MR. CHARLES BRIGHT'S LAST LECTURE ON FREETHOUGHT AND FETTERED THOUGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 5016, 13 December 1877, Page 3

MR. CHARLES BRIGHT'S LAST LECTURE ON FREETHOUGHT AND FETTERED THOUGHT.

TO THE KPITOR. Sik, —Though Mr. Bright is away from Auckland, and it may siem ungracious to criticise his lecture iu his absence, since this cannot be avoided it may be excused on the ground of tile general importance of the (jiie.stiou under consideration. As Mr. Bright showed liberty of individual judgment to be much talked about whete little uuderstood iu the age. of the Reformation, so iu this age may freedom of thought be much boasted of where it has but little reality. Mr. Bright evidenced by what he said that he wouid be foremost in warning against this 'danger. I also feel that true freedom of wind is so great a thing that we should be most jenloiis of any mistakes that may cling to the expression. It struck in listening to Mr. Bright'* last lecture on freethought that he nowhere gave us a clear idea of what it really meaus. .r\ll would now agree with him that there should b*3 no external constraint, such as that which burnt Servetus and made Lutherans and Oalvinists deadly enemies. This kind of fetter, however, belongs more to utterance than thought. Amidst tue hottest tires of persecution men could think freely enough yo long as they kept; their thoughts to themselves, and were in no way likely to utter them. The fetters that biu<J ihotti/hl are of a different kind and uiore oiien to question. By being free in thought do we mean being at liberty to think just what we like, or if we prefer it, not to think at all t Surely neither of these. Arc we not iu danger in boasting of our mental freedom ot losiug all sense of obligation in the use of our mental powers? The evil of doepticism is not in its eritical scrutiny, but iu its failing to put iu the place of discarded superstitions some nobler convictions; —as the slave who gains his liberty may think it the part of freedom to become au idle loafer. When Mr. Bright >said that scepticism, was the source oi all progie»s. it occurred to me that it was rather the precursor, which without something more positive to follow would not involve auy progress. How mauy there are who boast of having thrown off the fetters of superstition to walk with their mental nature in bald nakedness, is known only too well by those who have looked ir.to the matter, it is a Mnall thing, if not melancholy, that my friend says to me, t4 l have cast oil the bondage of those old myths," if I can get no answer to the question, "And what then Irive you found for the nourishment of your suiiitual uature V" Better feed on husks than srarve. Again, ill think, may 1 think anything good, bad or indifferent? That thought is unfettered may be something, yet not much, if it is mean, degrading thought. Were it not better to think a right noble thought iu bondage than a mean base thought iu freedom V In actiou 1 kuow of no liberty but the liberty to do right; and in thought I kuow ot no freedom but the freedom to think aright. Ail will ag:ee that claim what freedom I may, i am bouud by certain louical principles ; unless 1 mean to be a fool or an idiot, which 1 have no right to be. Am I not equally under certain moral obligations ? obligations not only to thinkcorrectiy, but to chooseand delight in the bestandmostretined thoughts, putting aside the iuferior, at least comparatively? What then can 1 claim as freedom of thought but this, that 1 shall, as tar as possible, allow nothing to prevent me giving all due weight to the evidouce of truth, and that 1 shall ever pursue only such thinking as can purify and elevate human life. Perhaps, when thus defined, there might be mure advocates of free thought than the sect of freethinkers may imagine. 1 kuow it is necessary tc warn people against the dauger of prejudice ;—and also of self-interest. If, as Mr. Bright says, the women are bound by social prejudice, are not the men by business interests? The church can just as easily be the slave of the shop or counting-house as of the parlour. I could not avoid a surmise whether the male pattof the audience would as heartily cheer one warning as they did the other. Uu scepticism 1 should have liked a little mor.i discrimination. There are certainly two kinds of scepticism. There is a kind which results from an extreme desire to avoid error; which is well and most influential for progress, so long as. not resting in the negative process of throwing otl, it goes cm to attaining something. But there is another kind of scepticism which may grow upon, till it becomes a deeply rooted habit of the mind ; when from universally questioning and doubting it becomes almost impossible to lean on anything — a scepticism mostauti progressive, euding iuthe dark ami melancholy shades of nihilism. I have known sad iiis:aue«'.s of those who acknowledged with bitterness, that they could receive nothing, from, the iupractice of r« Is this too freedom of thought? Or rather freedom from thought, from the very power of thinking — the most terrible cave of bondage for any earnest mind? Our age knows it only too well. One more point. . Mr. Bright defends his attack on the fables of the Bible, which 1 thought in bad taste. Ido not for a moment question his perfect right therein, nor will lie mine. He thinks I have more reverence then he has for the idols of the past. Possibly so. My sympathies are not altogether with the iconoclasts, either past or present. Many an earnest lover of the "the true, the beautiful, aod the good " w«*pfc often and lornr over the d'iso]:tt : ons effected by the, Dutch iconoclasts o0.« years ago. Posterity might have learnt a wise lessou of caution from the miseries tli.it grew out of that wild tempest of right but mi-guided passion, idolatry is not in the'particular thing?, but in the mind. As much idolatry may cling to bare Puritanic walls among Puritans as with Churchmen to the painted cathedral windows, the arched roof, and tlie tessellated floor. There is a dull stupidity that cannot >ee the light »eiit for our spiritual nature, as well as a fr.ncy that imagines light where is none. If superstition may often, on the authority of plenary inspiration, pretend to believe stacements that have no intelligible meaning, so also will confccinpt of the Bible lead many, unconsciously, to rej"et the noblest truths, for no other reasqn than that tlr*y are iu the Bible. I have heard men ridicule, for instance. the silly story of Jonah and the whale men, whose incapacity to see the singular revelations of the Jiuman soul and its subtle workings, iu that marvellous Book seemed to me simply amazing. '1 here are thousands of foolish Jonahs to-day who would lie wi-«or men if they could nfcoop : to learn a U-sson from the ancient Jonah's whale. I endorse every word Mr. Bright says about the evils of sectarianism. But. 1 wholly deny that the Bible is sectarian. It is grandly catholic. The -New Testament never originated one cf our sects from , Bomanistu down to Brethreniam. It does not even sanction the broader Sectarianism that would set up exclusive claims for Christianity against other religions. Its noble motto is, 44 hi every nation he that fearetii God ;md worketh righteousness is accepted of him." Here f uarfc Mr. Bright for the present, not without regret. Shoul I he visit Auckland again, as he promises, I, for one. shall welcome him ; hoping in one way or another to gain from him elucidations of these and other points that may be of some value to all who desire the true progress of the human mind. —I am, &c.,

Samuel Edger.