dencies, of speculative thought, in so far as it bears on the
evidences and doctrines of Religion, in several distinct but closely
related systems of opinion, which, whether considered severally or
collectively, must exert, in proportion to their prevalence, a powerful
influence on the side of Atheism. These systems may be divided generally
into _two_ great classes, according as they relate to the _substance_ or
to the _evidence_ of Theism, to the _truths_ which it involves, or the
_proofs_ to which it appeals. The interval between the first and second
French Revolutions may be regarded as the season during which the
theories to which we refer were progressively developed, and ultimately
consolidated in their existing forms. The germ of each of them may have
existed before, and traces of them may be detected in the literature of
the ancient world, and even in the writings of mediaeval times; nay, it
might not be too much to affirm that in the systems of Oriental
Superstition, and in the Schools of Grecian Skepticism, several of them
were more fully taught in early times than they have yet been in Modern
Europe, and that the recent attempts to reconstruct and reproduce them
in a shape adapted to the present stage of civilization, have been poor
and meagre in comparison with those more ancient efforts of
unenlightened reason. What modern system of Skepticism can rival that of
Sextus Empiricus? What code of Pantheism, French or German, can be said
to equal the mystic dreams of the Vedanta School? What godless theory of
Natural Law can compete with the Epicurean philosophy, as illustrated in
the poetry of Lucretius? The errors of these ancient systems have been
revived even amidst the light of the nineteenth century, and prevail to
an extent that may seem to justify the apprehension, frequently
expressed on the Continent of late years, of the restoration of a sort
of Semi-Paganism in Modern Europe; and it is still necessary, therefore,
for the defence of a pure Theism, to reexamine those ancient forms of
error which have reaeppeared on the scene after it might have been
supposed that they had vanished for ever. For the very tenacity with
which they cleave to the human mind, and their perpetual recurrence at
intervals along the whole course of the world's history, show that there
must be something in the wants, or at least in the weaknesses of our
nature, which induces men to tolerate and even to embrace them. But the
chief da