Granting, says Professor Huxley, that a religious creed would be beneficial, '_my next step is to ask for a_ proof _of its dogmas_.' And with contemptuous passion another well-known writer, Mr.Leslie Stephen, has classified all beliefs, according as we can prove or not prove them, into realities and empty dreams.

'_The ignorant and childish_,' he says, '_are hopelessly unable to draw the line between dreamland and reality; but the imagery which takes its rise in the imagination as distinguished from the perceptions, bears indelible traces of its origin in comparative unsubstantiality and vagueness of outline_.' And '_now_,' he exclaims, turning to the generation around him, '_at last your creed is decaying.

People have discovered that you know nothing about it; that heaven and hell belong to dreamland; that the impertinent young curate who tells me that I shall be burnt everlastingly for not sharing his superstition, is just as ignorant as I myself, and that I know as much as my dog._'[34] Such is that syllogism of the physical sciences which is now supposed to be so invincible against all religion, and which has already gone so far towards destroying the world's faith in it.

Now as to the minor premiss, that there is no proof of religion, we may concede, _at least provisionally_, that it is completely true.

What it is really important to examine is the major premiss, that we can be certain of nothing that we cannot support by proof.