verging into a hearty laugh, that no opponent can well refuse to shake hands with him when all is over.
This temper, however, is somewhat inconsistent with the scientific purpose indicated in the title of Professor Blackie's book. A zoologist who had such a particular and unconquerable aversion to one species of animals that the bare mention of its name made his gorge rise, would naturally give us a very inadequate and unsatisfactory account of it. So, in this case, instead of getting a true natural history of Atheism, which would be of immense service to every thinker, we get only an emphatic statement of the authors' hatred of it under different aspects. Atheism is styled "a hollow absurdity," "that culmination of all speculative absurdities," "a disease of the speculative faculty," "a monstrous disease of the reasoning faculty," and so on.
The chapter on "Its Specific Varieties and General Root" is significantly headed with that hackneyed declaration of the Psalmist, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God," as though impertinence were better from a Jew than from a Christian, or more respectable for being three thousand years old. Perhaps Professor Blackie has never heard of the sceptical critic who exonerated the Psalmist on the ground that he was speaking jocosely, and really meant that the man who said in his heart only "There is no God," without saying so openly, was the fool. But this interpretation is as profane as the other is impertinent; and in fact does a great injustice to the Atheist, who has never been accustomed to say "There is no God," an assertion which involves the arrogance of infinite knowledge, since nothing less than that is requisite to prove an universal negative: but simply "I know not of such an existence," which is a modest statement intellectually and morally, and quite unlike the presumption of certain theologians who, as Mr. Arnold says, speak familiarly of God as though he were a man living in the next street.
For his own sake Professor Blackie should a little curb his proneness to the use of uncomplimentary epithets. He does himself injustice when he condescends to describe David Hume's theory of causation as "wretched cavil." Carlyle is more just to this great representative of an antagonistic school of thought. He exempts him from the sweeping condemnation of his contemporaries in Scottish prose literature, and admits that he was "too rich a man to borrow" from France or elsewhere. And surely Hume was no less honest than rich in thought. Jest and captiousness were entirely foreign to his mind. Wincing under his inexorable logic, the ontologist may try to console himself with the thought that the great sceptic was playing with arguments like a mere dialectician of wondrous skill; but in reality Hume was quite in earnest, and always meant what he said. We may also observe that it is Professor Blackie and not Darwin who suffers from the asking of such questions as these:—"What monkey ever wrote an epic poem, or composed a tragedy or a comedy, or even a sonnet? What monkey professed his belief in any thirty-nine articles, or well-compacted Calvinistic confession, or gave in his adhesion to any Church, established or disestablished?" If Mr. Darwin heard these questions he might answer with a good humored smile, "My dear sir, you quite mistake my theories, and your questions travesty them. I would further observe that while the composition of poems would unquestionably be creditable to monkeys, I, who have some regard for them as relatives, however distant, am heartily glad they have never done any of the other things you mention, which I deem a negative proof that their reason, though limited, is fortunately sane."
Professor Blackie's opening chapter on "Presumptions" fully justifies its title. The general consent of mankind in favor of Theism is assumed to have established its validity, and to have put Atheists altogether out of court; and a long list of illustrious Theists, from Solomon to Hegel, is contrasted with a meagre catalogue of Atheists, comprising only the names of David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. * Confucius and Buddha are classed apart, as lying "outside of our Western European Culture altogether," but with a promise that "in so far as they seem to have taught a morality without religion, or a religion without God, we shall say a word or two about them by-and-by." So far as Buddha is concerned this promise is kept; but in relation to Confucius it is broken. Probably the Chinese sage was found too tough and embarrassing a subject, and so it was thought expedient to ignore him for the more tractable prophet of India, whose doctrine of Transmigration might with a little sophistry be made to resemble the Christian doctrine of Immortality, and his Nirvana the Kingdom of Heaven.
     * Professor Blackie is singularly silent as to James Mill,
     the father of the celebrated Utilitarian philosopher, far
     more robust in intellect and character than his son. He is
     the dominant figure of Mill's "Autobiography," and has about
     him a more august air than his son ever wore.
What does the general consent of mankind prove in regard to beliefs like Theism? Simply nothing. Professor Blackie himself sees that on some subjects it is worthless, particularly when special knowledge or special faculty is required. But there are questions, he contends, which public opinion rightly decides, even though opposed to the conclusions of subtle thinkers. "Perhaps," he says, "we shall hit the mark here if we say broadly that, as nature is always right, the general and normal sentiment of the majority must always be right, in so far as it is rooted in the universal and abiding instincts of humanity; and public opinion, as the opinion of the majority, will be right also in all matters which belong to the general conduct of life among all classes, and with respect to which the mind of the majority has been allowed a perfectly free, natural, and healthy exercise." Now, in the first place, we must reiterate our opinion that the general consent of mankind on a subject like Theism proves absolutely nothing. It is perfectly valid on questions of ordinary taste and feeling, but loses all logical efficacy in relation to questions which cannot be determined by a direct appeal to experience. And undeniably Theism is one of those questions, unless we admit with the transcendentalist what is contrary to evident fact, that men have an intuitive perception of God. In the next place, the minor premise of this argument is assumed. There is no general consent of mankind in favor of Theism, but only a very extensive consent. Mr. Gladstone, not long since, in the Nineteenth Century, went so far as to claim the general consent of mankind in favor of Christianity, by simply excluding all heathen nations from a right to be heard. Professor Blackie does not go to this length, but his logical process is no different. Lastly, our author's concluding proviso vitiates his whole case; for if there be one question on which "the mind of the majority" has not been allowed a "perfectly free, natural, and healthy exercise," it is that of the existence of God. We are all prepossessed hi its favor by early training, custom, and authority. Our minds have never been permitted to play freely upon it. A century ago Atheists stood in danger of death; only recently have penal and invidious statutes against them been cancelled or miti............