18(3 HUME 



VIII 



conformity of meaning, to rank such opposite opinions under 

 the same denomination. 



"To any one who considers justly of the matter, it will 

 appear that the gods of the polytheists are no better than the 

 elves and fairies of our ancestors, and merit as little as any pious 

 worship and veneration. These pretended religionists are really 

 a kind of superstitious atheists, and acknowledge no being that 

 corresponds to our idea of a Deity. No first principle of mind 

 or thought ; no supreme government and administration ; no 

 divine contrivance or intention in the fabric of the world." 

 (IV. pp. 45051.) 



The doctrine that you may call an atheist 

 anybody whose ideas about the Deity do not 

 correspond with your own, is so largely acted 

 upon by persons who are certainly not of Hume's 

 way of thinking and, probably, so far from having 

 read him, would shudder to open any book 

 bearing his name, except the " History of England," 

 that it is surprising to trace the theory of their 

 practice to such a source. 



But on thinking the matter over, this theory 

 seems so consonant with reason, that one feels 

 ashamed of having suspected many excellent 

 persons of being moved by mere malice and 

 viciousness of temper to call other folks atheists, 

 when, after all, they have been obeying a purely 

 intellectual sense of fitness. As Hume says, truly 

 enough, it is a mere fallacy, because two people 

 use the same names for things, the ideas of which 

 are mutually exclusive, to rank such opposite 

 opinions under the same denomination. If the 



