INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE
OF
BELIEF IN THE SUPERNATURAL.
By JOHN NETTEN RADCLIFFE.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1854.
PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS,
LONDON GAZETTE OFFICE, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.
A belief in the supernatural has existed in allages and among all nations.
To trace the origin of this belief, the causes ofthe various modifications it has undergone, andthe phases it has assumed, is, perhaps, one of themost interesting researches to which the mindcan be given,—interesting, inasmuch as we findpervading every part of it the effects of thosepassions and affections which are most powerfuland permanent in our nature.
So general is the belief in a supreme and over-rulingPower, possessing attributes altogether differentfrom and superior to human powers, andbending these and the forces of nature to itswill, that the thought has been entertained bymany that it is inborn in man. Such a doctrine[2]is, however, refuted by an acquaintance withthe inlets and modes of obtaining knowledge;by the fact that reason is necessary to its discovery;and by its uselessness.[1] "There areneither innate ideas nor innate propositions; butthere is an innate power of understanding thatshows itself in primitive notions, which, whenput into speech, are expressed in propositions,which propositions, decomposed, produce, underthe influence of abstraction and analysis, distinctideas."[2]
Others have asserted and maintained that manderives his knowledge of the existence of Deity,and, consequently, of the supernatural, from theexercise of reason upon himself and his own powersby self-reflection. If he reflects upon the wonderfulpower of liberty and free-will which he possesses,on his relation to surrounding beings andthings, and particularly on his imperfect, limited,and finite powers, it is argued that the antitheticalproposition of infinite must of necessity be admitted."I cannot have the idea of the finiteand of imperfection without having that of perfectionand of infinite. These two ideas are logicallycorrelative."[3] Or if man extends his reasoning[3]powers to the study or the contemplation "ofthe beauty, the order, the intelligence, the wisdom,and the perfection displayed throughout the universe;and as there must of necessity be in thecause what is witnessed in the effect, you reasonfrom nature to its author, and from the existenceof the perfection of the one you conclude theexistence and perfection of the other."[4]
But many theologists maintain that the knowledgeof a Deity, and of the existence of supernaturalbeings, is derived solely from revelation;and stern and prolonged have been the strugglesin this country between the upholders of the rivaltenets.
That no idea of a Deity, such as that which theChristian entertains, is to be found among thevague and undefined notions of supernaturalpower which are contained in the mythologiesof pagan nations; that even the conceptions ofPlato are to be summed up in the phrase "theunknown God;" and that the perfect idea of theGodhead is to be derived