atheism, a the is me

[In Ger. atheism, atheism us; Fr. a the is me; Sp. & Ital. ateismo; Port, atheismo; from Gr. a, priv., and θεός (theos) = God.] Literally, disbelief in a God, if such an attainment is po ible; or, more loosely, doubt of the existence of a God; practically, a denial that anything can be known about the supernatural, supposing it to exist. [AGNOSTICISM.] "It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism , but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."- Bacon : E ays, Civ. & Mor., ch. xvi. Hist. & Philos. Among the Greeks atheism consisted in a denial or non-recognition of the gods of the State. (PYRRHONISM, SCEPTICS, SOPHISTS.] So crates was put to death for a erting the superiority of the Divine Wisdom (φρόνησις) to the other gods, as the ruler and disposer of the universe, thus contradicting Greek mythology, which a igned that office to Zeus. In Latin times atheism still con tinued to be a negation, with no pretension to rank as a system. Voltaire speaks of it as having destroyed the republic, and says that it was factious in the time of Sulla and of Cæsar, and slavish under August us and Tiberius. It was closely akin to that cultured unbelief which extensively prevailed at the Roman Curia during the early part of the Renascence. Macaulay ( Ranke's History of the Popes ) is very severe on the "men who, with the Latinity of the August an age, acquired its atheistical and scoffing spirit.' The a the isın of the eighteenth century was a protest against the persecution of fanaticism; and, like its predece ors, put forward little or nothing to replace the system it attempted to destroy. The atheism of the present century may be taken to include every philosophic system which rejects the notion of a personal Creator: in this sense it ranks as a genus, of which Atomism, Pantheism, Positivism, ., are species. Strictly, it is the doctrine that sees in matter the sole principle of the universe. Popularly, atheism consists in the denial of a God: this view is probably founded on the mistranslation of Psalm xiv. 1, and liii. 1, which should be, "The fool hath said in his heart, No God for me"-i.e., he wilfully rejects God, at the same time knowing that He is.