On the other hand, the optimistic interpretation of evolution was welcomed with equal ardour by those for whom it removed the last difficulty they had in believing that there was no God. Hitherto the deeply rooted desire to believe that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, good must triumph ultimately, and right-doing never be confounded, had seemed to necessitate belief in a righteous God. But now the necessity for any such assumption was done away with: the perpetual triumph of the good was a necessary aspect or expression of the mechanical action of particles of matter upon one another, as much as the law of gravitation itself, and based on exactly the same kind of evidence. From this it followed that religious belief was but a passing phase in the process of evolution, useful enough as long as the real evidence for our faith in the good was unknown, but destined to dwindle to a mere rudiment and survival as fast as men become capable of seeing the truth of the matter, and of realising that religion is superfluous because it can offer nothing that is not independently assured by science. At the same time and in the same way the hope of future blessedness is brought down from the unsubstantial clouds of an imaginary heaven to the solid ground of a materialistic science, which never travels beyond the evidence of the senses. Since, then, minds, which differ otherwise so much, are agreed that the optimistic interpretation of evolution is the true one, it seems not unreasonable to ask each how far they are prepared to push their optimism. We will ask the one side whether the reason why they believe in the goodness of God really is that, as a matter of fact, they see that good is incessantly triumphant around them, and triumphant as a matter of absolute necessity. Surely whether we consider what we daily see of life, or whether we consider the struggle with evil in our own souls, it is a mockery to say that good invariably triumphs here and now; and there must be illusion in the argument that would prove that it does. Could an argument that is based on the assumption that matter and motion are the only realities issue in anything but illusion when extended to spiritual experience?