giving arbitrary directions upon inscrutable authority but it is the name of a feeling or a set of feelings, developed in all social progress and seen to be essential to the vitality of the race. Nor can any analysis tend to throw a doubt upon the very facts which it begins by assuming, that men are capable of regulating their conduct from lofty and unselfish motives, and that conduct, so regulated, drives the most important wheels in the social mechanism.

The essence, then, of the unbeliever's contention is that the conscience or moral sense is a faculty to be explained (so far as we can "explain" anything) by the ordinary methods, because it is part of the normal process of human development. So far as the believer traverses that contention, he is a sceptic in his theory of human nature. He denies the possibility of virtue except under some external compulsion. He denies the reality of virtue except as conduct regulated by reference to a supernatural world. With him, if it is not disguised vanity, it is disguised fear. Man is a pig, though deterred by the rod of everlasting fire from unlimited devotion to his trough. This doctrine indeed is repudiated or masked by the higher theology. By using the same word alternately to describe nature or a force which opposes and controls nature-for a whole, that is, or a part-room is secured for any quantity of evasion. It need only be said that, so far as the believer admits virtue to be natural, he is at one with the unbeliever. So far as he asserts it to be supernatural, he illustrates once more the scepticism implied in the argument from the moral character of Christianity; he disbelieves, that is, that any good impulses can arise spontaneously from the corrupt race of man. The tendency comes out more clearly when we turn from the questions about the reality to questions about the sanctions of morality. The believer cannot bring himself to admit that motives drawn from the world around us can be adequate supports of virtue. If he does not hold by hell-fire-a subject which in all seriousness we have ceased to mention to ears polite-he still maintains that man must have a larger stake in the universe than that of his ephemeral existence in the visible world; unless he can look forward to an indefinite vista of futurity, his virtuous instincts will be asphyxiated. They will dwindle when the imagination is confined within the narrow limits of space and time. Our loftiest aspirations are but "survivals" from the time when they could be nourished by hopes and fears of wider date. The unbeliever, it is said, is under the disadvantage that he cannot argue effectively with the man who deliberately prefers evil to good. He may prove the sinner's conduct to be injurious to society, but not to be injurious to himself. The believer, and the believer alone, can demonstrate vice to be a bad speculation.

Now it must be frankly confessed that, if hell existed, and could

be proved to exist, men would act differently. If we believed in hell, that is, as we believe in Paris, we should be other than we are, though whether better or worse depends upon further considerations. The undeniable fact that the belief produces so little effect as preachers are always telling us, proves that the argument has some weak point in practice. Indeed one remark is obvious. Allow me to assume the reality of my dreams and I will produce conclusive argument for any course of conduct whatever; but the assumption is rather a bold one. My argument, you say, would be powerful if its data were sound. That does not show that it is better for practical purposes than one which appeals to less weighty but more real considerations. A penny in cash is more satisfactory than a cheque for millions upon an imaginary bank. Nor, indeed, is the argument in any case so good as it looks. If virtue is a sham, and hell exists, then you can demonstrate that it would have been better for men not to have been born, but you cannot create in them good instincts. They can be coerced but not changed without a miracle. If, on the contrary, virtue is a reality, it supplies real motives, which may therefore be sufficient without attempting to fabricate infinite motives. If there is such a thing as an altruist impulse, it can, like all other impulses, be set in motion by strictly finite considerations. But the force of the argument is destroyed by another remark, which it is convenient to overlook. A law is not effective in proportion simply to the severity of the ruler, but also in proportion to his justice. A tyrant makes obedient slaves, not virtuous subjects. In your anxiety to enforce morality you outrage the conscience. You invent a judge who punishes savagely, who punishes one man for the sins of another, and who punishes frailties for which he is himself responsible. Is it strange that some men refuse to be cowed, and others invent devices for evading your law, as plausible as those by which you would enforce it? The ordinary common sense of mankind clings to the conviction expressed by the irreverent Omar Khayyam

"He's a good fellow, and 'twill all be well."

Isn't he? Some believers think so, and infer that God will deal with his creatures by healing their diseases instead of tormenting the sick. A more numerous class has discovered that God, with all his severity, can be propitiated on easy terms. The proper ceremonies or the right state of emotion will induce Him to clear all scores, and write paid at the bottom of the account. Science seems to say that nature never forgives. What has been has been, and what will be depends upon what is. But Omnipotence can make things be as though they had not been, and therefore a miraculous mercy will check the operations of miraculous vengeance. The worst of

using dreams in place of efficient motives is that dreams are surprisingly pliant to men's wishes. It is doubtful whether the

conscience has been more stimulated by its fears of retribution or deadened by visions of pardon. Hell is a powerful weapon, for some purposes, to those who believe in it, but in practice it tends to provoke either revolt or evasion, as much as to enforce obedience..

Such considerations may help to explain why it is that the moral standard of the race has been so little affected by theological stimulants. If a theologian could prove that vice involves absurdities so great as make it impossible, we might be grateful to him. But no one can assert, and the theologian persistently denies, that the unlimited application of this imaginary scourge has really made the race better. Thinking of all the atrocities perpetrated under the religious regime, of its frequent effect in absolutely deadening the conscience, of the false standards which on any hypothesis it has often substituted for the true one, of the indirect injury done by crushing the intellect or the moral nature from a cowardly fear of possible abuses, one may be almost tempted to doubt whether its effect has been elevating or deteriorating. The truth is that we are touching upon a problem of extreme complexity, which is obscured by all kinds of confusion. What, one may ask, is the relation between the creed and the moral standard actually recognised by a race? To approximate to an answer, we should have to distinguish between true and sham beliefs, to make allowance for the tacit repeal of one set of doctrines ostentatiously advanced by another set covertly insinuated, and to estimate the innumerable indirect influences of the creed upon the whole social structure. One consideration, however, will be enough for my present purpose.

