Main Index

“Fundamentals of Freethought”
Peter Eckler Publishing Company, New York
by Marshall J. Gauvin, 1922

Preface
Originally published in 1922, Marshall J. Gauvin writes the Fundamentals of Freethought. In the Preface, Gauvin explains why he gives his book this title.

Is There A Real God?
Man invented gods in his effort to account for the phenomena of nature. As the knowledge that the universe is governed by law advances, belief in God disappears.

Did Jesus Christ Really Live?
In early Christianity, Christ was a personified idea. For this idea a life story was afterwards invented. St. Paul knows nothing of the Christ of the Gospels, concerning whom contemporary history is wholly silent.

Did Jesus Christ Rise From the Dead?
The story of the resurrection of Christ is one of many similar stories. Nobody saw the resurrection take place. The contradictory narratives in the Gospels prove the astounding claim a fable.

The Bible A Dangerous Moral Guide
The scriptures uphold all the major forms of immorality. Humanity has made moral progress in proportion as the Bible has been left behind.

Is There A Life After Death?
The mind or soul as a function of the brain dies with the brain. Immortal life is unthinkable, undesirable, and in a universe of endless change, impossible.

One Hundred Contradictions In The Bible
The contradictions in the Bible certify that that book is not the word of God, and that we need not believe it since its writers did not believe one another.

Transcription to web provided by Sharon Mooney (and Bill Restemeyer, Did Jesus Christ Really Live?). Original publication, courtesy of the library owned by David Mooney.

PREFACE: Fundamentals of Freethought by Marshall J. Gauvin

Preface
From "Fundamentals of Freethought"; 1922
by Marshall J. Gauvin,
Peter Eckler Publishing Company, New York
Fundamentals of Freethought has been chosen for the title of this book because each of the studies it contains deals with a question of fundamental importance in the field of religious thought.

Whether there is or is not in the universe a God--a conscience, controlling being who knows our wants and answers our petitions; whether Christ was an actual historical character, or an ideal elder brother evolved out of man's religious yearning--a figment of the imagination--a myth; whether assuming that there existed a quite human, Jewish peasant preacher named Jesus who was put to death, he really triumphed over the tomb and arose from the dead; whether we are or are not destined to enjoy another life--these questions, like the others discussed in this book, sound the depths of religious belief. They ask for a rehearing of the evidence for religion's major assumptions. They examine the foundations on which religion rests.

The facts involved in each study not alone justify but demand the attitude of Freethought—a frank facing of reality as seen in the light of reason.

Alike in the consideration of religious and secular questions the Freethinker relies on reason as the only guide to truth. The Christian, on the contrary, puts his trust in faith as the determinant of truth in religious matters. But a moment's reflection will suffice to show that faith is not a faculty of the mind, but mere acceptance, belief, trust. Reason, on the other hand, is a faculty--the faculty with which we resolve problems, weigh evidence and determine the relative values of thoughts and things, the faculty with which we judge and determine the merit or demerit of any proposition.

Being the critical faculty, the arbiter of the mind, reason is the instrumentality with which we distinguish, as best we may, the true from the false. Consequently, reason is the mind's supreme judge, and faith, acting in a subordinate capacity, has no other legitimate office than to accept and be governed by the decisions of this court. Intelligent faith is therefore faith guided by reason; while faith unsupported by reason is mere credulity, and faith contrary to reason is superstition.

Nor can the Christian rationally oppose to this fundamental fact what he regards as a revelation from heaven. For if the Bible is addressed to man, it must be addressed to his reason, since reason is the only faculty that can read and understand it. Accordingly, it is for reason to say whether that book is wise or foolish, humane or cruel, harmonious or contradictory, the perfect work of an infinite God or the fallible production of mistaken men.

The truth or untruth of what is called "revelation" must therefore be determined by reason. Likewise, the existence of God, the reality of Christ, the promise of heaven and the threat of hell, must abide the verdict of the brain. Into the court of the human intellect every claim made in the name of religion must appear for judgment. Religion, that is to say, must find its sanctions in humanity.

Freethought alone is the foundation on which can be erected the house of truth, and in showing that the claims of religion crumble at the touch of reason, this book lays down fundamentals of Freethought--foundation stones of the religion of humanity.

-- Marshall J. Gauvin.
Pittsburgh, PA
September 25, 1922

One Hundred Contradictions In The Bible

ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS IN THE BIBLE
by Marshall J. Gauvin,
From “Fundamentals of Freethought”; 1922
Peter Eckler Publishing Company, New York

I believe we ought to know the truth about the Bible. If the Bible is true, the truth cannot harm it. If the Bible is not true, the world should be so informed. If we have not the right to know the truth about that book, who has the right to know it? If we have not the right to tell that truth, who has the right to tell it? If the time has not come to face this intellectual question in a fearless, intellectual way, when shall that time arrive? Has not ignorance ruled the world long enough? Has not superstition had her day of rioting in the human brain?

We live in a new age. New knowledge and new hope are flooding the world with the light of new ideals. We build better as we learn more. Our time demands intellectual democracy. The prosperity of the world depends upon widespread knowledge and freedom; and the greater the number of free minds, the greater the number of free men.

The Bible is still the greatest of enslavers. It is still a fetter on the brain of millions who believe in it, and a lock on the lips of millions who have outgrown its myths and follies. Many are prevented from engaging in scientific studies by their fear of disagreeing with the Bible; many dare not express their honest thought for fear that believers in the Bible will visit them with political, social, or financial loss.

Even the clergy are the bondmen of their own book! There is not a preacher in any orthodox church who can tell the truth about the Bible and retain his position. His salary depends upon his silence concerning all that differs from the creed. The preacher must stifle his doubts. If he is intelligent, he must preach what he does not believe. In this way, the church is the great creator of hypocrisy, and the Bible, the Paper 'Pope of the Protestants, is a barrier to the progress of the world.

For this reason the truth about the Bible should be told. Every man and every woman should know what that book is, and what it is not. There is no virtue in hugging a delusion. Falsehood cannot be a firm foundation. A lie cannot be holy even though it is old and sanctified. Let us know the truth! Let us stand erect in the presence of the Bible and ask it to reveal its real character.

Strictly speaking, the Bible is not a book; it is a literature--the collected writings of a nation. Its many parts were written at various times during the interval of a thousand years. How many its writers were, or who they were, we do not know. Bat we do know that it abounds in miracles and magic; that it is utterly unscientific; and that it is so full of contradictions that almost anything can be proved from its pages.

We know, too, that the doctrine of inspiration was invented by Jewish and Christian priests. The Bible presents no better claim to be considered the word of God than the Vedas, the Zend-Avesta, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, or any one of many other books regarded by their believers as the revelation of heaven.

If the Bible were the word of God, it would be a perfect-book. It would be consistent with itself and in accord with the facts of nature. God could not contradict himself and remain God. Contradiction is human; Deity must be infallible. A contradiction betrays a limitation of knowledge--a conflict of opinion. Where there is contradiction; there is antagonism of thought --a warfare of mind against mind. Both terms of a contradiction cannot be true; but they may both be false.

Christianity claims that the Bible is absolutely true, and that it is sinful to disbelieve it. As a matter of fact, it contains more contradictions than any other book any Christian ever saw; and these contradictions prove--if they prove anything -- that its writers did not believe one another.

A brief discourse cannot discuss all the contradictions of the Bible; but to deal with about a hundred of them should and will enable you to draw your own conclusions as to the doctrine of inspiration, and the sincerity or intelligence of the orthodox clergy.

In the first chapter of Genesis, there is a legendary account of the creation. In the second chapter, beginning with the fourth verse, there is another account. These legends contradict each other at every point. In the first, the earth is represented as coming into existence completely enveloped in water. In the second, it is represented as being originally a dry plain, lacking even moisture. 1 (Gen. 1:2, 9; 2:6) According to the first account, all the fowls of the air were created out of water--"and God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth". . . and the waters brought forth "every winged fowl after his kind." But according to the second account, the fowls were created out of the ground "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air." 2 (Gen. 1:20, 21; 2:19) The first story has it that the trees were made on the third day, and that man was formed three days later. The second story declares that man was made before the trees. 3 (Gen.1:12,13, 26-31; 2:7,9.)

If the first account is true, the fowls were created before man. If the second is correct, they were created after man. 4 (Gen. 1:21, 27 2:7,19) The first tale distinctly teaches that man was created after all the beasts. The second is as positive in its assurance that man was formed before the beasts. 5 (Gen. 1:25,27; 2:7,19) In the first account, we are told that man and woman were created at the same time, by one act of creation, and after all other things had been made. In the second story, it is explained that the man was made alone; that the woman was not formed until the man had failed to find a wife among the beasts, and that the making of the man, before the beasts, and of the woman, after the beasts, constituted two distinct acts of creation. 6 (Gen. 1:25,27; 2:7, 20-22) According to the first account, the man and the woman were given the freedom of the world, and were told to subdue it. According to the second, they were confined within the narrow limits of a garden. 7 (Gen. 1:28; 2:15) Read the first account with care, and you will observe that in it the creator is always called "God." Read the second story, and you will see that he is invariably called "Lord God" 8 (Gen. 1:1to 23; 2:4).

What is the meaning of all these contradictions? Simply this: two writers, both ignorant of the facts of nature, have endeavored, seriously or in romance, to account for the origin of the world. Poetic fancy has woven myths out of ignorance. Knowing nothing of what the first man had guessed, the second wrote down what he supposed, and he wrote in such a way that, had he written with the express purpose of contradicting all the first man said, he could not have succeeded more admirably. Honest people who know very little about science, and theologians who are well informed in scientific matters, tell us that Genesis and geology agree to perfection. The truth is that the two stories in Genesis destroy each other; and both are worthless in the light of science. The world and its forms of life have been produced by a slow process of evolution, and there never was any miraculous creation.

