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the Music Hall, Warrington, April 10 and 11, 1861, on the question, What does the Bible teach about God? London: Ward & Co. (e) The Existence of God: A Discussion between Rev. Woodville Woodman, Minister of the New Jerusalem Church, Kersley, Lancashire, and Iconoclast, editor of the 'National Reformer,' held at Wigan, on February 18 to 21, 1861. London: J. S. Hodson. (f) Is the Bible a Divine Revelation? A Discussion between Rev. W. Woodman and Iconoclast, held at Ashton-under-Lyne, on October 21st, 22d, 28th, and 29th: London, 1861. (g) Modern Atheism and the Bible: Report of the Discussion between the Rev. W. Barker, Minister of Church Street Chapel, Blackfriars, and Iconoclast, editor of the National Reformer,' held at Cowper Street Schoolroom, September 1862: London. (h) Two Nights' Public Discussion between Thomas Cooper and Charles Bradlaugh, on the Being of a God as the Maker and Moral Governor of the Universe, at the Hall of Science, London, February 1 and 2, 1864. (i) What does Christian Theism Teach? verbatim Report of the Two Nights' Discussion between the Rev. A. J. Harrison and C. Bradlaugh: London, 1872. (j) South Place Debate between Rev. B. Grant and C. Bradlaugh London, 1875. For a Church of England clergyman's view of Mr Bradlaugh and the Secular Movement, see 'Heterodox London,' by Dr Maurice Davies.

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2. Charles Watts, editor of the Secular Review,' author of "Christian Evidences Criticised," "Why am I an Atheist ?" "Secularism in its Various Relations," and other pamphlets. Of the discussions in which he has taken part, those of which I have seen reports are: (a) Debate on the Christian Evidences between Mr C.

Watts and B. H. Cooper, Esq., at Stratford, February 16 and 23, 1871: London. (b) Full Report of the Public Discussion on the question, Is the Belief in an Infinite Personal Being Reasonable and Beneficial? between the Rev. Wm. Adamson, Evangelical Union. Minister, Edinburgh, and Mr C. Watts, Accredited Agent of the National Secular Society, London, in the New Waverley Hall, Edinburgh, on 4th and 5th of March 1872: Glasgow and London. (c) Four Nights' Public Discussion between the Rev. A. Stewart (of Aberdeen) and Mr C. Watts, on,-Is the Belief in the Being of an Infinite Personal God Reasonable? and Are the Four Gospels Authentic and worthy of Credit? London, 1873.

3. George William Foote, editor of the 'Liberal,' and author of 'Secularism Restated,' &c. He seeks to follow a via media between the paths of Mr Holyoake and Mr Bradlaugh.

4. Annie Besant, who has written Part II. of the 'Freethinkers' Text-book,' 'My Path to Atheism,' 'History of the Great French Revolution,' 'The Gospel of Atheism,' and various pamphlets. These works display talents which might have done much service in a good cause.

In some of the discussions to which I have referred the anti-secularist position is well defended-as, for example, by the Rev. Mr Adamson, Mr Hutchings, the Rev. T. Lawson, and the Rev. Mr Woodman. The 'Fallacies of Secularism,' by Dr Sexton, is judicious and able. I am not aware that there is any good account of the history of secularism.

NOTE XXIV., page 249.

THE ATHEISM OF SECULARISM.

I have not dealt specially with the arguments employed by secularists in favour of atheism, because there is nothing special in these arguments.

Mr Holyoake's attempt to overthrow the design argu-` ment by extending it, is the most original and distinctive portion of his reasoning against theism. It will be found in his 'Paley Refuted,' 'Trial of Theism,' 'Discussion with Townley,' &c. Conceding for his purpose that the design argument proves the personality of a Designer, he contends that all analogy and experience prove that every person is organised-that wherever there is intelligence there must be a brain, senses, and nerves—and concludes that the organisation of Deity must teem with marks of design, not less than other organisations, and consequently that Deity can only be thought of as a being who has had a maker. If the view I have given of the design argument be correct, such reasoning as this is obviously irrelevant. The design argument is from order to intelligence, and to intelligence only. Its inference is in no degree or respect to organisation-to brain, senses, and nerves.

Miss Collet, in the essay mentioned in the previous note, has some interesting remarks on Mr Holyoake's argument; and Dr J. Buchanan, in 'Faith in God and Modern Atheism,' vol. ii. pp. 242-261, refutes it in a most elaborate manner.

This singular argument, which Mr Holyoake many years ago rendered familiar to English working men, has

recently been reproduced by the late Prof. Clifford and the distinguished German physiologist Du Bois-Reymond, and addressed by them to scientifically educated persons. I quote the words of Du Bois-Reymond in order to have the pleasure of quoting also a part of the admirable reply given to them by Dr Martineau. Du Bois-Reymond's words are: "What can you say then to the student of nature if, before he allows a psychical principle to the universe, he asks to be shown, somewhere within it, embedded in neurine and fed with warm arterial blood under proper pressure, a convolution of ganglionic globules and nerve-tubes proportioned in size to the faculties of such a mind." Dr Martineau's words are: "What can we say?' I say, first of all, that this demand for a Divine brain and nerves and arteries comes strangely from those who reproach the theist with 'anthropomorphism.' In order to believe in God, they must be assured that the plates in 'Quain's Anatomy' truly represent Him. If it be a disgrace to religion to take the human as measure of the Divine, what place in the scale of honour can we assign to this stipulation? Next, I ask my questioner whether he suspends belief in his friends' mental powers till he has made sure of the contents of their crania? and whether, in the case of ages beyond reach, there are no other adequate vestiges of intellectual and moral life in which he places a ready trust? Immediate knowledge of mind other than his own he can never have: its existence in other cases is gathered from the signs of its activity, whether in personal lineaments or in products stamped with thought: and to stop this process of inference with the discovery of human beings is altogether arbitrary, till it is shown that the grounds for extending it are inadequate. Further, I

would submit that, in dealing with the problem of the Universal Mind, this demand for organic centralisation is strangely inappropriate. It is when mental power has to be localised, bounded, lent out to individual natures, and assigned to a scene of definite relations, that a focus must be found for it, and a molecular structure with determinate periphery be built for its lodgment. And were Du Bois - Reymond himself ever to alight on the portentous cerebrum which he imagines, I greatly doubt whether he would fulfil his promise and turn theist at the sight that he had found the Cause of causes would be the last inference it would occur to him to draw: rather would he look round for some monstrous creature, some kosmic megatherium, born to float and pasture on the fields of space. Quite in the sense of Du Bois-Reymond's objection was the saying of Laplace, that in scanning the whole heaven with the telescope he found no God; which again has its parallel in Lawrence's remark that the scalpel, in opening the brain, came upon no soul. Both are unquestionably true, and it is precisely the truth of the second which vitiates the intended inference from the first. Had the scalpel alighted on some perceptible yuxý, we might have required of the telescope to do the same; and, on its bringing in a dumb report, have concluded that there was only mechanism there. But, in spite of the knife's failure, we positively know that conscious thought and will were present, yet no more visible, yesterday: and so, that the telescope misses all but the bodies of the universe and their light, avails nothing to prove the absence of a Living Mind through all. If you take the wrong instruments, such quaesita may well evade you. The test-tube will not detect an insincerity, or the micro

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