those, who as they said were formerly on the side of the Horseherd, now
fully agree with me, that the world is not irrational. Here is the
dividing line between two systems of philosophy. Whoever thinks that an
irrational world becomes rational by the survival of the fittest, etc.,
stands on one side; I stand on the other, and hold with the Greek
thinkers, who accept the world as the expression of the Logos, or of a
reasonable thought or thinker.

But here the matter became serious. To my Horseherd I thought that I could
make myself intelligible in a humorous strain, for his letter was
permeated with a quiet humour. But my known and unknown opponents take the
matter much more seriously and thoroughly, and I am consequently obliged
at least to try to answer them seriously and thoroughly. What my readers
will say to this I do not know. I believe that even in short words we can
be serious and profound. When Schiller says that he belongs to no
religion, and why? because of religion, the statement is short and
concise, and yet easily understood. I shall, however, at least attempt to
follow my opponents step by step, even at the risk of becoming tedious.

And first of all a confession. It has been pointed out to me that in one
place I did my Horseherd an injustice. I wrote: "You are of opinion that
to love God and your neighbour is equivalent to being good, and are
evidently very proud of your discovery that there is no distinction
between good and evil. Well," I then continue, "if loving God and your
neighbour is equivalent to being good, then it follows that not loving God
and not loving your neighbour is equivalent to not being good, or to being
evil. There is, then, a very plain distinction between good and evil. And
yet you say that you turned a somersault when you discovered that there
was no such distinction."

Well, that looked as though I had driven my friend into a corner from
which he would find it difficult to extricate himself. But I did him an
injustice and shall therefore do everything in my power to right it. My
memory, as it so frequently does, played me a prank. At the same time that
I answered him, I was in active correspondence with one of the delegates
to the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at which the love of God and one's
neighbour had been adopted, as a sort of article of agreement which the
followers of any or every faith could accept. Thus it befell that I
supposed the Horseherd in America to stan