h I have formerly believed many things
without reason, and even many against it, as is very common, I hope I
shall never more. My mind (I was going to say, thank God) is sane at
present, and I intend to keep it so. I am aware that at the expression
just used some will exclaim in triumph, that the poor wretch could not
help thinking of his God at the same time he was denying him. The
observation would hold good, if it were not that we often speak and
write unpremeditately and though what is in this manner unpremeditately
expressed upon a revision should be certainly expunged, yet I chuse to
leave the expression to shew the force of habit.

In fear lies the origin of all fancied deities, whether sole or
numberless.

_Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor._

But the great debasement of the human mind is evidenced in the instance
of attributing a merit to belief, which has come at last to be stiled a
virtue, and is dignified by the name of faith, that most pitiful of all
human qualities. When the apostle spoke of faith, hope and charity, he
might as well have exclaimed the least of the three is faith, as the
greatest is charity.

One enthusiast cries out _un Roi_ and another _un Dieu_. The reality of
the king I admit, because I feel his power. Against my feeling and my
experience I cannot argue, for upon these sensations is built all
argument. But not all the wondrous works of the creation, as I hear the
visible operations of nature called, convince me in the least of the
existence of a Deity. By nature I mean to express the whole of what I
see and feel, that whole, I call self-existent from all eternity; I
admit a principle of intelligence and design, but I deny that principle
to be extraneous from itself. My creed in fine is the same with that of
the Roman poet;

_"Deus est ubicunque movemur."_

If then I am admitted to explain my deity in this sense, I am not an
atheist, nor can any one else in the world be such. The _vis naturae_,
the perpetual industry, intelligence and provision of nature must be
apparent to all who see, feel or think. I mean to distinguish this
active, intelligent and designing principle, inherent as much in matter
as the properties of gravity or any elastic, attractive or repulsive
power, from any extraneous foreign force and design in an invisible
agent, supreme though hidden lord and maker over all effects and
appearances that present themselves to us in the course of nature.