The fact is that faith and reason are like function
and organ, desire and power, or demand and supply; it is impossible to
say which comes first: they come up hand in hand, and are so small when
we can first descry them, that it is impossible to say which we first
caught sight of. All we can now see is that each has a tendency
continually to outstrip the other by a little, but by a very little only.
Strictly they are not two things, but two aspects of one thing; for
convenience' sake, however, we classify them separately.
It follows, therefore--but whether it follows or no, it is certainly
true--that neither faith alone nor reason alone is a sufficient guide: a
man's safety lies neither in faith nor reason, but in temper--in the
power of fusing faith and reason, even when they appear most mutually
destructive.
That we all feel temper to be the first thing is plain from the fact that
when we see two men quarrelling we seldom even try to weigh their
arguments--we look instinctively at the tone or spirit or temper which
the two display and give our verdict accordingly.
A man of temper will be certain in spite of uncertainty, and at the same
time uncertain in spite of certainty; reasonable in spite of his resting
mainly upon faith rather than reason, and full of faith even when
appealing most strongly to reason.
Pages:
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329