or it may never have originated at all! The most exquisite and elaborate appearances of design, and which stupid every-day people think are most naturally accounted for in that humdrum way, may be accounted for by any thing rather than that. What originality—what fertility of conception is here! Some say that the universe sprang from a "fortuitous concourse of eternal atoms," which having exhausted, in infinite ages, infinite combinations, at last most opportunely fell into the present form; some, that it is the necessary development of the "essential properties of eternal matter;" one man tells us that all "organic forms" and all " organic life" are the result of the " plastic powers of nature," whatever that may mean ; another says that

man is eternal; - antecedent men and consequent babies-or antecedent babies and consequent men for ever; though whether babies first came from men, or men from babies, must remain an "eternal" puzzle; some say that neither is true, but that man came from a monkey, millions of ages ago, and a monkey from a tadpole millions of ages before that, and a tadpole from a particle of albumen and a spark of electricity,―millions of ages before that; and these from a "firemist"-heaven knows, or rather does not know, how many millions of ages before that, and that all this may have been without any intelligence at all! Some say, with M. Comte, that all the appearances of "design" are nothing in the world to surprise us, and do not at all infer it; they are nothing but the "conditions of being," without which things could not exist, and consequently imply only that things are as they are, for if they were not so, they would not be-all which is surely as plain as the nose on your face; some say that birds got wings (nothing easier) by the "appetency" to fly, and dogs stomachs by the" appetency" to eat ; others, on the contrary, that dogs got "appetency" to eat because the plastic powers had given them stomachs, and birds the "appetency" to fly because they had wings, and which is first, "appetencies" or "organs," "organs" or "appetencies," may be a doubt, but surely either will account for the phenomena; some say that the various orders of animated beings originated in "prolific matter" running in

EE

"internal moulds or "matrices (whatever that means); and if you ask why we do not daily see new monsters, I suppose it must be said that the said "matrices were all long ago exhausted; or, if you ask why we do not at least see new individuals of existing species originated in this very obvious and natural way by means of such a matrix, I suppose it must be said that the original matrices are all broken to pieces! Some say that the true doctrine is very different, and that one species has been developed out of another, and transmuted into another by a necessary law that though no present facts are in favour of such a theory, yet that is no reason why you should not believe (and certainly as little reason why you should) that such things may have happened fifty million years ago; and that you may even see a trifle or two of the same kind, confirming this obvious hypothesis, if you only live for thirty millions of years to come. Others there are who tell us that the whole universe is an ideal thing; and compressing the voluminous phenomenon into the one mind that alone thinks it into being, reduces every thing to the solitary "ego," of which pleasing theory there are at least half a dozen modifications. these and manifold other ways, has Atheism evinced its fertility of invention; and, instead of being upbraided for its barrenness and want of originality, should rather be admired for the facility with which it discovered (when poor common sense thought it philosophy to assign an obvious and adequate cause of all, in Power and Intelligence) a dozen unthought of methods of doing the same thing, and proved by example as well as precept that it can dispense with all intelligence, even its own, in the manufacture of worlds!

In

But I consider the great triumph of Atheistical genius, and the crowning glory of all its achievements, consists in the ingenious logical securities, of various kinds, which it has taken against the possibility of God's making Himself known; so that if there be a God, He, with all His omnipotence, cannot manifest Himself. "Le plaisant Dieu que voilà!” one may say with Pascal. First, it is shown that He does not exist; and then, if He does exist; that it is not possible for Him to prove to us that He does.

