l think _wrong_ about all things in the world; this original sin
will vitiate all other conclusions he can form. One might call it the
most lamentable of delusions,--not forgetting Witchcraft itself!
Witchcraft worshipped at least a living Devil: but this worships a
dead iron Devil; no God, not even a Devil!--Whatsoever is noble,
divine, inspired, drops thereby out of life. There remains everywhere
in life a despicable _caput-mortuum_; the mechanical hull, all soul
fled out of it. How can a man act heroically? The 'Doctrine of
Motives' will teach him that it is, under more or less disguise,
nothing but a wretched love of Pleasure, fear of Pain; that Hunger, of
applause, of cash, of whatsoever victual it may be, is the ultimate
fact of man's life. Atheism, in brief;--which does indeed frightfully
punish itself. The man, I say, is become spiritually a paralytic man;
this god-like Universe a dead mechanical steam-engine, all working by
motives, checks, balances, and I know not what; wherein, as in the
detestable belly of some Phalaris'-Bull of his own contriving, he the
poor Phalaris sits miserably dying!

Belief I define to be the healthy act of a man's mind. It is a mysterious
indescribable process, that of getting to believe;--indescribable, as
all vital acts are. We have our mind given us, not that it may cavil
and argue, but that it may see into something, give us clear belief
and understanding about something, whereon we are then to proceed to
act. Doubt, truly, is not itself a crime. Certainly we do not rush
out, clutch-up the first thing we find, and straightway believe that!
All manner of doubt, inquiry, [Greek: skepsis] as it is named, about
all manner of objects, dwells in every reasonable mind. It is the
mystic working of the mind, on the object it is _getting_ to know and
believe. Belief comes out of all this, above ground, like the tree
from its hidden _roots_. But now if, even on common things, we require
that a man keep his doubts _silent_, and not babble of them till they
in some measure become affirmations or denials; how much more in
regard to the highest things, impossible to speak of in words at all!
That a man parade his doubt, and get to imagine that debating and
logic (which means at best only the manner of _telling_ us your
thought, your belief or disbelief, about a thing) is the triumph and
true work of what intellect he has: alas, this is as if you should
_overturn_ the tree, and instead of green