In like case stands faith. Does it essay to think that in which it believes, then must that present itself to it in one or other relation or form--that is, conceptually. A transcendent, however, that presents itself conceptually is transcendent no longer, but, on the contrary, the one completely conceptualized thing there is in the world, inasmuch as its whole existence just consists of the concept of it. Accordingly, when faith ventures to think, it deprives itself of the possibility of existence; when it does not think, it has no existence _as faith_, and therefore no existence at all. When, as in these days frequently happens, people complain of the ever-increasing decay of faith, the reason mostly given is, that faith does not contain a sufficiency of what is of value to the understanding. The believer must know what, how, and why he believes, and not have his faith based simply upon feeling. But this is somewhat the same as if one should reproach darkness with not containing a sufficiency of light among its ingredients. Is light present, then there can be no darkness; is understanding present, then there can be no faith. _Credo ut intelligam_ is the most vain of all wishes. _Pantheism_ in its noblest form, that of the Indian _Vedanta_, endeavours to avoid this dilemma by conceiving of its divine in purely negative terms. But the famous “neti, neti”--“not this, not this”--of the Upanishads, is a definition too, and so a limitation. Through this its essential characteristic, of itself in being thought out, depriving itself of the possibility of existence, faith takes its place--as third in the trio--along with illusion and error. _Illusion_ is what I call a mistaken view; _error_, what I call a mistaken experience. When I mistake a rope for a snake, a train of ants for a crack in the ground, these are illusions. When I hold infusoria to have their origin in the infusion of hay, or look upon the evening and the morning star as two different orbs, these are errors. Upon this, its community of nature with illusion and error, is based another essential characteristic of faith--namely, the impossibility, when once it has vanished, of its ever again coming to life. Once the rope on my path which I formerly mistook for a snake has been recognized by me for a rope, never again can I voluntarily return to my illusion. I can, indeed, by force of imagination, represent it to myself as a snake, but this representation no longer “works”; it no longer excites fear. And in just the same way I can quite successfully recall the conditions under which certain optical and acoustic delusions made their appearance, but they are illusions that are dead. The like holds good of error and, for a third, of faith. People who call for a resuscitation of vanished faith, and by some means or other hope to see it effected, know not what it is that they hope and call for. They are calling for the restoration of a vanished ignorance--an utter inconceivability.