What so easy? "I see," says the elder Atheist, "so much confusion and irregularity in the universe, that I cannot believe that infinite intelligence and wisdom presides over it." "I see," says a modern Atheist, "nothing in the universe but the presence of uniform and necessary LAW;-nothing arbitrary, and therefore no will, as M. Comte sublimely argues, for will is essentially capricious; —so that whatever comes of it, you see the Atheist is safe. If he sees apparent confusion, it is a proof that there is no presiding Deity; if he sees law, then, with M. Comte, it is a proof that there is no originating will! One says there is so much chance, that a God is out of the question;-another says that strict necessity reigns over every thing, and therefore excludes one. "I see nothing," says another, "in all you call proofs of contrivance and design in the universe; if there were design, it would leave such traces, but these are not its traces;" and for the same reasons he can argue in the same way, if the apparent traces of design were a thousand fold as great (if that be possible) as they are; hence again the hapless Deity cannot create such a world as can convince the Atheist-cannot make Himself known. Once more;. "If there be an Infinite Being," says another, “a finite mind cannot comprehend Him; and if there be an infinite Spirit, a mind that receives its conceptions only through material symbols can never come in contact with Him!" Thus God cannot come out of His prison—for such it is—His prison of infinite and eternal essence! Who but must admire the ways in which Atheism can not only prove that there is no God, but that if there be one it comes to exactly the same thing, for He can never certify us of His existence?

Yours truly,

R. E. H. G.

LETTER CX.

To the Same.

Nov. 12, 1851.

My dear Tom,

Your last letter would have been most amusing, had not the subject been so painful. Your description of your young fellow-student's paradoxes is very racy, and shows that you have talents far too good to be thrown away on Atheism. Never did I see a more grotesque monster in logic then the fright of a theory you have portrayed. As Stillingfleet said of another theory,— "It is like the bird of Athens, all face and feathers!"

However, you may thank him for conceding that though the argument for a God from "Design" is, in his sage judgment, "worthless," the infinite probability from induction,- from the facts of past experience,- is, that the generality of mankind will never see it to be such; so that the Atheist's "occupation" is "gone," or his work must be ever doing, never done! Thus Atheists, though doubtless constituting, according to his estimate, the intellectual élite, the aristocracy of humanity, must continue to be what they ever have been, a very minute fraction of the species. I shall not expatiate on the modesty of the supposition, that he, at the age of twenty, or thereabouts, has already climbed up to that peerage of wisdom; nor at the compliment which he pays the vast majority of mankind whom he thus dooms to be plebeian Theists. It is sufficient to have the consolation of knowing that his cause is hopeless; that so far as we yet know, or have any ground to surmise, the TRUTH, if he have it, cannot be established, and that our Philosophy and Theology, being necessarily the result of the constitution of man (whether God or chance originated that constitution), will still contend for the dogma he denies; so that if there be no God, God will still be acknowledged and worshipped. Impotent indeed must he and the Atheists be, since they cannot get rid of a-Nonentity!

But I could not help laughing outright at the magnanimous declaration, à la Hume, that though it be proved that his “Truth” can never be established as long as human nature remains what it is,-nay, though it were proved that his "Truth" threatened the most pernicious and desolating effects,-yet that "Truth" is "Truth," and he must prize it above all things! that there is no possession like it"—that "Truth never in the end did anybody any harm". "that instinct tells him so!"

In his case, it must indeed be "Instinct,"—for assuredly it cannot be reason. Why, what a mere lump of cotton-wool must this youth's brains be! It is natural enough for you or for me to indulge this presumption of the infinite value of Truth; but if notions of Truth and Error be supposed the result of the unintelligent construction of our nature,—that nature, moreover, being so constructed that the majority, it seems, will continue to cling to Error, and not to Truth,-what possible reason can he have to suppose Truth to be such an invaluable possession? Practically, it cannot be; for it is monopolised, it appears, by half a dozen Atheists in a corner! According to his theory, nobody constituted the laws of the understanding by which, he says, he receives "Truth;" and surely therefore it is an even chance whether Truth or Error be the more valuable possession of man, especially. as only a few score can ever hope to attain the former !

But every other absurdity dwindles beside his fantastical argument that even if the argument from "Design" be established to the full, it will not prove that God is Infinite; and, therefore, is to go for little! It will only prove, he says, that God is capable of having "constructed such a universe as this!" That is, it will only have proved that He could foresee all the relations devise all the expedients-construct all the laws-necessary for the stable existence of some few millions of millions of worlds! That He had "power and wisdom" sufficient for this little business is shown, but the argument proves no more! Looking to this petty world alone, He has been able to organise the unspeakably diversified forms of animal and vegetable life, an exhaustless variety of exquisite structures; He has exactly cal