244 AGNOSTICISM 



Vll 



us that "faith is the assurance of things hoped 

 for, the proving of things not seen/' In the 

 authorised version, " substance " stands for 

 " assurance," and " evidence " for " proving," 

 The question of the exact meaning of the two 

 words, vTrooraaL^ and 6X67^09, affords a fine field 

 of discussion for the scholar and the metaphysician. 

 But I fancy we shall be not far from the mark if 

 we take the writer to have had in his mind the 

 profound psychological truth, that men constantly 

 feel certain about things for which they strongly 

 hope, but have no evidence, in the legal or logical 

 sense of the word ; and he calls this feeling 

 " faith." I may have the most absolute faith that 

 a friend has not committed the crime of which he 

 is accused. In the early days of English history, 

 if my friend could have obtained a few more 

 compurgators of a like robust faith, he would have 

 been acquitted. At the present day, if I tendered 

 myself as a witness on that score, the judge would 

 tell me to stand down, and the youngest barrister 

 would smile at my simplicity. Miserable indeed 

 is the man who has not such faith in some of his 

 fellow-men only less miserable than the man 

 who allows himself to forget that such faith is not, 

 strictly speaking, evidence ; and when his faith is 

 disappointed, as will happen now and again, turns 

 Timon and blames the universe for his own 

 blunders. And so, if a man can find a friend, the 

 hypostas's of all his hopes, the mirror of his 



