sisting of a few thousand citizens. He even considered that 
the presence of large multitudes would be fatal to the success 
of his experiment. The result with which his efforts would 
have been attended will remain for ever in those regions where 
to guessers all things are possible ; for, alas ! the public never 
could be persuaded to commit the reconstruction of any state, 
great or small, into his hands. 
21. Nothing is more easy, now that a great light has come, 
than to assert that everything which it has disclosed could 
have been found out without its aid, if only sufficient time 
had been given for the human mind to operate in. A certain 
class of thinkers, when they get into a difficulty, at once draw 
a cheque upon the bank' of eternity, and offer it in payment, 
as though it were a rational solution of it. I submit that this 
is guessing, and not reasoning. A plain fact meets us, and 
it requires explanation. The voice of history asserts that 
philosophers had not discovered a perfect moral law, and were 
destitute of a moral force adequate to make that which they 
recognized an actuality. This is a testimony of philosophy 
in favour of Christianity ; and it is no answer to reply that, 
with the aid of an indefinite period of time, philosophy might 
have discovered everything which Christianity has disclosed. 
It is impossible to disprove that, with the aid of unlimited 
time, the meanest of the human race may not hereafter be 
endowed with faculties, compared with which those of Newton 
were childish. But it is equally impossible to prove it. 
Whenever men wish to prove that chance has been the 
evolver of all things, the bank of unlimited time is the ready 
refuge of the destitute. On this subject the voice of Buddhism 
is deeply impressive. I know that there are disputes as to the 
precise meaning of its doctrine of annihilation. But at any 
rate, absorption must carry with it the destruction of man s 
personal being. It is a fact, worthy of attentive meditation, 
that millions of our race have accepted the hope of this as a 
veritable Gospel of good news. 
22. For the purposes of my argument I am entitled to assume 
the existence of Christianity as a fact, and to reason upon it as 
such. I now proceed to inquire whether philosophy recognizes 
that it has satisfied this last great want of mankind, by 
providing a force which can make the moral law an actuality ; 
whether it supplies an illumination of which men were pre- 
viously destitute; and whether the morals which it teaches, 
and the forces which it calls into exercise, will stand the test 
of a sound philosophy* It has been frequently urged against 
* It may be desirable to state, that by the term “ moral force,” as employed 
throughout this paper, is meant any or all of those powers in man which are 
capable of impelling him to action. 
