SMITH. Oh, for God's sake stow it! What the hell's the good of going on like that? Of course I'm sorry for them and all that. But I don't see that it's going to help them to make oneself miserable about it. HANCOCK (_fiercely_). Sorry for them! It's not them I'm sorry for! They ... they're the lucky ones! God! I suppose that's the answer! They'd earned it! SMITH (_satirically_). Have you turned pi? We shall have you saying the prayers that you learnt at your mother's knee next, I suppose! I shall have to tell the Padre, and he'll preach a sermon about it! I should never have thought you would have been _frightened_ into religion! HANCOCK. Frightened! You little swine! _You_ talk about being frightened after last night! I tell you I'd rather be lying out there with Dodd and Whiston than be sitting here with you. Frightened into religion! SMITH. Oh, I suppose you're the next candidate for death or glory! Good luck to you! I'm not competing. I'll do my job; but I'm not going to make a fool of myself. Dodd and Whiston deserved all they got. You're right there. You'll get what you deserve some day, I expect! Don't look at me like that. I've said I'm sorry, and all that. But it's the truth I'm speaking, all the same. HANCOCK. And you'll get what you deserve too, I suppose, which is to live in your own company till the end of your miserable existence. I won't deprive you of your reward more than I can help, I promise you! (HANCOCK _goes out._) IX THE WISDOM OF "A STUDENT IN ARMS" It is no good trying to fathom "things" to the bottom; they have not got one. Knowledge is always descriptive, and never fundamental. We can describe the appearance and conditions of a process; but not the way of it. Agnosticism is a fundamental fact. It is the starting-point of the wise man who has discovered that it needs eternity to study infinity. Agnosticism, however, is no excuse for indolence. Because we cannot know all, we need not therefore be totally ignorant. The true wisdom is that in which all knowledge is subordinate to practical aims, and blended into a working philosophy of life. The true wisdom is that it is not what a man does, or has, or says, that matters; but what he is. This must be the aim of practical philosophy--to make a man be _something_. The world judges a man by his station, inherited or acquired. God judges by his character. To be our best we must share God's viewpoint. To the world death is always a tragedy; to the Christian it is never a tragedy unless a man has been a contemptible character. Religion is the widening of a man's horizon so as to include God. It is in the nature of a speculation, but its returns are immediate. True religion means betting one's life that there is a God. Its immediate fruits are courage, stability, calm, unselfishness, friendship, generosity, humility, and hope. Religion is the only possible basis of optimism. Optimism is the essential condition of progress.