In the seventh chapter of Genesis, at the second verse, it is stated that Noah was commanded to take into the ark seven males and seven females of all clean beasts. In the fifth verse, we are assured that Noah did as he was told. But in the eighth and ninth verses, it is stated that of clean beasts there went into the ark only two and two a male and a female. 9 (Gen. 7:2,5; Gen. 7:8,9)

According to the ninth chapter, the murderer must die; yet God "set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. 10 (Gen. 9:5,6 Gen.4:15) The ninth chapter also says: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you;" but the fourteenth chapter of Deuteronomy gives a list of animals, birds and fish that we must not eat. 11 (Gen. 9:3, Deut. 14:7,19)

To Abraham, God is represented as having said: "This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised.'' But a gentleman of the name of St. Paul writing in the Epistle to the Galatians, knew more about circumcision than God, and therefore wrote: "Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." 12 (Gen.17:10; Gal. 5:2)

We are told that the Bible is God's inspired word, and that it points out the way of salvation; and yet the Bible itself abolishes the word of God, and declares that those who do as God commands cannot be saved! The same inspired book assures us that God promised Abraham all the land of Canaan, and that he gave him none of it whatever;" 13 (Gen. 17:8; Acts 7:5) that Abraham had a wife whose name was Keturah; that Keturah was only his concubine; 14 (Gen. 25:1; I Chron. 1:32) that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac; that Isaac was Abraham's only son 15 (Gen 16:15; 21:3; Heb. 11:17) that Abraham bought a burying place from the sons of Emmor; that the sepulcher was bought, not by Abraham, but by Jacob. 16 (Acts 7:16; Josh. 24:32) If you should fail to see the beautiful harmony in all these contradictions, remember that, according to the church, it is because you are carnally minded, and

If the Bible were a revelation from God, it would surely be consistent in what it has to say of God. Every statement would agree with every other statement, and every attribute and quality described would unite in the portrayal of a character clearly distinguishable, easily understood, and infinitely grand. But as to the nature, character and conduct of God, the Bible asserts only to deny, and describes only to destroy. In the Old Testament, God is like a man - he walks and talks and eats and mingles with men of affairs. In the New, he is a spirit, and his everlasting seat is heaven's throne.

In Exodus 33:20, God is made to say: "Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live." This is contradicted in Genesis 32:30, where Jacob declares: "I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved." 17 (Gen. 32:30; Ex. 33:20) God must have been mistaken. To look him in the face was not sure death. Jacob looked on his visage, and Jacob's health remained unimpaired. God was seen by others also. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus, we read: "Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of Israel

. . They saw God and did eat and drink." This, however, is declared to be false in John 1:18--"No man hath seen God at any time." How shall we decide? For my part, I agree with John 18 (Ex. 24:9,10,11; John 1:18) The probabilities are his way. An infinite God could better employ his time than in wandering through the universe every little while to converse with some barbarians in Palestine; and it ought to be safe to assume that a God would choose better company. Why should he be engaged in performing tricks of magic in the Syrian desert for a tribe of polygamous nomads, when he might have been talking to the Wise Men of Greece?

Where does God dwell? "Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto," says 1 Timothy 6:16. Not so, declares 1 Kings 8:12 "The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." These statements cannot both be true. 19 (I Tim. 6:16; I Kings 8:12) Dazzling light and total darkness are opposite extremes. God cannot dwell in both. It is indeed taught in one of the Psalms that God is omnipresent. "Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." But in Genesis, the Psalmist is contradicted, God is not omnipresent; he moves from place to place. "And Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know." 20 (Psalm 139:7-10; Gen. 18:20-21) The God of the Psalmist filled the universe with his presence. The writer of Genesis believed in a local tribal God of personal form--a God whose knowledge was limited like that of a human being, and who walked about the earth in the role of Sherlock Holmes.

Think of an infinite God. dowered with the knowledge of all the worlds, appointing himself as a Vice Commission and going to a little village to study its social affairs! Think of his saying: "I will go and see; and if not, I will know" Those who believe in inspiration surely lack the sense of humor. Orthodoxy is solemn; and stupid. Heresy thinks and smiles.

Matthew tells us that "with God all things are possible." The Book of Judges disagrees. It holds in chapter one, verse nineteen, that God is not almighty -- "And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." 21 (Matt.19:26; Judges 1:19) If the omnipotent God could not prevail against a few carts cased with metal, what would happen to him if he attacked a modern battleship? "If we say that God is all-powerful, does our statement become inspired when we explain that his strength was bathed by a human device?

In Exodus 31:17, God is represented as being like a man, in as much as work tires him and he is refreshed with rest --"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." According to Isaiah, this is not true. Isaiah will allow no such contemptible weakness to limit the glory of his God. In the fortieth chapter of his book, he exclaims: "Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary." 22 (Ex. 31:17; Is. 40:28) To be tired, to need rest, to be refreshed, are human attributes--the qualities of beings capable of change. An infinite God must be unchangeable -- he cannot tire; he cannot be refreshed. Isaiah makes this claim for God, but Exodus denies it.

Moreover, we have the express testimony of Scripture that God does not change. In James 1:17, we read of "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." This, however, is sweepingly contradicted in Jonah 3:10. It is there shown that God does change "And God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." 23 (James 1:17, Jonah 3:10) Again we are confidently assured in Numbers 23:19, that "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent." But so heartily does God disagree with those who say he does not change, that in Jeremiah 15:6 he volunteers this striking information: "I am weary with repenting," How human is this confession! 24 (Num. 28:19; Jer. 15:6) Imagine an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God avowing himself to be "weary with repenting"! Is God a being of narrowly limited intelligence? Does he lack resolution and self-reliance? Is he of fickle disposition -- inconstant and uncertain? If he is not, then he never was "weary with repenting."

Does God know the hearts of men? The question is fair; the answer should be exact. How does the Bible answer? It tells us that he does, and that he does not. In Acts we read: "Thou Lord which knowest the heart's of all men." The contrary is found in Deuteronomy, where it is said that God led the Jews forty years in the wilderness, to humble them, to prove them, and to know what was in their hearts." 25 (Acts 1:24; Deut.8:2) God either knows the hearts of men, or he does not. If he does, the statement in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy is not true; or he does not, then he is not a real God, but a myth. Perhaps it is a peculiarity of inspiration, not only to defy the laws of logic, but to prove the truth of its assertions by denying them!

The same inspired book informs us that God is generous with his gifts --"If any of you lack wisdom," says James, "let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally." If God gives to all men liberally, how can it be that he renders some men incapable of receiving his good things, to deprive them of his blessings? If John tells the truth, that is what he does "He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted and I should heal them." 26 (James 1:5, John 12:40) Can this be real? If God wants men to know his truth, why should he blind their eyes? If he desires their conversion, why should he harden their hearts? On the other hand, if God has no message for the world, if he is indifferent as to human fate, what is the mission of the Bible? What is the meaning of Christianity?

We read in Deuteronomy that "God is a consuming fire," and in John that "God is love." 27 (Deut. 4:24, I John 4:1) Reason fails to conceive of a God who is either, but how great is the contrast here! but how consuming fire is a wave of ruin. It advances to destroy. Home, wealth and life turn to ashes in its path. Behind its awful sweep there is but death and desolation. How different is love--the tenderest passion of the human soul! Love raises the mind to lofty aims, and fills the heart with joy. Finding its ideal in the true, the beautiful and the good, it grows in likeness to the things it worships. It is the noblest of the virtues, and all its aspirations are as pure as the silver stream from the morning sun. A God who could be likened unto a consuming fire would be a ferocious fiend; a God of love would be a tender father.

Although Deuteronomy holds such a terrible opinion of God, it tells us in a later chapter that he is a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right." Yet this same book declares in its fourteenth chapter, that God gave the Jews the following commandment: "Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien." 28 (Deut. 32:4; 14:21) Such a precept is offered as evidence that God is "just and right" -- is it a God who is "without iniquity" said: "Do not eat the flesh of an ox that died of itself; but sell it to an alien -- did he? Is it really probable that God ever uttered such a command? Is it not more reasonable to believe that some pious Israelite, with an economic turn of mind, did not like to eat carrion himself and hated to miss the profit it would bring, and so claimed divine authority for selling Embalmed Beef?

In the nineteenth Psalm it is said that, "The law of the Lord is perfect. . . . The statutes of the Lord are right.... The commandment of the Lord is pure." If this is true, God cannot be the author of evil. But according to Isaiah, it is not true. In his forty-fifth chapter, Isaiah makes God contradict the Psalmist -- "I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.'' Amos stands with Isaiah -- "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" 29 (Psalm 19:7,8; Is. 45:7; Amos 3:6) So, my Christian friend, the next time you hear your preacher blaming the devil for the evil of the world, do not forget to remind him that, according to the Bible, God is the creator of evil.

When we ask the Scriptures what they have to say as to the attitude of God toward peace and war, we are answered with another contradiction. "The God of peace," says Romans; not so, says Exodus, "The Lord is a man of war. 30 (Rom. 15:33; Ex. 15:3)

But is not God kind and merciful? Does he not soothe the troubled brow of age with the calming consciousness of his protecting care? Does he not smile with pity on the tender helplessness of the prattling babe? And does he not fill with the sunshine of his wondrous love - the sorrowing mother's aching heart? Oh, yes - "The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." Oh, no--such is the cruelty of God that no human need can atop or stay the march of his destructive fury. Contemplate these frightful words: "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." 31 (Psalm 145:9; I Sam. 15:3) Was ever a more heartless command issued by the chief of a cannibal tribe?

Slay the old man with trembling hands; and silvered hair; murder the mother who shields with her body the life of her child; rifle the cradle, and plunge the glittering sword of death through the frail form of the smiling babe; kill even the cattle that feed in their stalls, and know, ye fiends of ruthless slaughter, ye but fulfill the command of the God whose "mercy endureth forever!'' Such is the consistency of the Bible.

Let us, however, guard ourselves against taking these things too seriously. No God ever commanded massacre. We are simply dealing with the contradictions in the religious literature of an uncivilized people. To call such writings the inspired word of an all-wise Deity is an insult to the meanest intelligence!

We come now to God's anger. "His anger endureth but a moment," says the Psalmist. This is denied without reserve in Jeremiah 17:4 -- "Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger which shall burn forever." 32 (Psalm 30:5; Jer. 17:4) Forever! A very long moment indeed! What a unique disposition -- forever angry! An immortal grouch! Of course, a real God could not be angry. Anger necessitates a change of mind. The Infinite could not change. What is called the anger of God is but the ignorance of man.

Does God ever tempt his children? James avers that he does not -- "let no man say when he in tempted, I am tempted of god; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." In spite of this, Genesis insists that God does tempt -- "And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham" 33 (James 1:13; Gen. 22:1) How perfect is the consistency of inspiration! How could anybody but a wicked unbeliever doubt the divine origin of such a harmonious book!

Let us take another step. Is God truthful? Certainly we do not raise this question: it is asked merely because it is suggested by another contradiction in the Bible. In Numbers there is the emphatic affirmation that "God is not a man that he should lie." We can heartily agree with that statement. It is easy to believe that men have lied about God; in fact, we find many such lies in the Bible, but it is hard to believe that God would lie. We will, however, let the Bible answer. The twenty-second chapter of First Kings is certain that God does lie -- "Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee." 34 (Num. 23:19; I Kings 22:23) In many other passages, God is represented as employing falsehood. If these passages are true, can God be worthy of respect? If they are false, can the Bible be inspired?

