"Well," said Harrington, "with the exception of the immortality of the
soul, on which Lord Herbert has the advantage of speaking a little more
firmly, the Deists and such 'spiritualists' as you are assuredly
identical. I have simply abridged his articles. The same project as
yours spiritualism' or 'naturalism,' in all its essential features,
has been often tried before, and found wanting; that is, of guaranteeing
to man a sufficient and infallible internal oracle, independent of all
aid from external revelation, and of proving that he has, in effect,
possessed and enjoyed it always; only that, by a slight inadvertence
(I suppose), he did not know it. The theory, indeed, is rather
suspiciously confined to those who have previously had the Bible. No
such plenary confidence is found in the ancient heathen philosophers,
who, in many not obscure places, acknowledge that the path of mortal
man, by his internal light, is a little dim. Many, therefore, say,
that the 'Naturalists' and 'Spiritualists' are but plagiarists from
the Bible, and of course, like other plagiarists, depreciate the
sources from which they have stolen their treasures. I think unjustly;
for, whatever their obligations to that mutilated volume, I acknowledge
they have transformed Christianity quite sufficiently to entitle
themselves to the praise of originality; and if the Battle of the
Books were to be fought over again, I doubt whether Moses or Paul
would think it worth while to make any other answer than that of Plato
in that witty piece, to the Grub Street author, who boasted that he had
not been in the slighest deuce indebted to the classics: Plato declared
that, upon his honor, he believed him! Whether the successors of the
Herberts and Tindals of a former day are not plagiarists from them,
is another question, and depends entirely upon whether the writings
of their predecessors are sufficiently known to them. Probably, the
hopeless oblivion which, for the most part, covers them (for the
perverse world has been again and again assured of its infallible