Our sense of the world, of objective reality, is necessarily subjective, human, anthropomorphic. And vitalism will always rise up against rationalism, the will will always stand up against reason. Hence the rhythm of the history of philosophy and the alternation of periods in which life imposes itself, giving birth to spiritual forms, with periods in which reason imposes itself, giving birth to materialistic forms, although both of these classes of forms of belief may disguise themselves under other names. Neither reason nor life ever acknowledges itself vanquished. No doubt it will be said that life ought to submit to reason and to this we shall reply that nothing ought to be done that cannot be done, and life cannot submit to reason. “Ought, therefore can,” some Kantian will retort. To which we shall demur: “Cannot, therefore ought not.” And life cannot submit to reason, because the end of life is living and not understanding. There is always someone who will tell us of the religious duty of resigning ourselves to mortality. This is indeed the very summit of aberration and insincerity. And over against sincerity will be set the opposing ideal of veracity. Be it so, and yet it is quite possible to reconcile the two. Veracity, respect for what I believe to be rational, for what we call truth in the logical sense, moves me to affirm that the immortality of the individual soul is a logical contradiction, is something not only irrational but contra-rational; but sincerity leads me to affirm also that I do not resign myself to this former affirmation and that I protest against its validity. What I feel is a truth, as much a truth at any rate as what I see, touch, hear, and what is demonstrated to me--I believe that it is even more of a truth--and sincerity obliges me not to hide my feelings. And in self-defence life searches for the weak point in reason and finds it in scepticism, which it seizes hold of, endeavouring to save itself by maintaining its hold. It needs the weakness of its adversary.