All knowledge has an ultimate object. Knowing for the sake of knowing is, say what you will, nothing but a solemn begging of the question. We learn a thing either for an immediate practical end, or in order to complete the rest of our knowledge. Even the ideas that appear to us most theoretical--that is to say, of least immediate application to the non-intellectual necessities of life--answer to an intellectual necessity, which is also a real necessity, to a principle of unity and continuity of consciousness. But just as scientific knowledge has its finality in the rest of our knowledge, the philosophy which we may be forced to choose has another extrinsic finality--it refers to our whole destiny, to our attitude towards life and the universe. And the most tragic problem of philosophy is that of reconciling intellectual necessities of the heart and the will. For it is just here that every philosophy that claims to resolve the eternal and tragic contradiction that is the very basis of our existence breaks down. But do all men confront this contradiction? Little can be hoped for from a ruler, for example, who has not been preoccupied at some time or other, even if only in some dim way, with the first beginning and ultimate end of all things, and, above all, of men, with their first “why” and their ultimate “wherefore.” And this supreme preoccupation cannot be purely rational, it must be affective. It is not enough to think about our destiny, it must be felt. And the would-be leader of men who says and proclaims that he pays no heed to the things of the spirit, does not deserve to lead them. Which does not mean, of course, that any determinate solution is to be required of him. Solution? Is there, indeed, any? For my part, I will never willingly yield myself, nor entrust my confidence, to any popular leader who has not a real conviction that the leader of a people is a leader of men--men of flesh and bone; men who are born, suffer, and, although they may not wish to die, die; men who are ends in themselves, not merely means; men who have to be themselves and not others; men, in short, who seek that which we call happiness. It is inhuman, for example, to sacrifice one generation of men to the generation following when there is no regard for the destiny of those sacrificed--not merely for their memory, for their names, but for themselves. All this idea that a man lives in his children, or in his works, or in the universe, is but vague verbiage which satisfies only those who suffer from affective stupidity and who may, for the rest, be persons of a certain cerebral distinction. For it is possible to possess a great talent or what we call great talent, and yet to be stupid as far as the feelings are concerned, and even morally imbecile. There have been instances.