p. 278Concluding Addresses of Counsel
Sir F. C. Partialfact Unbelief: My Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury. I shall not detain the Court beyond a few moments, with the few concluding observations I have to make in reference to this case, which has already occupied the attention of the Court for a length of time out of all proportion to its importance. I consider it a scandal that in the 19th century, we should have to waste so much of the public time over such a matter of private fanaticism, or that anyone should be found ready to defend such a public nuisance as this unceasing agitation of a crotchet, which can do no possible good to any human being in the world. The Scientific Era Protection Society have done no more than discharge the simplest of public duties in asking the Court to interpose the strong arm of the law for the abatement of this nuisance. A great deal has been said in answer to our application—a great deal that is utterly irrelevant to the question before the Court. We have had disquisitions on all imaginable topics. We have been taken back into the pre-historic ages, and entertained with the most fanciful and extraordinary theories of cosmical changes; we have been dragged through geological strata; we have been conveyed through the universe; we have been entertained with curious Malthusian statistics; literary antiquity has been explored, and all manner of uncouth and forgotten writers dragged into the arena; nay, science itself has been laid under tribute in the most fantastic manner; and the brightest of p. 279 scientific reputations has been trailed in the mud, and science itself profaned by the most flippant of interrogatories and the most arrogant of suggestions, by both witnesses and counsel. And all to what end? What has all this to do with the simple enquiry, whether or not the agitation of the dogmas of these defendants is hurtful to society? The hurtfulness is admitted.
Sir Noble Acceptorof Alltrutth: I beg your pardon; we deny the hurt.
Sir F. C. Partialfact Unbelief: It has certainly been admitted, more than once, that the doctrine of the defendants have had an injurious effect upon their own standing and prospects at least.
Sir Noble Acceptorof Alltruth: Only in a limited sense.
Sir F. C. Partialfact Unbelief: Well, that is enough for me. Hurtfulness is admitted. I don’t care whether it is limited or unlimited. Hurtfulness is admitted: and it is upon this fact that we take our stand, that these misguided people are hurting themselves; and if they are hurting themselves, of course they will hurt everyone who comes under the influence of their principles. It is on this ground that we ask the interference of the Court. We want the Court to say to these people, “You shall no longer afflict society with this interminable talk about matters which have no practical bearing upon human welfare. You shall no longer disturb the serenity of the scientific 19th century, by arguments and agitations of defunct dogmas which may have served their purpose in their day and generation, but which are altogether out of place now that the superstitions of a dark-minded past have dissolved before the advancing noon-tide of scientific knowledge, like the darkness of night before the sunrise. You shall neither hurt yourselves nor anybody else. You shall hold your peace about this mischievous matter, or you shall learn, in the solitude and duress of prison walls, the duty of conforming to the supreme requirements of the community.” In making such a request, we are following the dictates of reason and of common prudence. We show a care for the well-being of the community at large. What answer is it to indulge in long harangues p. 280 about matters of ancient history, which have no more to do with modern life than the mummies of Egypt? History is all very well in its place, and there may be a time for moral reflections, just as there is for the contemplation of the muse; but, my Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury, they are out of place in the consideration of practical questions; we have nothing to do to-day with matters long past and dead; we cannot be governed by sentimentality in the regulation of public affairs. The speeches and cross-examinations of Counsel on the other side have been directed to matters of history and sentiment. I wondered sometimes whether we were in a church or in some assembly room, listening to the treatises on the ethics of antiquity, or some similarly drowsy topic. I say that the efforts of the defence have been altogether irrelevant and away from the point.
His Lordship: They have had some bearing on the question whether the doctrines believed by the defendants are true.
Sir F. C. Partialfact Unbelief: There has been some attempt, no doubt, to make out the resurrection of Christ, but what has it amounted to? We have had arguments about documents, whose originals have long since perished in the dust of antiquity, and about the supposed characters and doings, of men whom no living man ever saw, and whose very dust must long ago have been scattered to the winds. How can we base serious conclusions upon such flimsy premises? A case of this alleged importance ought to be susceptible of test. But, in the nature of things, no test can be applied: it is past and gone. If there ever was anything bona-fide in it, it is beyond recall. It has become to us unknowable. We haven’t even the advantage of a practical test applied at the time, and reported to us; there would have been something in that; but the age in which the thing is alleged to have occurred was of such a character as to exclude all practical test. The spirit of scientific enquiry had not set in. It was the age of credulity and superstition. Had the matter been put to a practical test at the time—such a test, my Lord, as an alleged case of resurrection would be subjected p. 281 to in our own day, there can be no doubt that it would have worn a different complexion from what it is made to possess in the documents of which so much has been made. One has only to attend a scientific lecture, or even glance through a daily paper, or I will say, my Lord, pass through the busy streets of any of our great towns to feel how utterly unnatural and fictitious this whole matter is. It is totally out of keeping with the experience of actual life as we find it. It is out of harmony with the spontaneous drift of human thought. It is destructive of the free and healthy developments of normal human life. On these grounds, I earnestly pray the Court to grant the prayer of our petition. I ask you, Gentlemen of the Jury, to find that our allegations of detriment to society are proved; and with the most profound respect to the Court, I implore your Lordship to give effect to the finding of the Jury in the exercise of that executive power with which, in the interest of society, the law has armed you, and to issue to the defendants that mandate of restraint for which I have the extreme honour to apply on behalf of the plaintiffs.
