240 Force ^ Energy, and Will 



of truth to point out that the absokite desirabiUty of truth 

 cannot logically be an axiom with non-theists. The conse- 

 quences, then, of the teaching referred to are, it may be with 

 confidence affirmed, simply fatal in their tendency to both 

 morality and freedom, an utterly immoral tyranny being* 

 their natural result. 



In deprecation of such a judgment as that here recorded, 

 the Professor tells us, (1) that Mr. Holyoake and other non- 

 theists kno^vn to him are excellent as fathers, husbands, 

 neighbours, and citizens, free from moral shiftiness, and 

 scrupulously faithful to engagements ; and (2) he draws out 

 his own method of dealing with criminal offenders. As 

 to the first point, far from contesting it, it is a great satis- 

 faction to me to be able to quote words of my own of similar 

 effect — words addressed, not to the pubHc of the Nineteenth 

 Gentiiry, but to the most ultramontane class of readers to be 

 found in England. I then said : — ^ 



' No one has a stronger sense than I have of the estimable qualities 

 of many of our English " advanced " thinkers, both in their civil and 

 in their domestic relations. I have had personal experience of, and 

 bear most willing testimony to, the self-denying philanthropy and 

 purity of life of men whom I cannot claim as brother theists, but to 

 whom for these reasons I cannot but look up with sincere admiration.' 



But what valid argument can be draAvn from such admission 

 in favour of atheism ? The old reply, that existing atheists 

 are the outcome of Christian ancestors and of a more or less 

 Christian environment, obviously accounts fully for such 

 phenomena which should be expected a 2^Tiori. 



Every one knows how much better men often are than 

 their creeds, and there is no more reason to doubt the good- 

 ness of Hfe than the honest sincerity of unbelievers. Full}- 

 maintaining that atheists generally are not only in error but 

 culpable (though not, of course, necessarily more culpable 



^ Dublin Eevieiv for 1876. 



