It seems, then, first, that there are some things which a man may believe without evidence, and some which he may not; and, next, that he may not believe things the consequences of which would be disastrous or mischievous. But now what of the things not mischievous or disastrous? On what principle are we to choose amongst them? Let us once more follow our guide, the man of science, and ask him on what principle he elected to believe that Nature was uniform, rather than that she was not. I imagine it was once more on the ground of the consequences: grant that Nature is uniform, and then all the marvellous discoveries, the revelations of the past and prophecies of the future, which science has made, become things that we can reasonably believe in. Refuse to believe, withhold your faith, and then you have no reason to believe anything whatever, thought and action alike are paralysed. It is between these consequences that we have to choose. Our choice is an act of will; and it is on our will that our beliefs and our actions depend. In science, then, we are offered the alternatives: either believe without evidence that Nature is uniform, or renounce all that science has to give. We want to be scientific, so we choose the former. We believe (in science) because we want to believe, not because we have any evidence. To say that we may yield to the impulse to have faith, without being unscientific, is to understate the case: we cannot be scientific without faith. In logic, whether inductive or deductive, the case is the same. We must either believe without evidence in the axioms on which reason is based, or forego reason altogether. We want to be reasonable, so we choose to accept the axioms. But our choice is not the least evidence or proof that they are true. We believe they are true, because we wish to believe that they are true. There is no reason except there first be faith. With morality the case is not otherwise. We believe in the principles of morality, not because we can prove them, or bring evidence to show that a man ought to do what is right, but because we wish to believe, and because we have faith in the right. There is no morality except first there be faith. We are nothing, know nothing, can do nothing without faith. And it is not in the dead past, which is what we mean by "evidence," but in the living future that faith has its well-springs. It is because we wish to do right henceforth that we put our faith in right-doing. It is not the ghosts of our misdeeds, rising from the charnel-house of the past in evidence against us, that give us good hope of the future--it is faith, not built on evidence, on a past that cannot be altered, but on hope, on the future, on what shall be as we will it.