THE ARGUMENT DRAWN FROM DESIGN.

REPLY TO ALIQUIS-No. v.

DEAR SIR,-I am obliged to you for the Reasoner, No. 191. I do not, however, feel disposed at present to accept Aliquis's challenge. may, however, make an observation or two. Aliquis says that when believers in a God say that all objects which bear marks of design have an intelligent cause, they assume what they ought to prove. To me Aliquis seems chargeable with the very thing which he blames in others. He engages to prove that objects may bear marks of design, and yet not have an intelligent cause. He undertakes to prove this by exhibiting numerous objects bearing unequivocal marks of profound design which have not an intelligent cause. He then specifies a variety of trees and animals, and concludes by saying, 'Here we have groups of objects, bearing unequivocal marks of profound design, which have not an intelligent cause.' Instead of proving that trees and animals, and the like, have not an intelligent cause, he simply assumes it. How would he prove that trees and animals have not an intelligent cause? It is not enough to say they have none. Will Aliquis, instead of saying that trees, animals, &c., have not an intelligent cause, endeavour to prove that they have not? Yours respectfully,

To G. J. Holyoake. JOSEPH BARker. P.S.-What kind of a publication was the Beacon you speak of? Could you send me a number or two? I like the principal part of your article on 'Religion in Reference to Rush and the Mannings, W. J. B.'s.] You are, in general, as far as principles are concerned, one of the fairest writers I know. It is only when you write about me, I think, that you become unreasonable. But I suppose it is as true that no man is wise on all subjects as it is that no man is wise on all occasions. Wortley, near Leeds, Feb. 7th, 1850.

Lecture.

Finsbury Hall, Bunhill Row.-March 11th [84], Mr. Mark Wilks, Writings of Charles Dickens." South Place, Moorfields.-March 10th [11a.m.,]

Mr. Travers will Lecture.

Eclectic Institute, 72, Newman Street, Ox-
ford Street March 10th (7), J. B. O'Brien, B.A.,
Principles of Political, Moral, and Social Science.'
Temperance Hall, Broadway, Westminster.-
March 4th [8], a Lecture.

S
PURR'S TEMPERANCE COFFEE HOUSE.
and Family Hotel, 10, Williamson Square,
Liverpool. Five Minutes' walk from the Railways
and Exchange. Well. aired Beds. Good Storage
for Luggage. Every information given to persons
Emigrating to the United States, Canada, or other
parts of the world. Letters, prepaid, attended to.

On the 30th of March, 1850, No. 1 of a new
Weekly Journal, Price 6d.,

THE LEADER.
THE right of every opinion to its own free utterance
will be the master principle of the Leader. Ear-
nest convictions on the questions of the day-
Political, Social, and Religious-will be discussed
with reverential freedom, in language direct and
unequivocal.

The paper will contain-the news of the day, handled so as to expand the most interesting in full and animated narrative; accurate commercial intelligence; a review of current literature, not only in books, but also in the events and influences of the literary world, at home and abroad; elucidation of the arts of the day, in criticism and descrip. tion; occasional pictorial illustrations; fiction; and original papers, literary and political.

The special function of the journal will be to bring out the real opinions of the day, in order to their thorough discussion and fulfilment in action. To guarantee its own candour, the new journal offers a department in its columns open to correspondents who may desire to controvert its opinions, so long as they observe the necessary rules as to space and decorum of tone. The Leader challenges a fair attention and manly opposition from those who uphold the received views and professions which may be called in question.

Published by Joseph Clayton, jun., 265, Strand, London.

OCIAL REFORM LEAGUE. A TEA PARTY D will be held in the Coffee Room of the John

COALS. JOHN CRAMP, of the firm of NEAL Street Institution, on Monday Evening, March 11,

and Co., Coal Merchants, Old Jamaica Wharf, Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge, inforins his Social friends that he is desirous of giving them the advantage of the wholesale market, by supplying Coal of the best quality at the lowest price for ready money; the rate of charges being always only four shillings advance on the prices in the Pool, as advertised from the Coal Exchange. Present Price, 24s.

to receive the report from Mr. Lloyd Jones (who has just returned to town) of his progress in Lan. cashire, and the prospects of the Social Reform movement.

