Providence and a Future State

My friend loves sceptical paradoxes. He advanced many principles which I do not approve of.

Our conversation began with my admiring the singular good fortune of philosophy. It:

• requires entire liberty above all
• chiefly flourishes from the free opposition of sentiments and argumentation
• was born in an ancient Greece, an age and country of freedom and toleration
• was never cramped, even in its most extravagant principles, by any creeds, concessions, or penal statutes.

Ancient Greece only had 2 instances of bigotted jealousy, with which our present age is so much infested

• the banishment of Protagoras, and
• the death of Socrates

Epicurus lived at Athens to an old age, in peace

Epicureans27 were even admitted to receive the sacerdotal character, and to officiate at the altar, in the most sacred rites of the established religion:

The public encouragement28 of pensions and salaries was afforded equally, by the wisest of all the Roman emperors29, to the professors of every sect of philosophy.

How requisite such kind of treatment was to philosophy, in her early youth, will easily be conceived, if we reflect, that, even at present, when she may be supposed more hardy and robust, she bears with much difficulty the inclemency of the seasons, and those harsh winds of calumny and persecution, which blow upon her.

My friend says that the pertinacious bigotry which is fatal to philosophy is really her offspring. This bigotry:

• allies with superstition
• separates himself entirely from the parent’s interest
• becomes her most inveterate enemy and persecutor.

Such furious dispute now manifest as the speculative dogmas of religion

• These could not have beeen conceived in the early ages when mankind was illiterate

After the first alarm, therefore, was over, which arose from the new paradoxes and principles of the philosophers; these

During the ages of antiquity, the first teachers lived in great harmony with the established superstition

• Philosophy claimed all the learned and wise
• Superstition possessed all the vulgar and illiterate.

The tenets of Epicurus;

• deny a divine existence
• deny a providence and a future state
• loosen the ties of morality
• is bad for society.

A wise magistrate can justly be jealous of tenets such as those of Epicurus.

I know, replied he, that in fact these persecutions never, in any age, proceeded from calm reason, or from experience of the pernicious consequences of philosophy; but arose entirely from passion and prejudice. But what if I should advance farther, and assert, that if Epicurus had been accused before the people, by any of the sycophants or informers of those days, he could easily have defended his cause, and proved his principles of philosophy to be as salutary as those of his adversaries, who endeavoured, with such zeal, to expose him to the public hatred and jealousy?

The religious philosophers are not satisfied with:

• the tradition of your forefathers
• the doctrine of your priests (in which I willingly acquiesce)

They:

• try to use rash curiosity to establish religion on the principles of reason.
• excite, instead of satisfying, the doubts which naturally arise from a diligent enquiry.
• paint, in the most magnificent colours, the order, beauty, and wise arrangement of the universe
• then ask could such a glorious display of intelligence proceed from chance or the fortuitous concourse of atoms?

I, Epicurus:

• deny a providence and a future state.
• do not undermine the foundations of society.

Instead, I advance natural principles.

I have never questioned a divine existence.

The chief argument for a divine existence is derived from the order of nature.

• This order has marks of intelligence and design
• You think it extravagant to assign for its cause, either:
  • chance, or
  • the blind and unguided force of matter.

From the order of the universe, you infer that there must have been project and forethought in the workman.

What are the consequences of your thinking?

When we infer any particular cause from an effect, we must proportion the one to the other.

• We can only ascribe to the cause those qualities that are exactly sufficient to produce the effect.

A 10 ounce weight on a scale proves that the counterbalancing weight exceeds 10 ounces.

• But it can never afford a reason that it exceeds 100.

If the cause, assigned for any effect, is not sufficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause, or add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the effect.

But if we ascribe to it farther qualities, or affirm it capable of producing other effects, we can only indulge the licence of conjecture, and arbitrarily suppose the existence of qualities and energies, without reason or authority.

The same rule holds, whether the cause assigned be brute unconscious matter, or a rational intelligent being. If the cause be known only by the effect, we never ought to ascribe to it any qualities, beyond what are precisely requisite to produce the effect: Nor can we, by any rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause, and infer other effects from it, beyond those by which alone it is known to us. No one, merely from the sight of one of Zeuxis’s pictures, could know, that he was also a statuary or architect, and was an artist no less skilful in stone and marble than in colours.

The talents and taste, displayed in the particular work before us; these we may safely conclude the workman to be possessed of. The cause must be proportioned to the effect; and if we exactly and precisely proportion it, we shall never find in it any qualities, that point farther, or afford an inference concerning any other design or performance. Such qualities must be somewhat beyond what is merely requisite for producing the effect, which we examine.

If gods were the authors of the universe, then have that power, intelligence, and benevolence which appears in the universe.

• But these cannot be proven.

So far as the traces of any attributes, at present, appear, so far may we conclude these attributes to exist.

The supposition of farther attributes is mere hypothesis; much more the supposition, that, in distant regions of space or periods of time, there has been, or will be, a more magnificent display of these attributes, and a scheme of administration more suitable to such imaginary virtues.

We can never be allowed to mount up from the universe, the effect, to Jupiter, the cause; and then descend downwards, to infer any new effect from that cause; as if the present effects alone were not entirely worthy of the glorious attributes, which we ascribe to that deity.

The knowledge of the cause is derived solely from the effect.

• They must be exactly adjusted to each other.

The one can never refer to anything farther, or be the foundation of any new inference and conclusion.

You find certain phenomena in nature. You seek a cause or author. You imagine that you have found him.

You afterwards become so enamoured of this offspring of your brain, that you imagine it impossible, but he must produce something greater and more perfect than the present scene of things, which is so full of ill and disorder.

You forget, that this superlative intelligence and benevolence are entirely imaginary, or, at least, without any foundation in reason; and that you have no ground to ascribe to him any qualities, but what you see he has actually exerted and displayed in his productions. Let your gods, therefore, O philosophers, be suited to the present appearances of nature: and presume not to alter these appearances by arbitrary suppositions, in order to suit them to the attributes, which you so fondly ascribe to your deities.