.. Ignorance remains the evil which it ever
was, but something of the peace of certitude is gained in knowing the
worst, and in having reconciled the mind to the endurance of it.'[16]
Precisely, and what one would say of our own age is that it will not
deliberately face this knowledge of the worst. So it misses the peace of
certitude, and not only its peace, but the strength and coherency that
follow strict acceptance of the worst, when the worst is after all the
best within reach.

Those who are in earnest when they blame too great haste after
certainty, do in reality mean us to embrace certainty, but in favour of
the vulgar opinions. They only see the prodigious difficulties of the
controversy when you do not incline to their own side in it. They only
panegyrise caution and the strictly provisional when they suspect that
intrepidity and love of the conclusive would lead them to unwelcome
shores. These persons, however, whether fortunately or unfortunately,
have no longer much influence over the most active part of the national
intelligence. Whether permanently or not, resolute orthodoxy, however
prosperous it may seem among many of the uncultivated rich, has lost its
hold upon thought. For thought has become dispersive, and the
centrifugal forces of the human mind, among those who think seriously,
have for the time become dominant and supreme. No one, I suppose,
imagines that the singular ecclesiastical revival which is now going on,
is accompanied by any revival of real and reasoned belief; or that the
opulent manufacturers who subscribe so generously for restored cathedral
fabrics and the like, have been moved by the apologetics of _Aids to
Faith_ and the Christian Evidence Society.

Obviously only three ways of dealing with the great problems of which we
have spoken are compatible with a strong and well-bottomed character. We
may affirm that there is a deity with definable attributes; and that
there is a conscious state and continued personality after the
dissolution of the body. Or we may deny. Or we may assure ourselves that
we have no faculties enabling us on good evidence either to deny or
affirm. Intellectual self-respect and all the qualities that are derived
from that, may well go with any one of these three courses, decisively
followed and consistently applied in framing a rule of life and a
settled scheme of its aims and motives. Why do we say that intellectual
self-respect is not vigorous, nor the sense