Nobody will deny that men's actions are governed by their beliefs and emotions; but when we attempt an accurate analysis of motives, we are met by the difficulty of allowing for the complex reactions between the reasoning, feeling, and active parts of our nature. What we call beliefs may be really dreams, and, in early stages of thought, the element due to genuine observation and that contributed by the imaginative faculty are inseparably blended. The alteration of a genuine belief may alter conduct as the alteration of the external facts would have done. The facts, it may be said, are changed for the observer, and therefore his mode of behaving will change. But the alteration of a dream cannot be taken as the ultimate, though of course it may be the proximate, cause of such a change, for it must be itself due to some change in the character or surroundings of the dreamer. The dream represents men's desires; it shows what it is which they hope or fear, or what is for any reason impressive to their imaginations; a change in it must be taken to imply some change in those hopes and fears produced by an independent process.

Thus a changed belief as to a future world may greatly modify our conduct, so far as that belief was a real attempt to interpret experience. If, as Paley maintained, virtue meant simply action regulated by prospects of a future life, the destruction of that belief would destroy virtue. It would not directly alter character, but it would close one channel for the display of selfish impulses, and might indirectly come to modify character also. The doctrine of the unbeliever must be different. On his showing, the belief in another life was probably due, in the first instance, to an attempt to interpret experience. So far as we now interpret it differently, our conduct may be altered. But it is plain that all that colours the belief, all that makes the future life an object of hope and fear, must be differently explained. Since heaven and hell were not revealed from without, they must have been suggested from within. A given person may of course have believed in hell on the authority of his Bible, and have been guided by his fears as he would by any other fears. But since the whole phenomenon-the belief of a race or society in a "future state of rewards and punishments"-can rest upon no ground of outward experience, its genealogy is clear. It proves what men hoped and feared, not what they inferred from external facts. There is no presumption, then, that by destroying it you destroy the desires on which it existed. You simply force them to take a different form. Destroy the belief in the pagan gods and you destroy the old poetic machinery, but you do not therefore destroy the poetic impulse.

The believer may, therefore, hold consistently that men are kept in order by external threats, and that the virtuous impulses, if they exist in the natural man, would droop and die without such support. To the unbeliever, this explanation is not open. Fetters framed by men for themselves cannot be the ultimate cause of the restraint. It would be as unphilosophical to suppose that a man can lift the platform which supports him. We cannot look outside the world to explain the maintenance of a certain moral standard, any more than we need look beyond the solar system to explain why the earth does not fall into space. The existence of these imaginary worlds becomes with the unbeliever a conclusive proof of two things: first, that men, or the leading minds amongst mankind, must have hated vice, for the thought of its punishment was agreeable; secondly, that they aspired to a better state of things, for they constructed an ideal world where justice should be perfectly administered. If a man works because he believes that he is to be paid, the work may be done against the grain. If he believes that he is to be paid because he likes to work, the work must have some independent charms.

Is it possible, then, that the closing of this outlet for the imagination will cause the atrophy of the instincts which prompted its construction? The unbeliever hopes and believes better things. He

thinks that men's hopes and aspirations will not fail, though directed to definite reality, instead of the boundless imaginary world. He regards it as a fact capable of strict scientific proof that altruistic instincts exist; that men have desires which can only be explained when man is regarded as a fraction of the social integer; and that those desires, depending upon conditions other than dreams, will survive the disappearance or modification of the dreams. The existence of such instincts may appear a paradox to some reasoners. A belief in them is the mystery of the unbeliever's creed, against which the pride of reason is apt to revolt. It is not my present purpose to justify the doctrine, or to show (as I hold that it may be conclusively shown) that it involves no real offence to reason. It is enough to say that, so far as it is an essential part of the unbeliever's theory, whereas it may be rejected by his antagonist, the believer may most fitly be called sceptical. He declares a fact to be contradictory because it will not fit in with his doctrines, and therefore throws a doubt upon the validity of experience. The scepticism in this case is merely one mode of stating the sceptical doctrine already illustrated—namely, the disbelief in the natural goodness of man. So far as the supernatural code or sanction is asserted to be necessary, the insufficiency of the natural is more or less explicitly maintained.

Which creed, then, is most sceptical in the sense already defined— least calculated, that is, under existing circumstances, to produce coherent and consistent action? The unbeliever loses the use of certain phrases, or reduces them to intelligible meaning. The moral law, says the believer, is eternal, immutable, supreme, infallible, and founded on the nature of things. It is just as eternal, says the unbeliever, as the laws of nature upon which it is founded. As all reasoning assumes the continuity of past and future, we can never look forward to a time when the law will be essentially changed. It is immutable in the sense, that whilst the conditions remain, the law must remain; but it is susceptible of modification and adaptation to new circumstances. It is supreme as it expresses the ultimate conditions of social welfare, and the race can never fail to observe those conditions without ruin to itself, and therefore to the component individuals. It is certain, if not infallible, for, though we renounce supernatural guarantees for our moral beliefs, and admit that they cannot be deduced from à priori necessity, we can place them on a level with other conclusions of inductive science. It is founded in the nature of things, if by things you mean, for example, man and his surroundings; but we know nothing of the transcendental nature of things, which is the home of the arbitrary, the absolute, and the self-contradictory. We cannot be more than certain, nor say what is "absolute morality," any more than we can say what is that