Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/409




 * On ne sert dignement la philosophie qu’avec le même feu qu’on sent pour une maîtresse. —, Nouvelle Heloïse.

have before us our theorem, and an outline of its proof. We are here to expand this argument. We have some notion of the magnitude of the issues that are at stake. We had found ourselves baffled in our search for a certainty by numerous difficulties. We had found only one way remaining so far quite clear. That was the way of postulating what the moral consciousness seems to demand about the world beyond experience. For many thinkers since Kant, that way has seemed in fact the only one. They live in a world of action. “Doubt,” they say, “clouds all theory. One must act as if the world were the supporter of our moral demands. One must have faith. One must make the grand effort, one must risk all for the sake of the great prize. If the world is against us, still we will not admit the fact until we are crushed. If the cold reality cares naught for our moral efforts, so be it when we come to know the fact, but meanwhile we will act as if legions of angels were ready to support our demand for whatever not our selfish interest, but the great interest of the Good, requires.”