The grandeur of democracy is in its denying nothing and abjuring nothing of humanity. Next to the right of man comes the right of the soul. To crush out fanaticism, and to reverence the infinite, such is the law. Let us not be content to prostrate ourselves under the tree of Creation, and to contemplate its immense branches full of stars. We have a duty,--to work for the human soul, to distinguish between mystery and miracle; to worship the incomprehensible and reject the absurd; to admit as inexplicable only what we must; to make faith more healthy, to remove from religion the superstitions that encumber it; to brush the cobwebs from the image of God. CHAPTER VI. ABSOLUTE GOODNESS OF PRATER. As to the manner of prayer, all are good, provided that they are sincere. Turn your book upside down, and be in the infinite. There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, in pathological classification, which denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness. To set up as a source of truth a sense which we lack is the consummate assurance of a blind man. The strange part of it lies in the lofty, superior, and pitying airs which this groping philosophy takes on in the presence of the philosophy which sees God. You fancy you hear the mole exclaim, "How I pity the poor men with their sun!" There are some eminent and able atheists, we admit. These at bottom being brought back to the truth by their very ability, are not sure that they are atheists; it is scarcely more than a matter of definition with them; and at any rate, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they bear unconscious witness to His existence. We hail in them the philosopher, while we deny relentlessly their philosophy. Let us go on. It is wonderful, too, to see how easily they amuse themselves with words, A metaphysical school of the North, a little impregnated with fog, thought that it was making a revolution in the human understanding when it replaced the word "Force" by the word "Will." To say "the plant wills" instead of "the plant grows;" this would amount to something, if they added "the universe wills," Why? Because it would lead to this: the plant wills, then it has a self; the universe wills, then it has a God. To us, however, who, unlike this school, reject nothing _a priori_, a will in the plant, which this school admits, seems more difficult to admit than a will in the universe, which this school denies. To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible without denying the infinite. This we have demonstrated. The denial of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything becomes "a conception of the mind." With nihilism no argument is possible; for the logical nihilist doubts the existence of his opponent in the discussion, and is not quite sure that he exists himself. From his point of view it may be that his own existence is only a "conception of his mind."