where 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 godlike 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, [Gr.] _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 boughs, leaves and fruits, show us ugly taloned
roots turned up into the air,--and no growth, only death and misery
going on!

For the Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral
also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by
believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A
sad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is s