VII AGNOSTICISM 243 



were true to their creeds, would affirm your 

 everlasting damnation by an immense majority. 



Preachers, orthodox and heterodox, din into our 

 ears that the world cannot get on without faith of 

 some sort. There is a sense in which that is as 

 eminently as obviously true ; there is another, in 

 which, in my judgment, it is as eminently as 

 obviously false, and it seems to me that the 

 hortatory, or pulpit, mind is apt to oscillate 

 between the false and the true meanings, without 

 being aware of the fact. 



It is quite true that the ground of every one of 

 our actions, and the validity of all our reasonings, 

 rest upon the great act of faith, which leads us to 

 take the experience of the past as a safe guide in 

 our dealings with the present and the future. 

 From the nature of ratiocination, it is obvious that 

 the axioms, on which it is based, cannot be demon- 

 strated by ratiocination. It is also a trite obser- 

 vation that, in the business of life, we constantly 

 take the most serious action upon evidence of an 

 utterly insufficient character. But it is surely 

 plain that faith is not necessarily entitled to 

 dispense with ratiocination because ratiocination 

 cannot dispense with faith as a starting-point ; 

 and that because we are often obliged, by the 

 pressure of events, to act on very bad evidence, it 

 does not follow that it is proper to act on such 

 evidence when the pressure is absent. 



The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells 



