Keeping guard against the bias of education and shutting out the whisperings of sectarian feeling, let us consider what are the à priori probabilities in favour of each party.
§4. When duly realized, the general principle above
illustrated must lead us to anticipate that the diverse forms
of religious belief which have existed and which still exist,
have all a basis in some ultimate fact. Judging by analogy
the implication is, not that any one of them is altogether
right; but that in each there is something right more or less
disguised by other things wrong. It may be that the soul of
truth contained in erroneous creeds is very unlike most, if not
all, of its several embodiments; and indeed, if, as we have good
reason to expect, it is much more abstract than any of them,
its unlikeness necessarily follows. But however different
from its concrete expressions, some essential verity must be
looked for. To suppose that these multiform conceptions
should be one and all absolutely groundless, discredits too
profoundly that average human intelligence from which all
our individual intelligences are inherited.
This most general reason we shall find enforced by other more special ones. To the presumption that a number of diverse beliefs of the same class have some common foundation im fact, must in this case be added a further presumption derived from the omnipresence of the beliefs. Religious ideas of one kind or other are almost if not quite universal. Even should it be true, as alleged, that there exist tribes of men who have nothing approaching to a theory of creation — even should it be true that only when a certain phase of intelligence is reached do the most rudimentary of such theories make their appearance; the implication is practically the same. Grant that among all races who have passed. a certain stage of intellectual development there are found vague notions concerning the origin and hidden nature of surrounding things; and there arises the inference that such notions are necessary products: of progressing intelligence. Their endless variety serves but
