128 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



millions perished by the sword, and famine, and 

 pestilence.&quot; The same author states that, during 

 the twenty years war which Justinian carried 

 on with the Gothic conquerors of Italy, the loss 

 of the Goths amounted to above 15 millions ; nor 

 will this appear incredible, when we find, that in 

 one campaign, 50,000 labourers died of hunger. 

 About the beginning of the 13th century arose 

 that cruel and bloody tyrant Jenghiz-Khan. 

 With immense armies, some of them amounting 

 to more than a million in number, he overran 

 and subdued the kingdom of Hya in China, Tan- 

 gut, Kitay, Turkestan, Karazum, Great Bucka- 

 ria, Persia, and part of India, committing the 

 most dreadful cruelties and devastations. It is 

 computed, that, during the last 22 years of his 

 reign, no fewer than 14,470,000 persons were 

 butchered by this scourge of the human race. 

 He appeared like an infernal fiend, breathing 

 destruction to the nations of the East, and the 

 principle which he adopted, after conquest, was 

 Htter extermination. 



Nearly about the same period when this mon 

 ster was ravaging and slaughtering the eastern 

 world, those mad expeditions, distinguished by 

 the name of the Crusades, were going forward 

 in the west. Six millions of infatuated wretches, 

 raging with hatred, and thursting for blood, as 

 sumed the image of the cross, and marched in 

 wild disorder to the confines of the Holy land, in 

 order to recover the city of Jerusalem from the 

 hands of the infidels. In these holy wars, as 

 they were impiously termed, more than 850,000 

 Europeans were sacrificed before they obtained 

 possession of Nice, Antioch, and Edessa. At 

 the siege of Acre, 300,000 were slain ; and at 

 the taking of Jerusalem, in 1099, about seventy 

 thousand. For 198 years, these wild expedi 

 tions continued in vogue, and were urged for 

 ward by proclamations issued from the throne, 

 and by fanatical sermons thundered from the 

 pulpit, till several millions of deluded mortals 

 perished from the earth ; for by far the greater 

 part of those who engaged in the crusades, were 

 either slain or taken prisoners. About this pe 

 riod, and several centuries before it, the whole 

 earth exhibited little else than one great field of 

 battle, in which nations were dashing against 

 each other, conquerors ravaging kingdoms, ty 

 rants exercising the most horrid cruelties ; su 

 perstition and revenge immolating their millions 

 of victims ; and tumults, insurrections, slaughter, 

 and universal alarm, banishing peace and tran 

 quillity from the world, and subverting the moral 

 order of society. &quot; In Europe, Germany and 

 Italy were distracted by incessant contests be 

 tween the pope and the emperors ; the interior 

 of every European kingdom was torn in pieces 

 by the contending ambition of the powerful 

 barons ; in the Mahomedan empire, the caliphs, 

 sultans, emirs, &c. waged continual war ; new 

 sovereignties were daily arising, and daily de 



stroyed ; and amidst this universal slaughter and 

 devastation, the whole earth seemed in danger 

 of being laid waste, and the human race to suffer 

 a total annihilation.&quot;* 



Such is the bird s eye view of the destruction 

 of the human species, which war has produced 

 in different periods. The instances I have 

 brought forward present only a few detached cir 

 cumstances in the annals of warfare, and relate 

 only to a few limited periods in the history of 

 man : and yet in the four instances above stated, 

 we are presented with a scene of horror, which 

 includes the destruction of nearly 50 millions of 

 human beings. What a vast and horrific picture, 

 then, would be presented to the eye, could we 

 take in at one view all the scenes of slaughter, 

 which have been realized in every period, in 

 every nation, and among every tribe! If wo 

 take into consideration not only the number o( 

 those who have fallen in the field of battle, but of 

 those who have perished through the natural 

 consequences of war, by the famine and the pes 

 tilence, which war has produced ; by disease, 

 fatigue, terror, and melancholy ; and by the op 

 pression, injustice, and cruelty of savage con 

 querors, it will not, perhaps, be overrating the 

 destruction of human life, if we affirm, that one 

 tenth of the human race has been destroyed by 

 the ravages of war. And if this estimate be ad 

 mitted, it will follow, that more than fourteen 

 thousand millions of human beings have been 

 slaughtered in war, since the beginning of the 

 world which is about eighteen times the number 

 of inhabitants which, at the present, exist on 

 the globe ; or, in other words, it is equivalent 

 to the destruction of the inhabitants of eighteen 

 worlds of the same population as ours. I That 

 this conclusion is rather within than beyond the 

 bounds of truth, will appear, from what has been 

 stated above respecting the destruction of the 

 Goths, in the time of Justinian. In the course of 

 20 years, 15 millions of persons perished in the 

 wars. Now, if the population of the countries of 

 Europe, in which these wars took place, did not 

 exceed 60 millions, the proportion of the slaugh- 

 tred to the whole population was as one to four, 

 and, if 20 years be reckoned as only half the pe 

 riod of a generation, the proportion was as one to 

 two ; in other words, at the rate of one half of a 

 whole generation in the course of 40 years. What 

 a horrible and tremendous consideration ? to re 

 flect, that 14,000,000,000 of beings, endowed with 

 intellectual faculties, and furnished with bodies 

 curiously organized by divine wisdom that the 

 inhabitant of eighteen worlds should have been 

 massacred, mangled, and cut to pieces, by those 



Mavor s Universal History, Robertson s Charles 

 V. &c. 



calculation proceeds on the ground, that 145 

 thousand millions of men have existed since the Mo 

 saic creation. See Chr.stian philosopher, Art. 

 Geography. 



