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CHAPTEE XIII. 



CONSEQUENCES. 



&quot; The consequences which flow from the acceptance or rejection of 

 the teaching here advocated are and must be most momentous both 

 to individuals and the community. Those who reject it are logically 

 driven into extreme and irrational negation. Its bearing upon conduct 

 is direct, and must of necessity powerfully affect the future condition 

 of society through popular education. Such conseqiiences may ra 

 tionally serve to reinforce conclusions before arrived at on other 

 grounds.&quot; 



HAVING learned from Nature the lesson just deduced 

 that as to her first and final causes, we may now, yarious COI1 . 

 in the last place, consider certain &quot; consequences &quot; gp^Xtive 

 consequences of several kinds. andpracticai. 



First, we may consider the consequences resulting from 

 our acceptance of the teaching of rational nature as to the 

 intellect and will (resulting, as we have seen, in Theism), 

 and in connexion therewith, our own immortality : secondly, 

 the consequences of the rejection of that teaching (in the 

 form of Atheism and Pantheism), noting the extremes to 

 which logic drives those who thus reject it : thirdly and 

 lastly, the necessary consequences of such rejection as 

 regards conduct, i.e., the practical tendencies which thence 

 arise. 



Glancing retrospectively over the consequences of the 

 various controversies which have come under our conse- 



quences of 



observation about (I.) our own existence the .Lgo ; controversies 

 (II.) about the Will, and (III.) lastly about God, ^ 

 we may see that the efforts which have been made to impugn 

 these truths seem likely to have as their consequences the 



