s? May my body be likened to the temple of
the Holy Ghost defiled? or do I owe it no more reverence than I owe the
Alhambra Theatre? Am I guilty, and must I seek repentance? or am I not
guilty, and may I go on just as I please?' 'My dear girl_,' Dr. Tyndall
replies to her, '_I must shake my head in doubt. Come, let its lower our
heads, and acknowledge our ignorance as to whether you are a wretched
girl or no. Materialism is confounded, and science rendered dumb by
questions such as yours; they can, therefore, never be answered, and
must always remain open. I may add, however, that if you ask me
personally whether I consider you to be degraded, I lean to the
affirmative. But I can give you no reason in support of this judgment,
so you may attach to it what value you will._'

Such is the position of agnostics, when brought face to face with the
world. They are undecided only about one question, and this is the one
question which cannot be left undecided. Men cannot remain agnostics as
to belief that their actions must depend upon, any more than a man who
is compelled to go on walking can refrain from choosing one road or
other when there are two open to him. Nor does it matter that our
believing may in neither case amount to a complete certitude. It is
sufficient that the balance of probability be on one side or the other.
Two ounces will out-weigh one ounce, quite as surely as a ton will. But
what our philosophers profess to teach us (in so far as they profess to
be agnostics, and disclaim being dogmatists) is, that there is no
balance either way. The message they shout to us is, that they have no
message at all; and that because they are without one, the whole world
is in the same condition.

CHAPTER X.

MORALITY AND NATURAL THEISM.

_Credo quia impossibile est._

If we look calmly at the possible future of human thought, it will
appear from what we have just seen, that physical science of itself can
do little to control or cramp it; nor until man consents to resign his
belief in virtue and his own dignity altogether, will it be able to
repress religious faith, should other causes tend to produce a new
outbreak of it. But the chief difficulties in the matter are still in
store for us. Let us see never so clearly that science, if we are moral
beings, can do nothing to weaken our belief in God and immortality, but
still leaves us free, if we will, to believe in them, it seems getting
clearer and yet more