Sufficiency of Proof. 21 



Indeed the value of questions in physical science / 

 depends much upon how these higher questions are / 

 answered. 



We assumed in the outset a religious nature in i } 

 man manifesting its existence by his religious ; 

 impulses and desires. Man naturally seeks to know 

 if there is a God, and what relations he sustains to 

 that God. No one will deny this who is at all 

 versed in the history of human belief. Men have 

 in their untutored state received a belief in the 

 existence of some higher power, either from tra- 

 dition or as the outgrowth of their nature. In the 

 highest forms of society, investigations have led 

 most men to the same result. These investigations 

 have been so uniform in producing a belief in God, 

 that we have in this fact a strong presumptive evi- 

 dence of the sufficiency of the proof of His exist- 

 ence, and of the power of the human mind to weigh 

 that proof. As the childish credulity of an early 

 age gave way before advancing knowledge, it was 

 only the few who failed to find higher and surer 

 ground of belief to grasp proof fitted to satisfy 

 the progressing mind. As more proof became 

 necessary to produce conviction, more proof always 

 presented itself; so that the great majority of men 

 who have left in words or in acts a record of their 

 thoughts and convictions, have believed in an invisi- 

 ble world, in a divine Personal Being, and in a future 

 state of existence. So uniformly has this opinion 

 prevailed that we are justified in assuming that 

 there are some things in this universe that tend to 



