that sphere, if it was found amongst those indisputable truths, if it was found to be a matter of sense, then there would be no occasion for us to reason at all about it: it could not be a matter of controversy, because it never would be a matter of dispute."[274] Certain first principles of reason are admitted, but only, it would seem, with reference to matters of sense; but why, if there be such a principle of reason as compels the Atheist himself to acknowledge a Self-existent and Eternal Being? Is this a matter of sense? Is it not a conclusion of reason,--founded, no doubt, on present sensible experience, but far transcending it,--and yet self-evident and irresistible as intuition itself? And if reason may thus rise from the contingent and variable to the conception and belief of the self-existent and eternal, why may it not be equally valid as a proof of a supreme, intelligent First Cause? Speaking of Nature as self-existent and eternal, Mr. Holyoake ascribes such attributes to it as might seem to imply a leaning towards Pantheism, rather than the colder form of mere material Atheism. "It seems to me," he says, "that Nature and God are one; in other words, that the God whom we seek is the Nature whom we know." But he afterwards states, with clearness and precision, in what respects Secularism accords with, and differs from, Pantheism: "The term, God, seems to me inapplicable to Nature. In the mouth of the Theist, God signifies an entity, spiritual and percipient, distinct from matter. With Pantheists, the term God signifies the aggregate of Nature,--but Nature as _a being, intelligent and conscious_. It is my inability to subscribe to either of these views which constitutes me an Atheist. I cannot rank myself with the Theists, because I can conceive of nothing beyond Nature, distinct from it, and above it.... The Theist, therefore, I leave; but while I go with the Pantheist so far as to accept the fact of Nature in the plenitude of its diverse, illimitable, and transcendent manifestations, I cannot go further and predicate with the Pantheist _the unity of its intelligence and consciousness_!"[275] He holds, therefore, that self-existence is an attribute of Nature, that this attribute is so majestic that it may be fairly held to include _all others_, and that, while intelligence and consciousness exist, he cannot affirm their _unity_ in Nature, or regard "Nature as a being, intelligent and conscious." Whence it follows that he can give no other account of the living, intelligent, active, and responsible beings which inhabit the world, than that they came into existence, he knows not how, and that they have the ultimate ground of their existence in a necessary, underived, and eternal being, which is neither intelligent nor self-conscious!