As a final step in
our analysis, therefore, we must altogether quit the region of experience,
and, ignoring even the very foundations of science and so all the most
certain of relative truths, pass into the transcendental region of purely
formal considerations. In this region theist and atheist must alike consent
to forego all their individual predilections, and, after regarding the
subject as it were in the abstract and by the light of pure logic alone,
finally come to an agreement as to the transcendental probability of the
question before them. Disregarding the actual probability which they
severally feel to exist in relation to their own individual intelligences,
they must apply themselves to ascertain the probability which exists in
relation to those fundamental laws of thought which preside over the
intelligence of our race. In fine, it will now, I hope, be understood that,
as we have hitherto been endeavouring to determine, by deductions drawn
from the very foundations of all possible science, the _relative_
probability as to the existence of a God, so we shall next apply ourselves
to the task of ascertaining the _absolute_ probability of such
existence--or, more correctly, what is the strictly _formal_ probability of
such existence when its possibility is contemplated in an absolute sense.
Sec. 37. To begin then. In the last resort, the value of every probability is
fixed by "ratiocination.
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