Neither the one nor the other of these positions satisfied us. The one
is at variance with our reason, the other with our feeling. These two
powers can never conclude peace and we must needs live by their war. We
must make of this war, of war itself, the very condition of our
spiritual life.
Neither does this high debate admit of that indecent and repugnant
expedient which the more or less parliamentary type of politician has
devised and dubbed "a formula of agreement," the property of which is to
render it impossible for either side to claim to be victorious. There
is no place here for a time-serving compromise. Perhaps a degenerate and
cowardly reason might bring itself to propose some such formula of
agreement, for in truth reason lives by formulas; but life, which cannot
be formulated, life which lives and seeks to live for ever, does not
submit to formulas. Its sole formula is: all or nothing. Feeling does
not compound its differences with middle terms.
_Initium sapientiae timor Domini_, it is said, meaning perhaps _timor
mortis_, or it may be, _timor vitae_, which is the same thing. Always it
comes about that the beginning of wisdom is a fear.
Is it true to say of this saving scepticism which I am now going to
discuss, that it is doubt? It is doubt, yes, but it is much more than
doubt. Doubt is commonly something very cold, of very little vitalizing
force, and above all something rather artificial, especially since
Descartes degraded it to the function of a method.
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