momentous
fact? The truth, whatever it be, is independent of both: and it is the
_truth_, and not our apprehensions of it, it is the _evidence_, and not
our belief or doubt, that is the subject of inquiry. Will it be
affirmed, then, either that the supposed existence of God is
intrinsically incredible, and as such incapable of proof, or that the
evidence is insufficient, in the sense of being illogical and
inconclusive? This is the ultimate ground of atheistic unbelief, and
here the Skeptical unites and blends with the Dogmatic form of
Infidelity.

But when driven to this last resort, and before taking up the position
which it is concerned to defend, Secularism puts forth certain
preliminary pleas, partly in the way of self-defence, and partly with
the view of exciting prejudice against the cause of Theism.[268] "I make
no pretence," says Mr. Holyoake, "to account for everything. I do not
pretend to account for what I find in Nature. I do not feel called upon
to account for it. I do not know that I am required to account for it."
... "A man will come to me and say, Can you account for this? Can you
account for that? Now he expects me to tell him all about everything,
just as though I was present at the beginning of Nature, and knew all
its manifestations. If I cannot do it, he will not admit my plea of
ignorance;--he will not admit the propriety of my saying, I do not
know." He is not bound to explain either the past or the future: "What
went before and what will follow me I regard as two black impenetrable
curtains, which hang down at the two extremities of human life, and
which no living man has yet drawn aside.... A deep silence reigns behind
this curtain; no one once within will answer those he has left without;
all you can hear is a hollow echo of your question, as if you shouted
into a chasm."[269] And can a mind that is capable of writing thus be
content to discard Religion from his thoughts on the sorry pretext that
he is not bound to account for the phenomena of Nature? One would expect
at least a thoughtful, serious, and earnest spirit, even were it a
spirit of doubt, in one surrounded with such solemn mysteries, gazing on
these black impenetrable curtains, listening to the hollow echo from
that awful chasm: nay, that seriousness might be expected to deepen into
sadness, too intensely real to be soothed by the plea of ignorance, or
assuaged otherwise than by the light of truth. But to say, "I do not
pretend