556 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



he who prefers the least weight of evidence to 

 the greatest. 



The popular line of distinction corresponds, 

 indeed, to a very important divergence of thought, 

 though riot, in any strict use of language, to a 

 distinction between belief and unbelief. That 

 man is generally called a believer (and I shall use 

 the word in that sense) who asserts, while the 

 unbeliever denies, the possibility of rising to a 

 transcendental world. The sphere of the be- 

 liever's creed is therefore wider, it may be said, 

 than that of the unbeliever. His world tran- 

 scends or envelops that of his opponent, and he 

 accepts a whole category of propositions in re- 

 gard to which the unbeliever maintains the neu- 

 tral attitude of absolute doubt. But this state- 

 ment is at least inadequate. As a so-called dis- 

 belief is simply a belief differently stated, so a 

 belief about the other world, so far as it can be 

 called a belief at all, and certainly so far as it 

 can have any influence, is of necessity a belief 

 about this. Beliefs belonging to the transcen- 

 dental sphere may be of the highest importance 

 so far as they modify or so far as they give 

 strength and coherence to beliefs about the or- 

 dinary world of experience. They give the ad- 

 jective which modifies the meaning of the sub- 

 stantive. But, except as influencing our conduct, 

 belief about heaven and hell would be of no more 

 importance than a belief about the inhabitants 

 of Sirius, and, so far as it influences our conduct, 

 it is capable of translation into terms of ordinary 

 experience. That other world upon which the 

 believer gazes is either a superfluity or is essen- 

 tially a new light cast upon this world. You 

 may, for various reasons, talk about the light 

 abstractedly from the thing lighted, but it might 

 as well be darkness except as revealing some 

 new aspect of concrete objects. The dogmas of 

 the believer may extend farther or pierce deeper 

 than those of the unbeliever, but their vitality is 

 entirely within the region to which both have 

 access. The creed about the beyond, when not 

 a set of words, is but another mode of stating a 

 belief about the present. The vulgar epicurean 

 infers from the shortness of life that eating and 

 drinking are the only pleasures worth enjoyment. 

 The ascetic infers from the same fact that sen- 

 sual pleasures are worthless. Each has as defi- 

 nite a creed as his rival, and as capable of ex- 

 pression in peremptory terms. Whether we 

 express doubts as to the reality of future or of 

 present pleasures, or beliefs as to the reality of 

 their evils, we may equally have a dogmatic creed 

 capable of serving for a rule of conduct. Every 



genuine belief, in short, which refers to the tran 

 seendental world, carries with it a reference to 

 this, which may be accepted or denied by those who 

 would in terms most narrow the sphere of belief. 

 This illustration, however, suggests the really 

 important distinction. Some creeds do in fact 

 supply motives for consistent and vigorous ac- 

 tion, while others produce a paralysis of the will. 

 This is not because one creed expresses an abso- 

 lutely greater quantity of belief — if one may say 

 so — than its rivals. Creeds which once prompted 

 to the most energetic action have become simply 

 obstructive, like Mohammedanism ; and some of 

 the most intense beliefs in the world, as some 

 forms of fatalism, are more depressing than any 

 doubts. But, as a general rule, creeds must lose 

 their stimulating power when they tend to pro- 

 duce doubt in presence of the great emergencies 

 of life. If one creed gives a definite precept 

 when its opposite leaves the mind undecided be- 

 tween conflicting precepts, the first will be best 

 adapted for energetic persons. Such a creed, 

 moreover, can be most simply expressed in terms 

 of affirmation when its opposite most easily takes 

 the negative form. It is more natural, that is, 

 to give the positive form to the rule which pre- 

 scribes one out of a dozen courses of action than 

 to the rule which asserts them to be all equally 

 promising. And, in this sense, the positive is 

 more likely to be stimulating than the negative 

 form, or, if we choose so to speak, belief than 

 skepticism. We might infer that, as a creed 

 ceases to possess its old power, the negations 

 which have always been latent in its affirmations 

 will tend to assume greater prominence. They 

 must, in fact, become more distinctly operative. 

 The creed is depressing when it restrains more 

 frequently than it impels. But the tendency is 

 oliscured by the habit of using the old forms ; and 

 the creed which is most skeptical in this sense — 

 most incapable, that is, of suggesting powerful 

 motives and efficient restraints — may still express 

 itself in the positive language. We must decide 

 upon its real tendency, not by simply examining 

 the form of its utterance, nor by asking how 

 many beliefs it expresses, but by inquiring, as 

 well as we can, which side of the creed is most im- 

 portant in relation to the conditions of the sense. 

 Such an inquiry will be facilitated by bringing 

 into distinct light those implicit denials which are 

 overlooked in the ordinary statements. If we 

 thus ask what it is that the Christian faith, as 

 now existing, actually denies, we may possibly 

 find some explanation of its failure to meet the 

 unbeliever. 



