The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature

To all persons this book is of great value. We arrive at certainty in but few of our decisions, and are often obliged, even in matters of great moment, to act on probability. Thus we employ precautions when an evil is not certain to occur. If the evil would be very serious, we adopt the precaution, when there is but little probability, or perhaps a bare possibility, of its occurrence. Now, Butler has shown that if the proofs of revelation were weak, nay, if it had absolutely no proof, nay further, if on fair examination there appeared not even a probability of its truth, still there would remain a possibility, and this alone, considering the tremendous issues at stake, should make every man a Christian. This argument cannot be applied to Mahometanism or any other religion, because against those much may be advanced as disproof. Our author, having shown the utter absence of disproof, shuts us up to the reception of Christianity, were its truth barely possible.

There have not been wanting persons to disparage the “Analogy,” because it affords, as they say, no direct proof of revelation. As well might we demand a discussion of chemistry in a work on astronomy. Scores of writers prove Christianity, and here we have one to relieve us from the difficulties which beset it, and objections which still remain. There is an aspect in which the Analogy may be said to contribute the best of proof. What can go further towards establishing a point, than to demonstrate that there is no proof of the contrary? What can show the fallacy of a set of objections, more than to prove that they might be urged with no less force against the obvious course of nature? This use of analogy is conformable to the severest logic, and though offering no pretence of positive argument, goes far towards establishing full conviction. “The probabilities,” says Stewart, “resulting from a concurrence of different analogies, may rise so high as to produce an effect on the belief scarcely distinguishable from moral certainty.”

When it is considered that Butler’s argument is wholly in addition to the cumulative mass of direct and almost irresistible evidence, and removes even the objections which attend the subject, we see the rejection of Christianity to be inexpressibly rash and absurd. We see the skeptic condemned at his own bar, for acting in the most momentous of all possible concerns, in a manner the very opposite of that which he calls sensible and prudent in his ordinary affairs. The “Analogy” establishes, beyond cavil, strong presumptions that Christianity is true, aside from all inspection of its proofs. The man, therefore, who really understands this book, and refuses to be a Christian, is led by his lusts and not his reason.

Some admirers of this book have lamented as a defect, its want of evangelical tincture, and its exclusive reference to natural things. To me, this is a prime recommendation. Were it otherwise, the reasoning would be in a circle. The very structure of the argument demands that it should avoid quotations from the Bible.

It must be admitted, however, that some expressions, taken just as they stand, without qualification by the current of the argument, tend to lead astray. For instance, “There is nothing in the human mind contrary to virtue.” “Men’s happiness and virtue are left to themselves.” “Religion requires nothing which we are not well able to perform.” “Our repentance is accepted, to eternal life.” “Our relations to God are made known by reason.” Such expressions are not to be taken alone, but as explained by the general drift of sentiment and doctrine. No one can be familiar with his works, without finding the fullest evidence that Christianity was to Butler infinitely more than a creed or a ritual. Nor should we forget that such expressions are not to be interpreted by the tenor of the “Analogy” only, but by that of his whole ‘Works.’

Even if it be judged that he everywhere fails to express himself in such phrase as we usually call evangelical, it should be remembered that he was a Church-of-England man, at a time when there was a powerful reaction against the evangelism of the Puritans, and when a real lack of emotional piety was general in his church.

That he did not enjoy in his last illness, which extended over a long period, that sustaining sense of the love of Christ which hearty Christians generally feel, is certain. A friend, trying to relieve his depression, reminded him of his excellent life, and especially his wide liberalities. He immediately replied, “l am but a steward! All is His, intrusted to me, to promote his glory and the good of mankind; how can I know that I have not abused the trust? I reflect on all these things, and they fill my soul with terror by the feeling of responsibility they awaken.”

On another occasion, his chaplain sought to soothe his troubled spirit by referring to the extensive influence of his Analogy in reclaiming skeptics. His reply was, “I began the Analogy with a view to the glory of God; but as I proceeded, visions of the fame it might bring me mingled themselves with my motives, and all was polluted and made sinful! The book may be a blessing to others, but it weighs like lead on my soul.” “Admit all this,” tenderly replied the chaplain; “yet has not Jesus said, ‘Whosoever cometh unto me shall in no wise be cast out’?” Instantly the Bishop raised himself in the bed, exclaiming, “How wonderful that the force of this passage never struck me before! ‘Whosoever,’ —all, ALL! ‘In no wise,’ – no amount of sin can prevent acceptance! Christ’s righteousness will hide the iniquities of all who accept his offer of mercy!”

From that time, for weeks, Butler spoke to all who approached him, of a full and free salvation. He died triumphantly repeating this passage.

