be no evidence that it is uncaused by intelligence; it can only entitle us to affirm that if the series have a cause, the cause must be eternal, since the effect is eternal. The hypothesis of an eternal series of worlds is thus an utterly vain and unreasonable device; a most futile attempt to evade the obligation of belief in God.

There is an atheism which teaches us that matter and its laws account for all the harmonies and utilities of nature, for all the faculties and aspirations of the human soul, and for the progress of history. But this form of atheism also, popular although it be, fails to establish any of its pretensions. It neither accounts for matter and its laws nor shows that they do not require to be accounted for. It assumes the self-existence of matter and its laws, although theism founding on science undertakes to show that they must have had an origin. The basis of this atheism is therefore a manifest petitio principii. And, even with its initial assumption, it does not explain the harmonies of the physical universe, nor the properties of vegetable and animal life, nor the mind of man, nor his moral principles and religious convictions. It puts what is lowest and most imperfect first, what is highest and most perfect last. It regards this contradiction of all rational thinking as a grand achievement.

There is an atheism, incredible as it may sound,

which teaches that the universe, with all its objects and laws, is the creation of the finite human mind. What we call outward things are, according to this hypothesis, but mental states. All that is is ego; is the self-acting of itself and limiting itself, and so producing the non-ego or universe. Such is the doctrine on which a kind of atheism has been founded, which has sometimes received the name of autotheism, seeing that it would make man his. own God and the creator of the heavens and earth. The celebrated Fichte was, at a certain stage of his philosophical career, accused of atheism in this form. He was supposed to teach a purely subjective idealism which would have been irreconcilable with any worthier religious theory; to maintain that the moral order of the universe which he identified with God was, like the universe itself, the creation of the personal ego. But he indignantly repelled the charge and denied that he had ever confounded the personal with the absolute ego, or taught a purely subjective idealism, or overlooked that development is inexplicable without belief in an immutable Being; and although the view generally given of his philosophy is inconsistent with these exculpatory statements, I believe that they must be accepted. It is admitted on all hands that, later in life, this noble-minded man was neither subjective idealist nor autotheist. Schopenhauer and others do not hesitate to tell

us that within the mind, some of them expressly say within the brain, of man, the immensities of time and space and all their contents lie enclosed; in Schopenhauer's own language, "did not human brains, objects scarcely as big as a large fruit, sprout up incessantly, like mushrooms, the world would sink into nothingness." This strange hypothesis finds a strange counterpart in the speculations of two of the latest of German atheists as to the magnitude of the brain. Schopenhauer thought it no bigger than it seemed to be, and yet supposed that it contained the universe. Czolbe and Ueberweg fancy that its apparent size is but an extremely diminished picture of its real size; that, in fact, it is colossal, stretching beyond the fixed stars, and covering the whole field of vision. Certainly either the universe would require to be much smaller than it is, or the mind of man much greater than it is, before the notion that the latter is the source or cause of the former can be for a moment entertained. The atheism which makes the finite mind the creator and sustainer of the universe is its own best refutation.

Atheism, then, yields no satisfaction to the reason, but is in all its forms a violation of the conditions of rational belief. Does it satisfy better The atheist is without

the demands of the heart?

God in the world, and therefore has only the

world.

Will the world without God satisfy a

human heart? No man will venture to maintain that material things and outward advantagesmeat and drink and raiment, wealth, honours, influence can satisfy it. The heart of man-the atheist himself, if he be a person of any refinement and elevation of character, will grant at once-cannot be content with merely material and earthly good; it must have something which responds to higher faculties than the sensuous and the selfish. It would be to insult the atheist to suppose him even to doubt this. What he will say is that although without God there remains to him truth, beauty, and virtue, and that these things will yield to him such satisfaction as his nature admits of, and one of which he needs not be ashamed. Let us see.

The truth in which the atheist must seek the satisfaction of his heart can only be, of course, mere truth,-truth apprehended not as expressive of the thought and affection and will of God, but as expressive of the properties and relations of material things and human beings. Suppose, however, that a man knew not only all that science has at present to tell, but all that it will ever be able to tell about the world of matter and the mind of man and human history, would it be reasonable to expect this fully to satisfy him? I think not. Were all that is to be known about the material universe actually known, the man who

knew it would simply have within himself the true reflection of what was existing without him; on his spirit which thinks there would simply be a correct picture of that which does not think. But the soul which would not be satisfied with the very world itself, could it have it, will surely not be satisfied with that pale reflection of it which constitutes science. The soul which is itself so superior every way to the world cannot have for its highest end merely to serve as a mirror to it, and to show forth not the likeness and glory of God, but of what is without life, without reason, and without love. And were all that is to be known about the mind of man actually known, the soul which knew it would only have a knowledge of itself. But could any person except a fool rest in complacent contemplation of himself? True self-knowledge is very much the reverse of pleasant or satisfying. Shame and terror are often its most natural effects. Science, culture, truth, when separated from their one eternal source in the Infinite Life, the Infinite Love, show us nothing higher than our own poor selvesnothing that we can look up to-no object of trust, of adoration, of affection. How, then, can they satisfy hearts, the true life of which consists in the exercise of faith and hope, reverence and love? Severed from what will worthily develop the higher emotional principles of human nature,