The Jewish religion was founded on sacrifice. When a man or a woman committed a sin, that sin had to be atoned for by the killing of an animal; that. is to say, by a contribution to the larder of the priests. The altars of Jehovah ran red with blood. The smoke that rose from the burning flesh of lambs and bulls was incense in the nostrils of Israel's God. In Exodus, it is commanded: "and thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement.'' Numerous chapters of the Old Testament are devoted to the most minute details concerning these sacrifices. Take away from the Bible these offerings and sacrifices of rams, and doves, and bulls, and the religion of the Jews cannot be understood. And yet, in the seventh chapter of Jeremiah, the whole sacrificial system of the Jews is repudiated; its divine origin is denied; and God declares that he never approved of it -- "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices." And in these impassioned words, Isaiah denounces the sacrificial system: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord..... When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand? .... Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me." 35 (Ex. 29:36; Jer. 7:22, Is. 1:11-13)

Consider the importance of this contradiction. In the chief books of the Old Testament--in the Pentateuch, the books of the Law -- God is represented as the founder of an elaborate system of sacrifices; in chapter after chapter he is represented as giving the most precise instructions as to how the animals were to be killed, and what was to be done with their blood, their fat, and their flesh. But in the works of his leading prophets, all this is declared to be "vain'' and an "abomination," and is utterly swept away by the very God who is said to have been its author!

And this is called inspiration! God himself -- according to the Bible--declares whole sections of the Bible to be false, yet man, in his stupid ignorance, hugs these falsehoods to his bosom, and in spite of God holds them to be inspired!

And what shall we say of the human sacrifices which the Bible commands? I know that in Deuteronomy the Jews are warped against sacrificing their sons and daughters. But in the last chapter of Leviticus human sacrifices are upheld in a very positive manner. It is there written that "no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that be hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed, .... but shall surely be put to death." 36 (Deut. 12:30, 31; Lev. 27:28, 29) All living things devoted to God had to be sacrificed; human beings were devoted to him; therefore, human sacrifices formed a part of the worship of Jehovah. That human sacrifices were a part of the Jewish religion is further proved by Abraham's preparation to sacrifice Isaac, by Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter, and by David's sacrifice of the seven sons of Saul.

Every man who has studied this question is aware that for ages the Jewish people, in their frightful superstition, immolated their children to appease their phantom God. If the Bible proves anything, it proves that the religion of the Jews was to the Jews at once a curse and a crime. Yet we are asked to believe that the blood-stained record of that religion, dictated by ignorance, superstition and fanaticism, is the infallible revelation of a God of love! How absurd is superstition! How audacious is ignorance when perverted by an idiotic creed!

The New Testament is built upon the Old. The God who demanded human blood is the god if they would use their reason, if they would, barbaric myth, the God to whom the Christians pray does not exist.

If Christians would be honest with themselves, if they would use their reason, if they would read the Bible without prejudice, and weigh its conflicting statements in the balance of common sense, they would become convinced that it is not a revelation, but the record of a nation's slow and painful progress form barbarism to civilization.

"The Bible is the best of all books," says the believer, "because it teaches that there is to be a resurrection and a future life." Well, before we make sure about this matter, let us see what the Bible has to say about it. According to John, the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." The assurance is explicit. If these words are true, there is to be a resurrection from the dead. Are they true? Job affirms that they are not -- "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. 37 (John 5:28, 29; Job 7:9; Eccl. 3:19-22; 9:5) Language could not be plainer. Job denies the resurrection with all the emphasis of conviction. Still more, we are told in Ecclesiastes that man has no preeminence above the beast; that man and beast enjoy the same breath; that they die the same death; that both return to the dust whence they came, and that a man's portion is the enjoyment of his works in this world. And is it not declared in the same book that "the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward?" The Old Testament denies immortality in language that is clear and emphatic. The New teaches it, only to make it an endless agony for nearly all the children of men!

From the many contradictions so far reviewed -- contradictions that destroy the most vital doctrines of the Bible -contradictions that no ingenuity can explain away -- contradictions that make the dogma of inspiration look like a departure from sanity - contradictions that prove, beyond the hope of doubt, that the Bible is a human book--from all these contradictions arises the question: Where is the harmony in the Bible? What does it affirm that it does not deny? And yet we have but touched the fringe of the Bible's inconsistency. We have had but a glimpse of the true character of the book that contains more contradictions than any other book the world has ever known.

Take up your Bible and read it. Read it as you would read any other book -- with your eyes open, with your reasoning faculties awake, and with your mind determined to be honest. You will find in it all the contradictions that have been mentioned, and you will find hundreds more. You will find that because of man's wickedness, God drowned the world, and that for the same reason he resolved never to drown it again; 38 (Gen. 6:5-7; 8:21) that God is no respecter of persons, and that he hated Esau and loved Jacob before the brothers were born; 39 (Rom. 2:11; 9:13) that the children shall suffer for the sins of their parents, and that no one shall bear any sills but his own; 40 (Ex. 20:5; Ezek. 18:20) that the Sabbath is holy and must be kept by all, and that every man must decide for himself whether any day is holy or not; 41 (Ex. 20:8; Rom. 14:5) that certain men devoted to God must wear long hair, and that the wearing of long hair is a shame; 42 (Num. 6:5; I Cor. 11:14) that it is wrong to judge others, and that others must be judged; 43 (Matt. 7:1; I Cor. 6:2-4) that we must never swear at all, and that we must always swear by the God of truth; 44 (Matt. 5:34; Is. 65:16) that a man may divorce his wife for one reason only, and that he may divorce her for any reason whatever; 45 (Matt.5:32; Deut. 21:14; 24:1) that the Christian must honor his father and mother, and that he must hate his father and mother; 46 (Ex. 20:12; Luke 14:26) that the sin against the Holy Ghost will never be forgiven, and that those who believe in Christ "are justified from all things." 47(Mark 3:29; Acts 13:39)

You see, it will not do to press the Bible too closely for consistency. Being an inspired book, perhaps it ought not to be consistent. If it were consistent, it might be reasonable; and, being reasonable, we might believe it to have been written by men, since we acknowledge that men have written many reasonable books. When a thing is consistent and reasonable, we do not say it is inspired -- we say it is logical, natural, and it may be that when a thing is inconsistent and unreasonable, we ought to call it divine!

Reason repudiates revelation. All that is natural, reasonable and true is a part of science. The unnatural, the unreasonable and the false belong to religion's realm of fancy.

Are we through with the contradictions of the Bible? Certainly not. "For there is no man that sinneth not," says I Kings. In other words, we are all sinners. But John does not believe this. In his first Epistle, he argues that "Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. ... He that committeth sin is of the devil." 48 (I Kings 8:46; I John 3:6-8) According to John, there are some who do not sin. According to Kings, there are none. Let us see how this works out. If we are all sinners, and if all sinners are of the devil, then we are all of the devil -- Christians and Freethinkers, sinners and saints. If Christians are "of the devil" only when they commit sins, and if they become the children of God, and "abide in him," after each forgiveness, then it is evident that the average Christian changes his spiritual fathers a good many times a-year !

We are told in the ninetieth Psalm, at verse ten, that "the days of our years are three score years and ten." But hold a while -- that is not true, for is it not written in Genesis six and three, that man's "days shall be an hundred and twenty years"? Of course a small matter like fifty years ought not to make a noticeable difference in the life of the average man! We may therefore allow that trifle to pass as another evidence of inspiration. 49 (Psalm 90:10, Gen. 6:3)

If we could believe the Bible, we might rest assured that the good man has nothing to fear, since Proverbs avows that "there shall no evil happen to the just." But the sacred book cannot be trusted, for the case of Job contradicts the proverb. God acknowledged that Job was so perfect and upright, that there was "none like him in the earth"; and yet he delivered, him up to the tender mercies of the devil, who smote him "with sore boils from the sole of his foot to his crown." 50 (Prov. 12:21; Job 2:3-7) It would be interesting to hear some clergyman explain why God and the devil were on such friendly terms; why God, the infinitely good, abandoned Job, his most devoted worshipper to the cruelty of his enemy, the devil; and why the virtuous Job was tortured by the vicious devil under the supervision of a righteous God!

Is not God a friend to his friends? Does he not shield the innocent from harm? The Psalmist tells us that he does -- ''For the Lord loveth judgment, and for forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved forever.... The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him: The Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged. ... Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."

If these words were really true, if an infinite God stood guard over the welfare of the righteous, how different would be the history of the world! The worshippers of God have been robbed of their property and of their liberty by other worshippers of God. They have been imprisoned in loathsome dungeons; stretched on racks of torture until their joints were torn apart; and burned alive at slow fires, cursed and jeered by hypocrites and fiends. All the outrages that wickedness could suggest, all the agonizing tortures that inhuman ingenuity could devise, have been inflected by believers in God upon the loving, the virtuous and the brave -- upon those who yearned to bring into the world the reign of wisdom, peace and righteousness. In a world where those who sought for truth had their eyes extinguished, where those who uttered honest words had their tongues torn out, where those who fought for freedom had molten lead poured into their ears, where those who took the side of mercy had their legs crushed in iron boots--in such a world, where liberty was chained to the dungeon floor, where virtue perished in the flames, it will not do to say that God protects his friends from the cruel persecutions of their foes.

While the groans of innocent suffering have pierced the clouds, God has been silent. While Christians tortured Christians with a zeal that was ferocious, the heavens have shown no sign of displeasure.

The Psalmist was mistaken. God has forsaken the righteous. The wicked have triumphed over them. They have been condemned and slain. The Bible admits this. In Hebrews, we are told of what the early saints endured -- "They were stoned, they were "sawn asunder", were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented." 51 (Psalm 37:28,32,33,37; Heb. 11:37)

A God who leaves his saints to be "sawn asunder,'' and "slain with the sword,'' certainly does not deliver them from the hands of the wicked! Peter seems to have been ignorant of all this when he asked "Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" But Paul was aware of God's neglect, when he contradicted Peter--"Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." 52 (I Peter 3:13; 2 Tim. 3:12)

It is often proclaimed in churches, and set down in religious books, that the writers of the Bible wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Now, if these contradictions are the work of a spirit, may we not inquire into the nature of this spirit? What is he like? And how does he affect human beings? We have it from Paul, in Galatians, that "the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness." Very fine. That is one man's opinion. Turn now to the fifteenth chapter of Judges, and you will find that when "the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon" Samson, "he slew a thousand men." 53 (Gal. 5:22; Judges 15:14,15) Paul did not tell the whole truth. Perhaps he was not very well acquainted with the spirit. Be that as it may, in Samson's case the fruit of the spirit was not love or goodness, but murder. The spirit was not satisfied with less than a thousand lives ! If Paul is not mistaken, and if Judges is correct, the spirit must be endowed with a dual personality--possibly he is the original of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--and if he is the real author of the Bible, his changing character might account for its many contradictions!

