And it is precisely because I have this thorn in my heart of hearts, because I cannot resign myself to one day returning to unconsciousness, because I have a thirst for eternity, that this applause bruises my heart. That a man should not believe in another life, that I understand, for I myself find no proof of it; but that he should resign himself to this, and above all that he should not desire anything more than this life, that is a thing I do indeed not understand. And then these gross calumniations of Christ and of Christianity, these stupidities that go contrary to nature and that have stunted the human spirit, and all this alluvion of vulgarity that so many unfortunate people swallow whole.... In one of those series of popular publications which flatter and seduce the coarsest instincts of the unlettered multitudes, there is a book--translated from the Italian, I believe--entitled “Jesus Christ Has Never Existed.” It is one of the most deplorable, shallow, and worthless books imaginable, inspired not by a love of truth but by the most blatant sectarianism. I was talking about it one day to a man who had read it and who had been delighted with it, and I said: “It is not the thesis that shocks me. The thesis that Jesus had no historical existence, that He is a myth, has many times been put forward, and with apparently very plausible arguments, at any rate with erudition--recently by Karthoff--but it is a thesis that has been demolished by the most judicious investigators, no matter what their personal creed may have been.” He replied: “Then I’m sorry, for He ought not to have existed.” And naturally I did not know what to say to that. This lack of ideality, this aridity and poverty of inward life, which is implied by not longing for another and transcendental life, all this practical materialism, is dismaying to the mind of whosoever meditates a little upon the worth of human life. For my own part, I have very little hope of peoples who fall into this materialistic attitude. Understand me clearly: I am not assuring you, nor can I assure you, that there is another life; I myself am not convinced that there is; but I cannot conceive that a man, a true man, should not merely resign himself to the enjoyment of this life only, but that he should renounce and even spurn another life. And as for this idea that we shall continue to live in our works, in our children, in the memory of other generations, and that everything renews and transforms itself, and that we shall help to build up a more perfect society--all this appears to me to be the most miserable subterfuge for escaping the depths of despair.