Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/419

Rh sober bigot any better? It is the common and very foolish trick of religious partisans to stigmatize those who differ from them in their views of Deity as atheists. Each one identifies God with bis own scheme of belief, and, if that scheme is objected to, the objector is denounced as a denier of God. Particularly where the conception of God is low, gross, and materialistic, is every higher view charged with atheism. There is, however, no honest difficulty here. We have exactly the same means of knowing atheists that we have of knowing Baptists or Buddhists, that is, by what they profess and teach. We should call Bradlaugh a "pronounced atheist," because we have heard him say that he is the only man who ever ran for Parliament distinctly as an atheist. He has, besides, a large following in open agreement with him, and who may, therefore, be properly called atheists. A "pronounced atheist," in short, must simply be one who pronounces himself an atheist.

And now, having found that atheists are those who avow a certain belief, it is desirable to note distinctly what that belief is. Atheism, says Webster, "is the denial of the existence of a God." But the term God has many significations, and is variously defined. We take the highest definition given by Webster, "the Supreme Being; the Eternal and Infinite Spirit." A pronounced atheist, therefore, is one who professes to deny the existence of "the Supreme Being; the Eternal and Infinite Spirit."

The writer in the "Post" declares that "The Popular Science Monthly" "has published everything of interest written by 'pronounced atheists,' and excluded everything that appeared of merit on the other side." The other side of what? Why, the advocacy of atheism, of course! That is, "for a long period of years" this magazine has been given over to the work of teaching the doctrine of the non-existence of "the Eternal and Infinite Spirit." This statement is not true; it has not a vestige of truth in it; it is wholly and absolutely false. This is one of the charges that calls for proof, and happily the writer has given his proof. It is this and nothing else, that "the papers of Herbert Spencer and others of his class" have appeared in "The Popular Science Monthly." That any such papers really have the character charged, there is not the slightest attempt at proof.

But Herbert Spencer is not an atheist, and never has been. He has never declared his belief in atheism, and he is a man who expresses his opinions very freely and with but little regard for their popularity. He has been called an atheist, but that, as we have seen, will not do. If we had space we could fill pages with admissions on the part of all his ablest theological critics that he is not an atheist. We challenge the "Post" writer to produce a single passage in all his writings, in the "Monthly" or out, either avowing or defending atheism. On the contrary, he has labored with all the power of his genius to prove that atheism as a theory of the universe (which it professes to be) is baseless and indefensible. And more than this, no man of the present age has reasoned out the foundations of man's belief in the existence of the "Infinite and Eternal Spirit" with such a depth of analysis and logical force as Herbert Spencer. He has sought to show that the "Infinite and Eternal Spirit," of which all the phenomena of the universe are but the manifestations, is the most absolute of all realities.

And still more than this is true. Mr. Spencer has gone beyond the theologians in their own line, and has rescued them from the consequences of their own logic. Every intelligent person knows that there has been a great progress in the religious ideas of