This fact is admirably illustrated by the distinguished founder of the Boyle Lectureship;[128] and it is abundantly confirmed by examples which have been furnished by more recent times.

The author of the "System of Nature," which appeared before the first French Revolution, was an avowed and most reckless Atheist;[129] yet he ascribes to Nature most of the attributes which are usually supposed to belong to God, such as self-existence, eternity, immutability, infinitude, and unity; and if the _intellectual_ and _moral_ attributes may seem to be omitted, as they must be, to some extent, in any system of Atheism, yet _thought_, _design_, and _will_, are expressly ascribed to Nature.[130] And the only difference between the Theist and the Atheist is said to be, that the latter ascribes all the phenomena of Nature "to material, natural, sensible, and known causes," while the former ascribes them to "spiritual, supernatural, unintelligible, and unknown causes;" or, in other words, "to an _occult cause_."[131] It is manifestly a matter of indifference whether this method of accounting for the phenomena of Nature be called Atheism or Pantheism; in either aspect it is essentially the same.
The more recent advocates of Atheism or Pantheism have often made use of similar language.

M.Crousse affirms that "all nature is _animated_ by an internal force which moves it;" that this is the true _spontaneity_, the _causality_, which is the origin of all sensible manifestations, for "_mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet_;" that "matter, the most cold and indifferent, is full of life, capable of engendering thought, and containing mind in it, at least _potentially_;" and that, to every man who has true insight, "the world feels, moves, speaks, and thinks."[132] The author of "The Purpose of Existence" makes it his grand object to show that "the evolvement of mind out of matter" is the primary law and final cause of the universe; that "this process commences with vegetation, extracting from matter the spirit of vitality;" that "this spirit is preserved amid the decay of vegetables, and transfused into animals, thus establishing the great working-principle of Nature, that spirit is extracted from matter by organized bodies, and survives their dissolution."[133] Of course, if matter have the power of evolving intelligent and even immortal minds by its own inherent properties and established laws, it will not be difficult to find in Nature a sufficient substitute for God.
But the most revolting specimen of that material Pantheism, which is only another name for absolute Atheism, that has recently appeared, occurs in the Letters of Atkinson and Martineau: "We require no supernatural causes, when we can recognize adequate natural causes, _inherent in the constitution of Nature_;" "nor are more causes to be admitted than are sufficient to produce any particular change or effect."-- "Man has his place in Natural History; his nature does not essentially differ from that of the lower animals; he is but a fuller development, and varied condition, of the same fundamental nature or cause,--of _that which we contemplate as matter_, and its changes, relations, and properties.

Mind is the consequence or product of the material man, its existence depending on the action of the brain."-- "Its highest object seems to be, a sense of the infinite and abstract power,--_the inherent force and principle of Nature_."[134] From these specimens it must be evident that whatever nominal distinction may exist between Material Pantheism and avowed Atheism, they are radically identical, and that, for all practical purposes, they may be treated as one and the same.

From the same specimens we may derive some useful hints respecting the essential conditions and the right conduct of the Theistic argument.