It is evident that Men of Science have hitherto too much crouched to the established tyrannies of Kingcraft and Priestcraft. Speaking generally they have adopted some of the aristocratical distinctions of the day, and have supported the frauds upon mankind, which it was their peculiar duty to expose. This has given room to the advocates of superstitiop, to put forward as an authority-for their dogmas, the names of Bacon, of Newton, of Locke, and many others. They say that it is no disgrace even to err with such men, and thus, for the want of a more decided and determined character in the advocates of Science and Philosophy, the enemy has built a strong hold within our lines, and has taken an important advantage of our irresolution. I will not believe that Bacon, or Newton, or Locke, in the latter part of their life, had any other ideas of the Christian religion, or any other religion, than I have. In their days, the faggots had scarcely been extinguished, nor was the fuel which supplied them exhausted. They might therefore deem it prudent to equivocate as a matter of safety. Besides, the two former were in the employ of a court, and consequently under the trammels of Kingcraft, which ever has, and ever will find its interest in the support of Superstition and Priestcraft. I would appeal to any man who calls himself a conscientious Christian, and ask him whether he thinks such a man as himself could write the following paragraph: "Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and createth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no farther, and we see the times inclined to Atheism (as the time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times: but superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new _primum mobile_, that ravisheth all the spheres of government." This is Lord Bacon's apology for Atheism, and, in my humble opinion, he wrote it feelingly, conscientiously, and upon principle, as an Atheist, which word has no other meaning than a seceder from all mythologies, although the ignorant and interested make so much ridiculous clamour and fuss about it.