 This is an odd objection coming from one who argued in Utilitarianism “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” If the sole criterion of action is the production of happiness, and if forming a belief is an action, then it is hard to see what answer could be lodged against Beattie’s Consolation Argument (or at least some argument very much like  it).[8]  If happiness and consolation are irrelevant, and if Clifford’s Rule that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence” is correct, then Beattie’s consolation argument can be rejected as being itself an immoral  subornation.[9]