things, is a statement the only test of whose truth is immediate observation, the presentation of the external fact to the consciousness. So, too, the statement that revenge is sweet. A belief is an inference, and as such is the work of the reason. The reason endeavours to anticipate the movement of facts; and the movement of reason is distinct from the movement of facts, for it may go wrong altogether, and leads us to expect something which, after all, does not happen.

At first sight it might appear that here we have the source of errors in religion: the human reason goes astray— and that doubtless is the reason of some religious errors. But if we put all the blame on the erring human reason, then in the case of correct beliefs we must assign it all the credit. In other words-to come back to our proper subject, the evolution of belief-the religious progress which admittedly has taken place will be purely intellectual-the religious sentiment has had no share in it.

But there is another source of mistaken belief besides mere intellectual errors of calculation, so to speak, from correct premisses: there is mal-observation of the facts on which the reasoning is based. It is possible under the influence of a preconception to overlook certain facts, and by leaving them out of consideration to make any right conclusion impossible, however correct the process of reasoning applied to the incomplete premisses. Again, it is possible to mistake one person for another, one thing for another, to be unable to perceive that a certain shade of colour is green not blue, dark purple not black, pale cream not white.

Thus religious progress may consist not only in the correction of intellectual errors by the intellect, but also in renewed and closer attention to the facts presented in or by the religious consciousness-in a finer sense of what is repugnant to religious feeling. Here there is no process of inference, but an appeal to the testimony of consciousness, just as the question whether a given thing is or is not of exactly the same shade of colour as another given thing, is one which can only be settled by an appeal to the consciousness. In both cases the test of truth consists in the facts of the case, and in immediate consciousness of them.

Again, between the conviction that everything has a cause, and ability to assign the cause of everything that happens, there is a great distance. Man started in the beginning with the former, and is yet a long way off the latter. So far as he has bridged the gap, he has done so simply by closer and closer attention to the facts of consciousness. Even the destruction of erroneous canons of reasoning, e.g. like produces like, has been effected simply by the process of verification.

But the conviction with which man started was neither the result of any process of reasoning (no satisfactory reasoning has even yet been found for its proof) nor could it have been the result of experience, in the beginning when man had as yet had no experience. It was a conviction, undemonstrated and unproved, if not incapable of proof, yet one without which science could have made not only no progress, but not even a beginning.

So, too, the conviction that changes not caused by man are yet due to will, was a similar form of thought, a mode in which man could not help thinking, and without which religion could have made no progress.

But just as the conviction that everything has a cause does not help us to determine whether A, B, or C is the cause of Z, and does not prevent us from selecting A, B, C, or D as the cause when it really is K, so the conviction that changes not caused by man are due to will did not enable man to identify the Being whose will it was, nor prevent him from ascribing that will to many erroneous

sources.

That man should in the beginning make many mistakes, needs no explanation. But it would be an error to suppose that his mistaken inferences were automatically corrected by their discrepancy with actual facts. Scientific knowledge is the possession even now of but few: the vast majority have not learnt to correct their inferences or verify their conclusions by comparing them with facts. Even when facts force themselves on their notice, they are disregarded: we note and remember those which confirm our preconceived opinions, and set aside the rest. The same is true of religion. In fine, it is neither the origin nor the growth nor the survival

of error that need surprise us (for error has its laws of growth and propagation), but that truth should ever supplant it.

Now, it is possible to look at a thing without seeing ite.g. to look at a rock without seeing its resemblance to a human face or figure. And when once the thing has been pointed out by somebody else, it is impossible to look at it without seeing it. This is as true of spiritual and mental vision as it is of physical sight. The one thing needful for the spread and propagation of the true view is that there should be someone to point it out. After that, the convincing power of facts should suffice. The preconceptions, the wrong way of looking at the facts, the overlooking of them, stand in the way and require to be removed by the assistance of someone who sees what he wishes you to see. That it is God with whom the religious heart communes in prayer, is a fact of immediate consciousness-which is none the less a fact because another looks at it without seeing it, or is as unable to distinguish it from some other fact of consciousness, as he may be to distinguish dark purple from black, the personal ambition which really moves him from the patriotism which stirs him in part though not as completely as he thinks.

