Wherefore, not only must the universe have had an author or authors, an artificer or artificers, but his or their wisdom, power, and goodness, must, whether infinite or not, have been at least illimitable. Such is the argument from design, and such, to my thinking, the only absolute certainties legitimately deducible from it; and although these, in comparison with the numerous probabilities ordinarily associated with them, may appear somewhat meagre, yet are they intrinsically of exceeding moment. They constitute the only basis on which any rational religion, any that appeals to the intellect as well as to the feelings, can rest securely. Whoever accepts them, by whatever other name he prefer to call himself, is essentially a theist. He only who denies or ignores them can justly be stigmatised as an atheist. Yet, although an inquiry into their soundness is thus plainly second in interest to none, it is not that in which I propose to engage at present, unless indirectly. My immediate concern is not with the strength of theism, but with the weakness of atheism, and the hollowness of the latter's dialectical pretensions. What in every form of piety is most provocative of philosophic scorn, is its forwardness of faith, its eagerness of acquiescence; but to this sort of reproach I expect to be able to show that none are more obnoxious than those very philosophers by whom it is most freely cast. That nothing is more unphilosophical than uncompromising irreligion, nothing more credulous than its credulity, no other beliefs more monstrous than those by which it strives to fill up the void created by its own unbelief: this is my present thesis, and this I propound, not unaware what formidable antagonists I am thereby challenging, but not without something of the same confidence, and something withal of the same ground for it, as David had when, in equal strait, exclaiming, 'The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?'