Suppose, for example, a natural philosopher of the fifteenth century, reading these words in St. Thomas's Dream-" Virtus cœli, loco spermatis, sufficit cum elementis et putrefactione ad generationem animalium imperfectorum"-"The virtue of heaven, instead of seed, is sufficient, with the elements and putrefaction, for the generation of imperfect animals." Our philosopher would reason thus: if corruption suffices with the elements to produce unformed animals, it would appear that a little more corruption with a little more heat would also produce animals more complete. The virtue of heaven is here no other than the virtue of nature. I shall then think with Epicurus and St. Thomas, that men may have sprung from the slime of the earth and the rays of the sun;-a noble origin too, for beings so wretched and so wicked. Why should I admit a creating God, presented to me under so many contradictory and revolting aspects? But at length physics arose, and with them philosophy. Then it was clearly discovered that the mud of the Nile produced not a single insect, nor a single ear of corn, and men were found to acknowledge throughout germs, relations, means, and an astonishing correspondence among all beings. The particles of light have been followed, which, go from the sun to enlighten the globe and the ring of Saturn, at the distance of three hundred millions of leagues, then, coming to the earth, form two opposite angles in the eye of the minutest insect, and paint all nature on its retina. A philosopher was given to the world, who discovered the simple and sublime laws by which the celestial globes move in the immensity of space. Thus the work of the universe, now that it is better known, bespeaks a workman; and so many never-varying laws, announce a lawgiver. Sound philosophy, therefore, has destroyed atheism, to which obscure theology furnished weapons of defence.

But one resource was left for the small number of difficult minds, which, being more forcibly struck by the pretended injustices of a supreme being than by

See GooD AND EVIL.

his wisdom, were obstinate in denying this first mover. Nature has existed from all eternity; everything in nature is in motion, therefore everything in it continu ally changes. And if everything is for ever changing, all possible combinations must take place; therefore the present combination of all things may have been the effect of this eternal motion and change alone, Take six dice, and it is 46,655 to one that you do not throw six times six; but still there is that one chance in 46,656. So, in the infinity of ages, any one of the infinite number of combinations, as that of the present arrangement of the universe, is not impossible.

1

Minds, otherwise rational, have been misled by these arguments; but they have not considered that there is infinity against them, and that there certainly is not in finity against the existence of God. They should moreover consider, that if everything were changing, the smallest things could not remain unchanged, as they have so long done. They have at least no reason to advance, why new species are not formed every day. On the contrary, it is very probable that a powerful hand, superior to these continual changes, keeps all species within the bounds it has prescribed them. Thus the philosopher who acknowledges a God, has a number of probabilities on his side, while the atheist has only doubts.

It is evident that in morals it is much better to acknowledge a God than not to admit one. It is certainly the interest of all men that there should be a Divinity to punish what human justice cannot repress; but it is also clear that it were better to acknowledge no God than to worship a barbarous one, and offer him human victims, as so many nations have done.

We have one striking example, which places this truth beyond a doubt. The Jews, under Moses, had no idea of the immortality of the soul, nor of a future state. Their lawgiver announced to them, from God, only rewards and punishments purely temporal; they therefore had only this life to provide for. Moses commands the Levites to kill twenty-three thousand of their brethren, for having had a golden or gilded calf.

On another occasion, twenty-four thousand of them are massacred for having had commerce with the young women of the country; and twelve thousand are struck dead, because some few of them had wished to support the ark, which was near falling. It may, with perfect reverence for the decrees of Providence, be affirmed, humanly speaking, that it would have been much better for these fifty-nine thousand men, who believed in no future state, to have been absolute atheists and have lived, than to have been massacred in the name of the God whom they acknowledged.

It is quite certain that atheism is not taught in the schools of the learned of China; but many of those learned men are atheists, for they are indifferent philosophers. Now it would undoubtedly be better to live with them at Pekin, enjoying the mildness of their manners and their laws, than to be at Goa, liable to groan in irons, in the prisons of the Inquisition, until brought out in a brimstone-coloured garment, variegated with devils, to perish in the flames.

