Title | Why I left the church |
Series Title | Pamphlets for the million; no. 1 |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Contributor (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | Watts & Company |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1912 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Subject.Name (LCNAF) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 46 pages; 19 cm. |
Original Item Location | BX4668.3.M33A3 1912 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304505~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 18 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_5792348_017.jpg |
Transcript | / / cen r Hr WHY 1 LEFT THE CHURCH qt/nainly as the maker of the universe; their mind ^ recognises its insufficiency, and postulates a creator to explain its existence. It seemed to me that this position was confirmed on deeper philosophical inquiry, and that thus, even admitting the great world to be the necessary outcome of a primitive nebula, whose condensation sufficiently explained its structure and its contents, still we were bound to recognise a higher principle beyond the nebula— the author of its existence, its properties, its motion and primitive disposition. Thus what was lost in teleology was more than compensated. I could not enthuse with special emphasis over the marvels of the microscope and telescope, for I knew too well the secular process of development that explained them; but the whole world seemed now to testify to a higher power, the grain of sand as eloquently as the starry universe, and I thought I had here a firm basis of Theistic belief which no progress of science would ever disturb. However, I felt I had not yet reached the deepest roots of the argument, and doubt and misgiving periodically took possession of me. When one is engaged in ministerial and professional work in London, it is difficult to find an opportunity for the severe task of honestly and thoroughly examining the bases of belief. In the summer of 1896 the rectorship ot a small college in the country was offered to me, which afforded •me the necessary leisure and retirement. It was then that I finally abandoned all hope of finding a basis for Theistic belief. The metaphysical argument, or argument from causality, is frequently formulated in an obviously |