y implied in every affirmation, and may be
logically deduced from the premises on which that affirmation
depends.[5] His reasoning may possibly be quite conclusive _in point of
logic_, in so far as it is an attempt to show that the existence of God
_ought_ to be deduced from the consciousness of thought; but it cannot
be held conclusive as to _the matter of fact_, that there is no Atheism
in the world, unless it can be further shown that all men know and
acknowledge His existence as a truth involved in, and deducible from,
their conscious experience. Yet he does not hesitate to affirm that
"every thought implies a spontaneous faith in God;" nay, he advances
further, and adds that even when the sage "denies the existence of God,
still his words imply the idea of God, and that belief in God remains
unconsciously at the bottom of his heart." Surely the denial or the
doubt of God's existence amounts to Atheism, however inconsistent that
Atheism may be with the natural laws of thought, or the legitimate
exercise of speech.

Yet the bold paradox of COUSIN was neither an original discovery nor an
unprecedented delusion. It was taught, in a different form, but with
equal confidence, by several writers belonging to the era of the first
French Revolution. Thus HELVETIUS, in his work on MAN, says expressly:
"There is no man of understanding who does not acknowledge _an active
power in Nature; there is, therefore, no Atheist_. He is not an Atheist
who says that _motion is God_; because, in fact, motion is
incomprehensible, as we have no clear idea of it, since it does not
manifest itself but by its effects, and because by it all things are
performed in the universe. He is not an Atheist who says, on the
contrary, that _motion is not God_, because motion is not a being, but a
mode of being. They are not Atheists who maintain that motion is
essential to matter, and regard it as the invisible and moving force
that spreads itself through all its parts," "as the universal soul of
matter, and the divinity that alone penetrates its substance. Are the
philosophers of this last opinion Atheists? No; they equally acknowledge
an unknown force in the universe. Are even those who have no ideas of
God Atheists? No; because then all men would be so, because no one has a
clear idea of the Divinity."[6]

A more recent writer, the ABBE LAMENNAIS, is equally explicit, and very
much for the same reasons: "The Atheist himself has his own notion of
Go