As an historical book, the Bible stands alone. No secular historian has ever even tried to imitate its style. The remarkable method by which the Scriptures teach history seems to be confined to inspiration. To appreciate my meaning, compare the sixteenth chapter of First Kings, with the sixteenth chapter of Second Chronicles. From the first you will learn that Baasha, king of Israel, died, and was succeeded by his son Elah, in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, king of Judah. The second will tell you that in the thirty-sixth year of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, came up against Judah. 54 (I Kings 16:6.8; 2 Chron. 16:1) A king dies and is buried; his son succeeds him on the throne; and yet, ten years later, the dead king, is still alive conducting a military campaign! In truthful histories dead men stay dead. According to the Bible, when a man dies, he is just getting ready to start trouble!

Another peculiar contradiction deals with the age of Ahaziah. You will find it in the eighth chapter of Second Kings, and the twenty-second chapter of Second Chronicles. According to Kings, Jehoram died at the age of forty years, and was succeeded on the throne by his son Ahaziah, :whose age was twenty-two. But if Chronicles is correct, Ahaziah was "forty and two years old when he began to reign." 55 (2 Kings 8:17, 24, 26; 2 Chron. 21:20; 22:1,2) He was, therefore, two years older than his father! Of course we can readily understand how easily a boy could be two years older than his father.

You are probably acquainted with many such boys. The point of real difficulty in connection with the story is the statement that Ahaziah was his father's youngest son; and it may be in place to ask: If a man's youngest son can be two years older than his father, how much older than his father could the oldest son be? a little "spiritual discernment" ought to enable the average preacher to answer this question.

The historical quarrel between Samuel, Kings and Chronicles is continued through many chapters. According to Samuel, God tempted David to take a census of the people of Israel and Judah; according to Chronicles, it was the devil who tempted him; 56 (2 Sam. 24:1; I Chron. 21:1) Samuel declares that David sinned in numbering the people; Kings insists that David never sinned except in the matter of Uriah; 57 (2 Sam. 24:17; I Kings 15:5) Samuel holds that David paid for the threshing floor on which he offered sacrifice to God after numbering the people, fifty shekels of silver; Chronicles has it that be paid for the place six hundred shekels of gold; 58 (2 Sam. 24:24; I Chron. 21:25) in Kings it is stated that Asa and Jehoshaphat did not abolish the places of idolatrous worship; in Chronicles it is maintained that they did abolish them. 59 (I Kings 15:14; 22:43; 2 Chron. 14:5; 17:6)

The number of contradictions in the Bible is simply bewildering. In reading it one is amazed at the blindness and folly of mankind in regarding it as the perfect and inspired word of God. On one page it tells us that Moses was the meekest man of his time; on another, that he ordered women and children to be butchered in cold blood. 60 (Num. 12:3; Num.31:17) In one place it assures us that all the horses of the Egyptians died of the plague of murrain; in another, that all the horses of the Egyptian army were used in pursuit of the Jews. 61 (Ex. 9:3,6; Ex. 14:9) It tell us that Elijah, in a chariot of fire, ascended into heaven, and it asserts that Christ is the only man who ever made that ascension 62 (2 Kings 2:11; John 3:13) it speaks highly in favor of intoxicating liquors and it condemns them in language equally strong; 63 (Deut. 14:26; Prov. 20:1) it teaches us to pray to avoid temptation, and it tells us to hail temptation with joy; 64 (Matt. 6:13; James 1:12) it praises wealth as a blessing and condemns it as though it were a blighting curse. 65 (Prov. 10:15; Luke 6:24)

Let any scientist, philosopher, or critic write a book; let that boob: contradict itself as the Bible does, and on the head of that writer, the world will pour out the full measure of its scorn, while his book will become a monument to the ignorance, folly and presumption of a man who took the human race for fools.

Take another contradiction. Every normal human being is anxious to have a good name. To be favorably known, to be respected, to be recognized by all as honest, brave, and loving -- what could be more pleasing than this? So far the Bible agrees -- "A good name is better than precious ointment." But according to Luke, a good name is a curse "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you." 66 (Eccl. 7:1; Luke 6:26) Happy is, the man who bears a good name; but, oh the terrible calamities that shall befall him! Such is the logic of the Bible. Can it really be that the contempt of mankind is to be courted, rather than the love and approbation of one's fellows?

Who would exchange the wondrous name of Abraham Lincoln--the calm, logical, upright mind--the tender, loving, generous heart - serene in peace, heroic in war -- freedom's fearless friend -- unmoved by the hatred of millions --careless of the world's applause - worshipping the ideal -- anxious above all things to save a nation from disunion, to free a race from slavery's chains--and at the last, crowning a life of virtue and devotion to the common good with the melancholy laurel of the martyr -- who would exchange the name of Lincoln for that of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who plunged humanity into the most frightful of wars, made millions of martyrs and widows and orphans, brought the nations to the very verge of ruin to gratify his vicious lust for empire, and then fled from his tottering throne to save his loathsome life from the hands of an outraged world? Who would make the exchange?

Lincoln is a wreath of glory on the brow of the race. The Hohenzollern is a poisoned arrow in a broken heart. Upon the one the world bestows its honor. In the presence of the other it stands aghast. In the different regard in which Lincoln and the Kaiser are held, we behold the verdict of mankind that the Bible utters arrant folly when it pronounces woe upon those who deserve a good name.

Let it not be supposed that the contradictions of the Bible are chiefly in the Old Testament. The New has its full and rounded share. According to Matthew, the father of Joseph was called Jacob, according to Luke his name was Heli; 67 (Matt. 1:16; Luke 3:28) Matthew traces the descent of Joseph through Solomon; Luke follows it through Nathan, Solomon's brother 68 (Matt. 1:7; Luke 3:81) Matthew can count only forty-one generations from Abraham to Jesus; Luke mentions fifty-six; 69 (Matt.1:2-16; Luke 3:23-34) if Matthew is right, the angel announced the miraculous conception to Joseph; if Luke is correct, the annunciation was made to Mary; 70 (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:30,31) the first Gospel teaches that Jesus was born when Herod was King of Judea; the third declares he was born when Cyrenius was governor of Syria -- ten years after Herod's death; 71 (Matt. 2:1; Luke 2:2-7) Matthew is sure that the child was hurried away by stealth to Egypt; Luke's Gospel plainly shows that he was taken without fear to Jerusalem; 72 (Matt. 2:13, 14; Luke 2:22, 39) Mark assures us that three days after his baptism Jesus was in the wilderness with Satan; John explains that at that time he was attending a marriage feast an Cana, 73 (Mark 1:12, 13; John 2:1,2) if Matthew was well informed, the Centurion came in person to Jesus and begged of him to heal his servant; if Luke was not mistaken, the centurion did not come, but sent the elders of the Jews; 74 (Matt. 8:5,6,7; Luke 7:3) the first Gospel has it that Jesus was met by two men coming out of the tombs; the second states that he was met by only one; 75 (Matt. 8:28; Mark 5:2) the first teaches that two blind men cried out to him from the wayside; the third informs us that only one man so addressed him. 76 (Matt.20:30; Luke 18:35-38)

Search the New Testament for consistency, and you will search in vain. Everywhere you will find disagreement and denial. Rarely do two writers tell the same story. No man seems to have any real knowledge of his theme. Hearsay, half-remembered rumor, and pure invention make up the Gospel narratives.

The writers not only contradict each other, they contradict themselves. Matthew makes Jesus say: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works." A little later, in the same sermon, he puts into his mouth the very opposite -- "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them." 77 (Matt.5:16; 6:1)

John avows that Christ said: "I and my Father are one." Afterwards he makes him say: "My Father is greater than I" 78 (John 10:30; 14:28) John also writes that Christ declared himself the judge of all men, and later acknowledged that he judged no man. 79 (John 5:22; 8:15) Again, in John, Christ affirms: "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true," while in the same Gospel he proclaims: "Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true." 80 (John 5:31; 8:14)

Who can understand these contradictions? Who can believe them inspired? In the whole story of Christ, there is nothing certain, clear and definite. He was all-powerful, and he was not. 81 (Matt. 28:18; John 5:30) He came to bring peace on earth, and he did not. 82 (Luke 2:14; Matt. 10:34) He favored and condemned the use of the sword 83 (Luke 22:36; Matt. 26: 52) He preached non-resistance, and practiced open attack. 84 (Matt.5:39; John 2:15) He told men to love their enemies, and advised them to hate their friends. 85 (Matt. 5:44; Luke 14:26) In Matthew, Mark and Luke, salvation depends upon good works; in John it is the reward of faith. 86 (Matt. 6:14; Luke 6:35-37; John 3:36)

The accounts of the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Christ were written by men who did not know the facts. Matthew's simple story of the arrest.contradicts John's statement that the arresting soldiers fell to the ground. 87 (Matthew 26:47-57; John 18:3-13) Matthew says that in his trial before Pilate, Christ spoke only two words -- "Thou sayest" -- and that Pilate marveled at his not saying more; according to John, he made a speech to Pilate. 88 (Matt.27:11; John 18:34, 36, 37) He was crucified at the third hour, if Mark was not mistaken; at the sixth hour, if Luke was well informed. 89 (Mark 15:25; Luke 23:44) Mark declares that he was reviled by the two thieves crucified with him; Luke says that one thief -railed on him and was rebuked by the other, who acknowledged Christ's innocence and also his divinity. 90 (Mark 15:32; Luke 23:39-43)

Matthew says they gave him to drink "vinegar mingled with gall;" Mark says it was "wine mingled with myrrh." 91 (Matt.27:34; Mark 15:23) According to John, he was crucified before the Passover; the other Gospels say it was after the Passover. 92 (John 19:14; Matt.26:17-29) If John is correct, he was embalmed before he was buried; if Luke can be believed, he was not." 93 (John 19:39,40; Luke 23:52-56)

How many women came to the sepulcher? John says one; Matthew two; Mark three; and Luke at least five. 94 (John 20:1; Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10) The first Gospel says that Mary Magdalene met Jesus while on her way to tell the disciples; the fourth declares that she met him at the tomb. 95 (Matt. 28:9; John 11:16) According to Matthew, she knew him when she met him; according to John, she thought he was the gardener. 96 (Matt.28:9; John 20:15) Matthew says that immediately after the resurrection the disciples were commanded to meet Christ in Galilee; Luke says they were told to tarry in the city of Jerusalem. 97 (Matt. 28:10; Luke 24:49) Therefore according to Matthew, they met him on a mountain in Galilee; while according to Luke, they met him in Jerusalem. 98 (Matt. 28:16,17; Luke 24:33-36) The force of this contradiction lies in the fact that Galilee and Jerusalem are about a hundred miles apart!

