178 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



ever hope to be passed through even greater darkness and God- 

 forsakenness on his way to triumph. The ground of Christian cer- 

 tainty is therefore analogous to the ground of scientific certainty. In 

 both cases it is to working hypotheses that certainty attaches. In 

 both cases the ground of certainty is that by long experience these 

 working hypotheses have been proved to be reliable as working 

 hypotheses. 



But the similarity conceals a fundamental difference. The relia- 

 bility of the working hypotheses of science is immediate proof that 

 they correspond to some objective reality. The reliability of the 

 working hypotheses of reUgion does not, however, immediately prove 

 their truth. What we mean when we say that a reUgious working 

 hypothesis always proves rehable is that it can always be depended 

 upon to make him who accepts it a better and a happier man; that 

 it is subjectively satisfying. Because a belief is subjectively satisfy- 

 ing it does not immediately follow that it is objectively true. 



And yet the Christian takes that leap. He feels justified in taking 

 it because he refuses to beheve that things are not what a man must 

 believe them to be if he is to realize his highest hfe. He refuses to 

 believe that noble hving is irrational, that any postulate which is ne- 

 cessary to motive it and justify it can possibly be false. He insists 

 that it is precisely the highest types of manhood that are living in 

 full accord with the nature of things. 



This is not the place to argue the credibility of the religious premise. 

 Perhaps "nothing worth proving can be proven, nor yet disproven." 

 Our business as historians is only to see very clearly what the funda- 

 mental premise of religious faith is. For that which we have outUned 

 is the underlying assumption of all reUgious faith, the basis of all 

 religious conviction; albeit few perhaps, even of those who feel and 

 respond to the appeal of religion, are ever conscious of the several steps 

 of their logical processes. Religions spread, not because of any appeal 

 they may make to the philosophic intellect, but because they satisfy 

 the soul's needs. 



To illustrate from the spread of Christianity itself: Primitive 

 Christianity rested upon the doctrine of the resurrection. Now the 



