[71] The English translation, in the original issue, is in parts completely perverted to the language of Theism, whether out of fear or of Deistic prejudice on the part of the translator. Even the edition prefaced by Bradlaugh—who did not think of checking the text—preserves the perversions of the first translator.
[72] This fact is entirely ignored by Professor Flint in his defence of the old plea of Foster and Chalmers against Mr Holyoake in "Anti-Theistic Theories," App. ii.
[73] John Mill, after stating that his father held that "concerning the origin of things nothing whatever can be known," remarks that "Dogmatic Atheism he looked upon as absurd; as most of those whom the world has considered Atheists have always done" ("Autobiography," p. 39). It is difficult to guess what is here meant by "dogmatic Atheism;" but certainly no statement made above is more "dogmatic" than the proposition cited from Mill, senior. It clearly involves rejection of all Theism.
[74] One of the most capable metaphysicians I have personally known was an inferior stone-mason.
[75] It was not merely the orthodoxy of past ages that saw virtual Atheism in the position of Spinoza. Jacobi expressly and constantly maintained that Spinozism and Atheism came to the same thing. A God who is not outside the world, he argued, is as good as no God. At the same time, he admitted that the understanding had no escape from the logical demonstration of the impossibility of a personal God; and that the Theist must throw himself "overhead into the depths of faith." See Pünjer's "History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion," Eng. tr., p. 632.
[76] Pamphlet on "Heresy: its Utility and Morality. A Plea and a Justification," 3rd. ed. p. 35.
[77] It is unnecessary here to put the further argument that if we infer intelligence behind the universe by human analogy, we are bound in consistency to infer organism for the intelligence. Dr Martineau in his "Modern Materialism," takes refuge from this argument in declamation, treating the demand for consistency as if it had been a substantive plea.
[78] See an examination of the positions of Knight, Davidson, and Kaftan, in the Free Review, August, 1894.
[79] "Anti-Theistic Theories," 4th ed. p. 517.
[80] Id., pp. 518, 519.