68 THE OEIGIN OF MAN 



faith — ^wlth the usual result. He abandoned prayer, 

 as he explains on pages 143 and 143 : " Even the sim- 

 plest act of will in regard to religion — that of prayer — 

 has not been performed by me for at least a quarter of 

 a century, simply because it has seemed impossible to 

 pray, as it were, hypothetically, that, much as I have 

 always desired to be able to pray, I cannot will the at- 

 tempt. To justify myself for what my better judg- 

 ment has often seemed to be essentially irrational, I 

 have ever made sundry excuses/' " Others have 

 doubtless other difficulties, but mine is chiefly, I think, 

 that of an undue regard to reason as against heart and 

 will — undue, I mean, if so it be that Christianity is 

 true, and the conditions to faith in it have been of 

 divine ordination.'* 



In time he tired of the husks of materialism and 

 started back to his Father's house. It was a w^eary 

 journey but as he plodded along, his appreciation of 

 the heart's part increased until, on pages 153 and 153, 

 he says, " It is a fact that we all feel the intellectual 

 part of man to be ' higher ' than the animal, whatever 

 our theory of his origin. It is a fact that we all feel 

 the moral part of man to be * higher ' than the intel- 

 lectual, whatever our theory of either may be. It is 

 also a fact that we all similarly feel the spiritual to be 

 * higher ' than the moral, whatever our theory of re- 

 ligion may be. It is what we understand by man's 

 moral, and still more his spiritual, qualities that go to 

 constitute character. And it is astonishing how in all 

 walks of life it is character that tells in the long run." 



On page 150 he answered Huxley's attack on faith. 



