But it is when we come to think of humanity _as a whole_ that the prospect of final extinction appears so unutterably deplorable, so lame and impotent a conclusion for all the struggles, the martyrdoms, and the prayers of a hundred generations who have gone to the grave in hope and faith, _and perished there_. We English men and women have been wont to think proudly of the vast geographical extension of our country’s dominion, the grandeur of the Empire on which the sun never sets; and the remark has often been made that there is not a petty corporation or board in the kingdom whose proceedings are not, in a degree, dignified by the sense of England’s greatness. The politicians who have expressed a readiness to give up our Colonies have been taunted, and justly, with lack of the nobler patriotism which regards not only financial and administrative details, but the larger interests and glory of what we have delighted to call our Imperial Race. But what would be the loss to the _prestige_ of England of the severance of Australia and Canada and India, compared to the loss to mankind of that glorious empery of Immortality in which it has prided itself since the beginning of history? Everything we have achieved and thought--our literature, art, laws, kingdoms, churches--has all been wrought and built up in this faith, which has given value to the soul of the humblest child, and added grandeur to the most splendid deeds of the hero and the martyr. With that hope disappears not only the consolation of all bereaved hearts, but the very crown upon the head of humanity. * * * * * It is no argument for the truth of any opinion that the disclosure of its falsehood may have disastrous consequences. Nothing that has been advanced in this paper proves, or has been offered as proof, that there is a God or a life to come. The foundations for those beliefs belong to a different order of considerations. But I think thus much may be presumed to have resulted from our inquiry; namely, that their value to the virtue and the happiness of mankind is so incalculably vast that the work of demolishing them ought to be carried on, by men professing to love their kind, in a very different spirit from that which is generally exhibited by Agnostics. Even if their position be true, and if they be morally bound to make known to the world that such is the case, and to put an end to the baseless dream which has deluded our race for so many thousand years,--even granting this, I think it remains clear that their task is one to be undertaken only under the sternest sense of duty, and with immeasurable mournfulness and regret. I think that, instead of rejoicing over the discovery of “a spring in the desert,” it behooves them to weep tears, bitter as ever fell from human eyes, over the grave wherein they bury the Divine Love and the Immortal Hope of our miserable race. FOOTNOTES: [1] _Moral Philosophy_, B. I., chap. vii.