erhaps, there lurks a shadow, a vague shadow, a shadow of shadow, of
uncertainty, and while he says within himself, "Well, let us live this
life that passes away, for there is no other!" the silence of this
secret chamber speaks to him and murmurs, "Who knows!..." He may not
think he hears it, but he hears it nevertheless. And likewise in some
secret place of the soul of the believer who most firmly holds the
belief in a future life, there is a muffled voice, a voice of
uncertainty, which whispers in the ear of his spirit, "Who knows!..."
These voices are like the humming of a mosquito when the south-west wind
roars through the trees in the wood; we cannot distinguish this faint
humming, yet nevertheless, merged in the clamour of the storm, it
reaches the ear. Otherwise, without this uncertainty, how could we live?

_"Is there?" "Is there not?"_--these are the bases of our inner life.
There may be a rationalist who has never wavered in his conviction of
the mortality of the soul, and there may be a vitalist who has never
wavered in his faith in immortality; but at the most this would only
prove that just as there are natural monstrosities, so there are those
who are stupid as regards heart and feeling, however great their
intelligence, and those who are stupid intellectually, however great
their virtue. But, in normal cases, I cannot believe those who assure me
that never, not in a fleeting moment, not in the hours of direst
loneliness and grief, has this murmur of uncertainty breathed upon their
consciousness. I do not understand those men who tell me that the
prospect of the yonder side of death has never tormented them, that the
thought of their own annihilation never disquiets them. For my part I do
not wish to make peace between my heart and my head, between my faith
and my reason--I wish rather that there should be war between them!

In the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark it is related how a
man brought unto Jesus his son who was possessed by a dumb spirit, and
wheresoever the spirit took him it tore him, causing him to foam and
gnash his teeth and pine away, wherefore he sought to bring him to Jesus
that he might cure him. And the Master, impatient of those who sought
only for signs and wonders, exclaimed: "O faithless generation, how long
shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me"
(ver. 19), and they brought him unto him. And when the Master saw him
wallowing on the ground