For indeed we prize life not by the sum of our possessions, but only by the rate and steadiness of our growth. "Not the possession," says Lessing, "or fancied possession of the truth, but the endeavor after it, determines a man's value. If God held in his right hand the sum total of truth, and in his left the ever-inextinguishable desire after truth, though linked with the condition of everlastingly wandering in error, and called to me, 'Choose,' I should humbly close with the left and answer: 'Father, give me this; the truth pure and simple is for thee alone.' "
But if we will have cleared to ourselves at the highest court what it is that imparts to error, crime, and tragedy, their powerful attraction, so that they are indispensable to high poetry and music and art, we shall find it is only because they constitute a dark background to heighten the play of the lightnings, to glorify the splendor of the sun. The trial and sorrow and humiliation serve to bring out in distincter outline the faith and serenity and triumph which, as in St. Paul, are more than a match for all the powers of darkness. Our conviction of the dominance and necessity of moral law is so deeply grounded, that the storm and earthquake threatening its upheaval only summon into livelier consciousness our inexpugnable confidence. Let the heavens fall. Though the earth be removed, God is our refuge.
It is the conscious or unconscious conviction of every sound man that truth is better and more beautiful than any delusion—that a man's well-being is the measure of his conformity to truth. Does a man find his hitherto solid philosophy impugned, his most holy religion out of joint with new emerging facts, he will not shut his ears to the severe reason. Does Science come and knock from under his feet the ground of immortality on which he had rested, it may help only to startle him out of his egoism—startle him on to some firmer footing. He must feel the immortality in the present, and not postpone it to the future. Only he who has eternal life in him(= intellectual recognition of, and hearty identification with, eternal law) is eternal. If Darwinism is true, and a man's spiritual supremacy is also true, the two facts will square with each other. For mind and Nature are the type and impression, in perfect correspondence to each other. The harshest exception is, when properly understood, no exception but a confirmation of the beautiful law. Depth and wholeness of vision will always be song and piety, be Dante and Shakespeare, never skepticism and mockery. The reconciliation of the spirit with Fate and Nature is a grace which rests sweetly and unconsciously in the heart of simple goodness, but is also the crowning grace of the boldest intellect which has pierced deep enough. Plato, Shakespeare, Milton, Newton, Kant, Goethe, and Schiller, are reverent worshipers, and walk in the sanctuary above arm-in-arm with Christ and the apostles. We see, in the "Nathan der Weise," how the brave Lessing received before death in fullest measure the gift of reconciliation.
