of society to hold fast to religion.

Undoubtedly then the advantages resulting from a belief in religion,
whether valid or illusory, are such as to incline not only the higher
and more unselfish minds, but even those which are more prudential and
self-regarding, to wish to hold that belief--to be unwilling to hear
arguments against it. But among the former class will be found many
intellectually conscientious and even scrupulous persons, whom the
recognition of this inevitable bias will drive to an extreme of caution.
Not so much because the facts believed-in are of such intense moment,
but rather because the belief itself, whether true or false, is so
consoling and helpful, that there seems to them a danger of
self-deception just proportioned to their wish to believe.

It were then no small rest and relief to such, could it be shown that
what they deem a reason for doubt, is really a reason for belief; that
the welcome which all that is best in them gives to a belief, affords
some sort of philosophical justification thereof.

This particular argument had undoubtedly a more favourable hearing in
the age of Chateaubriand, when unbelief stopped short at the threshold
of what was called "Natural Religion," and the apologist's task was
confined to the establishment of revelation. "It is now pretty generally
admitted," says the author of _Contemporary Evolution_, "with regard to
Christianity and theism that the arguments really telling against the
first, are in their logical consequences fatal also to the second, and
that a _Deus Unus, Remunerator_ once admitted, an antecedent probability
for a revelation must be conceded."

Given an intelligent and benevolent author of the universe, it is not
perhaps very difficult to show that any further religious belief
approximates to the truth in the measure that it satisfies the more
highly developed rational needs of mankind. It is not seriously denied
any longer that religion is an instinct with man, however it may be
lacking in some individuals or dormant in others. We have savages at
both ends of the scale of civilization, but man is none the less a
political creature; nor does the existence of idiots and deaf mutes and
criminals at all affect the fact that he is a reasoning and speaking and
ethical animal. As soon as he wakes to consciousness, he feels that he
is part of a whole, one of a multitude; and that as he is related to his
fellow-parts--equals or inferiors--so also