54 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



exclusively selfish regards, the old perennial spring of so 

 much moral evil. And thus we support our faith in the 

 good purpose of the universe. 



It should also be confessed that we are to some 

 extent fortified in it by considerations not altogether 

 addressed to the reason, for no faith is solely rational. 

 We close with it partly on account of the blank and 

 frightful alternatives which the pessimist and the ex- 

 treme materialist offer to us : the one pointing to a prin- 

 ciple at the bottom of things, which, though without any 

 evil intention, necessarily brings evil to us ; and the 

 other, scarcely less alarming, to a universe born of chance 

 and mechanical necessity, and drifting aimlessly towards 

 no goal but final dissolution from the same mechanical 

 necessity. 



