DOUBT AS REGARDS RELIGION. 



375 



the Universum, the Cosmos, and its attendant life and force 

 conditioning hypothesis, or why these and kindred ideas 

 have, by a large number of English thinkers, been con- 

 sidered pernicious. 



Every form of religion may be untrue, but some of the 

 grounds upon which the doctrine of the constructive power 

 of force is supposed to rest we know to be worthless, and 

 can demonstrate to be false. On the other hand, at least 

 some articles of religion may be admitted to be true, while 

 much that is urged in favour of the material views has been 

 over and over again proved to demonstration to rest upon 

 scientific assertion and dogma only, and not upon fact. 

 Doubt as regards religion is happily not incompatible with 

 some sort of sustaining hope, which, though vague, may yet 

 render tolerable the bearing of the burthen of life, and help 

 its possessor to endure with some degree of cheerful sub- 

 mission the labours, the disappointments, and misfortunes 

 which too often fall to the lot even of those who are satisfied 

 that they have been somehow so constituted as to be the 

 fittest to survive in the struggle for existence. 



It seems passing strange that men can be found to 

 theoretically accept a faith the principles of which no civilized 

 being could practically act upon or permit others to carry 

 out. Nevertheless we are assured by Strauss, that " Dar- 

 win's ' struggle for existence ' is nothing else but the expan- 

 sion of that into a law of nature which we have long since 

 recognized as a law of our social and industrial life ;" 

 but probably few will accept such a phrase as truly repre- 

 senting the actual circumstances of our social and industrial 

 competition. 



Scientific observers, although unable to %plain or ac- 



