266 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



is Impossible. Our business is to find out what is true. 



If there is trustworthy evidence tending to show that 

 humanity has attained a grade at which a real and per- 

 manent personality has developed, then that evidence 

 can be accepted. If the evidence goes further, and 

 shows that some of the higher animals have reached 

 such a grade, then that evidence can be accepted too. 

 We have no right to draw an artificial line and say. 

 Thus far and no further. Nor have we any right to 

 turn down actual evidence because of our irrational 

 and perhaps superstitious preconceptions. We have 

 no more right to do that than we have to accept or 

 invent faulty evidence and imaginary facts, on the 

 ground of our preconceptions or superstitions or 

 human longings. The emotions must be kept in their 

 place. Things are not true because we want them to 

 be true; but neither are they false because we feel they 

 ought to be false. Human instincts and intuitions are 

 not to be despised. The intuitions of genius are part 

 of the facts, and have a weight and value of their own. 



But fortunately in this vital matter we are not left 

 to inspirations and intuitions. Cold-blooded direct 

 evidence Is vouched for, and this it is which must be 

 examined without prejudice either way. And this it 

 is which will ultimately convince all humanity of the 

 truth of survival, and incidentally will in the long run 

 enable us to realise more clearly what survival means, 

 what physical mechanism is associated with it, what is 

 its scope and how far it extends, and what bearing it 

 has on the ultimate problems of reality. 



