By an instinctive view of unerring accuracy, man understands that the ideal is not to be touched with hands, and that there is no occasion for its submission to the control of experience. _Noli me tangere_ is the motto of all grand affection. The sense of touch leaves no room for faith; the eye, a purer and more noble organ than the hand--even the eye which nothing soils, and by which nothing is soiled, became very soon a superfluous witness. A singular sensation began to appear; all hesitation was construed into a want of loyalty and love; each was ashamed to be behindhand; the desire to behold was interdicted. The dictum, "Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed,"{1.51} became the word of salutation. It was thought to be more generous to believe without proof. The true-hearted friends would rather not have had the vision.{1.52} Just as, in later times, St. Louis refused to be a witness to an eucharistic miracle that he might not detract from the merit of faith. Henceforth this credulity became a terrible emulation, and, as it were, a sort of out-bidding one another. The reward consisting in believing without having seen, faith at any price, gratuitous faith--faith approaching to madness--was exalted as if it were the chief gift of the soul. The _credo quia absurdum_ is established; the law of Christian dogmas will be an unwonted progression which no impossibility shall be able to arrest. The most cherished dogmas as regards piety, those to which it will attach itself with the most resolute frenzy, will be the most repugnant to reason, in consequence of that touching idea that the moral worth of faith increases in proportion to the difficulty of believing, and because men are not called on to prove any love when they admit one which is evident.