50.
—In this place I can't permit myself to omit a psychology of
“belief,” of the “believer,” for the special benefit
of “believers.” If there remain any today who do not yet know how
indecent it is to be “believing”—or how much a sign
of décadence, of a broken will to live—then they will know
it well enough tomorrow. My voice reaches even the deaf.—It appears, unless
I have been incorrectly informed, that there prevails among Christians a sort of
criterion of truth that is called “proof by power.” Faith makes
blessed: therefore it is true.”—It might be objected right
here that blessedness is not demonstrated, it is merely promised: it
hangs upon “faith” as a condition—one shall be blessed
because one believes. . . . But what of the thing that the priest
promises to the believer, the wholly transcendental “beyond”—how
is that to be demonstrated?—The “proof by power,” thus
assumed, is actually no more at bottom than a belief that the effects which faith
promises will not fail to appear. In a formula: “I believe that faith makes
for blessedness—therefore, it is true.”. . . But this is as
far as we may go. This “therefore” would be absurdum itself
as a criterion of truth.—But let us admit, for the sake of politeness, that
blessedness by faith may be demonstrated (—not merely hoped for,
and not merely promised by the suspicious lips of a priest): even so,
could blessedness—in a technical term, pleasure—ever
be a proof of truth? So little is this true that it is almost a proof against truth
when sensations of pleasure influence the answer to the question “What is
true?” or, at all events, it is enough to make that “truth” highly
suspicious. The proof by “pleasure” is a proof of
”pleasure—nothing more; why in the world should it be assumed that
true judgments give more pleasure than false ones, and that, in conformity
to some pre-established harmony, they necessarily bring agreeable feelings in
their train?—The experience of all disciplined and profound minds teaches
the contrary. Man has had to fight for every atom of the truth, and has
had to pay for it almost everything that the heart, that human love, that human
trust cling to. Greatness of soul is needed for this business: the service of truth
is the hardest of all services.—What, then, is the meaning of integrity
in things intellectual? It means that a man must be severe with his own heart, that
he must scorn “beautiful feelings,” and that he makes every Yea and Nay
a matter of conscience!—Faith makes blessed:therefore, it lies. . . .