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Unable, as every man is, to give a convincing reason why he should be here at all, or why, being here, he should remain here any longer,—unable to prove that it would not be better for the world at large, if all necks, his own included, were wrung five minutes hence—is there not something fundamentally irrational in our determination to continue in existence as long as we possibly can—that universal will-to-live, which forms the basis of all particular volitions, and supplies the motive power to our plans, purposes, preparations and policies for our own or others' good? Challenged to show cause why we should linger here a moment longer, what answer could any of us give that would have the slightest claim to "the universal validity of reason"? Reason cannot be bullied into acquiescence by the importance of individuals in their own eyes. Was there ever a great man whose sudden extinction would not have been hailed with joy by a considerable section of his contemporaries, or a little one who would not have made things pleasanter for somebody by taking himself off?

If we limit the word "rational" to the processes of thought which issue in demonstrations after the manner of mathematical arguments, and if all behaviour is to be termed irrational which involves the taking of a risk, I see no escape from the conclusion that human life is infected with irrationality at its very core. So far as any of us act upon the assumption that it is better for us to exist than not to exist we are assuming what can never be "proved."

But, for my own part, I am not prepared to put these limitations on the word "rational." The traditional logic of the schools, on which this notion of rationality is founded, turns out on examination to cover no more than a departmental activity of the human mind. The type of conclusion to which it leads us is determined in advance by the rules it lays down for its own procedure, in the one department where such procedure is possible. Free activity, which is the essence of self-consciousness, and the life of all creative work, lies entirely outside its province, and the attempt to deal with it by departmental rules yields nothing but the rank absurdity that freedom itself is absurd.[2] The logic in question may be compared to a locomotive engine which can move only on the rails that have been laid down for it; and the philosopher who would apprehend the things of the spirit by the means which it affords him is like a man who rides an engine rather than a horse when he goes to hunt a fox. Logical machinery cannot follow the movement of the live spirit, nor arrest it even for a moment's inspection. Within its own province the rule of the traditional logic is, indeed, absolute. But to make that province co-extensive with the realm of truth, to extend the laws which govern it into the universal laws of spirit is a fatal pedantry. So extended, our logic leads not to truth but to falsehood and, ultimately, to the paralysis of the very thought it seeks to regulate, nay, to the extinction of thought itself. This procedure has no claim whatever to usurp the name of "reason," but rather stands condemned as the very type of what is unreasonable. Let those who deny this prove, if they can, in terms acceptable to universal reason, that it would "not be better for the world at large if their necks were wrung five minutes hence."

There is a coward and a hero in the breast of every man. Each of the pair has a "logic" of his own adapted to his particular purpose and aim—which is safety for the coward and victory for the hero. The two are perpetually at variance, the reason of the one being the unreason of the other, the truth of the one being the falsehood of the other. The inner strife, the division in our nature, the law in our members warring against the law of our mind, on which so many great doctrines of religion have hinged, has its origin at this point. Anyone who watches himself narrowly may observe the strife going on, and going on in just this form,—as an argument between the coward within him, who is out for safety, and the hero within him, who is out for victory. They have little common ground and can barely understand each other's speech.

Everything the hero proposes is unreasonable to the coward. Everything the coward proposes is detestable to the hero. The hero would pour spikenard on the head of his beloved—that would be victorious. The coward would sell it and give the money to the poor—that would be "safer." The coward sees a danger in having children and limits his family. The hero would have many sons. On all such points the coward, judged by the standard of what passes muster as logic, is a better reasoner than the hero. But the hero, though he has less to say for himself, when brought before the seat of judgment, is nearer to the fountain head of Reason. Would not the offence of the Cross, submitted at the time to a sanhedrim of "logical" experts, have been condemned as unadulterated folly? Such a sanhedrim is always in session within a man, and the hero has much ado to stand up to its decrees.

Religion is a power which develops the hero in the man at the expense of the coward in the man. As the change proceeds there comes a moment when the cowardly method of reasoning, with its eye on safety, ceases to dominate the soul. At the same moment the heroic element awakes and looks with longing towards the dangerous mountain-tops. Thenceforward the man's reason becomes the organ of the new spirit that is in him, no longer fettered to the self-centre, but mounting up with wings as an eagle. His powers as a reasoner are enriched, his survey of the facts more comprehensive, his insight into their significance more penetrating.

Religion has sometimes been represented as introducing a new faculty called "faith" into the man's life, as adding this faith to the reason he had before, or perhaps as driving reason out and putting faith in its place. This is a misconception. Faith is neither a substitute for reason nor an addition to it. Faith is nothing else than reason grown courageous—reason raised to its highest power, expanded to its widest vision. Its advent marks the point where the hero within the man is getting the better of the coward, where safety, as the prime object of life, is losing its charm and another Object, hazardous but beautiful, dimly seen but deeply loved, has begun to tempt the awakened soul.

Another way of saying the same thing is to name religion the "new birth" of the soul. But a new birth which, while changing all the rest of the man, left his reason unchanged, which turned all the rest of him into a hero, but kept him still reasoning with a coward's logic, would not amount to very much. Unless I am mistaken the new birth must begin in the seat of reason if it is to begin at all. Is not the man's reason the very essence of the man? How then, can he be converted at all unless he is converted there?

Most of the "defences of religion" that I am acquainted with ignore all this. They claim to address themselves to reason. And so indeed they do, but to reason in a low stage of its development, to the half-born reason of the timid and unemancipated soul, to the unheroic side of human nature, treating us as beings whose ultimate interest is to save our own skins, and making use of the logic, admirable on its own field, which self-interest has worked out for that very purpose and which is incapable of reaching any other conclusion. Instead of raising reason to the full-grown stature of religion, they bring religion down to the level of reason while still at the stage of learning the alphabet of its business. To this class of argument belong Locke's "proof" of the existence of God, and Paley's of a