We do not class these speculations among the formal systems of Atheism, although they have often been associated with it; but we advert to them as specimens of that style of thinking which has a natural tendency to induce an atheistic frame of mind.[227] The profession of such sentiments is a symptom rather of incipient danger, than of confirmed disease. But that danger is far from being either doubtful or insignificant. For should the distinction between "truth and error" be obliterated or even feebly discerned, should it come to be regarded as a matter of comparative indifference whether our beliefs be true or false, should it, above all, become our prevailing habit to "call good evil, and evil good," we can scarcely fail, in such circumstances, to fall into a course of _practical Atheism_; and this, as all experience testifies, will leave us an easy prey, especially in seasons of peculiar temptation and trial, to any form of _speculative Infidelity_ that may happen to acquire a temporary ascendancy. If there be no dogmatic Atheism involved in this state of mind, there is at least the germ of _skepticism_, which may soon grow and ripen into the open and avowed denial of religious truth. At the very least, it will issue in that heartless _indifference_ to all creeds and all definite articles of faith, which, under the plausible but surreptitious disguise of "freethinking" and "liberalism," is the nearest practical approximation to utter Infidelity.[228] The system which is known under the name of Religious Liberalism or Indifference has been recently avowed in our own country with a frankness and boldness which can leave no room for doubt in regard to its ultimate tendency. The late Blanco White avowed it as his mature conviction, that "to declare any one unworthy of the name of Christian because he does not agree with your belief, is to fall into the intolerance of the articled Churches; that the moment the name Christian is made necessarily to contain in its signification belief in certain historical or metaphysical propositions, that moment _the name itself becomes a creed_,--the _length_ of that creed is of little consequence."[229] This is the extreme on one side, and it plainly implies that _no one article of faith_ is necessary, and that a man may be a Christian who neither acknowledges an historical Christ, nor believes a single doctrine which He taught! But there is an extreme also on the other side, which is exemplified in the singularly eloquent, but equally unsatisfactory, treatise of the Abbe Lamennais,[230] in which, as _then_ an ardent and somewhat arrogant advocate of the Romish Church, he attempts to fasten the charge of _Indifference_ or _Liberalism_ on the Protestant system, and to prove that there can be no true faith, and of course no salvation, beyond the Catholic pale. The chief interest of his treatise depends on his peculiar "theory of certitude," to which we