Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/187

Rh ing with myself about it; and deep and sweet is the repose of having done so. There is no theory of a God, of an author of Nature, of an origin of the Universe, which is not utterly repugnant to my faculties; which is not (to my feelings) so irreverent as to make me blush; so misleading as to make me mourn. I can now hardly believe that it was I who once read Milton with scarcely any recoil from the theology; or, Paley's ‘Natural Theology’ with pleasure at the ingenuity of the mechanic-god he thought he was recommending to the admiration of his readers.”

Again, on pages 288-9: "What an emancipation it is—to have escaped from the little enclosure of dogma, and to stand —far indeed from being wise — but free to learn!”

And again, on page 256: “Science can abolish nothing but what is unreal, and then only in order to substantiate what is real. Her office is to take out the vital principle from forms once beautiful, when