physical investigation in the presence of such a question. If we
get not much positive satisfaction for our unquiet yearnings, we
occupy at any rate a sounder philosophic position when we
recognize the limits within which our conclusions, whether
positive or negative, are valid.

It seems not improbable that Mr. Mill may have had in mind
something like the foregoing considerations when he suggested
that there is no reason why one should not entertain the belief
in a future life if the belief be necessary to one's spiritual
comfort. Perhaps no suggestion in Mr. Mill's richly suggestive
posthumous work has been more generally condemned as
unphilosophical, on the ground that in matters of belief we must
be guided, not by our likes and dislikes, but by the evidence
that is accessible. The objection is certainly a sound one so far
as it relates to scientific questions where evidence is
accessible. To hesitate to adopt a well-supported theory because
of some vague preference for a different view is in scientific
matters the one unpardonable sin,--a sin which has been only too
often committed. Even in matters which lie beyond the range of
experience, where evidence is inaccessible, desire is not to be
regarded as by itself an adequate basis for belief. But it seems
to me that Mr. Mill showed a deeper knowledge of the limitations
of scientific method than his critics, when he thus hinted at the
possibility of entertaining a belief not amenable to scientific
tests. The hypothesis of a purely spiritual unseen world, as
above described, is entirely removed from the jurisdiction of
physical inquiry, and can only be judged on general
considerations of what has been called "moral probability"; and
considerations of this sort are likely, in the future as in the