The Atheist does not
labor to demonstrate that there is no God; but he labors to demonstrate
that there is no adequate proof of there being one. He does not
positively affirm the position, that God is not; but he affirms the lack
of evidence for the position, that God is. Judging from the tendency and
effect of his arguments, an Atheist does not appear positively to refuse
that a God may be; but he insists that He has not discovered Himself,
whether by the utterance of His voice in audible revelation, or by the
impress of His hand upon visible nature. His verdict on the doctrine of
a God is only that it is not proven; it is not, that it is disproven. He
is but an Atheist: he is not an Anti-theist."

Mr. Holyoake can scarcely fail to recognize in these words a correct and
graphic delineation of his own position and sentiments. Now, says Dr.
Chalmers, "there is a certain _duteous_ movement which the mind _ought_
to take, on the bare suggestion that a God _may be_.... The certainty of
an actual God binds over to certain distinct and most undoubted
proprieties. But so also may the imagination of a possible God; in which
case, the very idea of a God, even in its most hypothetical form, might
lay a _responsibility even upon Atheists_.... The very idea of a God
will bring along with it an instant sense and recognition of the
moralities and duties that would be owing to Him. Should an actual God
be revealed, we clearly feel that there is a something which we _ought_
to be and to do in regard to Him. But more than this: should a possible
God be imagined, there is a something not only which we feel that we
_ought_, but there is a something which we actually ought to do or to
be, in consequence of our being visited by such an imagination.... To
this condition there attaches a most clear and incumbent morality. It is
to go in quest of that unseen Benefactor, who, for aught I know, has
ushered me into existence, and spread so glorious a panorama around me.
It is to probe the secret of my being and my birth; and, if possible, to
make discovery whether it was indeed the hand of a Benefactor that
brought me forth from nonentity, and gave me place and entertainment in
that glowing territory which is lighted up with the hopes and happiness
of living men. It is thus that _the very conception of a God throws a
solemn responsibility after it_."[260]

It is a dangerous mistake, then, to imagine either that we can ever know
_that there is n