worth.  Just as I am confident that truth must in the end be the most profitable for the race, so I am persuaded that every individual endeavour to attain it, provided only that such endeavour is unbiassed and sincere, ought without hesitation to be made the common property of all men, no matter in what direction the results of its promulgation may appear to tend.  And so far as the ruination of individual happiness is concerned, no one can have a more lively perception than myself of the possibly disastrous tendency of my work.  So far as I am individually concerned, the result of this analysis has been to show that, whether I regard the problem of Theism on the lower plane of strictly relative probability, or on the higher plane of purely formal considerations, it equally becomes my obvious duty to stifle all belief of the kind which I conceive to be the noblest, and to discipline my intellect with regard to this matter into an attitude of the purest scepticism.  And forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the “new faith” is a desirable substitute for the waning splendour of “the old,” I am not ashamed to confess that with this virtual negation of God the universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness; and although from henceforth the precept to “work while it is day” will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning of the words that “the night cometh when no man can work,” yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it,—­at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible.  For whether it be due to my intelligence not being sufficiently advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or whether it be due to the memory of those sacred associations which to me at least were the sweetest that life has given, I cannot but feel that for me, and for others who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in those words of Hamilton,—­Philosophy having become a meditation, not merely of death, but of annihilation, the precept know thyself has become transformed into the terrific oracle to OEdipus—­

     “Mayest thou ne’er know the truth of what thou art."’

This analysis will have been at least sufficient to give a clear idea of the general argument of the Candid Examination and of its melancholy conclusions.  What will most strike a somewhat critical reader is perhaps (1) the tone of certainty, and (2) the belief in the almost exclusive right of the scientific method in the court of reason.

As evidence of (1) I would adduce the following brief quotations:—­

     P. xi.  ’Possible errors in reasoning apart, the rational position
     of Theism as here defined must remain without material modification
     as long as our intelligence remains human.’