e can only conclude that reason counts for very little
in the complex of mental processes which here determine judgement.

Thus, if we look to the greatest mathematicians in the world's history,
we find Kepler and Newton as Christians; La Place, on the other hand, an
infidel. Or, coming to our own times, and confining our attention to the
principal seat of mathematical study:--when I was at Cambridge, there
was a galaxy of genius in that department emanating from that place such
as had never before been equalled. And the curious thing in our present
connexion is that all the most illustrious names were ranged on the side
of orthodoxy. Sir W. Thomson, Sir George Stokes, Professors Tait, Adams,
Clerk-Maxwell, and Cayley--not to mention a number of lesser lights,
such as Routh, Todhunter, Ferrers, &c.--were all avowed Christians.
Clifford had only just moved at a bound from the extreme of asceticism
to that of infidelity--an individual instance which I deem of particular
interest in the present connexion, as showing the dominating influence
of a forcedly emotional character even on so powerful an intellectual
one, for the _rationality_ of the whole structure of Christian belief
cannot have so reversed its poles within a few months.

Now it would doubtless be easy to find elsewhere than in Cambridge
mathematicians of the first order who in our own generation are, or have
been, professedly anti-Christian in their beliefs,--although certainly
not so great an array of such extraordinary powers. But, be this as it
may, the case of Cambridge in my own time seems to me of itself enough
to prove that Christian belief is neither made nor marred by the highest
powers of reasoning, apart from other and still more potent factors.

_Faith and Superstition._

Whether or not Christianity is true, there is a great distinction
between these two things. For while the main ingredient of Christian
faith is the moral element, this has no part in superstition. In point
of fact, the only point of resemblance is that both present the mental
state called _belief_. It is on this account they are so often
confounded by anti-Christians, and even by non-Christians; the much more
important point of difference is not noted, viz. that belief in the one
case is purely intellectual, while in the other it is chiefly moral.
_Qua_ purely intellectual, belief may indicate nothing but sheer
credulity in absence of evidence; but where a moral basis is added,