FAITH is nobly seen when a man, standing like Columbus upon the shore
with a dark, stormy Atlantic before him, resolves to sail, and although
week after week no land be visible, still believes and still sails on;
but it is nobler when there is no America as the goal of our venture, but
something which is unsubstantial, as, for example, self-control and
self-purification. It is curious, by the way, that discipline of this
kind should almost have disappeared. Possibly it is because religion is
now a matter of belief in certain propositions; but, whatever the cause
may be, we do not train ourselves day by day to become better as we train
ourselves to learn languages or science. To return from this
parenthesis, we say that when no applause nor even recognition is
expected, to proceed steadily and alone for its own sake in the work of
saving the soul is truer heroism than that which leads a martyr
cheerfully to the stake.
Faith is at its best when we have to wrestle with despair, not only of
ourselves but of the Universe; when we strain our eyes and see nothing
but blackness. In the _Gorgias_ Socrates maintains, not only that it is
always better to suffer injustice than to commit it, but that it is
better to be punished for injustice than to escape, and better to die
than to do wrong; and it is better not only because of the effect on
others but for our own sake. We are naturally led to ask what support a
righteous man unjustly condemned could find, supposing he were about to
be executed, if he had no faith in personal immortality and knew that his
martyrdom could not have the least effect for good. Imagine him, for
example, shut up in a dungeon and about to be strangled in it and that
not a single inquiry will be made about him—where will he look for help?
what hope will compose him? He may say that in a few hours he will be
asleep, and that nothing will then be of any consequence to him, but that
thought surely will hardly content him. He may reflect that he at least
prevents the evil which would be produced by his apostasy; and very
frequently in life, when we abstain from doing wrong, we have to be
satisfied with a negative result and with the simple absence (which
nobody notices) of some direct mischief, although the abstention may cost
more than positive well-doing. This too, however, is but cold
consolation when the cord is brought and the grave is already dug.
It must be admitted that Reason cannot give any answer. Socrates, when
his reasoning comes to an end, often permits himself to tell a story.
“My dialectic,” he seems to say, “is of no further use; but here is a
tale for you,” and as he goes on with it we can see his satyr eyes gleam
with an intensity which shows that he did not consider he was inventing a
mere fable. That was the way in which he taught theology. Perhaps we
may find that something less than logic and more than a dream may be of
use to us. We may figure to ourselves that this universe of souls is the
manifold expression of the One, and that in this expression there is a
purpose which gives importance to all the means of which it avails
itself. Apparent failure may therefore be a success, for the mind which
has been developed into perfect virtue falls back into the One, having
served (by its achievements) the end of its existence. The potential in
the One has become actual, has become real, and the One is the richer
thereby.