that they can save our souls from their own damnation. If a doctor were
to say to his patients, "I am familiar with your symptoms, because I
have seen other people in your condition; and I will bring the very
little knowledge we have to your treatment; but except in that very
shallow sense I dont know what is the matter with you; and I cant
undertake to cure you," he would be a lost man professionally; and if a
clergyman, on being called on to award a prize for good conduct in
the village school, were to say, "I am afraid I cannot say who is the
best-behaved child, because I really do not know what good conduct is;
but I will gladly take the teacher's word as to which child has
caused least inconvenience," he would probably be unfrocked, if not
excommunicated. And yet no honest and intellectually capable doctor or
parson can say more. Clearly it would not be wise of the doctor to say
it, because optimistic lies have such immense therapeutic value that a
doctor who cannot tell them convincingly has mistaken his profession.
And a clergyman who is not prepared to lay down the law dogmatically
will not be of much use in a village school, though it behoves him all
the more to be very careful what law he lays down. But unless both the
clergyman and the doctor are in the attitude expressed by these speeches
they are not fit for their work. The man who believes that he has more
than a provisional hypothesis to go upon is a born fool. He may have
to act vigorously on it. The world has no use for the Agnostic who wont
believe anything because anything might be false, and wont deny anything
because anything might be true. But there is a wide difference between
saying, "I believe this; and I am going to act on it," or, "I dont
believe it; and I wont act on it," and saying, "It is true; and it is
my duty and yours to act on it," or, "It is false; and it is my duty
and yours to refuse to act on it." The difference is as great as that
between the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed. When you repeat
the Apostles' Creed you affirm that you believe certain things. There