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 VIII REASON AND RELIGION

A LETTER TO AN INQIIRER

You ask mo :

1. Should men of no special intellectual g-ifts seek to express in words truths they have reached relating to the inner life ?

2. Is it worth while to try to attain full and clear understanding of one's inner life ?

3. How in moments of struggle or doubt are we to know whether it is conscience that speaks to us, or whether it is intellect bribed by our infirmities ? (This third question, for brevity's sake, I have restated in my own words witliout, I hope, altering your meaning.)

These three questions, it seems to me, are all summed up in one — the second ; for if we should not try to attain full and clear understanding of our inner life, then also we should not, and cainiot, express in words the truths we have reached ; and in moments of doubt we shall have nothing to guide us in distinguishing between conscience and false reasoning. But if it is right to seek the greatest clearness one^s mental powers can reach (whether those powers be great or small), then we should also express in words the truths we have reached, and by those truths, elucidated to the utmost and expressed in words, we must be guided in moments of struggle or doubt. And therefore I answer your root question in the affirmative ; namely, that every man, in order to accomplish the purpose for which he was sent here, and to attain true well-being [ 155 ]