SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 27 



selves in what sense we use the word religion. Men who would be 

 very much ashamed of themselves if they were detected using scientific 

 words inaccurately, do, nevertheless, attribute meanings to the word 

 religion, which it is difficult to hear with patience. I have heard an 

 eminent scientific man upon a public occasion, and in a serious manner, 

 define religion to be duty, making a mere idle play upon the original 

 meaning of the word. Without, however, entering into verbal discus- 

 sions, it will be, surely, enough to define religion as a practical belief 

 in, and consciousness of, God and immortality ; and, as the latter is 

 now absolutely essential to the idea of religion as a motive moral 

 power, and as, moreover, it includes, or at any rate necessitates the 

 belief in the existence of God, we may fairly conclude that, for all 

 practical purposes, and certainly for the purpose of this argument, re- 

 ligion is synonymous with a belief in immortality. And if, for any 

 reason, mankind does at any time cease to believe in its own immortal- 

 ity, then religion will also have ceased to exist as a part of the con- 

 sciousness of humanity. To clear up, therefore, the relations between 

 immortality and science becomes a matter of the utmost importance 

 It will be well next to analyze briefly the effect which science has upon 

 the nature of the proofs by which this, like all other facts, must be 

 demonstrated. Let us, for convenience' sake, regard the world as a 

 vast jury, before which the various advocates of many truths, and of 

 still more numerous errors, plead the cause of their respective clients. 

 However much a man may wrap himself up in the consciousness of 

 ascertained truth, and affirm that it makes no matter to him what the 

 many believe, yet Nature is in the long-run too powerful for him, and 

 the instinct of humanity excites him to plead the cause of what he 

 knows to be truth, and to mourn in his heart and be sore vexed if men 

 reject it. Truth is ever generous and hopeful, though at the same time 

 patient and long-suffering ; she longs to make converts, but does not 

 deny herself or turn traitress to her convictions if converts refuse to 

 be made. There is a sense, indeed, in which it may be said that truth 

 only becomes actual and vital by becoming subjective through re- 

 ceiving the assent of men. What, then, must the advocate for the fact 

 of the immortality of the soul expect that science will require of hitn 

 when he pleads before the tribunal of the world for that truth which, 

 because it is dear to himself, he wishes to enforce on others ? 



The alterations in the minds of men, which the tendency of modem 

 thought has effected in respect of evidence, may be summed up undei 

 two heads : First, the nature of the evidence required is altogethei 

 altered, and a great many arguments, that would in former days have 

 gone to the jury, are now summarily suppressed. Fact can only be 

 proved by facts, that is, by events, instances, things, which are sub- 

 mitted to experience and observation, and are confirmed by experi- 

 ment and reason. And, secondly, the minds of the jury are subject to 

 a priori, and, on the whole, perfectly reasonable prepossessions before 



