Produced by David Widger THE LIMITS OF ATHEISM Or, Why should Sceptics be Outlaws? BY G. J. HOLYOAKE. "It is historically true that a large proportion of Infidels in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honour."--_John Stuart Mill 'On Liberty,_' p. 80. LONDON: J. A. BROOK & CO., 282, STRAND, W.C 1874. PRICE TWOPENCE. REVEREND RICHARD WILLIAM JELF, D.D., PRINCIPAL OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON, WHO HAS LATELY ALARMED CONVOCATION BY CONNECTING THE 'ESSAYS AND REVIEWS' WITH ATHEISM THESE PAGES, WRITTEN IN ARREST OF THE PARLIAMENTARY JUDGMENT WHICH PLACES THE WORD OF THE ATHEIST BELOW THAT OF THE FELON, Are Respectfully Inscribed, BY GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. PREFACE. The object of these pages* is not to defend the intellectual accuracy of Atheism (which could not be attempted in this brief space), the object is to explain its case, to vindicate its moral rectitude, and the right of those who hold these views, to legal equality. There are two Atheisms in literature--the ancient one of mere negation; and the affirmative form, whose relevant name is Cosmism, and of which Humboldt, in his 'Cosmos,' is a great illustrator, and Comte, in his 'Positive Philosophy,' an expounder. The term Cosmism ought to supersede the misleading term Atheism; just as Secularism has superseded the libellous term Infidelity. Cosmism, as well as Secularism, expresses a new form of Freethought, and I use the term Atheism, as the subject of a Lecture, for the first time here. It is a worn-out word, used by Theists in hateful senses. I employ it, as a title, to-day for political reasons, in order to show those who make it a ground of civil exclusion, that it is a thing of law and limits: that the reputed Atheism of English working men, so far as it prevails, is no longer the old Atheism of mere negation, but the Cosmism of modern science; neither dissolute, anarchical, nor impious--recognises that the universe is, without theorising _why_ it is. Negative Atheism says there is nothing beyond the universe. Cosmism says it cannot explain anything beyond, and pauses where its knowledge ends. *A report of a Lecture delivered in Bendall's Assembly Rooms, City Road, London, March 8rd, 1861. Atheism questions--Cosmism affirms. The language of Cosmism is that of the poet in the 'Purgatory of Suicides':-- 'I do not say--there is no God, But this I say--I know not.'