to their truth; from
the fact that certain subjective convictions produced good results, to
the correspondence of such convictions with objective reality. The
advantages to the individual and to society of a firm belief in God the
righteous Judge, in the sanction of eternal reward and penalty, in the
eventual adjustment of all inequalities, in the reversible character of
sin through repentance, in the divine authority of conscience, of
Christianity, of the Catholic Church, are to a great extent independent
of the truth of those beliefs. No amount of hypnotic suggestion will
enable a man to subsist upon cinders, under the belief that they are a
very nutritious diet; for the effect depends upon their actual nature,
and not wholly upon his belief concerning their nature; but the salutary
fear of Hell or hope of Heaven, depends not on the existence of either
state, but on our belief in its existence. The fact that the denial of
these and many similar beliefs would bring chaos into our spiritual and
moral life, that it would extinguish hopes which often alone make life
bearable, that it would issue for society at large in such a grey,
meaningless, uninspired existence as Mr. F. W. Myers prognosticates in
his admirable essay on "The Disillusionment of France," [2] all this and
much more makes it our interest, if not our duty, to cling to such
convictions at all costs. "If these things are not true, it might be
said, then life is chaos; and if life be chaos, what does truth matter?
Why may not such useful illusions and self-deceptions be fostered? If we
are dreaming, let our dreams be the pleasantest possible!"

Nor can it be urged that though some part of our interest thus depends
on the beliefs, rather than on their being true, yet the consequences of
self-deception are so momentous, as to create a spirit of criticism to
balance or over-balance the said bias of credulity. For though the
consequences of denial are disastrous if the beliefs are true, yet if
they are false, the ill-consequences of belief are almost insignificant.
It is sometimes said too hastily that if religion be an illusion, then
religious people lose both this life and the next; and it is assumed
that an unrestrained devotion to pleasure would secure a happiness which
faith requires us to forego. But unless we take a gross, and really
unthinkable view of the homogeneity of all happiness, and reduce its
differences to degree and quantity, the shallowness of t