Secularism is an orientation to life that places paramount importance on the matters of ‘this world’, and considers observation and reason the best means by which the things of this world can be known and improved. 1 It has its roots in a response to religious belief, but is not necessarily a form of religion in itself . In some forms, secularism has been preoccu- pied only with the elimination of religious belief; in others, it is concerned with substituting a secular creed in its place. h is latter form of secular- ism was embraced by such ‘advanced’ middle-class writers of the Victorian period as h omas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold and George Eliot. 2 h e encounter with secularism of such thinkers was often accom- panied by a ‘crisis of faith’, a crisis that had social, intellectual and moral implications for the newly converted non-believer. George Eliot at once represents the reach of secularist philosophy into middle-class circles, and provides its best expression in Victorian fiction. Published in Harris, Margaret, editor. George Eliot in Context. Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 271-278. Click here or on title.