In a little book of his called _Belief
and Life_ he has the following passages:
In the long last men cannot be persuaded to deny their own moral
nature, and they will not be content with a theory of the universe
which does not satisfy their sense of right.
And because of this very sense of right they entertain no soft and
sentimental notions concerning the universe:
They believe in judgment, in retribution, and in the great
principle that "as a man sows, so shall he also reap." They
therefore require that room shall be found in the scheme of things
for the working out of this principle. They recognise that such
room is not to be found in this present life, and so they accept
the fact that God hath set eternity in our hearts, and that we are
built on a scale which requires a more abundant life to complete
it.
In corroboration of their faith, it may be said, as John Stuart
Mill used to argue, that wherever belief in the future has been
strong and vivid, it has made for human progress. There is no doubt
that the deterioration of religion and the more material views of
life so prevalent just now are due to the loss of faith in the
future.
Religion, he says, can never live or be effective within the narrow
circle of time and sense. Nevertheless he has the courage to say: "The
future life, like the belief in God, is best treated as an hypothesis
that is yet in process of verification.
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