d explains it out of
existence. It admits the reality of gods as it admits the reality of
ghosts and fairies and witches. They are subjective, not objective,
realities. Atheism takes the god-idea, explains its origin, describes
its subsequent development, and in so doing indicates its ultimate fate.
In this sense Atheism is, as I have said, no more than the final stage
of a long historical process. The theistic phase of thought is an
inevitable one in human evolution, but it is no more a permanent one
than is the belief in hobgoblins. One might here paraphrase Bacon and
say, "A little philosophy inclineth a man to belief in the gods, but
depth in philosophy leads to their rejection as a false and useless
hypothesis." It is true that thinking brought the gods into the world;
it is also true that adequate thinking carries them out again.

The cardinal truth is, of course, that the hypothesis of mind in nature
does not owe its existence to an exact knowledge of things but to its
absence. Its origin must be sought in a pre-scientific age and its
persistence in a number of extraneous circumstances which have
perpetuated a belief that would otherwise have inevitably disappeared.
And it would indeed be a matter for surprise if this belief--said by
theists to be of all beliefs the most profound--should be the one
speculation on which savage thought has justified itself. On no other
question did the primitive mind reach truth. Universally its
speculations concerning the world were discovered to be wrong. On this
one topic we are asked to believe that the savage was absolutely right.

From the age of fetichism--rightly called by Comte the creative age in
theology--the history of the god-idea has been a history of a series of
modifications and rejections. Scarce an invention that has not slain a
god, scarce a discovery has not marked the burying-place of a discarded
deity. Criticism reduced the gods in number and limited them in power.
Advancing knowledge pushed them back till nature, "rid of her haughty
lords," is conceived as a huge mechanism, self-acting, self-adjusting,
and self-repairing. Even in the mouths of religionists "God" to-day
stands for little more than a force. We must not describe him as
personal, as intelligent, or as conscious, and between this and the
existence assumed by atheistic science it is impossible to detect any
vital difference. Atheism, then, takes its stand upon the observed trend
of human history,