of the arch of a tottering civilization; let us destroy it. The true
road to liberty, to equality, and to happiness, is atheism. No safety on
earth, so long as man holds on by a thread to heaven.--Let nothing
henceforward shackle the spontaneity of the human mind. Let us teach man
that there is no other God than himself, that he is the Alpha and the
Omega of all things, the superior being, and the most real reality." We
have still to explain the nature of this spontaneity, free from every
shackle. One of the editors of the journal conducted by Marr discloses
it by quoting some verses in which Henri Heine expresses the wish to
see _great vices, bloody and colossal crimes_, provided he may be
delivered from a _worthy-citizen virtue_, and an _honest-merchant
morality_![61] A little later, a journal of German Switzerland asserted,
that in order to set free man's natural instincts and propensities, it
is indispensable to destroy the idea of God.[62]

These, I am well aware, are the screams of a savage madness. But after
all, and be this as it may, Marr was publishing his journal at Lausanne
in 1845, and in 1848 he was named representative of the people, by a
considerable majority, in one of the largest cities of Germany. And this
was by no means an isolated fact. Atheism showed itself in the ephemeral
parliament of Frankfort as a sort of party, of which M. Vogt, says the
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, was the great orator.[63]

The German revolution was put down by the bayonet, but the doctrines of
which it had revealed the existence, left vestiges for a long time in
the country of the terror which they had inspired. Alarm was felt for
the various interests threatened, and noble souls were stirred with
compassion by the conviction forced upon them of the spiritual miseries
of their brethren. A powerful reaction took place, as well in the
religious as the philosophical world. This reaction has produced