MR. JOSEPH COOK.

 [BY S. G. MEE]

" IN this age of reason it is a singular some might think as I do, a painful— spectacle to see numbers rushing to a public hall to hear a man prove (or attempt to prove) fables to be facts. Yet in crowding to hear " the theological elephant," Joseph Cook (for that is the appellation given him by one of his clerical admirers), such a spectacle has lately been afforded to the inhabitants, of Brisbane. I myself, slightly caught the contagion, and went once with the eager crowd to listen to the lecturer, who, according to Spurgeon, was effectually " exploding the pretensions of modern science ; " and is, in the opinion of a professional theologian (James McCush) a heaven-ordained man, possessing as much power of eloquence as Parker, and vastly more acquaintance with philosophy than the mystic Emerson."

 After listening for a few minutes to this—according to theologians—intellectual phenomenon, I could not but think that a famous sentence of Carlyle would well apply to their much-belauded Boston lecturer. " If," says the sage of Chelsea, "a good speaker—an eloquent speaker—is not speaking the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation ? Of such speech I hear all manner and kind of people say it is excellent ; but I care very little about how he said, it, provided I understand it, and it be true. Excellent speaker ; but what if he is telling me things that are untrue, that are not the fact about it ; if he has formed a wrong judgment about it ; if he has no judgment in his mind to form a right conclusion in regard to the matter ? An excellent speaker of that kind is, as it were, saying : ' Ho, every one that wants to be persuaded of the thing that is not true, come hither."

Now (and here's the pity of it), the orthodox world everywhere persistently wants to be persuaded of the thing that is not true. Were it not so, they would certainly prefer the immortal and truthful writings of an Emerson or a Parker to the obstreperous dramatic performances called lectures (as one of his Indian critics has it) of a Joseph Cook.

Mr. Cook calls that (according to a great poet) Heaven-lighted lamp in man —Reason—a rushlight. Evidently with Mr. Cook, as with millions of others, orthodoxy is " the insane root that takes his Reason prisoner." But the late illustrious Theodore Parker firmly believed with Shakespeare that—

He that made us with such large discourse,

 Looking before, and after, gave us not 

That capability and reason,

To fust in us unused.

Well may the orthodox be fiercely inimical to Theodore Parker, when he has the audacity to declare that " the Popular Religion is unmanly and sneaking. It dares not look Reason in the face, but creeps behind Tradition, and only quotes.

To hear its talk one would think that God was dead—or at least asleep ;" and the foregoing brings to my mind what the mystic Emerson also says upon this point:—"The stationariness of religion the assumption that the age of inspiration is past, that the Bible is closed ; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing him as a man ; indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our theology. It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was ; that he speaketh, not spake." And such a teacher I for years have felt Ralph Waldo Emerson to be. He is one who, to quote his own beautiful words, has "converted life into truth." I feel him verily to be be, as he says, "part or particle of God." "Follow your Reason, wheresover it may lead you " he commands us. List, further, to his vital creed,—" Man is conscious of a universal soul, within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul he calls Reason ; the sky, with its eternal calm, and full of ever-lasting orbs, is the type of Reason."

The above are the words of the great American philosopher, whom Mr. Cook cooly bragged of having converted to orthodoxy ; but who, through his son, indignantly repudiated this astounding assertion—adding that he never read Mr. Cook's lectures."

The MINER has not, I know, space for a lengthened notice of each of Mr. Cook's lectures in Brisbane ; but his sole mission—strange as it may appear— seems to be, to undertake to prove the unprovable, and to defend the indefensible. Mr. Cook might well exclaim, "save me from my friends!'' He bragged of having been intimate with R. M. Emerson. We have just seen what the revered sage of Concord thought of Joseph and his very shallow books Mr. Cook, in his pamphlet " Method of Meeting Modern Unbelief," also speaks of his friend Mr. Fiske, as a brilliant man and an agnostic; but who to this hour, is plunging in the Serbonian bog of the Spencerian philosophy " This is what Mr. Fiske thinks of Mr. Joseph Cook and his literary performances : — " If we were to go through with Mr. Cook's volumes in detail we should find little else but misrepresentation of facts, misconceptions of principles. . . . . . . I have not treated him seriously, or with courtesy, because there is nothing in his matter, or in his manner, that would justify, or even excuse, a serious method of treatment. The only aspect of his career, which really affords matter for grave reflection, is the ease with which he succeeded for the moment in imposing on the credulity, and in appealing to the prejudices of his public."

Albert Huxley has emphatically declared that "Ecclesiasticism in science is unfaithfulness to truth." Mr. Cook (for £40 per night) is prepared to prove that Orthodoxy and Science are Siamese twins. As an "eclectic," the Australasian says of him,—"He has followed the monster Modern Science into the den, dragged it forth to the daylight, trounced it well with his logical club, drew its teeth and cut its claws, delicately inserted a ring into its nose, and led it as a tame and harmless monster upon numberless platforms to the edification of the orthodox in many parts of the world."

 To the edification of the orthodox ; but certainly not to that of the intellectual, who still regard science, not as a mole-eyed monster, but as a veritable star-eyed Deity !

In one of his lectures—to the uproarious delight of his Orthodox audience —Mr. Cook stoutly defended the Scripture six-day-creation theory ; but qualified that belief by giving it as his opinion that, in Genesis, a day signified an indefinite period of time. I, for one, fear that this definition, if practically acted upon by the orthodox, will tend to bring them into disrepute. One brings an advertisement (for instance) to the MINER, saying it should be paid for "to-day" ; but, when once inserted, and payment requested, the impecunious pietist tells Mr. O'Kane's collector that, according to the dictum of the infallible champion Cook, "day" means and "in-definite period !" How would that acte.

 Oh, how specious—how horribly sophistical—is the logic of orthodoxy! How its defenders twist and turn plainest words to suit their purpose ! Who, listening to this theological contortionist's defence of the Mosaic cosmogony, does not, more than ever, revere the character and the authentic preaching of the "priests of Science ?" Listen to what Professor Huxley says upon this point :—"In this nineteenth century, as at the dawn of modern physical science the cosmogony, of the semi-barbarous Hebrew is the incubus of the phîlosopher and the opprobrium of the orthodox. Who shall number the patient and earnest seekers after truth, from the days of Galileo until now, whose lives have been embittered, and their good name blasted, by the mistaken zeal of Bibliolaters ? Who shall count the host of weaker men whose sense of truth has been destroyed in the effort to harmonise impossibilities ? Orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget ; and though at present bewildered, and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and the end of science, and to visit, with such petty thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl, those who refuse to degrade Nature to the level of primitive Judaism. Philosophers, on the other hand, have no such aggressive tendencies. The majesty of FACT is on on their side, and the elementary forces of Nature are working for them. Not a star comes to the meridian at its calculated time but testifies to the justice of their methods—their beliefs are one with the falling rain and the growing corn. By doubt they are established, and open enquiry is their bosom friend. Such men have no fear of traditions, however venerable, and no respect for them when they become mischievous and obstructive ; but they have better than mere antiquarian business on hand ; and if dogmas which ought to be fossil, but are not, are forced upon their notice, they are too happy to treat them as non-existant."

[To be continued]

Northern Miner (Charters Towers, Qld. ), Saturday 14 October 1882, page 2

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/77185871