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" I must be rig-lit, my arguments are so admirable." 

 I should say to him, "Your arguments depend 

 u upon the constitution of your mind : how do you 

 " know your constitution of mind is the right one ; 

 te besides, bring me a greater logician than you 

 " and all your fine arguments will be knocked over 

 a like ninepins. And so on, ad infinitum" 



Any man who, by a life of abstract thought, has 

 killed his whole nature, except the logical faculty 

 that is in him, must necessarily disbelieve everything, 

 for he has left himself nothing 1 to believe with. The 



O 



logical faculty useful, and indeed indispensable as it 

 is when kept in its proper place and subordination 

 to the higher powers, is by itself merely critical, 

 negative, and destructive. The result of living wholly 

 and solely on the fruit of the tree of knowledge, is 

 death or utilitarianism ; and that is in fact only 

 another name for the same thing. I say, a life of 

 mere abstract thought is death, that is, spiritually ; 

 but it also is materially ; for abstract thought in its 

 perfection is trance, and trance is stoppage of the 

 breath and of the circulation, and stoppage of the 

 breath and of the circulation is death. 



I say, there is no line to be drawn between ab- 

 stract thought by itself and trance, and the produc- 

 tions people worship as works of vast intellect are 

 often, wonderful as they may be, little else than the 

 fantastic and morbid dreams of a lifeless and soul- 

 less trance or semi-death. No doubt abstract 

 thought does good service sometimes. Some men 



