To crush out fanaticism, and to reverence the infinite, such is the law. Let us not be content to prostrate ourselves under the tree of Creation, and to contemplate its immense branches full of stars. We have a duty,—to work for the human soul, to distinguish between mystery and miracle; to worship the incomprehensible and reject the absurd; to admit as inexplicable only what we must; to make faith more healthy, to remove from religion the superstitions that encumber it; to brush the cobwebs from the image of God.
[CHAPTER VI.]
ABSOLUTE GOODNESS OF PRATER.
As to the manner of prayer, all are good, provided that they are sincere. Turn your book upside down, and be in the infinite.
There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, in pathological classification, which denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.
To set up as a source of truth a sense which we lack is the consummate assurance of a blind man.
The strange part of it lies in the lofty, superior, and pitying airs which this groping philosophy takes on in the presence of the philosophy which sees God. You fancy you hear the mole exclaim, "How I pity the poor men with their sun!"
There are some eminent and able atheists, we admit. These at bottom being brought back to the truth by their very ability, are not sure that they are atheists; it is scarcely more than a matter of definition with them; and at any rate, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they bear unconscious witness to His existence.
We hail in them the philosopher, while we deny relentlessly their philosophy.