Robert Owen has been invited to take the chair. Tea on the table at a seven precisely. Tickets 1s. each, to be had of Mr. Truelove at the Institution. HENRY A. IVORY, Sec.

Ellustrative Notices.

THE MONTHLY SUPPLEMENT will accompany next week's number, and the Reasoner will be occupied by a lecture by the editor, in reply to the Westminster Review-whose recent imputations upon Richard Carlile and the Rev. Robert Taylor call for a general Vindication of. Freethinkers. The article will include a remarkable passage from a recent lecture by the Rev. Newnham Travers, delivered at South Place, embodying the most graceful and generous recognition of the integrity of atheism, exceeding anything we ever before had the good fortune to hear.

The following handbill has been handed to us-we believe it has been circulated among a provincial congregation. It indicates the progress of a business spirit in evangelism :

ASTOUNDING NEWS!

MISERABLE SINNERS MADE COMFORTABLE

AND

CHRISTIAN WORSHIP RENDERED LUXURIOUS!!

The Rev. Simon Fisherman begs to acquaint the inhabitants of his own and every neighbouring Parish, with the

STARTLING FACT

That he has at length succeeded in fitting up his church in such a style that

ALL COMPETITION IS DEPied,

And every attempt at rivalry rendered

WORSE THAN RIDICULOUS.

The Rev. S. F., entirely at his own expense, has procured

A PATENT HEATING APPARATUS

Which every Sabbath is in full work at the Hope Church, and cannot fail to offer

A GREAT ATTRACTION

To all who can appreciate the happy union of

HOT AIR, HEALTH, AND PIETY;

But to those whose sad lot it is to combine

This must prove

RHEUMATISM WITH THEIR RIGHTEOUSNESS

PECULIARLY DELIGHTFUL.

In every other church the body shivers with cold, while the soul is being fed with gos. pel manna; but the Rev. S. F. feels confident that physical warmth is a

TREMENDOUS AID

To spiritual zeal; and, therefore, hopes as many as can will endeavour to resort to a place of worship, where the Word of God is preached with power, and every attention paid to the

COMFORT OF THE CONGREGATION. N.B.-All the pews are arranged with scrupulous regard for the sick, aged, and lazy, having beautifully stuffed seats and pillows for weary heads.

The Public is requested to observe, that the Rev. S. F. is supported entirely by congregational gratuities.

The lecture alluded to last week at the Brighton Town Hall was well attended. The Working Man's Institute seems well supported. The audience included a larger proportion of ladies than usual at such places. M. Ricardo, Esq., took the chair for the evening, and at the conclusion of the lecture, asked for the thanks of the Meeting to the Lecturer-in acknowledging which Mr. Holyoake said such a tribute had an additional value in his eyes, being proffered by one bearing the widely esteemed name of Ricardo. The Brighton Herald, in reporting the lecture, mentioned and commended Mr. Holyoake's Essay on the Relation of Literary Institutions to Public Opinion.' G. J. H.

London: Printed by Holyoake Brothers, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-row; and Published by J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-row.-Wednesday, March 6th, 1850.

They who believe that they have Truth ask no favour, save that of being heard: they dare the judgment of Mankind: refused Co-operation, they invoke Opposition, for Opposition is their Opportunity.-EDITOR.

REPLY TO THE WESTMINSTER AND FOREIGN QUARTERLY

REVIEW,'

IN THE MATTER OF ITS IMPUTATIONS ON RICHARD CARLILE AND THE
REV. ROBERT TAYLOR.

