There remains the usual retort of the religionist when closely cornered: "The finite mind cannot expect to understand the Infinite." He appears to forget entirely that when he advances proofs of the God of his heart he himself is using his finite mind, and that his opponents therefore have an equal right to use theirs when criticising his "proofs." This by the way. The particular point we have to notice is that the appeal to this negative argument amounts to an admission that the proofs do indeed appear all the other way. Thus in the question now before us, "Is the First Cause a beneficent intelligence?" we find that a statement confidently proclaimed by the pious is not only unsupported by evidence, but in spite of it--a mere assertion suggested by the emotions. With more modesty and (may I add?) with more common sense, the agnostic disclaims any knowledge of God, holding that human knowledge is limited to experience, and that, since the absolute and unconditioned, if it exists at all, cannot fall within experience, we have no right to assert anything whatever with regard to it. EVIL FOR WHICH MAN IS HELD RESPONSIBLE. The very existence of the God of our hearts depends upon the proof of His morality. The argument from moral order seems at first sight a strong one. Morality, even adopting the naturalist's explanation that it is only a social instinct, can be regarded as the result of a divine spark. Its beneficial influence on the happiness of the individual and the well-being of the race cannot be too strongly insisted upon as a well-ascertained fact. "Virtue is self-rewarding, and vice is self-punishing." [222] But the Rationalist asks: "Why design man's nature so that he is more likely to go wrong, when he gets the chance, than to go right; and this in despite of the moral or social instinct?" The usual answer of the religionist is that, if we could not do wrong, we should be mere machines. "No doubt," says the author of Pro Fide, "if God had made us what Mr. Huxley says we are, conscious automata, we should have been incapable of sin; but it is better to be men, with all the glorious possibilities of freedom and virtue, than to be machines, however excellent." Now, do we allow our children to choose for themselves when we know they will choose wrongly? Do we not guard them against the inglorious possibilities--the slavery of vice? If we fail in our duty to them and they fall, should we add to our guilt by perpetrating on them unimaginable cruelties? Again, do we not prefer the fellowship of the good-natured? Yet these, according to the religionist, are the veriest automata compared with those who have inherited vicious or disagreeable characteristics, and do their best to fight against them. Be this as it may, the fact remains that the less fortunately endowed are seldom able to raise themselves up to the level of the more fortunately endowed--environment may, of course, elevate the one, as it may also