elligent, personal God. There
are many specific varieties of Atheism; but, ultimately, they may be
reduced to _four_ classes. The _first_ system assumes and asserts the
eternal existence of THE COSMOS; that is, of the present order of
Nature, with all its laws and processes, its tribes and races, whether
of vegetable or animal life; and affirms that the world, as now
constituted, never had a beginning, and that it will never have an end.
This has been called the Aristotelian Hypothesis, because Aristotle,
while he spoke of a Supreme Mind or Reason, maintained not only the
eternity of matter, but also the eternity of "substantial forms and
qualities."

The _second_ system affirms, not the eternal existence of THE
COSMOS,--for the commencement of the existing order of Nature is
admitted to be comparatively recent,--but the eternal existence of
Matter and Motion; and attempts to account for the origin of the world
and of the races by which it is peopled, either by ascribing it, with
Epicurus, to a fortuitous concourse of atoms, or, with more modern
Speculatists, to a law of progressive development. This has been called
the Epicurean Hypothesis, because Epicurus, while nominally admitting
the existence of God, denied the creation of the world, and ascribed its
origin to atoms supposed to have been endued with motion or certain
inherent properties and powers, and to have been self-existent and
eternal.

The _third_ system affirms the coexistence and coeternity of God and the
World; and, while it admits a distinction between the two, represents
them as so closely and necessarily conjoined, that God can be regarded
only as the Soul of the World,--superior to matter, as soul is to body,
but neither anterior to it, nor independent of it, and subject, as
matter itself is, to the laws of necessity and fate. This has been
called the Stoical System; since the Stoics, notwithstanding all their
sublime moral speculations and their frequent recognition of God, taught
that God sustains the same relation to the World as the soul of man does
to his body.

The _fourth_ system denies the distinction between God and the World,
and affirms that all is God, and God is all; that there exists only _one
substance_ in the Universe, of which all existing beings are only so
many modes or manifestations; that these beings proceed from that _one_
substance, not by creation, but by emanation; that when they disappear,
they are not destroyed, but re