4 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



his doubts, through faith in which he could achieve 

 confidence and hope. 



That need has been felt by all those to whom life 

 has been more than a problem of the unreflective 

 satisfaction of instincts and desires — however pure 

 those instincts, or beautiful those desires ; it has 

 been felt by all in whom the problem of existence 

 has been apprehended by intellect and disinterested 

 imagination. 



I say all. There may be rare creatures who, secure 

 in strength of body and mind and in unhampered un- 

 folding of their faculties, possess a confidence by which 

 this need is never felt. They are like those whom 

 Wordsworth drew for us in the * Ode to Duty ' : — 



* There are who ask not if thine eye 

 Be on them ; who, in love and truth, 

 Where no misgiving is, rely 

 Upon the genial sense of youth : 

 Glad hearts ! without reproach or blot ; 

 Who do thy work and know it not.' 



But such are rare ; or should we say that their type 

 of mind, though not uncommon in the earlier years 

 of life, only by the rarest chance achieves its course 

 without a descent into that vale where the finite human 

 intellect grapples unequally with infinite problems. 



The need has been felt in all ages and in all countries ; 

 and the answers, the partial satisfactions of the needs 

 which have been found by the mind of men, are 

 correspondingly diverse. 



