hemselves, without in the least disturbing people's
religious convictions, one might even feel inclined to risk a change in
the hopes of improvement. Mainly, indeed, one might say that those who
are affected by religious belief are such as can very well do without
it, while those who stand in urgent need of moral improvement seldom
show that their religious belief has any very beneficial effect on their
conduct.

Yet nothing is more common than to find the theist, when driven off all
other grounds of defence, protesting against a deliberate propaganda of
Atheism on the ground of its probable harmful consequences to morals.
This, not because those who have publicly professed Atheism are open to
the charge of loose living, but on account of those who at present
believe in religion, and whose loss of belief would possibly upset their
moral equilibrium. It is a curious position for a theist to take up,
since it implies that while the Atheist as we know him shows no
deterioration of character in consequence of his loss of belief, we
cannot be so certain of the present believers in deity. They are formed
of poorer clay, and once convinced that there is no God with whom they
have to reckon, there is no telling what will happen. So we are urged to
let well alone, and leave believers with their illusions lest their loss
should present us with a very unpleasant reality.

This fear is expressed in various ways, but in one way or another it is
tolerably common. The following which reached me from a well known man
of letters probably puts the argument as fairly and as temperately as it
can be put, and therefore in dealing with that I cannot be accused of
taking the theist at an unfair advantage. His conclusions are summarised
in the following paragraphs. (The summary is the author's, not mine.)

(1) The decentish code of morals which prevails in this twentieth
century is the outcome of all the human ages. From the very first,
everywhere and all the time, it has, and continues to be, inextricably
intertwined and influenced by Theistic beliefs, even when and where such
beliefs have been the crudest and most debased form of polytheism.

(2) The ethical atmosphere in which we now live, after having had such
an origin and history, remains strongly and frankly pervaded by religion
of a Theistic type. Atheist, Agnostic, and Theist alike have to live in
this atmosphere, and consciously or unconsciously, are subject to its
influence.

(