tion,
still there are temptations to unbelief, and these have led men to
atheism. I cannot think of an atheist unless I associate in my thoughts
the words:

"The ruling passion, be it what it may--
The ruling passion conquers reason still."

The atheist has decided not to believe in the existence of a God, unless
he can see Him and understand Him; in other words, the finite would
comprehend the infinite. Following the logical method of reasoning of an
atheist, the simple fact of seeing God in no way ought to prove his
existence. For when you say you see a person, and that you have not the
least doubt about it, I answer, that what you are really conscious of is
an affection of your retina. And if you urge that you can check your
sight of the person by touching him, I would answer, that you are
equally transgressing the limits of fact; for what you are really
conscious of is, not that he is there, but that the nerves of your hand
have undergone a change. All you hear and see and touch and taste and
smell are mere variations of your own condition, beyond which, even to
the extent of a hair's-breadth, you cannot go. That anything answering
to your impression exists outside of yourself is not a _fact_, but an
_inference_, to which all validity would be denied by an idealist like
Berkeley, or by a skeptic like Hume.[66]

Thomas Cooper[67] said:

"I do not say--there is no God;
But this I say--I KNOW NOT."

Mr. Bradlaugh says: "The atheist does not say, 'There is no God'; but he
says, I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the
word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation.
I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no
conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so
imperfect that he is unable to define it to me."

Austin Holyoake[68] says: "The only way of proving the fallacy of
atheism is by _proving_ the existence of a God."

If it is logical proof that is wanted, there is plenty. The following
arguments, although not all meeting my approbation, are still of
interest:

The _Ontological Argument_ has been presented in different forms. 1.
Anselm,[69] Archbishop of Canterbury (1093-1109), states this argument
thus: We have an idea of an infinitely perfect being. But real existence
is an element of infinite perfection. Therefore an infinitely perfect
being exists; otherwise the infinitely perfect, as we conceive it, would
lack a