ctrine, theory. "If any man will do
His will--the will of Him that sent me," said Jesus, "he shall know of
the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself" (John
vii. 17); and there is a well-known saying of Pascal: "Begin by taking
holy water and you will end by becoming a believer." And pursuing a
similar train of thought, Johann Jakob Moser, the pietist, was of the
opinion that no atheist or naturalist had the right to regard the
Christian religion as void of truth so long as he had not put it to the
proof by keeping its precepts and commandments (Ritschl, _Geschichte des
Pietismus_, book vii., 43).

What is our heart's truth, anti-rational though it be? The immortality
of the human soul, the truth of the persistence of our consciousness
without any termination whatsoever, the truth of the human finality of
the Universe. And what is its moral proof? We may formulate it thus: Act
so that in your own judgement and in the judgement of others you may
merit eternity, act so that you may become irreplaceable, act so that
you may not merit death. Or perhaps thus: Act as if you were to die
to-morrow, but to die in order to survive and be eternalized. The end of
morality is to give personal, human finality to the Universe; to
discover the finality that belongs to it--if indeed it has any
finality--and to discover it by acting.

More than a century ago, in 1804, in Letter XC of that series that
constitutes the immense monody of his _Obermann_, Senancour wrote the
words which I have put at the head of this chapter--and of all the
spiritual descendants of the patriarchal Rousseau, Senancour was the
most profound and the most intense; of all the men of heart and feeling
that France has produced, not excluding Pascal, he was the most tragic.
"Man is perishable. That may be; but let us perish resisting, and if it
is nothingness that awaits us, do not let us so act that it shall be a
just fate." Change this sentence from its negative to the positive
form--"And if it is nothingness that awaits us, let us so act that it
shall be an unjust fate"--and you get the firmest basis of action for
the man who cannot or will not be a dogmatist.

That which is irreligious and demoniacal, that which incapacitates us
for action and leaves us without any ideal defence against our evil
tendencies, is the pessimism that Goethe puts into the mouth of
Mephistopheles when he makes him say, "All that has achieved existence
deserves to