51. In the next place, and occupying a middle position, we have those who see strong grounds for believing in a future life for man and in the existence of an invisible world, but who at the same time are forced to acknowledge the strength of the objections urged against these doctrines by certain men of science. Some of this class attach much weight to the evidence in favour of these doctrines derived from the Christian records; others again, unable to believe in these records, are yet powerfully impressed by the universal longing for immortality which civilised man has always shown, while others attach nearly equal importance to both kinds of evidence. Nevertheless, all of the class of which we now speak have deeply studied the scientific objections, and do not well see how to surmount them. It is to this class that we shall especially address ourselves in the following chapters. 52. The third class of men are those of the extreme materialistic school. All human history, including the life of Christ and that which took place in connection with it, all yearnings of man for immortality, all life, from that of the noblest of human beings to that of the primordial animated germ, are explained by this class as the result of the interaction of material atoms guided by certain measurable physical forces. They consider that they have no reason to believe that there is anything beyond or beside the visible universe, and in consequence they decline entering into any argument upon the subject. Their premiss may be wrong, but their conclusion follows from it as a matter of course. We have examined (say they) all the evidence in favour of another universe, and find it utterly worthless, why then should we discuss the subject?—it is one of those delusions that are common in man. When a traveller pretends to have received information about some strange and distant country, our first step is to inquire whether he is a trustworthy and sane man, and if we find he is otherwise, it is quite unnecessary for us to discuss either the information which he brings, or the objections to that information. You pretend to show the scientific possibility that this information may be correct, but why should we study your argument since there is no evidence for supposing that there is any such place? 53. To these men we would reply that, even assuming their own point of view, our scheme will, we venture to suggest, be found to give a more complete and continuous explanation of the visible order of things than one which proceeds upon the assumption that there is nothing else. In this respect we may liken it to the hypothesis of atoms, or that of an ethereal medium, for neither of which have we the direct evidence of our senses, both of which have nevertheless been adopted as affording the best explanations of the phenomena of the visible universe.