[53] But those who are at large,
are they not really, thanks to God, mad too? Are there not mild
madnesses, which not only permit us to mix with our neighbours without
danger to society, but which rather enable us to do so, for by means of
them we are able to attribute a meaning and finality to life and society
themselves?
And after all, what is madness and how can we distinguish it from
reason, unless we place ourselves outside both the one and the other,
which for us is impossible?
Madness perhaps it is, and great madness, to seek to penetrate into the
mystery of the Beyond; madness to seek to superimpose the
self-contradictory dreams of our imagination upon the dictates of a sane
reason. And a sane reason tells us that nothing can be built up without
foundations, and that it is not merely an idle but a subversive task to
fill the void of the unknown with fantasies. And nevertheless....
We must needs believe in the other life, in the eternal life beyond the
grave, and in an individual and personal life, in a life in which each
one of us may feel his consciousness and fed that it is united, without
being confounded, with all other consciousnesses in the Supreme
Consciousness, in God; we must needs believe in that other life in order
that we may live this life, and endure it, and give it meaning and
finality. And we must needs believe in that other life, perhaps, in
order that we may deserve it, in order that we may obtain it, for it may
be that he neither deserves it nor will obtain it who does not
passionately desire it above reason and, if need be, against reason.
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