She has rendered in fine verse that sense of desolation which
has been so often stirred in me by the philosophy of Schopenhauer, of
Hartmann, Comte, and Darwin. What tragic force and power! What thought
and passion! She has courage for everything, and attacks the most
tremendous subjects.
Science is implacable; will it suppress all religions? All those which
start from a false conception of nature, certainly. But if the
scientific conception of nature proves incapable of bringing harmony and
peace to man, what will happen? Despair is not a durable situation. We
shall have to build a moral city without God, without an immortality of
the soul, without hope. Buddhism and stoicism present themselves as
possible alternatives.
But even if we suppose that there is no finality in the cosmos, it is
certain that man has ends at which he aims, and if so the notion of end
or purpose is a real phenomenon, although a limited one. Physical
science may very well be limited by moral science, and _vice versa_. But
if these two conceptions of the world are in opposition, which must give
way?
I still incline to believe that nature is the virtuality of mind--that
the soul is the fruit of life, and liberty the flower of necessity--that
all is bound together, and that nothing can be done without.
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