e is no proof of religion, we may concede, _at least
provisionally_, that it is completely true. What it is really important
to examine is the major premiss, that we can be certain of nothing that
we cannot support by proof. This it is plain does not stand on the same
footing as the former, for it is of its very nature not capable of being
proved itself. Its foundation is something far less definable--the
general character for wisdom of the leading thinkers who have adopted
it, and the general acceptance of its consequences by the common sense
of mankind.

Now if we examine its value by these tests, the result will be somewhat
startling. We find that not only are mankind at large as yet but very
partially aware of its consequences, but that its true scope and meaning
has not even dawned dimly on the leading thinkers themselves. Few
spectacles, indeed, in the whole history of thought are more ludicrous
than that of the modern positive school with their great doctrine of
verification. They apply it rigorously to one set of facts, and then
utterly fail to see that it is equally applicable to another. They apply
it to religion, and declare that the dogmas of religion are dreams; but
when they pass from the dogmas of religion to those of morality, they
not only do not use their test, but unconsciously they denounce it with
the utmost vehemence. Thus Mr. Leslie Stephen, in the very essay from
which I have just now quoted, not only has recourse, for giving weight
to his arguments, to such ethical epithets as _low_, _lofty_, and even
_sacred_, but he puts forward as his own motive for speaking, a belief
which on his own showing is a dream. That motive, he says, is devotion
to truth for its own sake--the only principle that is really worthy of
man. His argument is simply this. It is man's holiest and most important
duty to discover the truth at all costs, and the one test of truth is
physical verification. Here he tells us we find the only high morality,
and the men who cling to religious dream-dogmas which they cannot
physically verify, can only answer their opponents, says Mr. Stephen,
'_by a shriek or a sneer_.' '_The sentiment_,' he proceeds, '_which the
dreamer most thoroughly hates and misunderstands, is the love of truth
for its own sake. He cannot conceive why a man should attack a lie
simply because it is a lie._' Mr. Stephen is wrong. That is exactly what
the dreamer can do, and no one else but he; and Mr. Stephen is hi