The Theist declares his God to be not only immutable, but also infinitely intelligent, and says: “Matter is either essentially intelligent or essentially non-intelligent; if matter were essentially intelligent, no matter could be without intelligence; but matter cannot be essentially intelligent, because some matter is not intelligent, therefore matter is essentially non-intelligent; but there is intelligence, therefore there must be a cause for the intelligence, independent of matter—this must be an intelligent being—i.e., God.” The Atheist answers: I do not know what is meant, in the mouth of the Theist, by “matter.” “Matter,” “nature,” “substance,” “existence,” are words having the same signification in the Atheist’s vocabulary. Lewes used “matter” as the “symbol of all the known properties, statical and dynamical, passive and active; i.e., subjectively, as feeling and change of feeling, or objectively, as agent and action;” and Mill defined “nature” as “the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them, including not only all that happens, but all that is capable of happening.” It is not certain that the Theist expresses any very clear idea to himself when he uses the words “matter” and “intelligence;” it is quite certain that he has not yet shown himself capable of communicating this idea, and that any effort he makes is couched in terms which are self-contradictory. Reason and understanding are sometimes treated as separate faculties, yet it is not unfair to presume that the Theist would include them both under the word intelligence. Perception is the foundation of the intellect. The perceptive ability differs in each animal; yet, in speaking of matter, the Theist uses the word “intelligence” as though the same meaning were to be understood in every case. The recollection of the perceptions is the exercise of a different ability from the perceptive ability, and occasionally varies disproportionately; thus, an individual may have great perceptive abilities, and very little memory, or the reverse; yet memory, as well as perception, is included in intelligence. So also the comparing between two or more perceptions; the judging and the reflecting; all these are subject to the same remarks, and all these and other phases of the mind are included in the word intelligence. We answer, then, that “God” (whatever that word may mean) cannot be intelligent. He can never perceive; the act of perception results in the obtaining a new idea, but if God be omniscient, his ideas have been eternally the same. He has either been always, and always will be, perceiving, or he has never perceived at all. But God cannot have been always perceiving, because, if he had, he would always have been obtaining fresh knowledge, in which case he must at some time have had less knowledge than now: that is, he would have been less perfect: that is, he would not have been God. He can never recollect nor forget; he can never compare, reflect, nor judge.