As far as one can state the customs of Reviews from observing their habits, they may be said never to quarrel with each other. When a Tory review writes an obnoxious article, a Whig review does not reply in a direct manner, but, as soon after as convenient, sets forth the opposite side of the case. The same rule applies to Religion as to Politics. There lately appeared an article in the Edinburgh Review entitled 'Reason and Faith, their Claims and Conflicts,' since owned by Henry Rogers-the next Westminster Review had an article entitled 'Religious Faith and Modern Scepticism,' which the public considered as a reply to the Edinburgh. Whether it was so or not has not certainly appeared. There was a large margin for public conjecture, and where this is the case the public (we can do them the justice to say) always fill it up liberally. This article of the Westminster contains some paragraphs about Scepticism neither courteous nor true. The gentleman who appeared at the lecture I delivered at the City Road, in answer to this article, said that the writer of the article was a lady. However this may be, truth is of no sex, and therefore requires no special vindication. We may still speak freely where a woman is in error, because woman, loving truth with more gentleness than man, must desire to see it more pure, more free from alloy. We will therefore still speak freely, only with more anxiety not to give offence.

The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, deservedly an authority with the public, can both make and unmake reputations, and therefore its adverse word is an important matter. Freethinkers will therefore read with pain these words, so uncalled for and so erroneous. Thus writes the review in question (the italics, except the phrase 'legal right,' are our own) :

'We were one day speaking to a veteran reformer, who had borne the torrent of much evil report for the sake of his opinions; he mentioned a circumstance which is not perhaps much known, and which is a pendant to the trial of Hone, though it is of a later date. Our readers may remember the indictments for blasphemy laid against Richard Carlile, Taylor, and other low fellows; the publications for which they were indicted were of the most ribald description, but they were neither seditious nor libellous.

'Several gentlemen of liberal politics, fearing in these indictments the beginning of aggression on the liberty of the press, took this occasion to moot the

[No. 198.]

[ONE PENNY.]

[No. 10, Vol. VIII.]

question, whether Englishmen had not a legal right to sell and publish any book or opinion whatever, so long as it kept clear of sedition and the stamp act; or whether government has the right to prosecute for so doing. The pamphlets in question were perfectly detestable in all respects, but they made an extreme case— to try the principle, which was all that was desired. The men were vulgar and violent, but hard and obstinate, quite willing to let themselves be sent to prison if need were. The gentlemen engaged to support their families in the meanwhile, and to pay all the expenses of the trial. Our informant told us one day he entered the shop in Fleet-street where the obnoxious publications were sold; the young man behind the counter said, exultingly, "So-and-so was taken this morning-I expect to be taken before night; but there are half-a-dozen more ready to take our place!" The prosecutions ceased, though the offence did not, and an enlarged liberty of expression has gradually arisen.'

We object to these paragraphs on the ground of their want of accuracy, and in reference to the dead who cannot answer, unbecoming in their unfriendliness. We do not mean in the sense of want of courtesy merely, but in the sense of showing rudeness where respect and even gratitude is due. The Rev. Mr. Taylor was a gentleman in the fullest sense of conventional requirements, nor was he vulgar in any intrinsic sense, only when retaliating the 'ribaldry' of the churches most plentifully poured out on his head; and Carlile was a different and a better man. He was not a gentleman by birth, but he was neither 'low' nor 'vulgar.' He was penetrated by a deep conviction which gave dignity to his bearing, and he was endowed with a spirit of devotion to public interests and principles which has had no example in its strength of endurance. Who is this writer that she should thus sit in judgment, degrading to the ranks of the 'low and vulgar,' men whose earnest faith was attested by generous exertion and uncomplaining suffering? Why should the Westminster, claiming respect for the integrity of its own opinions, and its reverential though liberal spirit, not treat with respect the no less earnest, though less refined, faith of humbler men? There must be some error, some oversight here, which being once pointed out can never be repeated, or we could spend some words of indignation on this language.

We have gone over all the veteran reformers we can think of, known to us directly and indirectly, without being able to discover the one referred to, and we have visited some to ask the question, and we beg respectfully to disbelieve that any 'veteran reformer' exists who has said what he is here reported to have said, in the same manner and purport as is set forth in the Review.

