The Chai .tinst the /!/>///./ / r . 555 



hut little regard for their popularity, He haa ba 



an atheist, but that, as we li .. . will not do. I: 



had space we could fill pa^es with admissions on the 

 of all his ablest theological critics that he is not an ath- 

 \\V challenge the Post writer to produce a sii 

 in all his writings, in the Monthly or out, either avowing or 

 defending atheism. On the contrary, he has laboured with 

 all the power of his genius to prove that atheism a 

 theory of the universe (which it professes to be) is baseless 

 and indefensible. And more than this, no man of the pres- 

 ent age has reasoned out the foundations of man's belief 

 in the existence of the " Infinite and Eternal Spirit " with 

 such a depth of analysis and logical force as Herbert Spen- 

 cer. He has sought to show that the " Infinite and Eternal 

 Spirit," of which all the phenomena of the universe are but 

 the manifestations, is the most absolute of all realities. 



And still more than this is true. Mr. Spencer has gone 

 beyond the theologians in their own line, and has rescued 

 them from the consequences of their own logic. Every in- 

 telligent person knows that there has been a great progress 

 in the religious ideas of mankind ; and in nothing has that 

 progress been so clearly evinced as in the gradual elevation 

 of man's conceptions of the character of the deity he wor- 

 ships. During all the primitive ages religion was idolatry, 

 and still is so, almost all over the world. But with 

 growing intelligence there slowly arises a higher idea of 

 the Divine nature. Polytheism passes into monotheism, 

 and the gross, limited, anthropomorphic idea of God gives 

 place to the loftier ideal of an " Infinite and Eternal Spirit." 

 In this clearing away of limitations how far was the work 

 to go, and what to be finally left ? The theologians had 

 been driving destructive criticism to its last extreme, 

 with but little apparent care for the consequences. There 

 grew up a vigorous ecclesiastical agnosticism, asserted 

 even by the fathers of the Church. Clemens Alexaiulrinus 



