is therefore with
the utmost sorrow that I find myself compelled to accept the conclusions
here worked out; and nothing would have induced me to publish them, save
the strength of my conviction that it is the duty of every member of
society to give his fellows the benefit of his labours for whatever they
may be worth. Just as I am confident that truth must in the end be the
most profitable for the race, so I am persuaded that every individual
endeavour to attain it, provided only that such endeavour is unbiassed
and sincere, ought without hesitation to be made the common property of
all men, no matter in what direction the results of its promulgation may
appear to tend. And so far as the ruination of individual happiness is
concerned, no one can have a more lively perception than myself of the
possibly disastrous tendency of my work. So far as I am individually
concerned, the result of this analysis has been to show that, whether I
regard the problem of Theism on the lower plane of strictly relative
probability, or on the higher plane of purely formal considerations, it
equally becomes my obvious duty to stifle all belief of the kind which I
conceive to be the noblest, and to discipline my intellect with regard
to this matter into an attitude of the purest scepticism. And forasmuch
as I am far from being able to agree with those who affirm that the
twilight doctrine of the "new faith" is a desirable substitute for the
waning splendour of "the old," I am not ashamed to confess that with
this virtual negation of God the universe to me has lost its soul of
loveliness; and although from henceforth the precept to "work while it
is day" will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly
intensified meaning of the words that "the night cometh when no man can
work," yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the
appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once
was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it,--at such
times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of
which my nature is susceptible. For whether it be due to my intelligence
not being sufficiently advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or
whether it be due to the memory of those sacred associations which to me
at least were the sweetest that life has given, I cannot but feel that
for me, and for others who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in
those words of Hamilton,--Philos