Sir Noble Acceptorof Alltruth: My Lord, having already at great length occupied the time of the Court, I do not now propose to detain you for any length of time in reply to my friend who has just sat down. I take issue with him as to the importance of the case. In my judgment he altogether underrates it. In fact, he does not seem to me to have any adequate sense of its magnitude, or to have at all grasped the interests so immensely involved in it. So far from the time occupied being out of proportion to the importance of the case, I have a feeling quite to the contrary effect. Many things have only been partially treated which are capable of powerful and extensive elaboration: some things have only been adverted to which ought to have been thoroughly gone into. However, I am satisfied with the treatment the case has received. I am content to rest the case for the defendants on the evidence adduced, and the p. 282 argument that has taken place upon it. It has been far from irrelevant. It only indicates the obtuseness of the opposition, that my friend should have suggested the idea of irrelevancy as characterizing any part of the argument employed. If widely divergent departments of human knowledge have been laid under tribute, it is only because the enemies of Christ have sought and found the weapons of a versatile hostility in all quarters. It is necessary to fight the battle wherever ground is taken by the enemy; and, for that reason, it has been necessary to show that none of the facts of either geology, or biology, or anthropology, or any other “ology,” are in antagonism to Christ, when rightly interpreted, while some of them are distinctly in his favour. As for “ancient history,” I am a little surprised at the efforts of my friend to minimize and hide, under this contemptuous phrase, the invincible phalanx of historic evidence that has been marshalled in proof of Christ’s resurrection. And yet I ought not to be surprised. It is only by this style of treatment that he could hope, with good countenance, to get over the unpleasant duty of having at all to allude to this invulnerable part of our case. My Lord, we stand in an impregnable fortress, when we stand upon the historic evidence of Christ’s resurrection. No one feels this more than those who attempt to storm the position. Their assaulting columns recoil before the withering shower of grape and canister that meet them from the ramparts. Few men return alive to their trenches who have the temerity to attempt the bristling heights. I will not repeat what I have said on this question. It would bear saying again, but time does not allow. I suspect a man of one of two things—perhaps I ought to say one of three—who decries the historic argument in the style my friend has done. Either he is ignorant of the strength of the said argument from non-acquaintance with the facts; or he suspects its strength and shuts his eyes, preferring to be wilfully ignorant; or he lacks the capacity to discern a strong case when it is presented to him. I will not hurt my friend by saying to which of these three classes I suspect he belongs. I will but say that, with p. 283 his gifts of discernment, he ought to be able to say something more edifying on the subject than to talk contemptuously of “ancient history.” My friend made, or tried to make, a strong point on the subject of practical test. He said, if the fact of Christ’s resurrection had been made the subject of practical test, such as would be applied in our own day, that the matter would have stood in a different position, or something to that effect. But, said he, the spirit of scientific enquiry had not set in. My Lord, I am wondering whether my friend is aware that a test was applied, or what sort of a test he would consider a practical test. I might rely on the general incidents attendant on the first blush of the resurrection of Christ, as affording in themselves a sufficient amount of practical test. Those incidents were pretty thoroughly rehearsed in the course of the examination of the witnesses. I refer to them now very briefly. Christ first appeared to certain women; then to Peter; then to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, holding with them a long conversation. These three sets of witnesses all one by one reported their experience to the apostolic band, who were met within closed doors for fear of the Jews. What was the result? It is very plainly stated. First, as to Mary’s report: “She went and told them as they mourned and wept, and they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not” (Mark xvi. 11). Then as to the two that went to Emmaus, “They went and told it unto the residue, neither believed they them.” “Afterwards, he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief.” Now, what dispelled this unbelief with which they at first received the reports of Christ’s resurrection? It was Christ’s own appearance in their midst: and that appearance was not a passive appearance, as a ghost in a play, but an appearance as a living man, who invited them to satisfy themselves of his reality by test. Consider, my Lord, what is involved in the incident thus described: “He said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I MYSELF. Handle me and see, for p. 284 a spirit hath not FLESH AND BONES as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they believed not for joy and wondered, he said unto them, HAVE YE HERE ANY MEAT? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb, and he took it and did eat before them” (Luke xxiv. 38-43). My Lord, what more practical evidence would it be possible for a dead man come to life, to give to his doubting friends than to offer himself to their handling, and eat food provided by them? This last point—eating before them food provided by themselves, is most important. Men might distrust the evidence of their eyes and ears (though few men would), but if a dead friend come to life, not only showed you marks of identity and suffered you freely to handle him, but ate something you brought out of your cupboard, WHICH something, after he was gone, WAS GONE, TOO, in what more palpable way would it be possible for such a dead friend to prove his reality? I defy my friend to suggest any mode of test that would be more practical and complete than that. But, my Lord, this is not the test to which I referred when I said a test had been applied. I referred to a case which seems to have been allowed to occur, and to have been put on record expressly to meet the sceptical temper of such men as my friend and his clients in after ages. I referred to the case of the apostle, Thomas, who was absent at the first interview between Christ and his disciples. After the interview Thomas came, and the disciples told him of it, saying, “We have seen the Lord.” It is the way Thomas received this intimation that I particularly wish to call my friend’s attention to. He received it pretty much in the spirit of my friend’s own remarks. He said, in effect, “Except I can apply a practical test, I will not believe.” His actual words were, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my fingers into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now for the sequel to this, my Lord. “Eight days afterwards, his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in their p. 285 midst, and said, Peace unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust into my side, and be not faithless but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed” (John xx. 25-29). Here we have Thomas, a typical sceptic, convinced on his own ground. The fact of such a case happening—the fact of Thomas taking a position of dogged unbelief till he should have the evidence of his senses, and then ceasing his unbelief when that evidence was presented—supplies the very element of the case which my friend said was awanting—the element of practical test; and contradicts the allegation of my friend that the age was one of credulity. I think we have seen that unbelief rather than credulity was the spirit in which the resurrection of Christ was received, and that unbelief was dissipated by evidence that is logically as satisfactory to-day as at that time.
