uppermost. Both are clamant at this moment in you and me, clamant in
you as you read these words, clamant in me as I write them.

The will-to-disbelieve is always most active where the controversial
interest reigns supreme; least active where men, in a spirit of mutual
loyalty, are engaged together in the positive attempt to achieve a
better-than-what-is. Into the relations of true lovers the
will-to-disbelieve never enters, though a Mephistopheles, standing by,
can always find reasons enough for prompting it, and sneer at them for
a brace of fools. The will of the true lovers is to believe in each
other and to reject all suggestions to the contrary. They will trust
each other to the uttermost, in spite of the fact that no conclusive
reason can be given why they should do so--heroic lovers that they are!
But whenever a human interest, great or small, is detached from its
roots in reality and turned into a subject for the war of minds, every
assertion made by the one side is a challenge to the other to assert
the contrary. The will-to-disbelieve is then in its glory, and finds
there are no lengths to which it cannot go. The more it is hammered,
the greater its vigour, the greater its ingenuity, in hitting back.
Meanwhile both sides are drifting further away from realities and the
primary interest in dispute succumbing to the secondary interests of
mere controversy. The dominant motive of the controversy has now
ceased to be the search for truth and become the resolution of the
disputants to overthrow their opponents and not be overthrown. There
is no issue. From the nature of the forces engaged the controversy
becomes endless.

As the mere plaything of professional controversialists the fate of
religion can never be decided. The professional controversialists
themselves do not desire that it should be; their interest is to keep
the game up for ever; for if a final issue were reached their
occupation would be gone. Happily for religion, its fate does not
depend on the fortunes of this ever-swaying battle. It depends on the
answer given by individual men and women to the question which faces
them all over the gateway of life--"Wilt thou be a hero or a coward?"

Religion is one of those high things, and there are many such in life,
which lose their meaning when they are over-defended, or
over-explained. In explaining them we are apt to explain them away,
and without being aware that we are doing so. Whene