FAITH AND BELIEF. 457 



tween two alternative interpretations, each of which 

 is intellectually warranted by the facts of life. The 

 faith in the rationality of things, in the light of 

 which we must read the ambiguous indications of 

 reality, is to be acquired by no reasoning. Hence 

 the final rejection of Pessimism is the highest and 

 most difficult act of Faith, and to effect it the soul 

 must draw the requisite strength from itself, it may 

 be, gather courage from the very imminence of 

 despair. 



If, therefore, we have at this point emphasized the 

 possibility of Pessimism once more, and pointed out 

 the necessity of Faith, it has been with no intention 

 of depreciating the value of reason or of casting a 

 doubt upon its conclusions. For in appealing to 

 Faith we are not appealing to anything that takes 

 the place of reason, and still less to anything hostile 

 to it, but to that which perfects it, and perfects it by 

 making it practically efficacious. It is thus that we 

 must emphasize again at the close the conviction 

 with which Ave started (ch. i. § 4) ; viz., that philosophy 

 is practical. It is a mistake to suppose that when 

 all has been said all has been done ; on the contrary, 

 the difficult task of translating thought into feeling, 

 of {{ivino: effect to the conclusions of reason, and 

 of really incorporating them with our being, still 

 remains. And it is this incompleteness of mere 

 thought which philosophy recognizes when it leaves 

 us with an alternative. This guards us against the 

 delusion that intellectual assent is sufficient for life. 

 Because philosophy is practical, mere demonstration 

 does not suffice ; to understand a proof is not to 

 believe it. And in order to live rightly, we must 

 not only assent that such and such principles are 

 conclusively proved, but must also believe them. 