Sir F. C. Partialfact Unbelief: My friend assumes that all these things happened just as they are recorded in the New Testament.
Sir Noble Acceptorof Alltruth: I have already proved that the apostolic narrative is the honest and capable narrative of eye-witnesses. I am, therefore, entitled to treat its statements with, at least, the respect and confidence that my friend would show to statements sworn on affidavit in this Court, and. in truth, with a great deal more: for the truth of the apostolic narrative is guaranteed to us on something more reliable than the oath of a witness, who may be perjuring himself. It is sealed with the blood of many witnesses, and evidenced in its triumphant establishment in the civilized world. I might follow my friend in his allegation that the resurrection of Christ is out of harmony with the spirit of modern times. His allusion to the impression made by a scientific lecture, or a perusal of the daily press, was really amusing—amusing from its utter shallowness. Did it not occur to my friend that, in the revolution of time, the modern era will soon p. 286 be the ancient era, and that new thoughts and new ways will displace all that now goes to make up the modern conception of things? And what if it should turn that the modern conception is as superficial and false as Thomas Carlyle held it to be, and that the philosophy of the laws is a conceited skimming of the eternal facts, which it is not in the power of mortal intellect to grasp? May it not turn out, even as a matter to be reckoned by experienced thoughtful men as a possibility, and something more than a chance, that Jesus Christ is higher than the mathematicians of a distressed and puzzled age, and that he, and no one else, is the key to the divine purpose with the earth which we inhabit? And how, in that case, when the hour of destiny arrives—when Jesus Christ again honours and blesses the earth with his presence—how then, I say, will my friend’s scientific lectures and daily papers appear?—No, my Lord; I emphasize all I have formerly said. I maintain, on the strength of the many and varied evidences I have submitted—evidences that cannot be overthrown, that Christ is true, and that my friends, in fighting against Christ, are fighting against the solution of the world’s woes, and standing in the way, if it were possible to do so, of the only blessedness there is in store for a distracted world and the afflicted human race.
Mr. German Mysticism: My Lord, I have not before this been called upon to speak to the Court in this case. It is a wonderful case, altogether, my Lord; it is true and false, my Lord. The plaintiffs wish to evolve the harmonious development of all phenomena (?) and the defendants take one phenomenon—wonderful phenomenon, this of Jesus Christ—and they would by means of it, putting it out of its place, break the harmony of the universal soul. They are in reason so far as they go, but they are behind reason in so far as they don’t go. Jesus Christ is pait of universal truth; but we must have all truth. And what is truth, my Lord?
p. 287 This is the difficult question which makes the people knock their heads one against another. If they could all see, there would be no disagreements. There would be no defendants disturbing the harmony of the soul, and there would be no plaintiffs seeking to put an end to the disturbance, in the interests of the moral equilibrium of the universal ME. My Lord, there are fundamental mistakes at the bottom of all this commotion. If those mistakes could be rectified in the minds of the defendants, what peace there would be. They are mistaken as to the nature of matter. Matter has no existence except as a phenomenon (?) Were we not here, matter would not be here. It is a mere relation, or rather the result of relation, between our living souls and the First Cause. It is a subjective impression: intrinsically, it is nothing. Our impressions are the realities. If the defendants could see this, they would understand that the most opposite things can be true. My impressions are truth to me: their impressions are truth to them: let us not impose our impressions upon others to their disturbance. Let us in charity and patience hold our own views, but not bore and pester other men with them, as the defendants are doing. Time and space themselves are not external but internal entities: they have no outward existence: there is no time, and there is no space out of the mind: they are mere forms of man’s spiritual being. The material creation is but an appearance. The unseen world is a reality—the only reality. It is near us: it is here: it is in us and about us. Nature is but the garment of the unseen—the voice with which the Deity proclaims himself to man. Poetry, virtue, religion, are the everlasting basis of the universe. To live in the light of reason is the sole duty of man. The Bible is a problem of authorship: but the universal soul is higher than the Bible. The Bible could have no existence except in our perceptions of its existence: and, therefore, our perceptions are superior to the Bible. There is a large ingredient of Nature in the Bible. It is not the highest perception of man. Nature is a machine of death—ever frightful—with monstrous revolution—inexplicable vortices p. 288 of movement: a kingdom of devouring: a baleful immense—an appalling night—palsying all observers. We strive to fathom the gigantic mechanism and grow giddy: the excitement is an increasing whirl, which gains full mastery, if we give in to it, and hurls us into the fearful night. Only inward disunion among the powers of Nature has preserved men hitherto; nevertheless, that grand epoch cannot fail to arrive, when the whole family of mankind, by a grand universal resolve, will snatch themselves from this sorrowful condition, and by a voluntary abdication of their terrestrial abode, redeem their race from this anguish, and seek refuge in a happier world with their ancient Father. Men, like the defendants, look at Nature as a sort of calm immovable platform for the evolution of objective facts, which they mistake for absolute truth. They know not that this so-called Nature of theirs is a sport of the mind—a waste fantasy of their dream—a horrible monster—the grotesque shadow of their own passions. Oh, if they but understood! The significance of the world is, Reason. The subjective ME is king. He will