Indeed, the form into which the question is
thrown would almost seem--were it not written by Dr. Newman--to imply a
sarcastic reference to the power of superstition. "Who is it that," not
only Dr. Newman, but the haunted savage, the mediaeval sorcerer, or the
frightened child, "sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of
his heart?" Who but the "image" of his own thought? "If the cause of these
emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which his
perception is directed must be supernatural and divine." Assuredly; but
what an inference from what an assumption! Whether or not the moral sense
has been developed by natural causes, "these emotions" of terror at the
thought of offending beings "supernatural and divine" are not of such
unique occurrence "in the visible world" as to give Dr. Newman the monopoly
of his particular "Object." With a deeper meaning, therefore, than he
intends may we repeat, "The phenomena of conscience as a dictate _avail_ to
impress the _imagination_ with the _picture_ of a Supreme Governor." But
criticism here is positively painful. Let it be enough to say that those of
us who do not already believe in any such particular "Object"--be it ghost,
shape, demon, or deity--are strangers, utter and complete, to any such
supernatural pursuers. The fact, therefore, of these various religious
emotions being associated with conscience in the minds of theists, can in
itself be no proof of Theism, seeing that it is the theory of Theism which
itself _engenders_ these emotions; those who do not believe in this theory
experiencing none of these feelings of personal dread, responsibility to an
unknown God, and the feelings of doing injury to, or of receiving praise
from, a parent.
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