According to Luke, Christ ascended into heaven with his human body; yet Paul asserts that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." 99 (Luke 24:39, 42, 43, 50, 51; I Cor. 15:50) Luke makes the ascension occur in the evening of the day of the resurrection; the Book of Acts explains that forty days after this Christ had not yet ascended. And Matthew, who knows nothing of the upward flight, quotes from Christ the following words that deny the ascension altogether: "Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 100 (Luke 24:1-53; Acts 1:3, Matt. 28:20)

We have considered one hundred contradictions from the Bible. We have seen that it asserts only to deny, and builds only to destroy. It is a wilderness of conflict, an asylum of confusion, an intellectual pandemonium. It discusses everything and settles nothing. It answers every question with a "yes" and a "no". How can any man using his common sense believe that such a book is sacred, inspired and true? How can he believe that such a book is the perfect word of an infinitely wise God? It is called a revelation. A revelation indeed! And what does it reveal?

Can it be truly said that the Bible sheds the faintest glint of light on the existence, character and conduct of God? How much have we learned about the God who has been seen by many, but whom no man has seen; the God who dwells in light, but whose home is enveloped in darkness; the God whose presence fills the countless worlds, but who moves about this tiny earth clothed in human form; the God who is all-powerful, but who retreats in defeat before a few charioteers; the God who tires, but who never grows weary; the God who is unchangeable, but who is weary with repenting? Let us be honest!

What particular information about God can be derived from a book in which we are assured that he knows the hearts of men, and that he does not; that he gives his blessings freely, and that he does not; that he is just to all, and that he is not; that he creates evil, and that he does not; that he is kind and loving, while commanding the murder of mothers and babes; and that his anger endures but a moment - a moment that lasts forever? Let us use our reason!

And, surely, a God who tempts, and who does not tempt; who lies and who does not lie; who is peaceful, yet a man of war; who is absurdly fussy about the incense of smoking beasts, and who denounces such incense as an abomination; who sanctions and condemns human sacrifices surely, such a God is not a real God, but a myth--a creature of the fancy--a child of superstition !

Is it conceivable that a God of infinite wisdom came to earth and left behind him such a mutilated, fragmentary and contradictory record as is contained in the four Gospels? If God spoke to man, he would have to address man's reason. Man has no other faculty with which he could understand the message. And the fact that the Bible and the reason are at war -- that reason at every crucial point contradicts the Bible 's claims -- proves that the Bible is not the perfect word of God, but the fallible utterance of man.

There are thousands of clergymen who are honest in their preaching--honest because they are not informed. Against these men I utter no word of reproach. They must live and learn. But what shall we say of the thousands of educated preachers who are thoroughly familiar with the Bible, who know its glaring contradictions, its absurdities, its cruelties, its crimes, and who, nevertheless, continue to preach as though its every word were holy and divine!

These men have really studied the Bible. Their library shelves are crowded with learned books that analyze and discuss it. They know, as every scholar knows, that the Bible is a collection of pamphlets and tracts; that these documents represent the guesses and opinions of unknown men; that the volume was compiled by priests; and that the doctrine of inspiration gradually grew as a child of priestly invention to fortify priestly power. And knowing as they do that the Bible is a human book, they spend their lives in expounding insipid nonsense about it that educated intellect has everywhere outgrown. Why? Because they have families to support; because they fear to offend their friends; because, plainly, they are neither honest nor courageous.

To tell the truth about the maze of contradictions in the Bible is to free the clergy, to liberalize their congregations, to destroy bigotry, to augment intellectual freedom, and to make it possible for men and women to be honest by enlarging the horizon of their neighbors' minds. The tyranny of the Bible is due to its supposedly inspired character. A knowledge Of its self-destroying contradictions will forever dispel that delusion, will shatter the shackles of the brain, drive out the phantoms of superstition's night and herald the glorious dawn of truth!

Is There A Life After Death?

IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH?
by Marshall J. Gauvin,
"The Fundamentals of Freethought"
Copyright 1922 by Peter Eckler Publishing Co., New York

Since the birth of religion, in the primeval world the human mind has asked the question: Is there a life after death? Are the few brief years that span our course from the cradle to the tomb the full measure of life allowed us? or is the passage through the veil of death the entrance upon a life that will be immortal? The ages have come and gone; innumerable generations have been laid to rest in the welcoming dust; and still mankind repeat the words of Job: "If a man die shall he live again?" Religion has sought with painted promises to answer this question but its answers have not sufficed. Philosophy has uttered feeble words of hope but these have evoked no echo from the tomb. Through all the dying years the grave has been as silent as the sphinx. Man knows no more about another life to-day than the first savage mother knew when she pressed her trembling lips to the cold cheeks of her lifeless babe and marveled at the mystery of death--no more than the Egyptian slave knew when he wondered whether he would meet in another world the loved ones he had lost in this. A hundred centuries have like rivers flowed and lost their lapse in time's eternal sea, while sincere souls have searched for some stray gleam of assurance that life, at the summons of death, continues in another sphere; but the tired eyes of saints and sages have peered into darkness; the wings of hope have fanned a voiceless air; the veil hung in the background of the grave has not been lifted; no sign has come from the realm of the dead to tell us that beyond the sable border of this life we shall enjoy another.

If there is another life, why has man throughout the ages yearned in vain to know of it? What known truth has so eluded the human mind? Can it be that while search in all other matters is rewarded with knowledge, some freak of fate defies us to discover the secret that we shall live again? should we not perhaps take the hint that the fact that all the thought and effort of the ages to learn of another life has brought us no knowledge whatever of it is a strong presumption that the idea of a life beyond the grave is but an idle dream?

Certain it is that while the hope of another life has welled within the heart, a tremendous doubt as to its reality has ever lingered in the thoughtful mind. Growing with increasing knowledge, that doubt has come to be a potent factor in modern cultured thought. Since no glint of light has ever pierced the shroud of death, since nothing gives assurance that life survives the tomb, millions-among them the wisest and noblest of mankind--feel that death is what it appears to be, that nature is not deceiving us-that life stops at the grave. No thoughtful mind can long be satisfied with the belief that some wise design is withholding from us the fact that we are to live again. Nothing that we know or can imagine of nature could justify belief in such a curious caprice. Reason, in the end, will force us to conclude either that the facts of life when understood indicate with some degree of clearness that we shall live again, or that those facts make it extremely probable-probable to the point of justifying conviction--that the belief in another life is a fond delusion.

The question of immortality can not be settled for mankind in the partisan and prejudiced court of any church or creed. It must be settled in a court whose only interest is truth. Whether there is or is not another life must be determined--if determined at all--by science.

Science deals, not with fancies, but with facts. It does not create or change truth; it merely ascertains the truth that is. It strives to know actualities--the things that really are-and the conditions that must follow from existing facts.

Science interprets nature in terms of causes and effects. It knows of no effect -without a cause of no cause without an effect. It can not conceive, nor can it admit any break in this chain of sequences. An effect without an efficient cause would be a miracle; and to admit miracle is to deny law. The universe is governed by law.

Science deals with matter and force. It knows nothing of sprit. All the functions and activities of matter it understands as manifestations of force. The whole universe, so far as science apprehends it, is composed of these two factors--matter and force. The gleaming stars above our heads, the fertile earth beneath our feet, the mighty ocean's rolling waves, the multi-colored glory of the rainbow, all forms of living things from the tender violet's bloom to the, massive oak that defies the storm, from the lark that thrills the air with song to the smiling mother whose touch is love--all things that exist so far as science can conceive are combinations of these creative factors matter and force. A stone is matter: the cohesive power that holds its molecules together is force. The muscle is matter: its contraction is an employment of force. The stomach is a material arrangement: the process of digestion is performed by force. The brain is a delicate combination of matter: its function, thought, is a form of force.

Now matter and force can not exist apart. There can be no force unconnected with matter -no matter not associated with force. 'The existence of one necessitates the presence of the other. That one should exist alone is unthinkable.

All knowledge is accumulated by proceeding with inquiry from the known to the unknown. Accordingly, before we consider a future life, we must learn the nature of the present life, for if we are to live again that life must be in some way a continuation of the life we now enjoy.

It is scarcely necessary to say that science utterly denies the possibility of the resurrection of the body.

This organism we call our body, this material structure in which, with which, and by which we live, is but a transitory arrangement of substances, and will pass away. Our bodies are composed of precisely the same elements as enter into the composition of the earth, the water and the air. Each of us is but a shapely combination of innumerable millions of tiny cells of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, phosphorus, iron, potassium, sulphur and other elements. About seventy per cent of our weight is water. These cells of which we are composed are continually being destroyed and replaced by new ones. An army of new cells is, as it were, ever marching in the circulation of our blood to take the places of the cells that, like soldiers, have fallen in the battle of life, and to rebuild the tissues of our bodies to serve as fortifications to keep out the ever threatening invader--death.

In this continuous process of disintegration and renewal our bodies are, so to speak, dying and being reborn every moment of our lives.

In old age our tissues become less and less able to absorb and assimilate the renewing cells from our circulation, and when a certain stage of such incapacity has been reached, death ensues.

Made as we are of the common elements of earth, wasting sway and being rebuilt in every part with every breath we draw, uniting our bodies at last with the dust whence they came, nothing can be plainer than that our physical beings when returned to mother Nature will dissolve and mingle their elements with the earth and air forever. Yet more; the particles that now make up our fragile frames will, after we have vanished from the stage of time, reappear again and again in the manifold processes of nature. They will appear in vegetation, blossoming in the rose and swaying in the stately pine; they will dow in the currents of rivers, nestle on the bosoms of flowers in glistening dew, and be wafted in sun-kissed breezes over continents and seas; they will reappear in countless animal forms, and with the march of the ages they will serve to build up the tissues of succeeding generations of men.

In nature nothing is lost. The same materials are used over and over again. The iron that circulates in the blood of a simpleton to-day, may in the next generation nerve the arm of a hero, or enrich the thought of a philosopher.

