us sentiment, the public opinion, of the
mediaeval time. The Pope himself calls those centuries "the ages of
faith." Such endemic faith may certainly be decreed for some future
time; but_ _as far as we have the means of judging at present,
centuries must run out first._'[31]

In this last sentence is indicated the vast and universal question,
which the mind of humanity is gathering itself together to ask--will the
faith that we are so fast losing ever again revive for us? And my one
aim in this book has been to demonstrate that the entire future tone of
life, and the entire course of future civilisation, depends on the
answer which this question receives.

There is, however, this further point to consider. Need the answer we
are speaking of be definite and universal? or can we look forward to its
remaining undecided till the end of time? Now I have already tried to
make it evident that for the individual, at any rate, it must by-and-by
be definite one way or the other. The thorough positive thinker will not
be able to retain in supreme power principles which have no positive
basis. He cannot go on adoring a hunger which he knows can never be
satisfied, or cringing before fears which he knows will never be
realised. And even if this should for a time be possible, his case will
be worse, not better. Conscience, if it still remains with him, will
remain not as a living thing--a severe but kindly guide--but as the
menacing ghost of the religion he has murdered, and which comes to
embitter degradation, not to raise it. The moral life, it is true, will
still exist for him, but it will probably, in literal truth,

_Creep on a broken wing
Through cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear._

But a state of things like this can hardly be looked forward to as
conceivably of any long continuance. Religion would come back, or
conscience would go. Nor do I think that the future which Dr. Newman
seems to anticipate can be regarded as probable either. He seems to
anticipate a continuance side by side of faith and positivism, each with
their own adherents, and fighting a ceaseless battle in which neither
gains the victory. I venture to submit that the new forms now at work in
the world are not forms that will do their work by halves. When once the
age shall have mastered them, they will be either one thing or the
other--they will be either impotent or omnipotent. Their public
exponents at present boast that