to infinitude grow more and more harmonious with himself: at every step, he will behold the all-efficiency of a high moral order in the universe, and what is purest of his will come forth into brighter and brighter clearness. The primitive separation in the absolute philosophical activities is a deeper-lying separation in his own nature, which separation indicates, by its existence as such, the possibility of being adjusted—of being joined. Nature is but an encyclopædical systematic index or plan of our spirit—the mere catalogue of our treasures. Our bodily life is a burning: our spiritual life is a being burnt; death, therefore, a change of capacity. There is but one temple in the world, and that is the body of man. Nothing is holier than this high form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this revelation in the flesh. We touch heaven when we lay our hand on the human body. We need not the body of Jesus Christ to get at the temple divinity. It is wherever man is. Man is a sun: his senses are the planets. He has ever expressed some symbolical p. 289 philosophy of his being in his works and conduct: he announces himself and his gospel of Nature. He is the Messiah of Nature. He consists in truth. If he exposes truth, he exposes himself. If he betrays truth, he betrays himself. He is a spirit-seer: all appears to him as spirit. If our organs were not weak, we should see ourselves in a fairy world. All fabulous tales are but dreams of that home-world, which is everywhere and nowhere. Religion, my Lord, contains infinite sadness. Martyrs are spiritual heroes. Christ was the greatest martyr of our species: through him martyrdom has become infinitely significant and holy: but the defendants put him out of his place. He is a light among lights. And, as for miracles, can miracles work conviction? Is not the real conviction the only true God-announcing miracle? My Lord, I could add much more; but, perhaps, I have said enough to convince the Court that the defendants are good men, misapplying truth by offering their subjectivities as the objectivities of other men, who have subjectivities of their own. The action of the Court petitioned will, doubtless, have a wholesome effect.
The Foreman of the Jury: My Lord, the Jury have not been able to follow the last speaker exactly. Could your Lordship give us some idea of his meaning?
His Lordship (smiling): We shall see what Mr. Discerner-of-Facts may have to say. Perhaps his remarks may give you an inkling.
Mr. Discerner-of-Facts: My Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury, I have tried to follow my learned friend who has just sat down. If I may have succeeded in apprehending his arguments, I am, at the same time, not altogether surprised at the difficulty which the Jury say they have experienced. My friend’s style was by no means so lucid as is desirable in addressing mortal men. It was obscured somewhat by the intellectual mist which, passing for philosophical profundity, seems to dim the eyes of the German mystical school. There is, however, a method in their philosophy which I shall try to define, p. 290 in however small a measure I may succeed. It has its basis in the theory that nothing exists but a universal mind, sub-divided into a multitude of minds. What we see, and hear, and feel, they understand to be mere impressions on the mind, and not facts subsisting in themselves. A mountain, according to them, is no mountain in reality, but an idea of a mountain in the mind that thinks about the mountain: and so with everything else. According to this, every mind is its own standard of truth. Absolute truth is denied. Everything is what they call subjective. On this ground, they would say that the defendants are right to their own thoughts; but that though Christ’s resurrection is true to them, it is not true to those who cannot see it, or refuse to believe it, and that, therefore, they have no right to try to produce conviction in the minds of others. I think I fairly represent my friend’s contention (Mr. German Mysticism nods). Now, I do not think it requires many words to dispose of this curious way of looking at the subject. There is one fact that for ever disposes of all transcendental theories of the universe, that is, so far as their being turned to any practical account is concerned; and, of course, it is to a practical account that my friend turns his theory, in unity with the plaintiffs, in asking the Court to interfere with the action of the defendants. That fact is this, that on whatever principle soever it may be, there is an inflexible sequence to all action in our experience: an universal and immutable connection between cause the effect, and absolute uniformity of experience among all men on this point. If a man has not money, he cannot buy food, and, if he cannot get food, he starves, and dies everywhere. If a man falls over a precipice, he gets mangled, and perhaps killed, in all countries, and in all cases absolutely alike. If a man gets into the fire, he is burned, and suffers the agnonizing pain inflicted by the flames. If a dynamite bomb is thrown among his feet, he is blown to atoms, whoever he is—peasant or emperor—in Britain or Russia. Now, does it matter in these cases what theory you frame on the subject? Does it avert the pangs of hunger? Does it repair the shattered limb? Does it allay the p. 291 fierce burning pain? Does it restore the mangled frame, to say that these experiences are not realities in themselves, but only impressions on the mind? Will the sufferers listen with patience to any theory on the subject? Are not the experiences real to them and real to all else who have to do with the sufferers, or who knew about their sufferings? My friend’s hypothesis would not alter the practical bearings of facts, and it is the practical bearings of things that are of consequence to mankind, and not abstract theories we may form. But, my friend’s theory is altogether inadmissible; according to that theory we ought to find people taking it into their heads that their legs were fractured, when, according to the perceptions of everybody else, there was no fracture. There ought to be cases in which it should be true to some people in the train that there had been a railway accident, and not true to others in the same train. To some shareholders a bank ought to fail, while to others it continued sound and