CHAPTER VII.
ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT.
The first step which leaves behind the idea of a limited and personal God, an extra-cosmic Creator, and leads the student to the point whence Atheism and Pantheism diverge, is the recognition that a profound unity of substance underlies the infinite diversities of natural phenomena, the discernment of the One beneath the Many.

This was the step I had taken ere my first meeting with Charles Bradlaugh, and I had written:-- "It is manifest to all who will take the trouble to think steadily, that there can be only one eternal and underived substance, and that matter and spirit must, therefore, only be varying manifestations of this one substance.

The distinction made between matter and spirit is, then, simply made for the sake of convenience and clearness, just as we may distinguish perception from judgment, both of which, however, are alike processes of thought.

Matter is, in its constituent elements, the same as spirit; existence is _one_, however manifold in its phenomena; life is one, however multiform in its evolution.

As the heat of the coal differs from the coal itself, so do memory, perception, judgment, emotion, and will differ from the brain which is the instrument of thought.