* * * * *
Is all this true? And what is truth? I in my turn will ask, as Pilate
asked--not, however, only to turn away and wash my hands, without
waiting for an answer.
Is truth in reason, or above reason, or beneath reason, or outside of
reason, in some way or another? Is only the rational true? May there not
be a reality, by its very nature, unattainable by reason, and perhaps,
by its very nature, opposed to reason? And how can we know this reality
if reason alone holds the key to knowledge?
Our desire of living, our need of life, asks that that may be true which
urges us to self-preservation and self-perpetuation, which sustains man
and society; it asks that the true water may be that which assuages our
thirst, and because it assuages it, that the true bread may be that
which satisfies our hunger, because it satisfies it.
The senses are devoted to the service of the instinct of preservation,
and everything that satisfies this need of preserving ourselves, even
though it does not pass through the senses, is nevertheless a kind of
intimate penetration of reality in us. Is the process of assimilating
nutriment perhaps less real than the process of knowing the nutritive
substance? It may be said that to eat a loaf of bread is not the same
thing as seeing, touching, or tasting it; that in the one case it enters
into our body, but not therefore into our consciousness.
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