Speculative thinkers of so decidedly irreligious a temper are not numerous.  If esteemed, as happens to certain commodities, in proportion to their scarcity they would enjoy a large share of public respect.  Indeed, they are so few and far between, or at least so seldom make their presence visible, that William Gillespie is convinced they are an anomalous species of animal, produced by our common parent ’in a moment of madness.’  Other grave Christian writers, though horrified at Atheism—­though persuaded its professors, ’of all earth’s madmen, most deserve a chain;’ and, though constantly abusing them, are still unable to believe in the reality of such persons.  These, among all the opponents of Atheism and Atheists, may fairly claim to be considered most mysterious; for, while lavishing on deniers of their Gods every kind of sharp invective and opprobrious epithet, they cannot assure themselves the ‘monsters’ did, or do actually exist.  With characteristic humour, David Hume observed ’There are not a greater number of philosophical reasonings displayed upon any subject than those which prove the existence of Deity, and refute the fallacies of Atheists, and yet the most religious philosophers still dispute whether any man can be so blinded as to be a speculative Atheist;’ ’how (continues he) shall we reconcile these contradictions?  The Knight-errants who wandered about to clear the world of dragons and of giants, never entertained the least doubt with regard to the existence of these monsters.’ [10:1]

The same Hume who thus pleasantly rebuked ‘most religious philosophers,’ was himself a true Atheist.  That he lacked faith in the supernatural must be apparent to every student of his writings, which abound with reflections far from flattering to the self-love of religionists, and little calculated to advance their cause.  Many Deists have been called Atheists:  among others Robert Owen and Richard Carlile, both of whom professed belief in something superior to nature, something acting upon and regulating matter, though not itself material. [11:1] This something they named power.  But Hume has shown we may search ’in vain for an idea of power or necessary connection in all the sources from which we would suppose it to be derived. [11:2] Owen, Carlile, and other Atheists, falsely so called, supposed power the only entity worthy of deification.  They dignified it with such appellations as ’internal or external cause of all existence,’ and ascribed to it intelligence, with such other honourable attributes as are usually ascribed to ’deified, error.’  But Hume astonished religious philosophers by declaring that, ’while we argue from the course of nature and infer a particular intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle which is both uncertain and useless.  It is uncertain, because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience.  It is useless, because our knowledge of this cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can never, according to the rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause with any new inference, or making additions to the common and experienced course of nature, establish any principles of conduct and behaviour. [11:3]