Since nature makes the tree, the beast and the man of the same materials, never wasting an atom, but always using the old in the new, nothing is more certain than that we carry in our bodies the elements that have entered into the composition of many forests, of innumerable animals, and of countless generations of men. No man lives by himself alone even in the possession of his body. We have, in a sense, the bodies of our ancestors, and the flesh we now know as ours will clothe the bones of generations yet unborn. For these reasons science assures us that those who, like the pious readers of the Church of England's "Book of Common Prayer," declare their belief in "the resurrection of the body," hug to their breasts an absurd superstition.

The facts of nature render the resurrection of the body inconceivable and impossible.

But if the elements of the body are to mingle with the dust, float in the air, gurgle in streams, and enter into the composition of successive animal and plant forms, what part of us is it that is destined to live again? Seeing that the body must be left behind, that Nature dooms it to destruction, millions of believers in another life content themselves with the thought that the mind or soul will, without the body, continue its existence in another sphere. But is such an existence possible? Can the mind survive the death of the agent that produced it? In answer to this question the facts appear to be as conclusive as in the case of the resurrection of the body. Nothing is known of the mind except in connection with the brain. The study of the mind is in every case the study of the brain in action. The whole science of physiological psychology demonstrates that mind is neither more nor less than a brain function. Says Professor William Kingdon Clifford, in his "Lectures and Essays": "The laws connecting consciousness with changes in the brain are very definite and precise, and their necessary consequences are not to be evaded." "Surely," says Professor Huxley, in his essay on "Hume," "no one who is cognizant of the facts of the case, nowadays, doubts that the roots of psychology lie in the physiology of the nervous system. What we call the operations of the mind are functions of the brain, and the materials of consciousness are products of cerebral activity." "Mind," writes Dr. Maudsley, in "Responsibility in Mental Disease," "may be defined physiologically as a general term denoting the sum-total of those functions of the brain which are known as thought, feeling, and will. By disorder of the mind is meant disorder of those functions." Professor Romanes, in his book on "Monism," holds that mind is "nothing but matter in motion."

The dependence of the mind upon the brain is so certain, so perfect, so unvarying, as to make thought apart from brain rationally unthinkable. The quantity and quality of thought depend upon the quantity and quality of the brain, upon the development of its various parts, upon the number and depth of its convolutions. Man is the most intelligent of all creatures because of all living things he has the most highly developed brain substance.

With the exception of the elephant and.the whale, man surpasses the whole animal world in the absolute weight of his brain, while relatively man's brain is larger than that of any other creature. A certain quantity of brain is essential to the possession of normal intelligence.

The size of the brain is increased by intense mental activity. Anatomists experienced in dissecting human brains concur in the observation that the brains of serious students--philosophers, poets, scientists, statesmen, and scholars and thinkers generally are firmer in their consistency, more symmetrical in their development, and more generously supplied with deep convolutions than the brains of common workmen. The convolutions in the brain of Beethoven were found to be "twice as deep and numerous as usual."

Another proof that the brain is the organ of thought--that mind is a function of the brain--is found in the facts of physiology. As the great central office of the nervous system, with its cables of communication running to every part of the body, the brain receives through the sensory nerves a constant flow of impressions from the outer world, and flashes messages back over the motor wires with lightning speed. Hence the mind changes with the different impressions the brain receives, and at any given moment the whole body will reflect the state of mind that has arisen through the action of the brain.

Man is not a duality -- mentally and physically he is one. Under the stimulus of good news his eyes sparkle, his whole being thrills with joy; in fear he turns pale; in shame he blushes; in anger the enlivened blood suffuses his cheeks with its red glow. The sight of one in pain, or even an unpleasant thought, will make him swoon. Swayed by a violent emotion, he will vomit. Sudden grief will whiten his hair. If the blood courses too swiftly through his brain, his thought will gallop in confusion: if too slowly, he will become unconscious. A little alcohol will banish his reason, loosen his tongue, suspend his sense of shame and arouse his passions. Loss of sleep will dull his thought. Too much thought will waste his flesh. The expectation of some delicious morsel will cause a rapid secretion of saliva in his mouth. If he eats too much he will dream when he is asleep. If he eats too little he will have visions when he is awake. When the body is fatigued the mind flags, but when the body and the brain have been refreshed with sleep, the mind returns with buoyant clearness to its tasks. So it is that our physical condition depends largely upon the mind, while the mind in turn reflects the physical condition.

Not only is thought created by molecular movements in the brain, but the different faculties are born within and confined, to different parts of the brain. The brain, like the body, has its division of labor. Experimental study of the brains of lower animals, and observations on brain lesions in the human subject, have proved that each department of mind is presided over by its own area of brain substance. Thus with one portion of the brain we see, with another we hear, with another we taste, with another we are conscious of touch, while the office of another is to preside over the sense of smell. When we move the eyes or the lips, the arms or the legs, we do so with the permission of the motor areas of the brain that control these parts of our bodies. Breathing, sneezing, coughing, the secretion of saliva, and swallowing, are controlled by their respective brain centers. The intellectual and perceptive faculties are located in the cerebrum--the frontal lobes. The emotions are born in the parietal lobes. Each part of the brain attends to its particular function, and the sum total of these functions is what we call the mind, or the soul.

Moreover, anatomy proves that this mind of soul can be destroyed piece by piece by destroying the brain section by section. Flourens, the French physiologist saw the faculties of animals on which he experimented, fade away one by one as he removed successive portions of their brains. He carried this process of mind destruction so far in fowls, that the creatures, with the thinking portions of their brains entirely removed, and their minds completely gone, still lived, though in a perfectly stupid condition. Utterly unconscious, as void of mind as stones, unresponsive to stimulus of any kind, these creatures, kept alive by artificial feeding, nevertheless lived for months--some of them for years--and not only lived, but increased in weight. Similar experiments have been performed on some of the higher animals, and in every instance a portion of the mind has died with the destruction of the portion of the brain to which that faculty belonged. Now the human mind, like the animal mind, can be destroyed piecemeal. A man becomes blind if the sight center of his brain is injured by hemorrhage. He becomes deaf if the hearing center is destroyed. Similar lesions will banish his other senses. Lesion of the speech center destroys the power to express one's self in words. In the deaf and dumb, an injury to this part of the brain is followed by the loss of power to express ideas in the sign language. Paralysis of the brain annihilates intelligence.

What stronger proof could be required that the mind is mortal, that it dies with the brain, than to see it disappear, one faculty after another, before the advance of the surgeon's knife, or ruinous injury, or disease, until the last vestige of intelligence vanishes forever from the ruined brain?

But drowning men, as a proverb has it, will grasp at straws. So it is not surprising that some philosophers, loath to give up a cherished doctrine, should advocate strange and irrational theories with endeavor to at least make it appear possible that the soul will continue to live after the body has returned its elements to the dust. One of these man was the late William James, the eminent Professor of psychology at Harvard University. Professor James' theory was not new, and perhaps he advanced it as a piece of pure speculation rather than as a rooted conviction. As a scientific thinker, Professor James well knew that the mind is a function of the brain, and he fully acknowledged the fact as a sound demonstration of science. But having granted this, he went on to suppose, in his lecture on "Human Immortality," that perhaps the mind does not originate in the brain, that perhaps it comes to us from some unseen world, that having entered a man's head it uses his brain as its organ of expression while here, and that on the death of the brain, it wings its flight to its original home.

This idea of the external origin of mind, of mind as a distinct principle, is the last surviving relic of the Greek notion of indwelling entities which found its leading exponent in Plato. According to Plato, organic and inorganic things derive their peculiar character from their respective entities: a man thinks, a dog obeys his master, a tree grows, a statue has form, because each is possessed of an immaterial idea--a soul. For many centuries, this notion of entities in all things was popular in Christian teaching. But the advent of science has so far banished the superstition from the world that to-day all things but the human mind are acknowledged to act in accordance with their own inherent forces. The human mind alone is still believed by some to be an immaterial entity -- an independent thing--a visiting principle from some other world domiciled within the brain.

This is to suppose that there is somewhere in the universe a great reservoir of mind, and that at the birth of every babe a portion of this mind comes to earth and enters the baby's head. But how could this realm of mind, which must be a form of force, exist apart from matter? Such an existence is inconceivable.

Again, if only sufficient mind for a babe enters the child's head, how does it happen that as the child grows his mind develops, so that when he becomes a man he is possessed of a man's mind? Does enough mind to do for a man come down when the child is born? and does it enter the growing child's head a little at a time while the rest waits outside? Or does the great reservoir of mentality, from its lofty height, pour a steady stream of mind into the child's head, slowly at first, and then faster, during all the years of mental growth from babyhood to manhood?

There is another objection to this curious and fantastic supposition. If mind is not born within the brain, but comes to the brain full-fledged from another world, and merely uses the brain as a vehicle of expression while here, how shall we explain the many different qualities of mind? and how shall we account for the changes that take place in minds during their residence in the brains of men? Is the genius given a mind whose majesty glories in the wealth of its creative powers? Is one man given a mind that overflows with love and goodness? another a mind that revels in cruelty? another a mind that continues normal for many years and then becomes insane?

Is there somewhere a sea, of mind from which superstition, degeneracy, imbecility, criminality, genius and normal intelligence emanate? and does the fact that a man is superstitious, or a degenerate, or an imbecile, or a criminal, or a genius, or normal in his thoughts and deeds, depend upon the kind of mind that has come from that mental ocean to sojourn in his brain?

If the mind is not created by the brain, why does its quantity and quality depend upon the quantity and quality of the brain? Why is normal intelligence never found in brains below a certain weight? Why does injury to the brain destroy forever the associated mental faculties? or make a thief of one who formerly was honest? or a cruel man of one who erstwhile was kind? Why does disease of the brain disintegrate intelligence and make the mind insane?

If the mind is not a function of the brain, why should it be in all respects subject to the vicissitudes of the body? Why should it grow old and feeble with the age and decay of its imprisoning brain? Do we not see that in old age the sight fails, the hearing becomes dull, memory fumbles and forgets, ideas limp in half-completed form, while the whole intellectual fire that flamed full and high in life's long-gone prime burns low with lapsing vigor in growing nearness to the feeble embers of the worn-out brain? Before the end of life, in such instances, the mind gradually dies, and when death comes it closes the career of a mere remnant of mentality.

And if the mind, the soul, comes to the brain from some other sphere, is it not strange that it should remember nothing of its origin, that it should be without conception of its previous existence, and that it should grope and guess in doubt and darkness as to its future.

