The Author hopes that the opinions here advanced in reference to what may be named the Argument from 'Authority,' as contradistinguished from 'Time,' will make obvious to Christians themselves, that it is an unsafe argument, an argument which, like the broken reed, not only fails, but cruelly wounds the hand that rests upon it. Much evidence _has been_, and much more _can be_ adduced to show that no prudent, well-informed Christian will say anything about the sanction lent to Christianity, or religion of any sort, by the writings of Newton, Milton, Bacon, and Locke. By admirers of such sanction, (?) this, our Apology for Atheism will, no doubt, be rejected with indignant contempt, but we venture to predict for it better treatment at the hands of those who are convinced that _untruth_ can no more be _scientific_, than truth can be _unscientific_, and that belief, whether in the God of Nature, the God of Scripture, or the Scripture itself, opposed to Philosophy, must needs be opposed to Reason and Experience. [ENDNOTES] [4:1] 25th of November, 1845. [5:1] Vide 'Time's' Commissioner's Letter on the Condition of Ireland,' November 28, 1843. [10:1] Essay 'of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy.' [11:1] See the Creeds of R. Owen and R. Carlile in No. 14 of the Promptor. [11:2] 'Essay of the Idea of Necessary Connexion.' [11:3] 'Essay of a Providence and a Future State.' [12:1] Critical remarks on Lord Brougham's 'Lives of Men of Letters and Science, who flourished in the time of George III.'--The Times, Wednesday, October I, 1845. [13:1] History of American Savages. [13:2] Appendix the Second to 'Plutarchus and Theophrastus on Superstition.' [13:3] Philosophy of History. [15:1] See a Notice of Lord Brougham's Political Philosophy, in the number for April, 1845. [20:1] 'Apology for the Bible,' page 133. [20:2] Unusquisque vestrum non cogitate prius se debere Deos nosse quam colere. [27:1] See a curious 'Essay on Nature.' Printed for Badcock and Co., 2, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row. 1807. [31:1] Elements of Materialism, chapter I. [32:1] Discussion on the Existence of God, between Origen Bachelor and Robert Dale Owen. [37:1] Answer to Dr. Priestly on the existence of God, by a Philosophical Unbeliever. [40:1] Treatise on Human Nature. [41:1] This sexing is a stock receipt for mystification.--_Colonel Thompson._ [44:1] The Rev. J.E. Smith. [46:1] 'An Address on Cerebral Physiology and Materialism,' delivered to the Phrenological Association in London, June 20, 1842. [49:1] No 40 of 'The Shepherd.' [50:1] 'The Shepherd,' Vol. i., page 40. [52:1] Extracts from an able letter to the Editor of 'The Shepherd,' in No. 23 of that periodical. [54:1] Novum Organon. [56:1] Principia Mathmatica, p. 528. Lond. edit., l726. [63:1] See a pamphlet, price Sixpence, entitled 'Paley refuted in his own words,' by G.J. Holyoake.' [63:2] Lessing.