These extracts are sufficient to illustrate the peculiar character of this popular form of Infidelity. It is not a philosophical system, although philosophical terms are often employed by its advocates; it does not even profess to solve, as the theory of Development does, any of the great problems of Nature. We shall offer a brief statement of its distinctive peculiarities, as it is developed by Mr. Holyoake, and suggest some considerations which should be seriously pondered by those who may be tempted to exchange Christianity for Secularism. 1. The theory of Secularism is a form, not of _dogmatic_, but of _skeptical_, Atheism; it is dogmatic only in _denying the sufficiency of the evidence_ for the being and perfections of God. It does not deny, it only does not believe, His existence. There may be a God notwithstanding; there may even be sufficient evidence of His being, although some men cannot, or will not, see it. "They do not deny the existence of God, but only assert that they have not sufficient proof of His existence."[257] "The Non-theist takes this ground. He affirms that natural reason has _not yet_ attained to (evidence of) Supernatural Being. He does not deny that it _may do so_, because the capacity of natural reason in the pursuit of evidence of Supernatural Being is not, so far as he is aware, fixed."--"The power of reason is yet a growth. To deny its power absolutely would be hazardous; and in the case of a speculative question, not to admit that the opposite views may in some sense be tenable, is to assume your own infallibility,--a piece of arrogance the public always punish by disbelieving you when you are in the right."[258] Accordingly the thesis which Mr. Holyoake undertook to maintain in public discussion was couched in these terms:--"That we have _not sufficient evidence_ to believe in the existence of a Supreme Being independent of Nature;"[259] and so far from venturing to deny His existence, he makes the important admission, that "_denying implies infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof_."