God?" The modern answer is an emphatic affirmative. Substantially we
have by searching found out God. We know the origin and history of one
of the greatest delusions that ever possessed the human mind. God has
been found out. Analytically and synthetically we understand the
god-idea as previous generations could not understand it. It has been
explained; and the logical consequence of the explanation is--Atheism.

Ultimately, then, we come to this: (1) The Agnosticism that concerns
itself with a confession of ignorance concerning the nature of
"existence," has no necessary connection with religion, and is only made
to have such by a confusion of two distinct things. (2) The plea of a
suspended judgment is invalid, since there is nothing about which one
can suspend a decision. (3) The Agnosticism that professes a
semi-religious feeling of reverence towards the "Unknowable" is
fundamentally upon all fours with the religious feelings of the ordinary
believer. Worshipping the Unknowable is more ridiculous than worshipping
Huxley's "wilderness of apes." The apes _might_ take some intelligent
interest in the antics of their devotees; but to print our hypostatised
ignorance in capital letters and then profess a feeling of veneration
for it is as ridiculous a proceeding as the world has seen. After all,
an absurdity is never quite so grotesque as when it is tricked out in
scientific phrases and paraded as the outcome of profound philosophic
thinking. (4) The only Agnosticism that seems capable of justifying
itself is an Agnosticism that is indistinguishable from Atheism. To
again cite Professor Flint, Atheist "means one who does not believe in
God, and it means neither more nor less." The Agnostic is also one who
is without belief in a god, every argument he uses to justify his
position is and has been used as a justification of Atheism. Atheist is
really "a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term," it admits of no
paltering and of no evasion, and the need of the world, now as ever, is
for clear-cut issues and unambiguous speech.

CHAPTER XIV.

ATHEISM AND MORALS.

Looking at the world as it is one cannot forbear a mild wonder at the
fears expressed at the probable consequences to morals of a general
acceptance of Atheism. One would have thought that the world would not
run a very great danger of becoming worse on that account, and that,
seeing the way in which all forms of rascality have flourished, and
still maintain t