habitual scepticism
would make me say to myself--'this is all very sublime and very
comforting; but what evidence have you to give me that the whole
business is anything more than self-delusion? The wish was probably
father to the thought, and you might much better have performed your
"act of will" by going in for a course of Indian hemp.' Of course a
Christian would answer to this that the internal light would not admit
of such doubt, any more than seeing the sun does--that God knows us well
enough to prevent that, &c., and also that it is unreasonable not to try
an experiment lest the result should prove too good to be credible, and
so on. And I do not dispute that the Christian would be justified in so
answering, but I only adduce the matter as an illustration of the
difficulty which is experienced in conforming to all the conditions of
attaining to Christian faith--even supposing it to be sound. Others have
doubtless other difficulties, but mine is chiefly, I think, that of an
undue regard to reason, as against heart and will--undue, I mean, if so
it be that Christianity is true, and the conditions to faith in it have
been of divine ordination.

This influence of will on belief, even in matters secular, is the more
pronounced the further removed these matters may be from demonstration
(as already remarked); but this is most of all the case where our
personal interests are affected--whether these be material or
intellectual, such as credit for consistency, &c. See, for example, how
closely, in the respects we are considering, political beliefs resemble
religious. Unless the points of difference are such that truth is
virtually demonstrable on one side, so that adhesion to the opposite is
due to _conscious_ sacrifice of integrity to expediency, we always find
that party-spectacles so colour the view as to leave reason at the mercy
of will, custom, interest, and all the other circumstances which
similarly operate on religious beliefs. It seems to make but little
difference in either case what level of general education, mental power,
special training, &c., is brought to bear upon the question under
judgement. From the Premier to the peasant we find the same difference
of opinion in politics as we do in religion. And in each case the
explanation is the same. Beliefs are so little dependent on reason alone
that in such regions of thought--i.e. where personal interests are
affected and the evidences of truth are not in th