xvn THE DESIRE FOR IMMORTALITY 325 



metaphorically, to strengthen our assertions. But all this 

 in no wise implies that they are taken as facts and must 

 be acted on as such. On the contrary, it is just because 

 the religious doctrines of immortality are not taken as 

 facts that they are accepted. For we are accustomed to 

 accept matters of faith only at a large discount from their 

 face value, and their acceptance scarcely affects the value 

 of the hard-money facts of everyday life. Hence the 

 religious doctrines with respect to the future life form a 

 sort of paper currency, inconvertible with fact, which suits 

 people and circulates the better because of its very badness. 

 Their function is to conjure up pleasing and consoling 

 visions whenever we are in a mood for them, to provide a 

 brighter background for life than sheer extinction ; but they 

 are never allowed to grow insistent enough seriously to 

 affect action. They are entertained in a complacent spirit 

 of half belief, but no sensible man (and the mass of man 

 kind are always appallingly sensible with respect to 

 whatever does not tempt them !) allows himself to be 

 distracted in his business and upset in his calculations by 

 such shadowy possibilities. Consequently their practical 

 effect is small and utterly out of proportion to their 

 pretensions. The human spirit accepts them indeed in 

 a religious I had almost said a Pickwickian sense, 

 and uses whatever elements in them minister to its 

 needs : it rejects the indigestible remainder. 



And here one cannot help thinking the churches make a 

 grave mistake. They do not seem to realize that the 

 cultivated minds of the present day have come to include 

 in the indigestible remainder the greater part of what 

 has hitherto been regarded as most distinctive dogma. 

 Fortunately or unfortunately, neither Heaven nor Hell 

 retains its efficacy, even for the purposes above described. 

 Men no longer dream themselves in Heaven nor dread 

 themselves in Hell. This puts the churches into the 

 humiliating position of offering men the reward of a 

 heaven which hardly any one desires, and of threatening 

 them with the penalties of a hell which every one believes 

 to be reserved for people a great deal worse than them- 



