18 
MALLERY. 
early Christians the title of atheists, which seems to have 
struck them so favorably as a word of revilement that they 
ever after used it indiscriminately in their own polemics, 
sometimes with such adjuncts as to form what the old 
rhetoric called catachresis but our modern speech calls Irish 
bull. Athanasius stigmatized the Arians as “polytheists 
and atheists ” and Servetus called Calvin a “ trinitarian and 
an atheist.” So recently as 1696 the Parliament at Edin¬ 
burgh passed an act against “ the atheistical opinions of the 
deists,” of course without understanding either term but in 
an honest attempt to blacken all teachers who did not agree 
with the Scotch Solons. Archbishop Tillotson was branded 
as an Arian, a Socinian, a deist, and an atheist. This was 
promiscuous denunciation raised to the highest power avail¬ 
able in Jacobite involution. The latest and mildest accusa¬ 
tion against Philosophy is that it is pococurantism and the 
affectation of serene olympian composure which contemplates 
the great cycles of Time as the hours of a passing day. In 
briefer phrase, philosophers are denounced as contemplating 
and not working. 
A distinction which such accusers make between those 
whom they call workers and those whom they stigmatize 
as theorists and doctrinaires is found in their declaration 
that all the greatness of men and the effectiveness of bodies 
of men have been shown in their “beliefs,” meaning religious 
beliefs. It is broadly asserted that the men who have believed 
in some particular religion and have acted vigorously on 
their belief are the only men who have done good in the 
world. That part of the proposition referring to “ good ” 
will generally be affected by prejudices. To illustrate from 
modern history, it is certain that the Puritans and the Jesuits 
were vehemently earnest in their beliefs and that they vigor¬ 
ously carried out their beliefs, but as they strove against each 
other it would not be likely that either should regard the 
work of the other as beneficial to the world. In our day 
they would join in condemning the work of the Mormons 
who believe as intensely and act on their belief as strongly 
