But among the former class will be found many
intellectually conscientious and even scrupulous persons, whom the
recognition of this inevitable bias will drive to an extreme of caution.
Not so much because the facts believed-in are of such intense moment,
but rather because the belief itself, whether true or false, is so
consoling and helpful, that there seems to them a danger of
self-deception just proportioned to their wish to believe.
It were then no small rest and relief to such, could it be shown that
what they deem a reason for doubt, is really a reason for belief; that
the welcome which all that is best in them gives to a belief, affords
some sort of philosophical justification thereof.
This particular argument had undoubtedly a more favourable hearing in
the age of Chateaubriand, when unbelief stopped short at the threshold
of what was called "Natural Religion," and the apologist's task was
confined to the establishment of revelation. "It is now pretty generally
admitted," says the author of _Contemporary Evolution_, "with regard to
Christianity and theism that the arguments really telling against the
first, are in their logical consequences fatal also to the second, and
that a _Deus Unus, Remunerator_ once admitted, an antecedent probability
for a revelation must be conceded.
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