'I wouldn't mind,' said once a representative of extreme heterodoxy, in debate with a champion of its diametrical opposite--'I wouldn't mind conceding the Deity you contend for, were it not for the use commonly made of him after he is conceded.' And no doubt that use is such as might well provoke a saint, provided the saint were likewise a philosopher. To whatever extent it be true that man was created in the image of God, it is certain that in all ages and countries God has been created in the image of man, invested with all human propensities, appetites, and passions, and expected to demean himself on all occasions as men would do in like circumstances. As popularly conceived, so long as sensual gratification was esteemed to be the _summum bonum_, he wallowed in all manner of sensual lust; when some of his more fervent worshippers turned ascetics out of disgust with fleshly surfeit, he became ascetism personified: at every stage his great delight has been flattery, and his still greater, revenge; in the exercise of power he has always been capricious and often wanton--ruthlessly vindictive against impugners of his honour and dignity, unspeakably barbarous to unbelievers in his reality. Now, as knowledge advanced, unbelief in a God so much below the level of ordinarily virtuous men advanced equally, quickening its pace, too, as the particular branch of knowledge styled 'physics' spread, and, spreading, exposed the utter impossibility of many of the fables in which theological views had been expressed. Wherefore, theological oracles have in every age and country been apt to confound scientific inquisitiveness with unbelief, and to denounce _physical_ science especially as a delusion and a snare, and its cultivators as impostors none the less mischievous for being at the same time dupes. Of course, the latter have not been slow to return the compliment. Hearing the truths discovered by them stigmatised as falsehoods, they naturally enough retorted the charge of falsity against the divine authorities in whose name it was made. Finding war waged against them by every religion with which they were acquainted, they naturally enough in turn declared war against all religion, even with that form thereof which underlies every other except when sufficing to itself for superstructure as well as base. Natural enough this, for _humanum est errare_; but very humanly erroneous withal, for to include Deity itself in the same denial with pseudo-divine attributes is about as sagacious a proceeding as to refuse to recognise the sun at midday on account of his not appearing in Phoebus's chariot and four.