ncy. Such a
construction would reduce the argument to insignificance all round.

Sec. 6. THE MEANING OF REASON

The problem as to 'the sphere of Reason' could not be more effectually
raised. Mr. Balfour clearly implies that there _is_ a sphere of Reason,
but forces a perplexed query as to when he believes himself to enter it.
Evidently, by his own definitions, his whole political life is lived
outside it. Alike his generalisations from past history, and his
predictions of the future, are such as afford 'no ground for believing
them to be even approximately true': those of his opponents, of course,
coming for him under the same category. He would, perhaps, hold himself
to be in the sphere of Reason when following a proposition in
mathematics; but he does not admit himself to be there even when he
consents to believe that he will die, and that he had better avoid
prussic acid. 'No experience, however large,' he insists (p. 75), 'and
no experiments, however well contrived and successful, could give us
_any reasonable assurance_ that the co-existences or sequences which
have been observed among phenomena will be repeated in the future.' Not
'certainty,' be it observed, but 'any reasonable assurance.' That is to
say, we have no reasonable assurance that we shall die.

Obviously the extravagance of this proposition is calculated. The point
is that no belief whatever concerning life and death and morality and
the process of nature can be justified by 'reason'; and that accordingly
no religious belief whatever can be discredited on the score of being
opposed to reason or 'unreasonable.' If not more reasonable than the
most carefully tested or the most widely accepted belief in science, or
the belief that the sun will rise or fire burn to-morrow, or that we
shall all die, it is not less reasonable than they. Therefore, believe
as your bias leads.

It is only fair to Mr. Balfour to say that there is nothing new in his
position, though probably it has never before been quite so violently
formulated. The Greek Pyrrho (fl. 300-350 B.C.) argued that almost all
propositions were doubtful; and some of his followers are said to have
been consistent enough to doubt whether they doubted. In the dialogues
of Cicero we find the skeptical method employed, with supreme
inconsistency, by the official exponents of unbelieved doctrines, to
discredit competing doctrines. Among the pagans it was also turned, with
no special religious p