d to exhibit an overweening tendency to postulate as the cause of
natural phenomena. On these grounds, therefore, I concluded that, so far as
their respective standing _a priori_ is concerned, both theories may be
regarded as about equally suspicious. And similar with regard to their
standing _a posteriori_; for as both theories require to embody at least
one infinite term, they must each alike be pronounced absolutely
inconceivable. But, finally, if the question were put to me which of the
two theories I regarded as the more rational, I observed that this is a
question which no one man can answer for another. For as the test of
absolute inconceivability is equally destructive of both theories, if a man
wishes to choose between them, his choice can only be determined by what I
have designated relative inconceivability--_i.e._, in accordance with the
verdict given by his individual sense of probability as determined by his
previous habits of thought. And forasmuch as the test of relative
inconceivability may be held in this matter legitimately to vary with the
character of the mind which applies it, the strictly rational probability
of the question to which it is applied varies in like manner. Or, otherwise
presented, the only alternative for any man in this matter is either to
discipline himself into an attitude of pure scepticism, and thus to refuse
in thought to entertain either a probability or an improbability concerning
the existence of a God; or else to incline in thought towards an
affirmation or a negation of God, according as his previous habits of
thought have rendered such an inclination more facile in the one direction
than in the other. And although, under such circumstances, I should
consider that man the more rational who carefully suspended his judgment, I
conclude that if this course is departed from, neither the metaphysical
teleologist nor the scientific atheist has any perceptible advantage over
the other in respect of rationality. For as the formal conditions of a
metaphysical teleology are undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the
formal conditions of a speculative atheism are as undoubtedly present on
the other, there is thus in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein
the pendulum of thought is free to swing in whichever direction it may be
made to swing by the momentum of preconceived ideas.

Such is the outcome of our investigation, and considering the abstract
nature of the subject, the i