1 40 NURSERY THEOLOGY. 



be clearly displayed.* To similar elevated motives may 

 probably be ascribed more recent heroic philosophic on- 

 slaughts upon religion. 



Prejudice against priests ; the disparagement of those who 

 hope for or believe in a future state ; a vague affectation of 

 a belief in some fanciful unintelligent conglomeration of 

 humanity, past, present, and to come ; very positive and 

 very arbitrary assertions concerning physical causation; 

 convictions concerning a demonstration about to be of some 

 universal antecedent or undefinable uncognizable univer- 

 sum ; confidence in matter ; unbounded belief in property ; 

 admiration of the nullipotential idea, appear to be some of 

 the broad conceptions upon which it is sought to establish 

 the new Epicurean system. 



In all ages of the world teachers have sought to gain 

 power by severity and terrorism, so now we find the minds 

 of pupils being prepared for the reception of the truths 

 of materialism by a threatening intimation of the fate that 

 will befall those who turn a deaf ear to the teaching of the 

 benign materialist. Nor is the period of infliction of punish- 

 ment to be long put off. " Discard your nursery theology," 

 says the teacher, " before you venture to listen to an account 

 of the mighty truths revealed during the actions and re- 

 actions of molecules. Cease at once to believe in the theo- 

 logy of children, or you shall be consigned to the herd of 

 fools or savages that people the greater part of the world. 

 Abandon your nursery theology, which has cramped your 

 intellect, and then come to me and be comforted by the 

 contemplation of the grandeur of the conception of the 



* Quoted in remarks on the "Life and Poem of Lucretius," by 

 Rev. J. S. Watson, p. 6, note. 



