Let no one suppose the Author of this Apology is prepared to allow that Atheists are men of cruel dispositions or vicious. He will not say with Coleridge that only men of good hearts and strong heads can be Atheists, but he is quite ready to maintain that the generality of Atheists are men of mild, generous, peaceable studious dispositions, who desire the overthrow of superstition, or true religion as its devotees call it, because convinced a superstitious people never can be enlightened, virtuous, free, or happy. Their love of whatever helps on civilisation and disgust of war are testified to even by opponents. We may learn from the writings of Lord Bacon not only his _opinion_ that Atheism leaves men to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which, he justly observes, may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but the _fact_ that 'the times inclined to Atheism (as the times of Augustus Caesar) were civil times.' Nay, he expressly declared 'Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves as looking no further.' [76:1] Can the same be said of religion? Will any one have the hardihood to say religion did never perturb states, or that the times inclined to religion (as the times of Oliver Cromwell) were civil times, or that it makes man wary of themselves as looking no further? During times inclined to religion more than one hundred thousand witches were condemned to die by Christian tribunals in accordance with the holy text, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. During times inclined to religion it was usual to burn, broil, bake, or otherwise murder heretics for the glory of God, and at the same time to spare the vilest malefactors. During times inclined to religion, it has been computed that in Spain alone no less than 32,382 people were, by the faithful, burnt alive; 17,690 degraded and burnt in effigy; and all the goods and chattels of the enormous number of 291,450 consigned to the chancery of the Inquisition. [77:1] In short, during those 'good old times,' men yielded themselves up to practices so strangely compounded of cruelty and absurdity, that one finds it difficult to believe accounts of them, however well authenticated.