in short, that Life, Nature, and Morals are self-sufficient, and independent of religion. Beyond this aspect of Atheism is yet another, numbering at present no definitely attached adherents besides its enthusiastic propounder, but evidently received with pleasure by many listeners during the last three years. This new Gospel owns to the paradoxical title of Religious Atheism, and is put forth by Mr. Lionel Holdreth, the most cultivated and coherent thinker of whom the Atheist party can boast. He does not, in fact, belong to the working-classes either by birth or education, although his sympathies with them are of the warmest. A little volume of poems, entitled "Shadows of the Past," is the only separate volume he has published; and all his other communications to the Free-thinking public have been made through the columns of the Reasoner. The reactionary "infidels" hate religion: Mr. Holyoake wishes to be neutral to it: Mr. Holdreth desires to reincarnate it in another form. Such are the three phases of the organized Atheistic party in England, the central body shading off into the two others at either extremity. Passing by the first section, as presenting mere hollow word-controversy, untinged by any real passion for Truth, we propose to examine the second and third sections at some length.

The disintegrated state of Theology in the present day has given rise to the necessity for preaching the Gospel of Free Utterance, wholly distinct from any decision as to what is to be uttered. To preach this Gospel has been, in the main, Mr. Holyoake's vocation. But now that the right to speak has been so largely won, the question arises, "What have you to say?" and the metaphysical and spiritual bearings of the subject come into prominence. To this question Mr. Holyoake has endeavored to give some coherent reply in his recent work, "The Trial of Theism," in which he has reprinted and revised the chief papers on theological subjects which he had written during the previous ten years, with other matter here first published. It is a singular book; utterly destitute of anything like systematic thought, and scarcely less deficient in any arrangement of its materials; painfully unequal, both in substance and tone. Frequently we come upon noble, earnest, manly writing, which indicates real intellectual power, and

fine perception; then comes some passage so puerile, so weak, so indiscriminating, as to cause quite a revulsion of feeling in the reader's mind. What makes this frequently-recurring contrast more singular is, that those chapters which are reprints of former papers are mostly revised with minute care, the alterations often indicating delicate discrimination and real expansion of mind. (Chap. 27, which is a reprint of "The Logic of Death," is an instance of this.) Yet the entirely new matter is often of quite inferior quality, both in thought and expression. It would seem inexplicable how a writer who could give us the better portions of this book could endure to put forth some other parts of it, were not this inequality a phenomenon of such frequent recurrence in literature as to be one of its standing anomalies. Intellectual harmony is almost as rare as moral consistency, and men of even the finest genius too often cultivate one side of their nature to the positive neglect of others. The prominent side of Mr. Holyoake's nature is the moral and practical. He belongs to the concrete world of men, rather than to the abstract world of ideas. The best parts of his book are the delineations of character, some of which are very felicitous. Chapter 14, on Mr. Francis Newman, and Chapter 29, on "Unitarian Theism," give the highwater mark of his religious character-sketches. A man who could thus appreciate the leading ideas of his opponents might (one would think) do great things in theological reform. But note the limiting condition of his power! - he can appreciate these ideas when incarnated in another human mind, but it is mainly through his human sympathies that he does so. Neither the religious instincts nor the speculative intuitions are sufficiently magnetic and passionate in his own nature to force their way to an independent creative existence. Whenever he turns to the region of abstract thought, his power seems to depart from him. And this book, which deals almost exclusively with speculative themes, is a marked illustration of it. It manifests all the weaknesses, and but very little of the best strength, of his mind. Thus it affords no clew to the real benefits which, in spite of grave errors, his movement has produced for many among the working-classes; while it shows plainly the barriers which must ever limit any movement,

however sincere, which excludes religion from the field of human life.

We ought not, however, to quit this point without quoting the author's apology for some of the imperfections of his work.

"If anything written on the following pages give any Theist the impression that his views, devoutly held, are treated with dogmatism or contempt, the writer retracts the offending phrases. Theological opinion is now so diversified, that he has long insisted on the propriety of classifying, in controversy, the schools of thought, and identifying the particular type of each person, so that any remarks applied to him alone shall not be found at large' reflecting upon those to whom they were never intended to apply. If just cause of offence is found in this book, it will be through some inadvertent neglect of this rule.

