however exist without a Deity, you, Dr. Priestley, allow to be no impossibility.  It may indeed be argued with apparent justness, that a principle of reviviscence may as well be admitted as a principle of production in the first instance:  and as to rewards and punishments, judgement may be rendered, as well as now, by Beings less than Deities.  For my part I firmly wish for such a future state, and though I cannot firmly believe it, I am resolved to live as if such a state were to ensue.  This seems, I own, like doubting, and doubting may be said to be a miserable state of anxiety.  “Better be confident than unhinged; better confide in ignorance than have no fixed system.”  So it may be argued; but I think the result will be as people feel.  Those who do not feel bold enough, to be satisfied with their own thoughts, may abandon them and adopt the thoughts of others.  For my part I am content with my own; and not the less so because they do not end in certainty upon matters, from the nature of them, beyond the complete reach of human intelligence.

There is nothing in fact important to human nature but happiness, which is or ought to be the end or aim of our being.  I mean self-happiness; but fortunately for mankind, such is by nature our construction, that we cannot individually be happy unless we join also in promoting the happiness of others.  Should immorality, timidity or other base principles arise from atheism it tends immediately, I will own, to the unhappiness of mankind.  If it is asked me, “why am I honest and honourable?” I answer, because of the satisfaction I have in being so.  “Do all people receive that satisfaction?” No, many who are ill educated, ill-exampled and perverted, do not.  I do, that is enough for me.  In short, I am well constructed, and I feel I can therefore act an honest and honourable part without any religious motive.  Did I perceive, that belief in a Deity produced morality or inspired courage, I might be prompted to confess, that the contrary would ensue from atheism.  But the bulk of the world has long believed, or long pretended to believe in a Deity, yet morality and every commendable quality seem at a stand.  The believer and the unbeliever we often see equally base, equally immoral.  Superstition is certainly only the excess of religion.  That evidently is attended often with immorality and cowardice.  I am tempted to say, from observation, that the belief of a Deity is apt to drive mankind into vice and baseness; but I check myself in the assertion, upon considering that very few indeed are those who really believe in a Deity out of such as pretend to do so.  It is impossible for an intellectual being to believe firmly in that of which he can give no account, or of which he can form no conception.  I hold the Deity, the fancied Deity, at least, of whom with all his attributes such pompous descriptions are set forth to the great terror of old women and the amusement of young children, to be an object of which we form