That a man who sees the fact is able to assist others to concentrate their attention until they also see it, is undoubted-it is the only means of spreading any teaching, scientific, æsthetic, or religious. It is the condition of the growth of a belief. Is it not the condition or a condition of the origin also? What the reformer first sees in his own mind and heart he sees in consequence of his communing with God and of His teaching. Be this as it may, the mode of propagation is that the learner learns to see facts which he did not see before: ex hypothesi at first he cannot see them, but he believes that he may come to have immediate consciousness of them, and he so believes because he has faith in his master. The reason he cannot see them is that preconceptions block his view or direct it amiss. These preconceptions, ex hypothesi, are erroneous conclusions reached by a reasoning process, or simple want of teaching how to use the eye of the mind and direct it to the proper quarter. To lay aside or cast off these preconceptions means

giving up belief in them, admitting that they are wrong; and such an admission is only possible to the humble-minded: humility is the first condition of learning. The man who thinks he knows has no desire to learn; the man who is sure he is right cannot set about amending his ways.

The period of faith does not terminate, however, when the pupil has come to have immediate consciousness of the facts which at first he could not see: the new facts of consciousness have to be reconciled with other (real or apparent) facts, e.g. the all-powerfulness with the all-goodness of God, and such reconciliation may be beyond the reasoning power of the individual or of man; but faith persists that the belief will ultimately be found to be justified by the facts. Here note that faith is not something peculiar or confined to religion, but is interwoven with every act of reason, no matter what the subject-matter to which the reasoning process is applied. The object of reason is to infer facts. The facts of which we have immediate consciousness at any moment are relatively very few. But the reasoning processes enable us to judge what certain facts will be, which at the moment are not immediately present to consciousness. The only reason why we believe that any given process will enable us to anticipate correctly the movement of facts, is that in the past it has so enabled us, and was verified by the facts. Here we evidently assume that facts will in the future continue to move on the same lines as in the past, and not swerve off in some totally different direction-in a word, we assume that nature is uniform. Now this belief that

facts will behave in the future as in the past, that fire, e.g., will not cease to burn, is a piece of pure faith. The difference between this faith and religious faith is that no great effort of will is required for it-the reason of which is that facts apparently irreconcilable with it are not of frequent occurrence. The moment such facts are alleged, e.g. as in the case of the way in which material objects are alleged to behave at spiritualistic séances, an effort of will to maintain the faith in the uniformity of nature is stimulated, which in the case supposed takes the form sometimes of angry denunciations of the folly of human nature, or confident assertions that the alleged facts will be found on closer inspection to be no facts

at all. In the case of religious faith, the apparently irreconcilable facts are of more frequent occurrence, e.g. the difficulty of reconciling much that happens in the world with the faith that all that happens is for the best. Such difficulties require an act of will, if faith is to reassert itself; and the energy thus stimulated may expend itself in renewed efforts to harmonise the apparently conflicting facts. The desire to unify our experience is a perennial need of human nature. The faith that it can be unified is not peculiar to religion, but is the base of all science. The track by which science has marched in its conquest of nature is marked by the ruins of abandoned hypotheses. One hypothesis is cast aside in favour of another which explains a greater number of facts; and though no hypothesis, not even evolution, accounts for all the facts of the physical universe (i.e. for all the external facts of consciousness), yet no man of science believes that the facts are incapable of explanation: on the contrary, he believes that they are only waiting for the right hypothesis, and that then they will all fall into line. In a word, as a man of science, in his scientific labours he walks by faithby the faith that the universe is constructed on rational principles, on principles the rationality of which the human, or at anyrate the scientific, mind can comprehend. His faith is that the external facts of consciousness do form one consistent, harmonious whole, regulated by the laws of nature, and that we can more or less comprehend the system which the physical universe forms. The moral philosopher holds the same faith with regard to the facts of morality, that they too are consistent with one another and are all consistent with reason and with the moral aspirations of man rightly construed. The religious mind believes that these facts, all facts, external or internal, of which we have immediate consciousness, can be reconciled with one another, or rather actually are harmonious and consistent, if only we could see them as they are, instead of looking at them without seeing them. But this, the religious, faith which looks forward to the synthesis of all facts in a manner satisfying to the reason, to the moral and to the spiritual sense alike, covers a much larger area than either science or moral philosophy, and is much more liable to meet with facts apparently irreconcilable with it.