LADY HESTER STANHOPE said she knew "Lord Byron must be a bad man, for he was always intending something." Any improvement in the method of life is "intending something," and society ought to be tolerant of those whose badness takes no worse form. The rules Secularism prescribes for human conduct are few, and no intelligent preacher would say they indicate a dangerous form of "badness." They are:

1. Truth in speech.

2. Honesty in transaction.

3. Industry in business.

4. Equity in according the gain among those whose diligence and vigilance help to produce it.

Learning and fortune do but illuminate these virtues. They cannot supersede them. The germs of these qualities are in every human heart. It is only necessary that we cultivate them. Men are like billiard balls—they would all go into the right pockets in a few generations, if rightly propelled. Yet these principles, simple and unpretending as they are, being founded on considerations apart from modes of orthodox thought, have had a militant career. The Spanish proverb has been in request: "Beware of an ox before, of a mule behind, and of a monk on every side." The monk, tonsured and untonsured, is found in every religion.

In Glasgow I sometimes delivered lectures on the Sunday in a quaint old hall situated up a wynd in Candleriggs. On the Saturday night I gave a woman half-a-crown to wash and whiten the stairs leading to the hall, and the passage leading to the street and across the causeway, so that the entrance to the hall should be clean and sweet. Sermons were preached in the same hall when the stairs were repulsively dirty. The woman remarked to a neighbor that "Mr. Holyoake's views were wrang, but he seemed to have clean principles." He who believes in the influence of material conditions will do what he can to have them pure, not only where he speaks, but where he frequents and where he resides. The theological reader, who by accident or curiosity looks over these pages, will find much from which he will dissent; but I hope he will be able to regard this book as one of "clean principles," as far as the limited light of the author goes. Accepting the "golden rule" of Huxley—"Give unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted"—causes the Secularist to credit less than his neighbors, and that goes against him; being, as it were, a reproach of their avidity of belief. One reason for writing this book is to explain—to as many of the new generation as may happen to read it—the discrimination of Secularism. Newspapers and the clerical class, who ought to be well informed, continually speak of mere free-thinking as Secularism. How this has been caused has already been indicated. Two or three remarkable and conspicuous representatives of free thought, who found iconoclasticism easier, less responsible, and more popular, have given to many erroneous impressions. When Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Foote came into the Secularistic movement, which preceded their day, they gave proof that they understood its principles, which they afterwards disregarded or postponed. I cite their opinions lest the reader should think that this book gives an account of a form of thought not previously known. One wrote:

"From very necessity, Secularism is affirmative and constructive; it is impossible to thoroughly negate any falsehood without making more or less clear the opposing truth."*

Again:

"Secularism conflicts with theology in this: that the Secularist teaches the improvability of humanity by human means; while the theologian not only denies this, but rather teaches that the Secular effort is blasphemous and unavailing unless preceded and accompanied by reliance on divine aid."*

Mrs. Besant said:

"Still we have won a plot of ground—men's and women's hearts. To them Secularism has a message; to them it brings a rule of conduct; to them it gives a test of morality, and a guide through the difficulties of life. Our morality is tested only—be it noted—by utility in this life and in this world."**

Mr. Foote was not less discerning and usefully explicit, saying:

"Secularism is founded upon the distinction between the things of time and the things of eternity.... The good of others Secularism declares to be the law of morality; and although certain theologies secondarily teach the same doctrine, yet they differ from Secularism in founding it upon the supposed will of God, thus admitting the possibility of its being set aside in obedience to some other equally or more imperative divine injunction."***

For several years the National Reformer bore the subtitle of "Secular Advocate."

We could not expect early concurrence with the policy of preferring ethical to theological questions of theism and unprovable immortality. We accepted the maxim of Sir Philip Sydney—namely, that "Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to leave reasoning on things above reason." We are not in the land of the real yet, common sense is not half so romantic to the average man as the transcendental, and an atheistical advocacy got the preference with the impetuous. The Secularistic proposal to consult the instruction of an adversary proved less exciting than his destruction. The patience and resource it implies to work by reason alone are not to the taste of those to whom a kick is easier than a kindness, and less troublesome than explanation. Those who have the refutatory passion intense say you must clear the ground before you can build upon it. Granted; nevertheless, the signs of the times show that a good deal of ground has been cleared. The instinct of progress renders the minority, who reflect, more interested in the builder than the undertaker. What would be thought of a general who delayed occupying a country he had conquered until he had extirpated all the inhabitants in it? So, in the kingdom of error, he who will go on breaking images, without setting statues up in their place, will give superstition a long life. The savage man does not desert his idols because you call them ugly. It is only by slow degrees, and under the influence of better-carved gods, that his taste is changed and his worship improved. The reader will see that Secularism leaves the mystery of deity to the chartered imagination of man, and does not attempt to close the door of the future, but holds that the desert of another existence belongs only to those who engage in the service of man in this life. Prof. F. W. Newman says: "The conditions of a future life being unknown, there is no imaginable means of benefiting ourselves and others in it, except by aiming after present goodness."*

Men have a right to look beyond this world, but not to overlook it. Men, if they can, may connect themselves with eternity, but they cannot disconnect themselves from humanity without sacrificing duty. The purport of Secularism is not far from the tenor of the famous sermon by the Rev. James Caird, of which the Queen said:

"He explained in the most simple manner what real religion is—not a thing to drive us from the world, not a perpetual moping over 'good' books; but being and doing good."**

This end we reach not by a theological, but by a Secular, path.