solvent. There ought to be endless discrepancies in the impressions of men as to palpable facts. But there is no such discrepancy. All the people on a sinking ship know she is going down, and all drown if there are no means of rescue. Is it not playing with us, and mocking us, to ask us to believe that all these experiences are affairs of individual impressions and not of absolute fact? Theories are of no use in this connection. Whatever theory people please to entertain, all facts are common to all, and reasonable to each individual in detail. Consequently, for practical purposes, they are absolutely and wholly objective—that is, outside of ourselves. Now, my Lord, applying these principles to the matter in hand, it is easy to see where we are. Christ’s resurrection, if a fact, is a fact in spite of any theory we may form of the fact. And if, in the divine wisdom, it is appointed to have a practical bearing upon our future well-being, it will have that practical bearing whether we like to call it a subjective impression or anything else. And if it is the duty of all who believe in Christ to preach his resurrection, that duty cannot be neutralized and arrested by any theory of moral rights we may choose to p. 292 conceive on the basis of a subjective philosophy? Practically, and in reality, the case stands absolutely as it appears to stand objectively. No other form or relation of truth is known to man than what is expressed by the word objective. All subjective conceptions are the result of impressions objectively derived. This is universal experience. Consequently, the question is, how stands the case objectively, for this is how it stands practically. There is but one answer, on the evidence. Christ rose from the dead, and has received power from God to deal with mankind in a coming age, in accordance with certain laws and principles that have been revealed. It matters not what philosophic theory we may apply to it, the facts in their practical relation remain the same. My friend has but to apply to it the principles that guide him in the regulation of his own private affairs. He has a banking account; if he exhausts the funds, or oversteps the limits of overdraw, he cannot get his cheques honoured, and the fact is no less inconvenient if he call it a subjective impression, than if he adopt a more materialistic philosophy. He has his house burnt down; will calling it a subjective impression deter him from recognizing the practical urgency of the fact, or interfere with his taking the necessary steps to provide other shelter, or rebuilding the destroyed tenement? Facts are facts, whatever we may call them, or conceive them to be, in a theoretical sense; and no fact is of more substantial attestation, or of more urgent practical bearing on the well-being of mankind, than the fact that Christ rose from the dead, and is to mankind the only hope of deliverance from the countless practical evils of the present state of existence.
Mr. British Protoplasm: I agree with my friend who has just addressed the Court, as to the nature and bearing of facts; but the difficulty is, we don’t agree about what are facts. There ought not to be any difficulty. There would not be any difficulty if the great inductive principle of scientific investigation were adopted. The p. 293 Court is aware that Lord Bacon inaugurated a new era in the intellectual history of mankind, when he laid down the principle of induction—the principle of suspending theories and collecting facts, and letting facts teach knowledge. By the application of that principle, and that principle alone, the wonderful discoveries of this scientific age have been achieved, and knowledge of all kinds advanced and systematized. Astronomy has been opened out: the hidden lessons of the rocks have been unlocked: the elements of Nature has been analysed and mastered: the mechanical powers of the earth explored and applied in a wonderful manner, and the secret force of the universe itself discovered, and made serviceable to man in the wonderful element of electricity. Lastly, the very modus operandi of all life has been detected, and the material of all vital phenomena discovered in the wonderful cellular tissue that has been so appropriately named protoplasm. My Lord, the world has entered a new era with the adoption of scientific principles of study. By the employment of these, the domain of fact is clearly and sharply defined. There is no longer any of the haze that overspread the face of Nature in old times, distorting natural phenomena into the most fantastic and empirical forms, and giving rise to the various monstrous conceptions made familiar to us, in the shape of fairies, hobgoblins, genii, sprites, prophets, magicians, priests, seers, miracle workers, and so on. It is in the interest of this glorious emancipation of the human intellect that we oppose the proceedings of the defendants. Their crotchet is a survival of the effete age of the unscientific past—an age when scientific lectures, experiments, and demonstrations were unknown—when the institutions of learning had not as yet begun to exist—when professorships, and chairs of philosophy, and such illustrious assemblies as the meetings of the British Association had not as yet begun to shed their light on the world. The hurtfulness of their crotchet has been sufficiently established. My Lord, the question is beyond all discussion. These Christian doctrines are altogether out of place in the age of protoplasm. The defendants might as well p. 294 begin to seriously preach Hamlet’s ghost. The modern world is not to be guided by the echoes of tradition, and by the tales of barbaric ages long since past and dead—ages of ignorance, and bigotry, and intellectual cramp, when men neither saw much nor were able to judge correctly of what they saw. Let us have facts by all means, as my friend who last addressed the Court insisted. I agree with him in dismissing the philosophical vagaries of poetical dreamers; but I cannot agree with him in embracing tenets which are only vagaries of another description. I claim to repudiate everything that is without a scientific foundation—whether it be the Chinese fables, the metaphysical speculations of mystics, or the impossible traditions with which the defendants would arrest social progress and human joy. I claim to stand on the solid rock of that which cannot be contradicted.