Those who believe that consciousness is not a property of the brain, argue that the mind and the brain sustain the same relation to one another than the musician sustains to his instrument. But the mind and the brain keep pace in growth. Does the violin grow with the violinist? The mind sleeps with the tired brain. Does the violin tire and sleep with the player? In sleep the mind dreams. Does the violin play discordant tunes when the performer is unconscious? The player may be in New York, when his violin is in San Francisco. Can the mind thus completely separate itself from the brain? With disease of the brain the mind becomes insane. Does the violinist lose his reason when his instrument breaks a string, and can the artist retain his musical ability forever after the instrument has been destroyed? Does not the existence of the violinist as such necessitate the existence of the violin? Surely this analogy, pretty though it be, fails to account for consciousness, or to shed any light on its continuance in the absence of the brain.

Is it reasonable to suppose that while every other organ of the body is alive with its own motion, and performs its inherent function, the brain, the most marvelously complex organ of all, would be a dead mass in the cavern of the skull unless played upon by some extraneous intelligence? The infinite absurdity of such a supposition is clearly portrayed in the story of man's origin.

Man is a child of evolution. His body and his brain have been built up through the gradual accumulation of countless improvements during millions of ages. Psychical and physical evolution have moved in unison, and man owes his soul no less than his body to the innumerable animal forms at every stage of life's advance through which his ancestors arose. Standing at the head of the long procession of life, related to the animals below him in every bone and sinew of his being, his thought differs from the thought of other creatures, in degree only, not in kind. Man's soul, the sum, total of his faculties, emerged with him from the animal world, and is as natural in all respects as his physical frame. Now let those who say that this soul is a divine spark that will live forever essay to answer the question: At what period in the evolutionary process was this soul implanted! in our ancestors? Was it born in the primal substance in which life first arose? Was it implanted when life's highest form was a worm, a fish, an amphibian? Was it conferred upon the first mammal or upon the highest ape? Was it pressed into the fierce, low skull, of primitive man? Or has man been blessed with this gift of immortality at some late stage in his advance towards civilization?

In the old days when it was believed that man was a special creation, that a creating God, in the role of a potter, having molded his form in clay, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, it was easily believed that his soul was destined to enjoy immortality. But knowing; as we do to-day that the life on this planet is one, that the highest form is the outgrowth of the lowest, that the kinship is universal from monad to man, it is impossible to tell where the line should be drawn between the human and the non-human -- for none can say where or when, as life unfolded, the human was born from the beast and, accordingly, it has become more difficult than it was of yore to believe in the immortality of the soul.

The Brahmans and the Buddhists believe that the souls of men, according to their merit, are reincarnated into beasts more or less degraded, or into men of different stations from paupers to kings, or into divinities. But this doctrine of transmigration, which accords souls subject to elevation and degradation to animals and men, sheds no light on the origin and nature of the soul. And, if it be true as Buddhists believe, that Sakyamuni, before he became Buddha, underwent five hundred and fifty births, in which he was a fish, a frog, a hermit, an elephant, a slave, an ape, a king, we need not wonder that the Buddhists long for annihilation. There can be little consolation in the belief that one's soul may, in the next generation, dwell in the body of a lizard. The prospect of eternal nothingness would be vastly better than this.

One of the few men of science who in recent years have given their assent to the belief in a future life is Sir Oliver Lodge. While scouting as a superstition the idea of the resurrection of the body, Sir Oliver yet clings to the immortality of the soul. In his book "Science and Immortality," he defines the soul as being "that controlling and guiding principle which is responsible for our personal expression, and for the construction of the body under the restrictions of physical conditions and ancestry;" and he allows that this principle "seems identical with the principle of life." Unfortunately, this definition includes too much. It includes all animals and plants as well as human beings. For if the principle of life that fashioned men in accordance with heredity and environment is to live forever, then the principle that shaped the poison ivy, or the beast of the jungle, under the action of the same laws, must be immortal for the same reason. Seeing that this objection can be urged against his position, that according to his doctrine it can be held "that all living things must possess some rudiment of soul," Sir Oliver avows: "Well, for myself, I do not see how to draw a hard-and-fast distinction between one form of life and another." Accordingly, the eminent scientist appears to be perfectly willing to share the joys of immortality with the souls of beasts. Imagine the ecstasy of eternal existence with the ghosts of all the beasts that have moved across earth's swarming stage since life appeared upon this globe - all the curious, weird and monstrous creatures that have inhabited the ocean, earth and air - things armed with fangs and claws to rend their living prey, from lizards to vultures, from the vanished monsters of prehistoric times whose tremendous skeletons now excite wonder in museums, to the poison serpents that crush their hapless victims in slimy coils. For such heaven doubtless few will yearn.

Sir Oliver Lodge has great confidence in telepathy, visions, dreams, clairvoyance, materializations, and other supposed spirit phenomena as means by which it may be proved that life continues after death. The great physicist is indeed an ardent devotee of Spiritualism, the extravagant claims of which he accepts with unquestioning delight. But telepathy--the transference of thought from one mind to another without the assistance of the senses - has never in a single instance been proved. Every scientific attempt to demonstrate it has failed. But if the reality of telepathy were established beyond question, it would merely extend our knowledge of the powers of the brain; it would not, it could not, prove the continuance of consciousness after the dissolution of the body. Dreams are wanderings of the mind among the images of memory when the curtain of consciousness is not drawn quite down in perfect sleep. Visions are day dreams --hallucinations - pictures from the walls of memory projected into the empty air. Dreams and visions, with their freakish and fallacious forms, are born within the brain and are impotent to prove that we shall live after we are dead. As to clairvoyance, it is sufficient to say that Spiritualist mediums have told the world nothing that was not or could not have been known to some living person.

Sir Oliver Lodge offers as evidence of a future life the materialization of spirits-ghosts from the spirit world that appear at the beck of mediums in the darkness of Spiritualist séances. But here facts give us pause. First, these materialized spirits--like all other ghosts-always appear clothed -a fact by which a ghost might easily be mistaken for a live person. Secondly, Maskelyne, the English conjurer, could produce as healthy-looking materializations as any ever produced by mediums. And thirdly, wherever intrepid and critical spectators have been able to seize the materialized form, they have confirmed their suspicion that the ghost and the medium were one and the same person.

In "Raymond," Sir Oliver Lodge gives the world alleged communications from the spirit of his son Raymond, who was killed in the war in 1915. According to these messages, which come from Mrs. Leonard, the medium, who says her "guide" in the spirit world is an Indian girl named Feda, the spirits have bodies and organs as in the flesh -- arms and legs, eyes, ears, tongue and teeth! These spirits wear clothes--Raymond's suit is made of decayed worsted. His house is made of bricks, and there is granite in that spirit land. There are laboratories there, where all sorts of things are manufactured, including cigars which the spirits smoke! "Some want meat, and some strong drink," says Raymond. "They call for whiskey sodas. Don't think I'm stretching it when I tell you that they manufacture even that." And this place where there is smoking, eating, and the bibbing of "whiskey sodas" where people clothed in worsted live in brick houses, is the land of discarnate spirits! And Sir Oliver Lodge, the man of science, having outgrown the dogmas of Christianity, kneels in the temple of the superstition of Spiritualism and gives such lying drivel the countenance of his honored name.

To such a degree is the literature of Spiritualism blasted with banalities, so stupid, inane and false are the messages attributed to the great geniuses dead, so unattractive is the picture it presents of the spirit world, that with reference to the question the great Huxley was constrained to say: "The only good that I can see in the demonstration of the truth of Spiritualism is to furnish an additional argument against suicide."

No communication from an alleged discarnate spirit has ever been received under circumstances which guaranteed its genuineness. Every scientific test made to establish the existence of spirits has yielded disappointing results. Mr. F. W. H. Myers, an enthusiast of Psychical Research, left a letter sealed in several envelopes with his bankers, hoping to reveal its contents from the spirit world through a medium. But when Mrs. Verrall, in 1905, fourteen years after the letter was written, received through automatic writing what she believed to be the contents of the letter coming from the spirit of Mr. Myers, the two messages, compared at a special meeting of the Society of Psychical Research, were found to be totally dissimilar. Then too, it must be remembered that slate writing, spirit photography, table tilting, and all the mechanical "phenomena" of the séance, can be produced by various kinds of trickery; that it is as easy to get a "spirit message" from a living person as from a dead one--provided the medium thinks the person dead; and that nearly all the famous mediums, from the Fox sisters to Eusapia Palladino, have been exposed as frauds. One is not surprised, therefore, at Sir Oliver Lodge's confession that "by the mass of scientific men the whole subject is at present ignored, because it seems an elusive and disappointing inquiry."

But is there not at least, something strange in Spiritualism? Suppose there is. There is something strange in hypnotism. And Dr. J. Milne Bramwell, the master hypnotist, is convinced that what Spiritualists regard as the manifestation of spiritual beings, is due to the action of the subconscious mind of the medium, which becomes active in the trance. Mr. Frank Podmore, the expert psychical researcher, agreed with this view.

Notwithstanding his supposition that mind might be a foreign entity in the brain, Professor William James, in his posthumous volume of "Memories and Studies," declared that after twenty-five years of Psychical Research, he was still "no 'further' than at the beginning" as to the question whether the soul survives bodily death. Professor James quotes Professor Sidgwick; as saying that after twenty-five years of psychical investigation he was still "in the same identical state of doubt and balance that he started with." These are eloquent admissions. In his book "The Belief in Personal Immortality" Mr. E. S. P. Haynes observes that "Psychical Research has, so far, done nothing but extend the region of experimental psychology." The scientific study of the mind has, as yet, discovered no evidence of a future life.

In "The Bankruptcy of Religion" Mr. Joseph McCabe, after pointing out that modern philosophy arose in the endeavor to establish on the ground of reason the existence and attributes of God and the immortality of the soul, draws attention to the significant fact that discussion of these questions has now passed out of the literature of philosophy; "You might," says Mr. McCabe, ''attend the lectures on philosophy for a whole year at any great modern university--at Oxford or Cambridge, at Columbia or Harvard, at Paris or Berlin--and --you would hear no more about God and the soul than you would hear in the lectures on physiology." The verdict of philosophy is that neither the existence of God nor the immortality of the soul can be determined by the intellect.

Professor James N. Leuba, in "The Belief in God and Immortality," shows statistically from replies to a questionnaire addressed by him to American scientists, historians, sociologists and psychologists, that those who either do not believe in or doubt immortality number among the physical scientists 49.3%; among the biologists 63%; among the historians 48.5%; among the greater professors of sociology 72.9%; and among the psychologists 80.2%. It is significant too, that the more eminent the men in any of these departments of study, the greater is the proportion of unbelievers among them.

