ry is too useful with the crowd to lead to the
conviction that anything one could say would lead to its disuse. In the
dialogue of Lucian's to which we have referred, and after the theist has
been refuted by the Atheist, Hermes consoles the chief deity, Zeus, by
telling him that even though a few may have been won over by the
arguments of the Atheist, the vast majority, "the whole mass of
uneducated Greeks and the Barbarians everywhere," still remain firm in
their faith. And although Zeus replies that he would prefer one sensible
man to a thousand fools, when a case depends upon the adherence of the
relatively foolish, numbers will always bring some consolation to the
champions of an intellectually distressed creed.

CHAPTER XI.

WHAT IS ATHEISM?

Between Atheism and Theism there is no logical halting place. But there
are, unfortunately, many illogical ones. Few possess the capacity for
pushing their ideas to a logical conclusion, and some position is
finally discovered which has the weakness of both extremes with the
strength of neither. With many there is vague talk of a "Power"
manifested in the universe, and by giving this the dignity of capital
letters it is evidently hoped that ether people will recognise it as an
equivalent for God. But power, with or without capitals, is not God. It
is not the existence of a "Power" that forms the kernel of the dispute
between the Theist and the Atheist, but what that power is like. The
issue arises on the point of whether it is personal or not. That it is,
is what the religious man believes. As Mr. Balfour says, when the plain
man speaks of God he means "a God whom men can love, to whom men can
pray, who takes sides, who has purposes and preferences, whose
attributes, however conceived, leaves the possibility of a personal
relation between Himself and those whom he has created." ("Theism and
Humanism," p. 21.) What the genuine believer has in view is not the
worthless abstraction of a rationalised metaphysic, but the personal
being of historic theology.

It is now my purpose to take a few of these substitutes for Atheism by
the aid of which some persons seek to mark themselves off from a
declared and reasoned unbelief. As outstanding examples of this one may
take two men of no less eminence than Herbert Spencer and Professor
Huxley. Both of these men have rendered great service to advanced
thought, but both have only succeeded in repudiating Atheism by
misstating a