If all that is said of the lack of evangelical sentiment in Butler or his book be conceded, it certainly cannot impair either the value of the analogical argument, or the force of our author’s use of it.

Various circumstances conspire to make the study of “The Analogy” difficult. The nature of the reasoning – the conciseness, and often obscurity of the style – the dislocation of parts by frequent digressions – the arrest of a close course of reasoning to answer objections – and the abstruseness of the subject itself – combine to make the full comprehension of its import difficult. Mackintosh says, “No thinker so great, was ever so bad a writer.” But this, like some other objections of Sir James, is stated too strongly. The language is good, sinewy Saxon, and will endure when much that is now called fine writing, will seem grotesque. Still it is possible to write philosophy in better phrase, as has been shown by at least two great men, Berkeley and Stewart. Had Butler but possessed the glowing style of Berkeley, or the smooth, graceful, and transparent diction of Dugald Stewart, his work, instead of serving only for close thinkers, or a college text-book, would have been read by all classes, and banished that vulgar infidelity which flippant writers still disseminate. That it is thus restricted in its influence is a misfortune to the world. But he wrote for a class, and did his work completely. Literary infidelity was conquered. Vulgar, ignorant, licentious infidelity, will always exist, and is even now deplorably prevalent. Both Europe and America contain conceited and malignant ignoramuses, who by their sneers, their cavils, and their audacity, make havoc of souls. Of these, Tom Paine is a type, whose book, the contempt of cultivated minds, continues to be sold and read. For this class of persons, “Baxter’s Call,” or “Alleine’s Alarm,” are far more suitable than treatises on the evidences of Christianity, or even Butler’s Analogy.

Editor’s Preface

The text is the result of a careful collation of the various principal editions. Occasionally solecisms are corrected, and a word transposed or put in italics, when a sentence could thus be made perspicuous. The author had a fashion of beginning a large proportion of his sentences with “and,” “but,” “now,” “indeed,” “however,” &c., which often served to perplex, and in such cases they have been omitted. Long paragraphs, comprehending different topics, have been so divided as to correspond with the true analysis; which will greatly assist the student in detecting the successive stages of the argument. Special pains has been taken to correct and improve the punctuation. Hundreds of sentences have thus been rendered more perspicuous, and many which were obscure, have been made lucid. In no respect was Butler’s style, as printed, so defective.

The Conspectus is made much ampler than any other, for this reason: that students are apt to content themselves with such help instead of mastering the full discussion by the author. In the present case they cannot so do, for such is the fulness of the Conspectus, that if they master this, they have mastered the subject itself in full.

Notes by the present editor are distinguished from those of the author by being enclosed in brackets. They are designed to open out further views, to elucidate the text, to facilitate extended researches, and to suggest topics for conversation in the class-room.

The Index has cost far more labor than would be supposed, and may not be of much benefit to the undergraduate. Its advantages will not be small to him in after life when he desires to recur to particular topics. The general scholar will find it enables him to make use of the book for occasional reference. Without it the work is not complete for the class-room, still less for the library.

That students of the Analogy need help, is confessed; and all attempts to furnish it have been kindly received. As is remarked by Bishop Wilson, “His argument, clear and convincing as it is to a prepared mind, is not obvious to the young reader, whose experience of life being small, and his habits of reflection feeble, has not the furniture necessary for comprehending, at first, the thoughts and conclusions of such a mind. The style is too close, too negligent, too obscure, to be suitable for the young.”

If it be asked why, with several existing helps to the study of the Analogy, I offer another, I frankly reply, because I have found none of them satisfactory, either to the public or to myself.

Some teachers prefer their text-books to be accompanied by a set of questions. Such will find in this edition all they desire. They have only to enunciate each sentence of the Conspectus in the interrogative form, and they will have every possible question prepared to their hand.

Conspectus of the Author’s Introduction

I. What is probable evidence?

1. It differs from demonstration in that it admits of degrees; of all degrees.

1.) One probability does not beget assurance.

2.) But the slightest presumption makes a probability.

3.) The repetition of it may make certainty.

2. What constitutes probability is likeness; in regard to the event itself, or its kind of evidences, or its circumstances.

1.) This daily affords presumptions, evidence, or conviction: according as it is occasional, common, or constant.

2.) Measures our hopes and fears.

3.) Regulates our expectations as to men’s conduct.

4.) Enables us to judge of character from conduct.

3. It is an imperfect mode of judging, and adapted to beings of limited capacities.

4. Where better evidence cannot be had, it constitutes moral obligation, even though great doubts remain.

1.) We are as much bound to do what, on the whole, appears to be best, as if we knew it to be so.