Mr. Ardent Hope-for-a-Reason: My Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury, Mr. Protoplasm’s ideal is good in the abstract. It is well to stand on an unmovable foundation. It is well to stand upon facts; but it will be something new to me in this crooked and chaotic world, to be acquainted with something that cannot be contradicted. Is protoplasm uncontradicted? Are scientific men quite agreed whether life precedes the protoplasm, or protoplasm generates the life? Is it quite settled whether the first forms of life upon earth were miraculously produced, or developed through countless ages from some kind of a life-jelly that, in some wonderful way, was deposited at the bottom of the ocean? Are the very fathers of evolution themselves quite at one on all points? Are there not two schools of evolutionists? Is there not contradiction and difference in every scientific circle? Are the meetings of the British Association quite happy family meetings? Yes, I like Mr. Protoplasm’s ideal: but it is only an ideal. He says he claims to stand on it. It will never be anything more than a claim. Pose how he will, he cannot escape the miserable fate of contradiction. Contradiction must exist so long as ignorance exists, and as p. 295 long as knowledge survives in the struggle with ignorance. We are not to be frightened at contradiction. I dare say my friend is not; and we, on behalf of the defendants, are not. You contradict our facts; but can you disprove our facts? Why, you cannot touch them. You cannot even put them a little aside. Our Christendom is a fact, with Christ’s name universal: you cannot deny it, and you cannot explain it, on any hypothesis of Christ not having risen. Our New Testament is a fact: you cannot deny its antiquity: you cannot deny its authenticity; you cannot deny its ability; you cannot deny its purity and its probity; and, therefore, you cannot deny its testimony to Christ’s resurrection—a testimony advanced in too many shapes, on too many grounds to admit of any theory of mistake or misapprehension. You cannot deny our Old Testament, with an antiquity long prior to our New Testament. You cannot deny its history; you cannot deny its prophecies; you cannot deny the wonderful parallel and fulfilment of both in our own times, and notably in the existence of the Jewish race in a dispersed condition. And another thing you cannot deny—you cannot deny the wonderful adaptability of the whole matter to our moral and intellectual need as rational creatures. We need hope, Mr. Protoplasm; you have none to give us. You point us to a future of darkness. We need stimulus, we need something to lift us out of ourselves; we need something to give us a motive—something to draw us to a higher life. You give us nothing. The Christ-doctrine gives us all. It gives us a future of brightness: it applies to us the stimulus of hope; it gives us the elevating power of a noble standard immeasurably above ourselves, and helps us with the prospect of a responsibility to an unerring tribunal. It gives us, above all things, the prospect of immortality—the deepest desire of our nature—which your protoplasm condemns as an impossible dream, but which the gospel of Christ offers as a certain gift from God through him. You cry out for facts: we give you facts, for these are not cunningly devised fables, but truths authenticated to our age in every way in which authentication in our circumstances is possible. p. 296 But you refuse our facts merely because they are inconsistent with what I must call your fancies, for, although scientific facts are facts, the inferences you deduce from them are not necessarily facts. Many of them have already been proved fancies. You turn out to be very nice and partial in your taste for facts. You are very eclectic indeed, but it is the eclecticism of intellectual dogmatism. If I might not be breaching the rules of good taste, I would call it scientific empiricism, this rejection of all facts that don’t happen to square with the notions of the scientific school to which we belong. You talk of “scientific foundation”: are there no facts that are indubitable facts without having a scientific foundation? Is King John’s “Magna Charta” not a fact? Do you not stand upon it to-day? How would you define a scientific foundation for such a fact? Can you test it? Can you bring it on to the lecture table? Can you put it into a crucible? Do you not believe in it, although it is beyond the range of your science and your senses? And if you say to me it comes within the range of your senses through historic evidence—documentary transmission, or what not, why do you refuse the historic evidence and the documentary transmission of the far mightier matter involved in this trial? My dear sirs, this talk about modern science in the way you use it, is only a new species of charlatanry. Give science its due, by all means: let us be thankful for the enlarged acquaintance with Nature’s wonderful powers that has come about through the adoption of rules of careful observation and correct reasoning. But, in the name of common sense, let us not throw away the wonderful facts that exist in other directions. Let us not stultify our intellects by shutting our eyes to other evidences that exist, besides those of the laboratory and the lecture hall. Let us not deny the Spirit of God, because we believe in oxygen! Let us not shut our eyes to palpable history, because we can look through telescopes at the stars! Let us not reject miracle, because we have discovered the spectrum analysis. Let us not be so insane as to refuse faith in an uncontradictable Christ, because we have exhumed the p. 297 pterodactyl and discovered the moneron. Let us not lay aside the Bible, because we have got daily papers, and scientific text books. All truth is co-ordinate. Different forms of it sometimes appear in conflict; the highest intellect is that which patiently, and humbly, accepts all noted facts, until, in process of time, they are seen grouped in an, at first, unperceived harmony. Such a grouping exists in the facts of true science, and the facts of the Apostolic testimony. We have not only a glorious physical cosmos under our feet, of immense history and unfathomable constitution, on which human inquisitiveness will expend itself in vain: but on this cosmic platform a divine programme is being worked out, which will at last reach results commensurate with the grandeur of this stupendous piece of creative work. The heart of that programme is the resurrection of Christ, which the Court will in vain forbid the defendants to proclaim.