We are frequently told that the desire for a future life is universal and that this desire must prove its reality. But the truth is that the belief in immortality is far from being universal. It is not found among the Veddahs of Ceylon, some native Australian races, and other primitive peoples. It is not found in Buddhism, the religion of one-third of the human race--the Buddhists long for Nirvana--the cessation of existence. It is absent alike from the ancient religion of China and from Confucianism. And millions in the western world neither believe in nor desire it.

But suppose the desire for immortality were universal. That certainly would not prove its truth. History teems with unsatisfied desire. As John Stuart Mill observed, the desire for food is no indication that we shall have an everlasting supply of it.

The desire for immortality is strongest in youth. In youth, when daring thought is at the zenith of its power, when the sun of ambition illumines the hope of things to be achieved, when life's contests are made joyous by the glamour of success, a high sense of our importance courses swiftly through the veins; we are egotistic; we feel the restless urge of life and wish it to continue. But in old age when the strength to strive is gone, when the mind regrets the vanished power of its golden years, when life's prizes and applause pass the trembling palm to rest in steady hands, when the weary traveler with doddering step nears the foot of the downward hill, his tired eyes no longer yearn to see; and as the shadows of night fall athwart the lessening rays of life's departing sun, the old man is content to lay his burden down in sleep.

They say another life is necessary to right the wrongs of this. But why should we suppose that the power that gave us this life will treat us better in another? What warrant have we for supposing that the victims of injustice here, would fare better there? Justice and injustice are but human terms. Nature seems unconscious of their meaning; and there is no reason for believing that the ills endured in this world will be atoned for in another.

And is it not pertinent to ask: If immortality be true, how old shall we be in that endless life? Will the babe that died in its mother's arms be a helpless babe forever? Will those who passed the bourne of time palsied with old age be eternally decrepit? Or will all enjoy life at its glowing noon? And what shall be our condition there? Since we can not take our present bodies, shall we have other bodies? If yes, will those bodies be exactly like these? Then, will those born deaf and dumb endure these handicaps forever? Will the idiotic be denied the light of reason while the aeons of time roll away? But if we are not to have bodies, are we to suppose that we shall see without eyes, hear without ears, feel without fingers, and converse without organs of speech?

And what shall we do to while away the time? Shall we just lounge around forever? Would not endless existence without work drive us mad with ennui?

If all the human beings that ever lived are to be immortal may we not have difficulty in finding our friends? And are we sure that we shall know them?

In a lecture on "Immortality" delivered at Harvard University in 1906, Professor Wilhelm Ostwald declared that the possibility of remembrance after death seems to be out of the question. But if there is no remembrance, personality will be gone, and immortality without personality would not be immortality at all. Impersonal immortality would be the immortality of a clod. If memory perishes all is lost. But how shall we remember with our nervous system gone? Yet nerves and brain can not endure.

Where is this land in which we shall live again? Certainly it is not in this world. Then is it on some other planet in our solar group? Or is it in some ethereal region in the interstellar space millions of light years distant from our globe? Truly, the most amazing thing about another life is our stark ignorance of it.

Christians believe that immortality is vouched for by the Bible. Let us see. The belief was not a part of the religion of the ancient Jews, and the Old Testament denies it. In Job, chapter seven, verse nine, we read: "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." Ecclesiastes, after saying in the third chapter that "a man has no preeminence above a beast," that "all go unto one place,'' that "all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again,'' says in chapter nine: "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."

"But my belief is based on the New Testament, on the promises of Christ," says the Christian. But nobody knows who made the supposed promises of Christ, and, at any rate, they have not been kept. In Matthew 24:34, in Mark 13:30, and in Luke 21:32, Christ, after describing his second coming "in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," is made to say: "This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." But that generation did pass, and three score more have followed it, and Christ -- if he ever came -- and this is a matter of increasing doubt -- has not returned to bless his followers with another life. It remains written, of course, that "In my Father's house are many mansions;" but the telescope, sweeping the heavens for billions of miles, past myriads of constellations, has failed to discover the Father's mansioned home.

It is of interest to note that according to Christianity, our immortal life does not begin at death, but at some indefinite time thereafter. There is to be a resurrection of the dead, followed by a general judgment, before immortality begins. But the Bible does not say, and no one can tell, when the resurrection is to be. In the meantime the dead are dead--their souls are as unconscious as their dust. Now fancy the men and women of all the vanished ages, since death first stilled, the human heart, being resurrected and judged, sometime, perhaps, in the next thousand million years! Think of the joy we should feel in the contemplation that after we have been dead perhaps a million ages, we shall be made to live again! Truly, this is a forlorn hope. Christianity to all intents and purposes offers us not certain immortality but gilded annihilation. Another life is of interest only as the continuation of this. If extinction is to overtake us at the tomb that death may as well be eternal.

There is another thing to be considered. While Christianity promises everlasting joy to the few who believe its creed, it prophesies eternal pain for nearly all the world. It predicts that while the saved strum harps in selfish glee throughout the endless flight of years, the moans of millions, damned will rise forever from the holocaust designed by a vengeful God's undying hate. These are the Christians destinies -- this, according to Christianity, is to be the life eternal in heaven and in hell. But such an immortality, far from being a blessing, would be a measureless curse. Infinitely better is annihilation for all than that one person should suffer eternal pain. The Christian heaven is a selfish dream; and hell is but the hollow threat of pious fiends. The Bible knows nothing of a life to come!

The truth is that the doctrine of immortality owes nothing to Christianity. Thousands of years before Christ was born, before a line of the Bible was written, countless millions of men and women lived and died hoping for another life. It was from the Persians -- from the worshippers of Zoroaster - that the Jews derived the doctrine of immortality. The hope of another life is not a Christian dogma but a pagan dream. And if the dream be true, if when we die here we enter into life in some other sphere, the fact has nothing to do with any religion. It can not be affected by belief or disbelief. It is a fact in nature -- like the growth of vegetation, or the light of the stars - an attribute of the cosmic order. It exists for everyone. It is our fate. Eternal and unchangeable is the destiny that awaits us all.

Let us remember, too, that even if we could prove that there is a life after death, that fact would not establish the truth of immortality. For it might be that old age and death wait upon life in that world as in this; the average life might be no longer there than here; and that second death might close the story of each life forever.

There is a question more. Is immortality desirable? Can we look forward with pleasure to an endless life of which we have no conception?

This life is blessed with the assurance that death will terminate its woes. But what if eternal life should prove unsatisfactory? What if, at last, weary of existence, we should long to die? Then joy would turn to ashes---endless life would resolve itself into an endless curse. The thought is dreadful!

But the facts of nature seem to prove that we shall not live again. "We are forced to this definite conclusion" says Haeckel, in "The Riddle of the Universe," "The belief in the immortality of the human soul is a dogma which is in hopeless contradiction with the most solid empirical truths of modern science," Professor Proctor, the astronomer, wrote: "Herbert Spencer shows abundantly the nothingness of the evidence on which the common belief in a future life has been based.'' Professor Tyndall put the whole argument in a line: "Divorced from matter, where is life to be found?" Nor are scientists and philosophers alone in recognizing the fact that the laws of nature seem to deny the possibility of a future life. The Reverend Minot J. Savage said: "Have we any proof of immortality? . . . I cannot think we have anything which may be called evidence concerning an immortal life. Immortality is not susceptible of proof." The Reverend R. Heber Newton declared: "We know nothing of life that is disembodied. . .We know nothing of mind apart from matter. . . I have no confidence in any faith which is not capable of a scientific basis."

The belief in immortality has been fearfully expensive to mankind. For many ages it made humanity the slaves of priests. Lured by the glamour of heaven, millions have neglected the concerns of this life for the fancied interests of another. Recoiling from the withering threat of hell, millions have spent their days in superstitious fear. The religious persecutions that have drenched the face of earth with tears and blood, the religious wars with their ruin and desolation, the sectarian hate and strife that have embittered human relations, have been born of the belief that this life is but a prelude to another. With the passing of the belief in immortality, freedom grows, knowledge increases, sects merge into humanity, and everywhere, as the mind of man enlarges, the world's moral tone improves.

Is there a life after death? There does not appear to be. The clods fall on the coffin and we leave our dead in the tomb. Their flesh is decomposed; their bones disintegrate and disappear. A few years pass, and nature has fully reabsorbed the forms we knew and loved. Yesterday they lived; to-day we are here; tomorrow others will hold the stage. Nature moves from birth to death, and life and death appear to round the circle of existence.

Why should we live forever? Why should nature have selected us to share the banquet of everlasting existence? What have we done to deserve immortality? Why should we desire it? No other forms in nature are permanent: Why should we regard ourselves as destined to enjoy eternal life? All other things perish: Why should we endure? The globe on which we live will become a cold and crusted rock and all things on its bosom will die; the moon will fall back to the frigid breast of mother earth; the sun will lose his stores of heat and wheel in space a lifeless orb; the night and the day will be equally dark; the light of the stars will be extinguished one by one. Millions of ages will roll like mighty billows surging in time's boundless sea, and with the lapse of illimitable aeons, the face of the universe will be changed. Suns and worlds, cold and dead, colliding with other decrepit spheres, will be shattered to the primal fire-mist and give birth to solar systems, which, through myriads of ages of evolution will become brilliant suns and fruitful worlds. New moons will take their places in the heavens. Day and night will be born again. Animals and plants, called to life by Nature's laws of growth, will again fill the worlds. Other millions of ages will pass away, and when time's cycle is again complete, darkness and death will again ensue; the corridors of space will again resound with the crashing of extinct orbs, giving birth to nebulae and presaging once more the rhythmic coming of suns and planets clothed with luxurious vegetation and crowned with animal life in all its forms. So the work of Nature -- the eternal builder, the everlasting destroyer--will go on forever. Form taking shape in the formless life arising from the dust; death everywhere overtaking life; and in the end chaos with the potential power and the promise of the new order.

And where shall we be while this awful drama of Nature's endless change is being enacted on a stage as wide as the infinite vast, in a time that is eternal? When our bodies and brains have been melted to vapor a thousand times over in the crash and heat of colliding suns, shall our poor, naked, and unprotected souls still be occupying some icy region among the waxing and falling stars and gazing still with unsatisfied eyes upon the infinite wonder of the changing scene? While the Universe is everywhere dying, shall we live on forever? Forever! Who would choose to live for that infinite time? Eternity! Do we know what this awful word must mean? To live for eternity! The collective intelligence of all the worlds can not conceive in millionth part the meaning of that appalling thought. Immortal life ! The mind reels and falls beneath the weight of the crushing contemplation. Immortality ! The thought repels the weary soul that longs to be at rest in the undisturbed sleep of the tranquil grave.