estion of critique they do not count. From the moral point of
view, I should be one with them.

There are others who cannot be defined, who are unbelievers unknown to
themselves. Incredulity enters into their principles, but they do not
push these principles to their logical consequences. Others believe
in a rhetorical way, because their favourite authors have held this
opinion, which is a sort of classical and literary religion. They
believe in Christianity as the Sophists of the decadence believed
in paganism. I am sorry that I have not the time to complete this
classification.

You mistrust individual reason when it endeavours to draw up a system
of life. Very good, give me a better system, and I will believe in
it. I follow up mine because I have not got a better one, and I often
mutiny against it.

I am very indifferent with regard to the outward position in which all
this will land me; I shall not attempt to give myself any fixed place.
If I happen to get placed, well and good. If I meet with any who share
my views we shall make common cause; if not, I must go alone. I am
very egotistical; left wholly to myself, I am quite indifferent to the
views of other people. I hope to earn bread and cheese. The people who
do not get to know me well class me as one of those with whom I have
nothing in common; so much the worse, they will be all in the wrong.

In order to gain influence one must rally to a flag and be dogmatic.
So much the better for those who have the heart for it. I prefer to
keep my thoughts to myself and to avoid saying the thing which is not.

If by one of those revulsions which have already occurred this way
of putting things comes into favour, so much the better. People
will rally to me, but I must decline to mix myself up with all this
riffraff, I might have added another category to the classification
I made just now: that of the people who look upon action as the most
important thing of all, and treat Christianity as a means of action.
They are men of commonplace intelligence compared to the thinker. The
latter is the Jupiter Olympius, the spiritual man who is the judge
of all things and who is judged of none. That the simple possess
much that is true I can readily believe, but the shape in which they
possess it cannot satisfy him whose reason is in proper proportion
with his other faculties. This faculty eliminates, discusses, and
refines, and it is impossible to quench it. I would only too gla