In the last chapter, impressed by the doctrine that there is no "source of truth save that which is reached by the patient application of scientific methods,"[30] we patiently applied those methods to the foundation of science itself; and we were rewarded by the discovery that scientific, like religious, truth has its source in Faith. But the end of our difficulties is not yet. A man may put his faith in science, if he will, "but let him not delude himself with the notion that his faith is evidence of the objective reality of that in which he trusts."[31] About that we feel no difficulty: faith begins not merely with ignorance, but with the frank confession that we know we are ignorant, but we wish to believe, in spite of the absence of evidence. There is no evidence to show that Nature is uniform or science true, but we do not mind that: we are quite determined to believe, evidence or no evidence. That is easy enough for us, who are not scientific; but "scientific men get an awkward habit--no, I won't call it that, for it is a valuable habit--of believing nothing unless there is evidence for it; and they have a way of looking upon belief which is not based upon evidence, not only as illogical, but as immoral."[32] This is, if not awkward, at least puzzling, since science is based on a belief in the Uniformity of Nature, for which there is no evidence. "It is, we are told, the special peculiarity of the devil that he was a liar from the beginning. If we set out in life with pretending to know that which we do not know; with professing to accept for proof evidence which we are well aware is inadequate; with wilfully shutting our eyes and our ears to facts which militate against this or that comfortable hypothesis; we are assuredly doing our best to deserve the same character."[33] That also is puzzling. Science sets out in life with assuming, by a "great act of faith," that Nature is uniform. She is well aware that the evidence for this assumption is inadequate, that no amount of experience could prove it; but, if she is to start at all, she must make the assumption, so she proceeds to act as though it were proved, as though she knew what she does not know. These are facts; and we take it for granted that no one will wilfully shut his eyes and his ears to them, even if he has some comfortable hypothesis against which they seem to militate. Again, belief in science is based not on any ground of reason, but upon "the great act of faith" which leads the man of science to assent to it. It is therefore again puzzling to learn that "assent without rational ground for belief is to the man of science merely an immoral pretence," and that "scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin."[34]