gested that there is no
reason why one should not entertain the belief in a future life if the
belief be necessary to one's spiritual comfort. Perhaps no suggestion
in Mr. Mill's richly suggestive posthumous work has been more generally
condemned as unphilosophical, on the ground that in matters of belief we
must be guided, not by our likes and dislikes, but by the evidence
that is accessible. The objection is certainly a sound one so far as
it relates to scientific questions where evidence is accessible.
To hesitate to adopt a well-supported theory because of some vague
preference for a different view is in scientific matters the one
unpardonable sin,--a sin which has been only too often committed. Even
in matters which lie beyond the range of experience, where evidence
is inaccessible, desire is not to be regarded as by itself an adequate
basis for belief. But it seems to me that Mr. Mill showed a deeper
knowledge of the limitations of scientific method than his critics, when
he thus hinted at the possibility of entertaining a belief not amenable
to scientific tests. The hypothesis of a purely spiritual unseen
world, as above described, is entirely removed from the jurisdiction of
physical inquiry, and can only be judged on general considerations of
what has been called "moral probability"; and considerations of this
sort are likely, in the future as in the past, to possess different
values for different minds. He who, on such considerations, entertains
a belief in a future life may not demand that his sceptical neighbour
shall be convinced by the same considerations; but his neighbour is at
the same time estopped from stigmatizing his belief as unphilosophical.

The consideration which must influence most minds in their attitude
toward this question, is the craving, almost universally felt, for some
teleological solution to the problem of existence. Why we are here now
is a question of even profounder interest than whether we are to live
hereafter. Unfortunately its solution carries us no less completely
beyond the range of experience! The belief that all things are working
together for some good end is the most essential expression of religious
faith: of all intellectual propositions it is the one most closely
related to that emotional yearning for a higher and better life which
is the sum and substance of religion. Yet all the treatises on
natural theology that have ever been written have barely succeeded in
establ