But just
as I admit that this is all possibly provisional, that even the
Anselmian proof may come out all right, and creation _may_ be a rational
system through-and-through, why might they not also admit that it may
all be otherwise, and that the shadow, the opacity, the negativity, the
"from"-ness, the plurality that is ultimate, _may_ never be wholly
driven from the scene. We should both then be avowedly making
hypotheses, playing with Ideals. Ah! Why is the notion of hypothesis so
abhorrent to the Hegelian mind?

And once down on our common level of hypothesis, we might then admit
scepticism, since the Whole is not yet revealed, to be the soundest
_logical_ position. But since we are in the main not sceptics, we might
go on and frankly confess to each other the motives for our several
faiths. I frankly confess mine--I can not but think that at bottom they
are of an aesthetic and not of a logical sort. The "through-and-through"
universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible impeccable
all-pervasiveness. Its necessity, with no possibilities; its relations,
with no subjects, make me feel as if I had entered into a contract with
no reserved rights, or rather as if I had to live in a large seaside
boarding-house with no private bed-room in which I might take refuge
from the society of the place. I am distinctly aware, moreover, that the
old quarrel of sinner and pharisee has something to do with the matter.
Certainly, to my personal knowledge, all Hegelians are not prigs, but I
somehow feel as if all prigs ought to end, if developed, by becoming
Hegelians. There is a story of two clergymen asked by mistake to conduct
the same funeral. One came first and had got no farther than "I am the
Resurrection and the Life," when the other entered. "_I_ am the
Resurrection and the Life," cried the latter. The "through-and-through"
philosophy, as it actually exists, reminds many of us of that clergyman.
It seems too buttoned-up and white-chokered and clean-shaven a thing to
speak for the vast slow-breathing unconscious Kosmos with its dread
abysses and its unknown tides. The "freedom" _we_ want to see there is
not the freedom, with a string tied to its leg and warranted not to fly
away, of that philosophy. "Let it fly away," we say, "from _us_! What
then?"

Again, I know I am exhibiting my mental grossness. But again, _Ich kann
nicht anders._ I show my feelings; why _will_ they not show theirs? I
know they _have_ a personal fee