They who have maintained that a society of atheists may exist, have then been right; for it is laws that form society; and these atheists, being moreover philosophers, may lead a very wise and very happy life under the shade of those laws. They will certainly live in society more easily than superstitious fanatics. People one town with Epicureans such as Simonides, Protagoras, Des Barreaux, Spinosa; and another with Jansenists and Molinists;-in which do you think there will be the most quarrels and tumults? Atheism, considering it only with relation to this life, would be very dangerous among a ferocious people; and false ideas of the Divinity would be no less pernicious. Most of the great men of this world live as if they were atheists. Every man who has lived with his eyes open, knows that the knowledge of a God, his presence, and his justice, have not the slightest influence over the wars, the treaties, the objects of ambition, interest, or pleasure, in the pursuit of which they are wholly occupied. Yet we do not see that they grossly violate the rules established in society. It is much more agreeable

to pass our lives among them than among the super stitious and fanatical. I do, it is true, expect more justice from one who believes in a God than from one who has no such belief; but from the superstitious I look only for bitterness and persecution. Atheism and fanaticism are two monsters, which may tear society in pieces but the atheist preserves his reason, which checks his propensity to mischief, while the fanatic is under the influence of a madness which is constantly urging him on.

SECTION II.

In England, as everywhere else, there have been, and there still are, many atheists by principle; for there are none but young inexperienced preachers, very ill informed of what passes in the world, who affirm that there cannot be atheists. I have known some in France, who were very good natural philosophers; and have, I own, been very much surprised that men, who could so ably develope the secret springs of nature, should obstinately refuse to acknowledge the hand which so evidently puts those springs in action.

It appears to me that one of the principles which lead them to materialism is, that they believe in the plenitude and infinity of the universe and the eternity of matter. It must be this which misleads them; for almost all the Newtonians whom I have met with, admit the void and the termination of matter, and consequently admit a God.

Indeed, if matter be infinite, as so many philosophers, even including Descartes, pretend, it has of itself one of the attributes of the Supreme Being: if a void be impossible, matter exists of necessity, it has existed from all eternity. With these principles, therefore, we may dispense with a God, creating, modifying, and preserving matter.

I am aware that Descartes, and most of the schools which have believed in the plenum, and the infinity of matter, have nevertheless admitted a God; but this is only because men scarcely ever reason or act upon their principles.

Had men reasoned consequentially, Epicurus and his apostle Lucretius must have been the most religious assertors of the Providence which they combated; for when they admitted the void and the termination of matter, a truth of which they had only an imperfect glimpse, it necessarily followed that matter was the being of necessity, existing by itself, since it was not indefinite: they had, therefore, in their own philosophy, and in their own despite, a demonstration that there is a Supreme Being, necessary, infinite, the fabricator of the universe. Newton's philosophy, which admits and proves the void and finite matter, also demonstratively proves the existence of a God.

Thus I regard true philosophers as the apostles of the Divinity. Each class of men requires its particular ones: a parish catechist tells children that there is a God, but Newton proves it to the wise.

In London, under Charles II. after Cromwell's wars, as at Paris under Henry IV. after the war of the Guises, people took great pride in being atheists: having passed from the excess of cruelty to that of pleasure, and corrupted their minds successively by war and by voluptuousness, they reasoned very indifferently since then, the more nature has been studied the better its author has been known.

One thing I will venture to believe, which is, that of all religions, theism is the most widely spread in the world: it is the prevailing religion of China; it is that of the wise among the Mahometans; and, among Christian philosophers, eight out of ten are of the same opinion. It has penetrated even into the schools of theology, into the cloisters, into the conclave; it is a sort of sect without association, without worship, without ceremonies, without disputes, and without zeal, spread through the world without having been preached. Theism, like Judaism, is to be found. amidst all religions; but it is singular that the latter, which is the extreme of superstition, abhorred by the people, and contemned by the wise, is everywhere tolerated for money; while the former, which is the opposite of superstition, unknown to the people, and