6

"The doctrine is quite just, that crude or incomplete works ought to be withheld from publication; and the author reluctantly prints so much as is here presented. If this book be regarded, as it might with some truth, as a species of despatch from the field of battle, the reader will tolerate the absence of art and arrangement in it. The plan contemplated that of taking the authors on the side of Theism who represented chronological phases of thought — required more time than the writer could command. From these pages, as they stand, some unfamiliar with the present state of Theistical discussion may obtain partial direction in untrodden paths. Hope of leisure in which to complete anything systematic has long delayed the appearance of this book, after the writer had seen that many might be served even by so slender a performance. At length he confesses, in a literary sense (if he may so use words which bear a spiritual meaning), —

Time was he shrank from what was right,

From fear of what was wrong:

He would not brave the sacred fight,
Because the foe was strong.

'But now he casts that finer sense

And sorer shame aside;

Such dread of sin was indolence,

Such aim at Heaven was pride.' - Lyra Apostolica."

In seeking for the central pivot of the movement which Mr. Holyoake represents, we find it in the Independence and Selfsufficiency of Ethics, - their independence of Theology, their

*Preface to "The Trial of Theism."

sufficiency in themselves to the needs of man.

This doctrine

is a compound of several elements, some of which are doubtless valuable truths, while others are serious errors. Το disentangle these from each other is now our task. The following passages sufficiently sketch Mr. Holyoake's position. The first is from an early number of the Reasoner, the second will be found in the Trial of Theism.

66

Anti-religious controversy, which was originally, and ever should be, but a means of rescuing morality from the dominion of future-world speculation, became an end, -noisy, wordy, vexed, capricious, angry, imputative, recriminative, and interminable.

"To reduce this chaos of aims to some plan, to discriminate objects, to proportion attention to them, to make controversy just as well as earnest, and, above all, to rescue morality from the ruins of theological arguments, were the intentions of the Reasoner. It began by announcing itselfUtilitarian in Morals,' and resting upon utility as a basis. In all reforms it took unequivocal interest, and only assailed Theology when Theology assailed Utility. The Reasoner aimed not so much to create a party, as to establish a purpose. It threw aside the name of 'Infidel,' because it was chiefly borne by men who were disbelievers in secret, but who had seldom the honor to avow it openly. It threw aside the termSceptic' as a noun, as the name of a party, because it wished to put an end to a vain and cavilling race, who had made the negation of Theology a profession, and took advantage of their disbelief in the Church to disbelieve in honor and truth." *

"Let any one look below the mere surface of pulpit declamation, and ask himself two questions: What has even Atheism, on the whole, meant? What has it, on the whole, sought, even in its negative and least favorable aspect? It has, in modern times, disbelieved all accounts of the origin of nature by an act of creation, and of the government of nature by a Supreme Being distinct from nature. It has felt these accounts to be unintelligible and misleading, and has suggested that human dependence and morals, in their widest sense, should be founded on a basis independent of Scriptural authority; and it has done this under the conviction, expressed or unexpressed, that greater simplicity, unanimity, and earnestness of moral effort would be the result. This is what it has meant, and this is what it has sought. The main popular force of speculative argument has been to show that morals ought to stand on ground independent of the uncertain and ever-contested dogmas of the churches."†

*Reasoner, No. 57.

† Trial of Theism, p. 135.

Now this desire to sever life and ethics from "the dominion of future-world speculation," is not without its true side. When the great synthetic conceptions of life which arose out of deep religious impulses are breaking up through the imperfections of the doctrinal forms in which they are incarnated, it is necessary to deal with each element separately, before the general mind can reach the point at which it becomes possible to recast the whole. And in these periods of transition, we often see special teachers whose vocation seems to be the preaching of those supplementary truths which are needed to bridge the chasms, to detach moral realities from the crude doctrinal form in which they were no longer credible, and so to prepare us for a completer view, in which they shall hold a truer position. The connection of morals with theology has hitherto been frequently taught on an incomplete basis,namely, that the ground of duty was only to be found in God's command. Thus whatever was held to be God's command was exacted from men as duty; and any criticism of the supposed command, as violating conscience or reason, was at once condemned as rebellion,-God's will being represented as the only criterion of right. In early and unreflective stages of development, the errors of this doctrine were mostly latent; but when the moral and intellectual elements in spiritual life arrive at a distinct and separate existence, a fuller and more discriminating estimate of the truth becomes imperative. That Moral Obligation is inherently sacred, and that the sense of this obligation does not necessarily imply belief in a Person who claims our obedience, is true; and it is a truth which needs to be clearly recognized, and which is recognized by many of the most religious thinkers of the day. It is also true that a common possession of Moral Truth forms a positive ground of union for its votaries; and this, too, is important in an age when so much difference exists between good men on religious subjects. So far as Mr. Holyoake has preached the independent foundation and positive nature of Ethics, he has been working on solid ground, and his work has been productive of useful results, which may long outlive their polemic environment. But when he proceeds to erect these doctrines into a basis of neutrality to religion, he enters new ground.