ness, brought about by the notion,
carefully instilled, that there is something called scientific evidence
by {xi} waiting upon which they shall escape all danger of shipwreck in
regard to truth. But there is really no scientific or other method by
which men can steer safely between the opposite dangers of believing
too little or of believing too much. To face such dangers is
apparently our duty, and to hit the right channel between them is the
measure of our wisdom as men. It does not follow, because recklessness
may be a vice in soldiers, that courage ought never to be preached to
them. What _should_ be preached is courage weighted with
responsibility,--such courage as the Nelsons and Washingtons never
failed to show after they had taken everything into account that might
tell against their success, and made every provision to minimize
disaster in case they met defeat. I do not think that any one can
accuse me of preaching reckless faith. I have preached the right of
the individual to indulge his personal faith at his personal risk. I
have discussed the kinds of risk; I have contended that none of us
escape all of them; and I have only pleaded that it is better to face
them open-eyed than to act as if we did not know them to be there.

After all, though, you will say, Why such an ado about a matter
concerning which, however we may theoretically differ, we all
practically agree? In this age of toleration, no scientist will ever
try actively to interfere with our religious faith, provided we enjoy
it quietly with our friends and do not make a public nuisance of it in
the market-place. But it is just on this matter of the market-place
that I think the utility of such essays as mine may turn. If {xii}
religious hypotheses about the universe be in order at all, then the
active faiths of individuals in them, freely expressing themselves in
life, are the experimental tests by which they are verified, and the
only means by which their truth or falsehood can be wrought out. The
truest scientific hypothesis is that which, as we say, 'works' best;
and it can be no otherwise with religious hypotheses. Religious
history proves that one hypothesis after another has worked ill, has
crumbled at contact with a widening knowledge of the world, and has
lapsed from the minds of men. Some articles of faith, however, have
maintained themselves through every vicissitude, and possess even more
vitality to-day than ever before: i