lly likely that the inculpated classes might really
believe what it is _their_ interest to believe. The idea of a _guilty_
understanding existing among fundholders, or landholders, or any holders,
all the country over, and never detected except by bouncing pamphleteers,
is a theory which should have been left for Cobbett[818] to propose, and
for Apella to believe.[819]

[_August_, 1866. A pamphlet shows how to pay the National Debt. Advance
paper to railways, etc., receivable in payment of taxes. The railways pay
interest and principal in money, with which you pay your national debt, and
redeem your notes. Twenty-five years of interest redeems the notes, and
then the principal pays the debt. Notes to be kept up to value by
penalties.]

THEISM INDEPENDENT OF REVELATION.

The Reasoner. No. 45. Edited by G.J. Holyoake.[820] Price _2d._ Is
there sufficient proof of the existence of God? 8vo. 1847.

This acorn of the holy oak was forwarded to me with a manuscript note,
signed by the editor, on the part of the {400} "London Society of
Theological Utilitarians," who say, "they trust you may be induced to give
this momentous subject your consideration." The supposition that a
middle-aged person, known as a student of thought on more subjects than
one, had that particular subject yet to begin, is a specimen of what I will
call the _assumption-trick_ of controversy, a habit which pervades all
sides of all subjects. The tract is a proof of the good policy of letting
opinions find their level, without any assistance from the Court of Queen's
Bench. Twenty years earlier the thesis would have been positive, "There is
sufficient proof of the non-existence of God," and bitter in its tone. As
it stands, we have a moderate and respectful treatment--wrong only in
making the opponent argue absurdly, as usually happens when one side
invents the other--of a question in which a great many Christians have
agreed with the atheist: that question being--Can the existence of God be
proved independently of revelation? Many very religious persons answer this
question in the negative, as well as Mr. Holyoake. And, this point being
settled, all who agree in the negative separate into those who can endure
scepticism, and those who cannot: the second class find their way to
Christianity. This very number of _The Reasoner_ announces the secession of
one of its correspondents, and his adoption of the Christian faith. This
would not have hap