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. To act, again, as if it existed is too commonly to persuade myself against reason that it does exist certainly. There are few errors which are more seductive and against which I am more bound to be on my guard. We might, therefore, reply to Pascal: If there be a slight chance of my being damned eternally for certain conduct, that is a conclusive reason for avoiding the conduct; but it is also a conclusive reason for not saying that I am certain to be damned. If the mere possibility be as decisive a guide for conduct as the calamity, that is so far a reason for not confusing chance with certainty. According to you the slightest belief is a sufficient reason. Then why try to hold an absolute belief? After all, if there be such a God as you suppose, He may choose—it is not a very wild hypothesis—to damn me for lying or deliberate self-deception. If, as we are supposing, He has not supplied me with evidence of a fact, He may be angry with me for deliberately manufacturing beliefs without evidence—for believing absolutely what I can only know to be probable; He may do so—if we may venture to attribute to Him a certain magnanimity—even if the fact considered be the fact of His own existence. You contemplate a Deity who wishes