we must not utter a syllable! Oh Supreme King! it is not wonderful thou art not known; it would rather be wonderful if thou wert known."

I am content to follow the bishop-philosopher's advice, and to be silent. I am content to know nothing of celestial spirits, and to confine my speculations to the affairs of our own planet.

I am pleased to perceive that, in the course of this discussion, you have not fallen into the vulgar argument, that a particular religious belief is necessary to moral virtue, and that he who does not fear God neither will he regard man. In abstaining from this argument, you have followed the example of Bacon, of Chalmers, and of the liberal portion of modern religionists. He who possesses a dignified consciousness of rectitude, feels that the springs of virtue lie deeper than speculative opinions; that the "light within,” as an amiable sect expresses it, is not of theological nor of sceptical origin; that it exists, where it exists at all, independent of all creeds, in spite of all creeds; and that it exerts, over the better portion of our species, an influence which no faith, nor any want of faith, can either create or destroy.

You may probably call to mind the passage of Bacon's works in which he speaks of the moral character of a world without religion. He says:

"Atheism leaves men to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not: but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of them

* The treatise from which the above extract is made, was so much es teemed by the Christian Church, that it procured for its author, in the reign of Dioclesian, a bishoprick.

selves, as looking no further, and we see the times inclined to Atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times but superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new " primum mobile," that ravisheth the spheres of government."

Dr. Chalmers expresses a somewhat similar sentiment in one of his sermons:

"Conceive for a moment, that the belief of a God were to be altogether expunged from the world. We have no doubt that society would suffer most painfully in its temporal interests by such an event. But the machine of society might still be kept up; and on the face of it you might still meet with the same gradations of character, and the same varied distribution of praise, among the individuals who compose it. Suppose it possible that the world could be broken off from the system of God's administration altogether; and that we were to consign it, with all its present accommodations, and all its natural principles, to some far and solitary place beyond the limits of his economy, we should still find ourselves in the midst of a moral variety of character; and men sitting in judgment over it, would say of some that they are good, and of others that they are evil. Even in this desolate region of Atheism, the eye of the sentimentalist might expatiate among beauteous and interesting spectacles-amiable mothers shedding their graceful tears over the tomb of departed infancy; high-toned integrity maintaining itself unsullied amid the allurements of corruption; benevolence plying its labors of usefulness, and patriotism earning its proud reward in the testimony of an approving people. Here, then, you have compassion and natural affection, and justice and public spirit,—but would it not be a glaring perversion of language to say that there was

godliness in a world, where there was no feeling and no conviction about God?"-Sermon IV. pp. 184, 5.

It is not one of the least cheering among the signs of the times that we hear such statements as these from the orthodox pulpit.

It was the perfect conviction I entertain of the mental and moral advantages which I have gained by a change of opinion, that first induced me to enter upon this discussion; and it is the same conviction which bids me hope, that it will not be without interest, nor without utility to many especially to those who still stand on the bank of the Rubicon, and who fear to try their strength in its waves, lest they be carried away by the current, and thrown on some treacherous quicksand, or arid desert.

I have crossed in safety, and found the opposite shore fair and pleasant; a land of freedom and of virtue, whence terror is banished, and where tranquillity reigns. He that is a bold swimmer, let him fearlessly attempt the passage. He will never regret the efforts it may cost him. He will become a better, a wiser, and--my experience for it-a happier man.

ROBERT DALe Owen.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

[From the Free Enquirer of March 12, 1831.]

GOD.

SOME of our readers may be curious to trace out a few of the ancient and modern opinions regarding a "Great Spirit," as the Indians poetically phrase it.

The Stoics probably believed in a corporeal God. They thought God a fire; warmth or animal spirits; and admitted, besides, a number of inferior gods, some of them siderial.

Thales, the founder of the Ionic Sect, thought that all things were full of Gods and Spirits, and proves this (oddly enough, I think) by referring to the attractiveness of loadstone and amber: (see Meiners, "de vero Deo.") Cicero (in his "de nat. Deo.") says that Thales, like Homer, looked upon water as the principle of every thing.

Brucker (Vol. 1. p. 1077) says, on the authority of Cyrillus Alexandrinus, that Pythagoras' deity was "a subtle, mundane flame, endowed with the active faculty of moving, forming, and, according to certain laws, of disposing all things." We have not got much further than this idea of the Samian philosopher, even in our days. Mciners ("de vero Deo." p. 307, 308) says, the Pythagoreans derived all things from a Number or Numbers. What they meant by that, let antiquarians explain.

Anaxagoras was one of the principal inventors of what we now call God. He spoke of two principles, God and Matter, both eternal. But I have never believed, and do not now believe, that his pupil Socrates shared his opinions on this point. I know that Brucker (Vol. 1. page 560) says, Socrates believed that "the Deity, though he cannot be perceived, may be discovered;" but the same author also

asserts Socrates' belief in various superior Gods and Spirits, and interprets literally the story about his familiar demon. Now I conceive Socrates (from all we read of him) to have been too wise a man to speak in this latter case other than metaphorically. And if in the latter, why not in the former also? We know that he was indicted before the Five Hundred as an Atheist, and that his defence was, as I already stated: "that while others boasted they were acquainted with every thing, he himself knew nothing;" (see Lempriere, art. Socrates.) Lactantius (B. 3, ch. 19) tells us, that Socrates was wont to say, "What is above us, does not concern us ;" and thence the 'Christian Cicero' argues, (very naturally I think) that the Athenian philosopher was opposed to all mysterious religion. What motive could this erudite and classic theologian have, for attributing to Socrates, unfairly, sceptical sentiments?

Plato's Deity was composed of three principles, God, Matter and Idea. What he meant by his Idea (logismos or logos) probably Plato himself did not know, any more than St. John; (see his Gospel, chap. 1.) Plato thought matter to be of a refractory and evil nature, so that God himself could not make much out of it; a very convenient way of accounting for the existence of evil.

Aristotle believed the Deity and the World to be equally self-existent. He defines God to be, "a mind, immutable and impassable, an eternal and most perfect animal, perpetually employed in imparting motion to the universe."

Aniximines thought Thales' water principle too corporeal; so he took air as his principle of every thing; and Diogenes Apolloniates went so far as to ascribe to air divine reason.

According to most of the Jewish Rabbi, God cannot be defined. The Rabbi Nicto (quoted in the "Dict. des Athees") says, God and Nature, Nature and God, are one.

The Soofs of Persia believe, that God extracts from his own substance not only the souls of men, but the whole material creation, which is thus only a production or extension of the divine substance, drawn, like a spider's web, from the body of the Deity. These theologians also, ingeniously enough, compare the Deity to a vast ocean in which swim innumerable phials of water; so that the water, if the bottles are broken, returns again to the bosom of the ocean. Human souls, of course, are the bottles; and Death is the great bottle-breaker.