Now, is this dissension necessarily and really grounded in the thing itself, and in the nature of the thing? Or, rather, does the blame of it lie with men, and in their defective apprehension and form? I have no hesitation in saying that a living faith and a living science will never be at issue together, at least on essential points. In three cases, no doubt, a dissension, a reciprocal misunderstanding, and endless conflict between both is perfectly conceivable. It is possible, either when the faith is a mere matter of memory and of a few acquired notions, rather than a deeply-rooted conviction of the soul. Or, secondly, since all the faculties of the human mind ought to co-operate in giving a full internal development and an external shape to the truth thus divinely imparted, it may spring up even when the soul receives it with a full love, but is nevertheless principally, or at least too much, under the dominion of a lively fancy, to the exclusion of a due admixture of clearness of understanding, and the circumspection which belongs to the distinguishing judgment. Or, thirdly, it may arise, on the other side, when a conceited and presumptuous science seeks to establish itself rather than truth, and places more dependence on its own conclusions than on its announcements.
What, then, is faith, taken in itself, but the reception into the soul of the divine and divinely-communicated verities? And what is science, more than the apprehension thereof by the mind [_geist_]? Are there, then, two truths, of which, however, one or the other is not true? Undoubtedly there exists, along with the spirit of truth, another spirit--that of contradiction and negation. But the latter is no spirit of truth, but the spirit of untruth and delusion so often described, which invariably triumphs whenever the mind of man, in its pursuit of knowledge, seeks itself rather than the truth, and consequently finds, perceives, and retains nothing but its own Me. And this evil spirit the soul even meets half way whenever it is incapable of embracing and retaining the life and the spirit of the holy faith, and when, consequently, these quickly flee away, and nothing but the letter and the empty form remain behind. But where the spirit of truth has once departed, error in manifold shapes and forms finds, one way or other, an entrance into the soul. Is it not one and the same truth which, on the one side, speaking from the one revelation, impresses itself on the soul of man as the commanding voice of love enjoining faith, and which, on the other, condescendingly offers and presents itself to the mind or spirit of the believer as a mystery, in order that he may, if he will, investigate it in order to discover and adopt the meaning and the light that are veiled and inclosed within it? Is there, then, to be a party feud and a civil war in the heart of man, between soul and spirit, the two elements of his existence; just as if it were some ill-organized state where, in opposition to the supreme political power, some insubordinate body sets itself up in authority, and presumes to give the law? Ought, forsooth, the soul in secret to be liberal, and, in half-unbelief, to grant immunity to all manner of lusts and desires, while the spirit is legitimist in sentiment and constitutional in language? Or ought the soul to be honestly _ultra_ and a thorough legitimist in its established faith, while the mind, on its part, by its liberal measures, is perfectly falling into error? So far is this from being allowable, that even these names and these parties would soon cease and disappear altogether, if, instead of party, the knowledge, and the might, and the inspiration of life--the supreme life, _i.e._, or God, were once to take full possession of the minds of men, and so animate them anew and ardently inspire them with the common spirit and ardor of the one faith and the one science.