The Humbugs of the World

I

General view of the Subject⁠—Humbug universal⁠—In religion⁠—In politics⁠—In business⁠—In science⁠—In medicine⁠—How is it to cease⁠—The greatest humbug of all.

A little reflection will show that humbug is an astonishingly widespread phenomenon⁠—in fact almost universal. And this is true, although we exclude crimes and arrant swindles from the definition of it, according to the somewhat careful explanation which is given in the beginning of the chapter succeeding this one.

I apprehend that there is no sort of object which men seek to attain, whether secular, moral or religious, in which humbug is not very often an instrumentality. Religion is and has ever been a chief chapter of human life. False religions are the only ones known to two thirds of the human race, even now, after nineteen centuries of Christianity; and false religions are perhaps the most monstrous, complicated and thoroughgoing specimens of humbug that can be found. And even within the pale of Christianity, how unbroken has been the succession of impostors, hypocrites and pretenders, male and female, of every possible variety of age, sex, doctrine and discipline!