The opinions upon record of Mr. Francis Place, the most veteran reformer we know in connection with Carlile, makes it inconceivable that Carlile acted as the tool of any men, as the paragraph we have quoted states. Carlile had eminently an independent will. He would not have gone to prison on any man's instigation. Had the Exchequer been bestowed on his family, it would not have moved him. Unless names are mentioned, we cannot believe that any gentlemen made any offer to support his family earlier than the second or third year of his imprisonment. How little he acted as the agent of others, is shown in the records of his Life. The advice of Cobbett, of Hunt, of Burdett, and even Major Cartwright, was against his incurring imprisonment. His sense of duty led him to incur it, but it was done in defiance of public friends and the reformers of that day; and he went to gaol without the sympathy of any man of action. If any one had gone to Carlile with a view to have bought him over to any course, or to have treated him in any sense as a venal man, as a man whose conscience was in the keeping of the longpursed people, Carlile would have resented through the remainder of his life the

indignity put upon him thus. Nor is it true that his shopmen are represented, by the vain-glorious young man whom the reviewer mentions. The shopmen were neither 'low' nor 'vulgar,' unless a just indignation at oppression and an honourable resolution to resist it, is to be characterised in this way. We pen these words advisedly, and we are indebted for confirmation of our statements to Mr. James Watson, who was one of those who responded to Mr. Carlile's call for persons to brave the government while he was incarcerated, and who cheerfully exchanged his home in Leeds for a London gaol, in the days when Sidmouth and Castlereagh dictated the sentences.

We have also to notice an ignorance of things, as well as persons. We deny, without qualification, that the books sold were 'ribald' in any sense. Will the writer venture to mention them, and let us know whether Paine's political or theological works, or Palmer's' Principles of Nature,' are put under this offensive classification of 'perfectly detestable ?'

In another respect this writer falls into errors of assertion, yet whose confidence is only equalled by the grossness of the mistake. Is the Review ignorant of the history of Freethinking before the days of Thomas Carlyle? The reviewer declares that Thomas Carlyle, in his ‹ Sartor Resartus,' was the first who recognised the fact that a man may be at once religious of heart and sceptical of doctrine. 'He was the first man in England who dared declare that a sincere doubt is as entitled to respect as a sincere belief. Long before Thomas Carlyle wrote his 'Sartor Resartus,' or indeed was known to literature, Richard Carlile had asserted the same thing over and over again, and endured nine years' imprisonment for his pains. Did not poor Woolstan die in prison for having maintained the same truth? and have not all the old English Freethinkers who have preceded him maintained the same? What is the history of Freethinking but a long pleading at the risk of liberty, and sometimes of life, for the recognition of this truth?

The point which appears most painfully in this notice in the Westminster Review is the manner in which it represents the actors in that great and perilous struggle, in which Carlile first threw himself alone. The utter denial, on the part of the Review, of any conscience or conviction in the matter on the part of the actors, is most gross and undisguised, displaying an utter ignorance or carelessness of the feelings of any not within the pale of the writer's circle. Franklin once said of a Manchester merchant that he sold no tape narrower than his mind,' and we may say that there is no narrowness in any infidelity (in its darkest, most persecuted days) narrower than the spirit of disparagement in which these paragraphs were penned. If Thomas Carlyle, Enfantin, or Froude, stand up like men in the face of social censure for the integrity of truth and conscience, the Westminster Review has a generous word of approval for them, and we rejoice in it, and honour the Review for it but when Richard Carlile and his friends braved social expatriation, and even extermination, hear the verdict of this Review :—they were animated by no noble martyr-spirit-by no heroic temper of endurance-they were 'hard and obstinate men'—they were poor, and therefore they were vulgar-they fought their battle in humble life, and therefore they were 'low fellows '-they were determined to win free-speech for their countrymen, they were therefore violent '-they had no sense of truth, no feeling of right in them, no sentiment of duty, no outraged honour to vindicate, no manhood to preserve-they stood out in mere obstinacy. Excellent reviewer! Thomas Carlyle can command the columns of Frazer and the ear of the public in his defence-his conscience never led him out of the pale of sympathy. Froude can retire on an independency out of the reach of persecu