We have often thought, indeed, that should Atheism ever threaten to become prevalent in England, this is the form which it is most likely to assume. The English mind is eminently practical; it has little sympathy with the profundity of German or the subtlety of French speculation on such subjects. A few speculative spirits may be influenced for a time by the reasonings of Comte, or the representations of "The Vestiges;" but the general mind of the community will desiderate something more solid and substantial; not content with any scientific theory, however ingenious, it will demand a practical system. And we are not sure that "Secularism" may not be made to appear, in the view of some, to be just such a system, since it dismisses or refuses to pronounce on many of the highest problems of human thought, insists on the necessary limitation of the human faculties, and seeks to confine both our aspirations and our thoughts to the interests and the duties of the present life. In estimating the probable influence of such a system on the public mind, we must not forget the large amount of practical irreligion which exists even in England, the strong temptation which is felt by many to escape from their occasional feelings of remorse and fear by embracing some plausible pretext for the neglect of prayer and other religious observances, and the disposition, natural and almost irresistible in such circumstances, to lend a willing ear to any doctrine which promises to relieve them of all responsibility with relation to God and a future state. The theory of Secularism is adapted to this state of mind; it chimes in with the instinctive tendencies of every ungodly mind; and it is the likeliest medium through which _practical Atheism_ may pass into _speculative Infidelity_. Mr. Holyoake, it is true, abjures the name both of an _Atheist_ and _Infidel_. We admire the prudence of his policy, but cannot subscribe to the correctness of his reasons for doing so. "Mr. Southwell," he says, "has taken an objection to the term Atheism. We are glad he has. We have disused it a long time.... We disuse it, because Atheist is a worn-out word. Both the ancients and the moderns have understood by it _one without God, and also without morality_. Thus the term connotes more than any well-informed and earnest person accepting it ever included in it; that is, the word carries with it associations of immorality, which have been repudiated by the Atheist as seriously as by the Christian. Non-theism is a term less open to the same misunderstanding, as it implies the simple non-acceptance of the Theist's explanation of the origin and government of the world."[252]