"Ought,
therefore can," some Kantian will retort. To which we shall demur:
"Cannot, therefore ought not." And life cannot submit itself to reason,
because the end of life is living and not understanding.
Again, there are those who talk of the religious duty of resignation to
mortality. This is indeed the very summit of aberration and insincerity.
But someone is sure to oppose the idea of veracity to that of sincerity.
Granted, and yet the two may very well be reconciled. Veracity, the
homage I owe to what I believe to be rational, to what logically we
call truth, moves me to affirm, in this case, that the immortality of
the individual soul is a contradiction in terms, that it is something,
not only irrational, but contra-rational; but sincerity leads me to
affirm also my refusal to resign myself to this previous affirmation and
my protest against its validity. What I feel is a truth, at any rate as
much a truth as what I see, touch, hear, or what is demonstrated to
me--nay, I believe it is more of a truth--and sincerity obliges me not
to hide what I feel.
And life, quick to defend itself, searches for the weak point in reason
and finds it in scepticism, which it straightway fastens upon, seeking
to save itself by means of this stranglehold. It needs the weakness of
its adversary.
Nothing is sure. Everything is elusive and in the air. In an outburst of
passion Lamennais exclaims: "But what! Shall we, losing all hope, shut
our eyes and plunge into the voiceless depths of a universal scepticism?
Shall we doubt that we think, that we feel, that we are? Nature does not
allow it; she forces us to believe even when our reason is not
convinced.
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