2.) In questions of great moment, it is reasonable to act when the favorable chances are no greater than the unfavorable.

3.) There are numberless cases in which a man would be thought distracted if he did not act, and that earnestly, where the chances of success were greatly against him.

II. The use and application of probabilities.

Shall not go further into the nature of probable evidence, nor inquire why likeness begets presumption and conviction; nor how far analogical reasoning can be reduced to a system; but shall only show how just and conclusive this mode of reasoning is.

1. In determining our judgments and practice.

1.) There may be cases in which its value is doubtful.

2.) There may be seeming analogies, which are not really such.

3.) But as a mode of argument, it is perfectly just and conclusive.

2. In noting correspondencies between the different parts of God’s government.

1.) We may expect to find the same sort of difficulties in the Bible, as we do in Nature.

2.) To deny the Bible to be of God, because of these difficulties, requires us to deny that the world was made by him.

3.) If there be a likeness between revelation and the system of nature, it affords a presumption that both have the same author.

4.) To reason on the construction and government of the world, without settling foundation-principles, is mere hypothesis.

5.) To apply principles which are certain, to cases which are not applicable, is no better.

6.) But to join abstract reasonings to the observation of facts, and argue, from known present things, to what is likely or credible, must be right.

7.) We cannot avoid acting thus, if we act at all.

3. In its application to religion, revealed, as well as natural. This is the use which will be made of analogy in the following work. In so using it,

1.) It will be taken for proved that there is an intelligent Creator and Ruler.

– There are no presumptions against this, prior to proof.

– There are proofs: – from analogy, reason, tradition, &c.

– The fact is not denied by the generality of skeptics.

2.) No regard will be paid to those who idly speculate as to how the world might have been made and governed.

– Such prating would amount to this:

· All creatures should have been made at first as happy as they could be.

· Nothing of hazard should be put upon them.

· Should have been secured in their happiness.

· All punishments avoided.

– It is a sufficient reply to such talk that mankind have not faculties for such speculations.

3.) We are, to some extent, judges as to ends; and may conclude that Nature and Providence are designed to produce virtue and happiness; but of the means of producing these in the highest degree, we are not competent judges.

– We know not the extent of the universe;

– Nor even how one person can best be brought to perfection.

– We are not often competent to judge of the conduct of each other.

– As to God, we may presume that order will prevail in his universe; but are no judges of his modes for accomplishing this end.

4.) Instead of vainly, and perhaps sinfully, imagining schemes for God’s conduct, we must study what is.

– Discovering general laws.

– Comparing the known course of things with what revelation teaches us to expect.

III. The force of this use of Analogy.

1. Sometimes is practically equivalent to proof.

2. Confirms what is otherwise proved.

3. Shows that the system of revelation is no more open to ridicule, than the system of nature.

4. Answers almost all objections against religion.

5. To a great extent answers objections against the proofs of religion.

IV. General scope of the book.

1. The divine government is considered, as containing in it,

Chap. 1. Man’s future existence.

” 2. In a state of reward or punishment.

” 3. This according to our behavior.

” 4. Our present life probationary.

” 5. And also disciplinary.

” 6. Notwithstanding the doctrine of necessity.

” 7. Or any apparent want of wisdom or goodness.

2. Revealed religion is considered,

Chap. 1. As important.

” 2. As proved by miracles.

” 3. As containing strange things.

” 4. As a scheme imperfectly comprehended.

” 5. As carried on by a mediator.

” 6. As having such an amount of evidence as God saw fit to give.

” 7. As having sufficient and full evidence.

Conspectus of the Analogy

PART I

CHAPTER IA FUTURE LIFE

Will not discuss the subject of identity; but will consider what analogy suggests from changes which do not destroy; and thus see whether it is not probable that we shall live hereafter.

I. The probabilities that we shall survive death.

1. It is a law of nature that creatures should exist in different stages, and in various degrees of perfection.

– Worms turn into flies.

– Eggs are hatched into birds.

– Our own present state is as different from our state in the womb, as two states of the same being can be.

– That we shall hereafter exist in a state as different from the present as the present is from our state in the womb, is according to analogy.

2. We now have capacities for happiness, action, misery, &c., and there is always a probability that things will continue as they are, except when experience gives us reason to think they will be altered. This is a general law; and is our only natural reason for expecting the continuance of any thing.

3. There is no reason to apprehend that death will destroy us.

If there was, it would arise from the nature of death; or from the analogy of nature.

1.) Not from the nature of death.

– We know not what death is.

– But only some of its effects.

– These effects do not imply the destruction of the living agent.

– We know little of what the exercise of our powers depends upon; and nothing of what the powers themselves depend on.

