I would gladly believe in a happy immortality for all, as I would gladly believe that all misery and crime and poverty will disappear in 1885--_if I could_.

But I am unable to believe an improbable proposition unless convincing evidence is brought in support of it.

Immortality is most improbable; no evidence is brought forward in its favour.

I cannot believe only because I wish."[12] Such was the philosophy by which I lived from 1874 to 1886, when first some researches that will be dealt with in their proper place, and which led me ultimately to the evidence I had before vainly demanded, began to shake my confidence in its adequacy.
Amid outer storm and turmoil and conflict, I found it satisfy my intellect, while lofty ideals of morality fed my emotions.

I called myself Atheist, and rightly so, for I was without God, and my horizon was bounded by life on earth; I gloried in the name then, as it is dear to my heart now, for all the associations with which it is connected.