What matters then is not the
theoretical principle; it is the secret tendency, the aspiration, the
aim, which is the essential thing.
* * * * *
At every epoch there lies, beyond the domain of what man knows, the
domain of the unknown, in which faith has its dwelling. Faith has no
proofs, but only itself, to offer. It is born spontaneously in certain
commanding souls; it spreads its empire among the rest by imitation and
contagion. A great faith is but a great hope which becomes certitude as
we move farther and farther from the founder of it; time and distance
strengthen it, until at last the passion for knowledge seizes upon it,
questions, and examines it. Then all which had once made its strength
becomes its weakness; the impossibility of verification, exaltation of
feeling, distance.
* * * * *
At what age is our view clearest, our eye truest? Surely in old age,
before the infirmities come which weaken or embitter. The ancients were
right. The old man who is at once sympathetic and disinterested,
necessarily develops the spirit of contemplation, and it is given to the
spirit of contemplation to see things most truly, because it alone
perceives them in their relative and proportional value.
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