312 RELIGION. 



who has become colour-blind, and the universal belief by men 

 of the existence of redness makes my present loss of percep- 

 tion of not the least value as evidence. This argument would 

 be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward 

 conviction of the existence of one God ; but we know that 

 this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see 

 that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as 

 evidence of what really exists. The state jrf mind which grand 

 scenes formerly excited in me, and which was intimately con- 

 nected with a belief in God, did not essentially differ from 

 that which is often called the sense of sublimity ; and however 

 difficult it may be to explain the genesis of this sense, it can 

 hardly be advanced as an argument for the existence of God, 

 any more than the powerful though vague and similar feelings 

 excited by music. 



" With respect to immortality, nothing shows me [so clearly] 

 how strong and almost instinctive a belief it is, as the con- 

 sideration of the view now held by most physicists, namely, 

 that the sun with all the planets will in time grow too cold 

 for life, unless indeed some great body dashes into the sun r 

 and thus gives it fresh life. Believing as I do that man in 

 the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than 

 he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other 

 sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after 

 such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit 

 the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our 

 world will not appear so dreadful. 



"Another source of conviction in the existence of God, con- 

 nected with the reason, and not with the feelings, impresses me 

 as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme 

 difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense 

 and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of 

 looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of 

 blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel com- 

 pelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in 



