The outcome of his study was to convince him of two things. The first was that, "if the religious instincts of the human race point to no reality as their object, they are out of analogy with all other instinctive endowments. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom we never meet with such a thing as an instinct pointing aimlessly."[6] And this first conviction was only the preparation for a second. Speaking again of his _Candid Examination of Theism_, he says: "In that treatise I have since come to see that I was wrong touching what I constituted the basal argument for my negative conclusion ... Reason is not the only attribute of man, nor is it the only faculty which he habitually employs for the ascertainment of truth. Moral and spiritual faculties are of no less importance in their respective spheres, even of everyday life; faith, trust, taste, etc., are {52} as needful in ascertaining truth as to character, beauty, etc., as is reason."[7] He put the same thing with even more of the note of personal experience when he wrote to Dean Paget of Christ Church within three months of his death: "Strangely enough for my time of life, I have begun to discover the truth of what you once wrote about logical processes not being the only means of research in regions transcendental."[8] In all this he was following, as he knew, in the steps of Pascal, who had devoted the whole of the first part of his treatise to the argument from the condition of man's nature without God, and then had appealed to that nature for its positive testimony to the reality of the spiritual. "The heart has its reasons that the reason does not know." Agnosticism appeared dressed in the garb of an exceeding reverence, but, on closer acquaintance, it became evident that its acceptance would mean the cheapening of life by banishing from it the Divine personality, and robbing the human of the qualities that give it its greatest worth. Happily the disaster has been averted, and there are not many now who would seriously undertake its defence. [1] _Microcosmus_ (E.T.), II., p. 688. [2] Those who may desire to see the matter clearly and ably handled would do well to read the Essay on "The Being of God," in _Lux Mundi_, by Aubrey Moore. [3] Preface, Vol. II. (1893). [4] These notes were sent by Mr. Romanes' desire after his death, in 1894, to Bishop Gore, and have been published by him in a sixpenny volume under the title of _Thoughts on Religion_. [5] P. 154. [6] P. 82. [7] Pp. 111, f. [8] Life and Letters, p. 375. {53} CHAPTER VI. THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS (_continued_)