EDITOR'S TABLE. 



405 



sober bigot any better ? It is tbe com- 

 mon and very foolish trick of religious 

 partisans to stigmatize those who dif- 

 fer from them in their views of De- 

 ity 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 concep- 

 tion of God is low, gross, and materi- 

 alistic, is every higher view charged 

 with atheism. There is, however, no 

 honest difficulty here. We have exact- 

 ly 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 dis- 

 tinctly as an atheist. He has, besides, 

 a large following in open agreement 

 with him, and who may, therefore, be 

 properly called atheists. A " pro- 

 nounced atheist," in short, must sim- 

 ply 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 tbe 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 pro- 

 nounced 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-ex- 

 istence of " tbe 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 giv- 

 en his proof. It is this and nothing 

 else, that " the papers of Herbert Spen- 

 cer and others of his class" have ap- 

 peared in "The Popular Science Month- 

 ly." 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 de- 

 clared 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 pas- 

 sage in all his writings, in the "Month- 

 ly " or out, either avowing or defend- 

 ing 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 tbe 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 manifes- 

 tations, is the most absolute of all re- 

 alities. 



And still more than this is true. 

 Mr. Spencer has gone beyond the theo- 

 logians in their own line, and has res- 

 cued them from the consequences of 

 their own logic. Every intelligent per- 

 son knows that there has been a great 

 progress in tbe religious ideas of man- 



