Whatever may be urged in defence of such execrable duplicity, there can be no question as to its anti-progressive tendency.  The majority of men are fools, and if such ‘sensible’ politicians as our Doctor and the double doctrinising ecclesiastics, for whose portraits we are indebted to Mosheim and Beausobre, shall have the teaching of them, fools they are sure to remain.  Men who dare not be ‘mentally faithful’ to themselves may obstruct, but cannot advance, the interests of truth.  In legislation, in law, in all the relations of life, we want honesty not piety.  There is plenty of piety, and to spare, but of honesty—­sterling, bold, uncompromising honesty—­even the best regulated societies can boast a very small stock.  The men best qualified to raise the veil under which truth lies concealed from vulgar gaze, are precisely the men who fear to do it.  Oh, shame upon ye self-styled philosophers, who in your closets laugh at ‘our holy religion,’ and in your churches do it reverence.  Were your bosoms warmed by one spark of generous wisdom, silence on the question of religion would be broken, the multitude cease to believe, and imposters to triumph.

          London:  Printed by Edward Truelove, 240, Strand.

[ENDNOTES]

[4:1] 25th November, 1845.

[4:2] Vide ‘Times’ Commissioner’s Letter on the Condition of Ireland, November 28, 1845.

[8:1] ‘Essay on Providence and a Future State.’

[9:1] Essay of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy. [9:2] Critical remarks on Lord Brougham’s ’Lives of Men of Letters and Science, who flourished in the time of George III.’—­The Times, Wednesday, October 1, 1845.

[10:1] History of American Savages.

[11:1] Appendix the Second to ’Plutarchus and Theophrastus on Superstition.’

[11:2] Philosophy of History.

[12:1] See a Notice of Lord Brougham’s Political Philosophy, in the number for April, 1845.

[15:1] ‘Apology for the Bible,’ page 133.

[15:2] Unusquisque vestrum non cogitat prius se debere Deos nosse quam colere.

[20:1] See a curious ‘Essay on Nature,’ Printed for Badcock and Co., 2, Queen’s Head Passage, Paternoster Row. 1807.

[23:1] Elements of Materialism, chapter 1.

[24:1] Discussion on the Existence of God, between Origen Bachelor and Robert Dale Owen.

[29:1] Hume’s Treastise on Human Nature.

[29:2] This sexing is a stock receipt for mystification.—­Colonel Thompson.

[30:1] The Rev. J.K.  Smith.

[31:1] ‘An Address on Cerebral Physiology and Materialism,’ delivered to the Phrenological Association In London, June 20, 1842.

[33:1] Principia Mathematica, p. 528, Lond. edit., 1720.

[38:1] Lessing.

[42:1] Lecture by the Rev. Hugh M’Neil, Minister of St. Jude’s Church, Liverpool, delivered about seven years since, in presence of some 400 of the Irish Protestant Clergy.