dness which
fate always shows me. If I were free I'd probably keep on, and then
regret it afterward.

XLII

QUID EST VERITAS?

All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a
dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African
bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and
intent of God exactly and completely. "For who hath known the mind of
the Lord?" asked Paul of the Romans. "How unsearchable are his
judgments, and his ways past finding out!" "It is the glory of God,"
said Solomon, "to conceal a thing." "Clouds and darkness," said David,
"are around him." "No man," said the Preacher, "can find out the work of
God." ... The difference between religions is a difference in their
relative content of agnosticism. The most satisfying and ecstatic faith
is almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to
know at all.

XLIII

THE DOUBTER'S REWARD

Despite the common delusion to the contrary the philosophy of doubt is
far more comforting than that of hope. The doubter escapes the worst
penalty of the man of hope; he is never disappointed, and hence never
indignant. The inexplicable and irremediable may interest him, but they
do not enrage him, or, I may add, fool him. This immunity is worth all
the dubious assurances ever foisted upon man. It is pragmatically
impregnable.... Moreover, it makes for tolerance and sympathy. The
doubter does not hate his opponents; he sympathizes with them. In the
end, he may even come to sympathize with God.... The old idea of
fatherhood here submerges in a new idea of brotherhood. God, too, is
beset by limitations, difficulties, broken hopes. Is it disconcerting to
think of Him thus? Well, is it any the less disconcerting to think of
Him as able to ease and answer, and yet failing?...

But he that doubteth--_damnatus est_. At once the penalty of doubt--and
its proof, excuse and genesis.

XLIV

BEFORE THE ALTAR

A salient objection to the prevailing religious ceremonial lies in the
attitudes of abasement that it enforces upon the faithful. A man would
be thought a slimy and knavish fellow if he approached any human judge
or potentate in the manner provided for approaching the Lord God. It is
an etiquette that involves loss of self-respect, and hence it cannot be
pleasing to its object, for one cannot think of the Lord God as
sacrificing decent feelings to mere vanity. This notion o