Mr. Lover-of-the-Present-World: My Lord, there is one feature of the case which has been overlooked in the various arguments that have been addressed to the Court. I think we are justified in judging everything by its effects. Anything that does good, that gives pleasure and satisfaction to people, I should say, must be good; and anything that has the contrary effect must be evil. Now, my Lord, I look at the effects of the doctrine of the defendants. Does it make them happier? Quite the contrary. We have it in evidence that they have been made morose and unsociable. They look like it, I am sure, as they stand moping in the box there. It seems to me that such must be the effect of their doctrine; for what is that doctrine, my Lord? We have heard a deal about the resurrection of Christ; but, my Lord, there are other doctrines than that which give quite a different complexion to the system. I find Jesus saying that no man can be his disciple unless he takes up the cross. What does that mean? We shall presently know what it means. He says it is next to impossibility for a rich man to be saved. He says the poor are blessed: and “Blessed are p. 298 they that mourn.” In Paul’s letters there is a deal of this sort of thing. He speaks about crucifying the old man; he deprecates living in pleasure; he condemns the cultivation of the friendship of the world. He inculcates the denial of all ungodliness and worldly lusts. Now what does this amount to when practically carried out? It amounts to asceticism. It amounts to the deprivation of every innocent pleasure. It amounts to the eclipse of every enjoyment. It amounts to a robbing of life of every charm. It amounts to moral suicide. A man might as well be out of existence. He certainly had better retire to a monastery. This is the logical upshot of the principles disseminated by the defendants. If they do not go this length, it is because their better sense comes to the rescue. Then I have to mention another feature in which their principles are blighting to human enjoyment. There is a constant taking down of the dignity of human nature—a constant disparagment of our manhood—a constant inculcation of what I cannot but call a cringing servility. All this is done on the plea of glory to God. It is expressed by Paul as no flesh glorying in His sight, and “he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” Illustrative of the same debasing tendency, he says God has chosen weak things, and base things, and things that are despised, yea, and things that are not to bring to nought things that are. Now, my Lord, this may be very sound theology, but what does it mean as regards the development of human life? Development, do I say? I ought to say repressment, stuntment, and blightment; for the effect of such a doctrine is to check the play of all manly sentiments, and to put an end to the invigorating stimulus of ambition. What scope is there for the manly rivalries of public life, and the zest of mutual appreciation and compliment, if the mind is to be internally hung up all the time with this crape of a sentiment, that man is to have no credit, and to strive for none of the rewards of ambition, because of this incessant glory to God, as it is called? I contend that, on this ground alone, a sufficient reason exists for interference with the proceedings of the defendants. See how p. 299 different is the aspect of things with the plaintiffs. They place before the community the noble liberty of natural life, wherein every man is free to avail himself of whatever lawful pleasure he may choose to enjoy. Of entertainment of all kinds, he has the freest range of choice; companions he can select just to his taste; distinction of all sort he can compete for in the healthy tussle of public life; he can aim at fame and the rewards of ambition; he can amass wealth till he is as rich as Crœsus if he like; he can indulge in the pleasures of joviality, the refined enjoyments of the musical art in their unnumbered varieties, or the intellectual feast of the drama, without check or hindrance from a living soul. The result is the very opposite to that seen in the case of the defendants. Men who live thus in the freedom of Nature live in the sweetness of a free soul, a tranquil mind, a placid nature, cultivated tastes, developed powers, and the delights of friendship—the pleasures in fact of an unfettered development of all the powers and gifts that belong to the human constitution. I say, my Lord, that what I may call the subjective moral effects produced by the principles of the defendants are sufficient in themselves to justify the most strenuous measures; and I heartily join in the prayer that has been addressed to the Court to issue a prohibitory injunction.
Mr. Dontwanto Believeanyhow: I so entirely concur in what has been advanced by my colleagues that I do not think it necessary to address any independent remarks to the Court. I look upon the doctrine of the defendants as an unlearned, narrow-minded, cramping affair. It is opposed to science, opposed to common sense, opposed to the commonest pleasures of life; opposed to everything that can commend itself to a robust, healthy, manly mind. Even if there were grounds for thinking it might be true, it is not, all things considered, worth looking at. I hope the Jury will come to such a decision as will enable us to put a quietus upon it for a long time to come.
p. 300 Mr. Wellwisher of Mankind: My Lord, I have the honour of bringing up the rear of the rhetorical procession that has passed before the Court within the last hour or two. It can scarcely be expected, after such an exhaustive elucidation of the question, that I can have much to contribute in the way of fresh argument or suggestion. Perhaps, however, I may try and throw out an idea in answer to Mr. Lover-of-the-Present-World, who last addressed the Court. He seemed to suggest that the enterprise of the defendants was inimical to the moral well-being of mankind. My Lord, I cannot but think that Mr. Lover-of-the-Present-World has but very imperfectly apprehended the scope, and aim, and nature of that enterprise. If there is one ground upon which I would more strongly than another strenuously oppose any interference with the defendants, it is on the ground that the well-being of society, in the most real and comprehensive sense, is bound up with the work of Jesus Christ on the earth. Why, my Lord, even if we look at the matter historically, we must see this. Where were the refinements, and the courtesies, and amenities of European society before the appearance of Jesus Christ, 1800 years ago? Is it not a fact that the world, before then, was steeped in what was barbarism by comparison? I do not ignore the civilization of Greece and Rome; but I say that these civilizations were but barbarisms, side by side with the civilization that has resulted from the diffusion of the influence of Christ even in the diluted form in which that diffusion has taken place. Bad as the state of the world is at the present time—(and I lament the world’s woes from the bottom of my heart)—it is infinitely superior to the age in which human life was of no account; mercy to the fallen, an unknown sentiment; forgiveness, an unconceived virtue; and in which the grossest immoralities were publicly practised, and privately nursed. And any superiority that now distinguishes the present time from pagan times, is distinctly traceable to the refining influence of the Teacher of Nazareth, who commanded his disciples to