They insist upon it that the 'absolute
Atheist,' if virtuous, is so by accident not design; that he can neither
love truth, justice, nor his neighbour, except by sheer luck, and that,
if bad as his principles, would cut the throat of every man, woman, and
child who might have the misfortune to fall in his way. They argue as if
none can think good thoughts or purposely perform good acts unless so
far eaten up by superstition as always to keep in view the probable
_rewards_, or equally probable _vengeance_ of some supernatural Being.
Faith in human goodness, irrespective of reward and punishment, either
here or hereafter, sophists of this bigotted class have literally none.
Influenced by fanaticism and stimulated by cupidity they let slip no
opportunity of dealing out upon such as oppose their hideous doctrines
the choicest sort of vituperative blackguardism. The reader knows this
is no idle or ill-considered charge. He has seen at the commencement of
this Apology verbatim extracts, affecting the moral character of
Atheists, from books written by pious Christians, so utterly disgusting
that only those in whom every sense of delicacy, truth, and justice has
been obliterated, by a worse than savage creed, can peruse them without
horror.
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