306 PART L — THEOLOGY. [Ch. m. — Axti-Theism.
follow this impulse is not only a necessity but it is the right and the duty of every man, and every one should be reckoned an enemy who wishes to hinder another in the gratification of the impulses of his nature. The measure of every one's right is his power. The best right is that of the strongest ; and as the wise man has an absolute right to do all which reason dictates, or the right of living according to the laws of reason, so also the ignorant and foolish man has a right to live according to the laws of ap- petite." 1 A more immoral and demoralizing principle was never expressed in human language. To say that it is the duty of every man to seek his own gratification, to satisfy the impulses of his nature ; that he is an enemy who attempts to hinder that gratifica- tion ; that the only limit to such gratification is our power ; that men have the right, if so inclined, to live according to the laws of appetite, is to say that there is no such thing as moral obligation ; no such thing as right or wrong.
Cousin repeats ad nauseam the doctrine that might is right; that the strongest is always the best. " We usually see in success," he says, " only a triumph of force, .... I hope I have shown that, inasmuch as there always must be a vanquished party, and in asmuch as the vanquished party is always that which ought to be vanquished, to accuse the vanquisher and to take part against vic- tory, is to take part against humanity, and to complain of tlie prog- ress of civilization. It is necessaiy to go further ; it is necessary to prove that the vanquished party deserves to be vanquished ; that the vanquishing party not only serves the cause of civilization, but that it is better, and more moral than the vanquished ])arty."' *' Virtue and prosperity, misfortune and vice, are in necessary har- mony." " Feebleness is a vice, and, therefore, it is always punished and beaten." " It is time," he says, " that philosophy of history put beneath its feet the declamations of philanthropy." 2 It must, of course, be true, if God is the life of the world, all power his power, every act his act, not only that there can be no sin, but that the most powerful are always morally (if that word has any meaning) the best ; and that might is right. This is the theory on which hero worship is founded, not only among the heathen, but among Christians, so called, of our day.
10. Pantheism is self deification. If God comes to existence only in the world, and if everything that is, is a manifestation of God, it follows that (so far as this earth is concerned, and so far aa
1 Hunt, p. 233.
2 Cousin's Hutory of Modern Philosophy, translated by Wight, New York, 1852, vol. i. pp. 186. 187. 189.