teach all nations to do to others as they would be done by; and p. 301 whose teaching, in a certain form, was made providentially influential in the countries of Europe. But, my Lord, it is not on the historical aspect of the case that I rely, though I think some weight attaches to it; it is on the ultimate drift and bearing of the matter that I should wish to lay the special stress. The wise man has said, “In everything consider the end.” This is what we have to do in this matter. What is the end of the matter? My friend has spoken of the present draw-backs of the matter—present sadness, present mourning, present poverty, present isolation and self-denial, as the lot of the servants of Christ. It is true, my Lord; I have no desire to conceal or extenuate this point. It was the distinct foreshadowing and appointment of Christ himself that it should be so. But are we to confine our view of the matter to its present aspects in forming a just estimate of its bearings? My Lord, my friends on the other side are not so unwise in other things. They send their sons to school where they are under discipline and restraints—irksome to the lads, and perhaps not altogether pleasing to the parents. Do my friends say the experience undergone at school is a mistake, because it is dreary? Do they confine their view of the case to the dreariness? Do they not look forward to the days of liberty and manhood when, as the result of these restraints, their sons will be qualified to enter upon the responsibilities and enjoyments of life for which, without these preparatory restraints, they would be totally unfitted? Yes, my Lord, and this is what they do if they belong to the class of wise parents. They are governed by ultimate results in their adoption and estimate of present means and conditions. Precisely thus ought they to allow themselves to look at this other matter. It is not for the sake of self-denial, that Christ has made self-denial the rule for his disciples during their passage through the present evil world. It is with a view to results to come after. It is to these results we are to look, my Lord. In looking at these results, what do we see? Why, that the sorrow and the draw-backs, to which my friend referred, are “but for a moment,” as Paul expressed it. “Our light affliction p. 302 which is but for a moment worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Such are his words. And again, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” My Lord, we must look at the glory to be revealed before we can rightly estimate the course appointed for disciples now. What is it? It is well said in the Scriptures that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love Him.” It may be said, if this be so, there is no use in talking about it. But there is a qualifying addition to the words I have just quoted, namely this statement, “but God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit.” So that although human imagination, left to itself, could never have conceived of “the glory that shall be revealed,” now that it has been revealed, it is possible to have an idea of it. What is it then? Immortality of nature and perfection of faculty—every joy, and glory, and honour, and satisfaction—every attribute of wealth and power to be conferred, when a certain epoch in the world’s history arrives, to be marked and introduced by Christ’s return to the earth. When this epoch arrives, Christ’s dead friends are reproduced from the grave by the great power God has given him, and his living friends changed and conformed to the body of his glory; conjointly with him, he then enters upon the work of overthrowing the present constitution of the world, and erecting a new order of things, in which he will be head and his friends co-rulers with him of mankind, under the new government to be established in the city of David. Under this new government, mankind—poor, perishing mankind—will know a blessedness they have never known before—a blessedness of plenty, and light, and truth, and peace, and health, which are now only mentioned as matters of chimera. They will, at last, as the result of a sufficiently prolonged operation of this government, know the blessedness of immortality itself, for death itself will at last be obliterated from their midst. These things were defined, I think, in Mr. Faithson’s evidence. They p. 303 are all promised and pledged by the divine word written in the Scriptures: and the resurrection of Christ is the guarantee God has given that these things will come to pass. Paul so characterises it: “God hath given assurances to all men (of the verity of these things) in that he hath raised him from the dead.” Now, my Lord, is it a marvellous thing, that for such a stupendous exaltation, there should be an adequate preparatory discipline on the part of those who accept Christ’s invitation to associateship with himself in so great a future? Reason will not falter in the answer. If my friend glooms morosely at the cross and the self-denial, it is only because he lacks faith in the crown and the glory to which they stand logically related. A prospect like what is placed before men in the gospel calls for the schooling of present obedient submission and self-denial. If my friend will see the matter all round, he will see compactness, and symmetry, and beauty, and fitness in that which now presents to him so hideous an aspect. No, my Lord, the interests of mankind are bound up with this matter. What hope have they in any other direction? What comes of the course my friend so beautifully painted? What comes of the pleasurings, and the money makings, and the fame-huntings he so pleasingly indicated as the liberty of a natural life? Does it not all end in vexation, impotence, and death? Is it not all “vanity and vexation of spirit?” What can the professor do in the grasp of death? Where are his accomplishments, his degrees, his honours, his emoluments, his prospects, when the cemetery gives him six feet of clod-covered earth? There is no hope in protoplasm. We want the Maker of protoplasm for a Friend and a Saviour, and then we have hope for our companion, instead of despair. My Lord, the Maker of protoplasm has sent His son to offer this friendship and salvation. It is a matter of history. The record of it cannot be erased from the earth. The defendants are identified with the glorious work. No man can stop it. I advise the Court to let these men alone, lest, haply, they be found fighting against God.
p. 304 Sir F. C. Partialfact Unbelief: My Lord, my learned friend, Mr. Alltruth, was good enough to consent to my having the last word. I do not know that it is neecssary I should avail myself of the privilege. Everything has been said, I think that can well be said pro and con. The Court has been a long time occupied with the case. Doubtless, we are all pretty well tired of it. I confess that is my own feeling. It would be cruel to the Court, cruel to the defendants, perhaps, and certainly cruel to myself, were I to make any attempt to follow the endless repetitions of Counsel in the concluding addresses delivered on the side of the defence. I am content to leave it where it is, satisfied in the discharge of my duty in asking the Court to grant the injunction for which it is my honour, on behalf of the plaintiffs, to apply, in the interests of the community at large.
Sir Noble Acceptor of Alltruth: I presume your Lordship will take the summing-up after lunch?
His Lordship: That will be convenient.
The Court adjourned.