charges of Atheism, not only against opponents, but each other; not only
against disbelievers but believers. The Jesuit Lafiteau, in a Preface to
his 'Histoire des Sauvages Americanes,' [10:1] endeavours to prove that
only Atheists will dare assert that God created the Americans. Not a
metaphysical writer of eminence has escaped the 'imputation' of Atheism.
The great Clarke and his antagonist the greater Leibnitz were called
Atheists. Even Newton was put in the same category. No sooner did
sharp-sighted Divines catch a glimpse of an 'Essay on the Human
Understanding' than they loudly proclaimed the Atheism of its author.
Julian Hibbert, in his learned account 'Of Persons Falsely Entitled
Atheists,' says, 'the existence of some sort of a Deity has usually been
considered undeniable, so the imputation of Atheism and the title of
Atheist have usually been considered as insulting.' This author, after
giving no fewer than thirty and two names of 'individuals among the
Pagans who (with more or less injustice) have been accused of Atheism,'
says, 'the list shews, I think, that almost all the most celebrated
Grecian metaphysicians have been, either in their own or in following
ages, considered, with more or less reason, to be Atheistically
inclined. For though the word Atheist was probably not often used till
about a hundred years before Christ, yet the imputation of _impiety_ was
no doubt as easily and commonly bestowed, before that period, as it has
been since.' [11:1]

Voltaire relates, in the eighteenth chapter of his 'Philosophie de
L'Histoire,' [11:2] that a Frenchman named Maigrot, Bishop of Conon, who
knew not a word of Chinese, was deputed by the then Pope to go and pass
judgment on the opinions of certain Chinese philosophers; _he treated
Confucius as Atheist, because that sage had said, 'the sky has given me
virtue, and man can do me no hurt.'_