Should it be enquired, what has given occasion to this flaming manifestation of popish zeal, the candid reader would undoubtedly be surprized, should he be told, that one article is, a random and incredible report, concerning Lord Bolingbroke’s expected posthumous works, that their design is to prove, _there is no human soul, no deity, no spirit, and nothing but matter in the universe_. Whoever is acquainted with his lordship’s writings, which have already been published; whoever knows that Mr. Pope was indebted to him for the plan of the noblest poem extant in any language, I mean his Essay on Man, must at once be convinced, from ocular demonstration, of the infamous falshood of this assertion. That his lordship was a theist, and a disbeliever in miracles and revelations, cannot and need not be denied. But that he was no atheist, no materialist, his acknowledged good sense is, alone, a sufficient proof. I do think scepticism the best and truest philosophy; and I scruple not to own, I have called in question, one time or other, the truth of most things which cannot be demonstrated. But the existence of spirit and deity was never one of those things. Of this I am certain, from consciousness, from reason, from demonstration. But I have often doubted the real existence of matter; for this I have not even the testimony of my senses, only prejudice and instinct. It is only such a philosopher as our inspector, who believes animals are mere machines, who can be an atheist and a materialist.