– We may be unable to exercise our powers, and yet not lose them —e. g. sleep, swoon.

2.) Not from analogy.

– Reason shows no connection between death and our destruction.

– We have no faculties by which to trace any being beyond it.

– The possession of living powers, up to the very moment when our faculties cease to be able to trace them, is a probability of their continuing.

– We have already survived wonderful changes.

– To live after death is analogous to the course of nature.

II. Presumptions against a future life.

1. That death destroys us.

Ans. 1. This is an assumption that we are compound and material beings, and hence discerptible; which is not true.

1.) Consciousness is a single, indivisible power, and of course the subject of it must be.

2.) The material body is not ourself.

3.) We can easily conceive of our having more limbs, or of a different kind, or of having more or fewer senses, or of having no bodies at all, or of hereafter animating these same bodies, remodelled.

4.) The dissolution of a succession of new and strange bodies, would have no tendency to destroy us.

Ans. 2. Though the absolute simplicity of the living being cannot be proved by experiment, yet facts lead us so to conclude. We lose limbs, &c. Our bodies were once very small, but we might, then, have lost part of them. There is a constant destruction and renewal going on.

1.) Thus we see that no certain bulk is necessary to our existence, and unless it were proved that there is, and that it is larger than an indissoluble atom, there is no reason to presume that death destroys us, even if we are discerptible.

2.) The living agent is not an internal material organism, which dies with the body. Because

– Our only ground for this presumption is our relation to other systems of matter. But we see these are not necessary to us.

– It will not do to say that lost portions of the body were not essential– who is to determine?

– The relation between the living agent, and the most essential parts of the body, is only one by which they mutually affect each other.

3.) If we regard our body as made up of organs of sense, we come to the same result.

– We see with the eyes, just as we do with glasses. The eye is not a recipient, any more than a telescope.

– It is not pretended that vision, hearing, &c. can be traced clear up to the percipient; but so far as we can trace perceptions, the organ does not perceive.

– In dreams we perceive without organs.

– When we lose a limb we do not lose the directing power; we could move a new one, if it could be made, or a wooden one. But the limb cut off has no power of moving.

– Thus, our loss of the organs of perception and motion, not being the destruction of the power, there is no ground to think that the destruction of other organs or instruments would destroy us.

Objection. These observations apply equally to brutes.

Ans. 1. Be it so. Perhaps they are immortal: – may hereafter improve: we know not what latent powers they may have.

1.) The human being at one period looks as little likely to make great intellectual attainments; for a long time he has capacities for virtue and religion, but cannot use them.

2.) Many persons go out of the world who never became able to exercise these capacities; e. g. infants.

Ans. 2. If brutes were immortal, it does not prove them to be moral agents.

1.) It may be necessary, for aught we know, that there should be living creatures not moral agents, nor rational.

2.) All difficulties as to what would become of them, are founded in our ignorance.

2. That our souls, though not material, so depend upon the bodily structure, that we cannot survive its destruction.

Ans. 1. Reason, memory, &c. do not depend on the body, as perceptions by the senses do. Death may destroy those instruments, and yet not destroy the powers of reflection.

Ans. 2. Human beings exist, here, in two very different states, each having its own laws: sensation and reflection. By the first we feel; by the second we reason and will.

1.) Nothing which we know to be destroyed at death, is necessary to reflecting on ideas formerly received.

2.) Though the senses act like scaffolds, or levers, to bring in ideas, yet when once in, we can reflect, &c. without their aid.

Ans. 3. There are diseases which prove fatal, &c., yet do not, in any part of their course, impair the intellect; and this indicates that they do not destroy it.

1.) In the diseases alluded to, persons have their reflective power, in full, the very moment before death.

2.) Now, why should a disease, at a certain degree, utterly destroy powers which were not even affected by it, up to that point?

3. That death at least suspends our reflective powers, or interrupts our continuing to exist in the like state of reflection which we do now.

Ans. There appears so little connection between our powers of sensation and our powers of reflection that we cannot presume that what might destroy the former, could even suspend the latter.

1.) We daily see reason, memory, &c. exercised without any assistance, that we know of, from our bodies.

2.) Seeing them in lively exercise to the last, we must infer that death is not a discontinuance of their exercise, nor of the enjoyments and sufferings of such exercise.

3.) Our posthumous life may be but a going on, with additions. Like the change at our birth – which produced not a suspension of the faculties we had before, nor a total change in our state of life; but a continuance of both, with great alterations.

4.) Death may but at once put us into a higher state of life, as our birth did; our relation to bodily organs may be the only hinderance to our entering a higher condition of the reflective powers.