106 THE LIGHT OF BAY 



selves true, but because the very act of belief is in 

 itself wholesome and sets the current going, while 

 doubt paralyzes and leads to stagnation. But how 

 shall we believe a thing unless we know it to be 

 true ? Ah, there is the rub ! But man in all ages 

 has been the victim of delusions, and the gain to him 

 has been that they have kept him going ; that they 

 have kept him working and striving. The great 

 periods in history have been periods of strong faith, 

 of serious affirmation, not of denial, nor yet of rea- 

 son. Yet I would not say that faith alone has ever 

 made a people or an individual great. Spain, as a 

 nation, probably has as much faith as ever, and 

 yet how is she fallen from the three hundred years 

 ago. But faith is more frequently the parent of 

 great deeds than reason or denial. From the point 

 of view of the nation, faith is best. There can be 

 no strong feeling of nationality without a certain 

 narrowness and unreasonableness. The philosophers 

 of Athens no doubt weakened the feeling of nation- 

 ality. They weakened the . faith in the nation's 

 gods ; they had reference to universal ends. A 

 proud, intense, exclusive nation like the Hellenes 

 had a kind of faith in itself and in its privileges 

 and destiny, which, however conducive to the 

 growth and strength of the nation, could not stand 

 the light of reason and universal knowledge. 



The wise skeptic also sees that faith or supersti- 

 tion, rather than reason, must be the guide of the 

 mass of mankind. What Strabo said nineteen cen- 

 turies ago still holds true. " It is impossible," said 



