[36] _De Legibus_, ii. 7.

[37]

Dors-tu content, Voltaire, et ton hideux sourire
Voltige-t-il encor sur tes os décharnés?

[38] Hume, Essay VIII. On liberty and necessity. [Not having access to
the original, I re-translate the French translation.--TR.]

[39] Vacherot, _La metaphysique et la science_. Preface, p. xxix.




LECTURE III.

_THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM._

(At Geneva, 24th Nov. 1863.--At Lausanne, 18th Jan. 1864.)


GENTLEMEN,

The subject of the present Lecture will be--The revival of Atheism. And
I do not employ the word 'atheism'--a term which has been so greatly
abused--without mature reflection. When Socrates opposed the idea of the
holy God to the impure idols of paganism; when he dethroned Jupiter and
his train in order to celebrate "the supreme God, who made and who
guides the world, who maintains the works of creation in the flower of