The first, and perhaps the only, outcome of man’s will-to-understanding is _faith_. “I believe” is the great word against metaphysical fear, and at the same time it is an avowal of love. Even though one’s researches or accumulation of knowledge may culminate in sudden illumination or conclusive calculation, yet all one’s own sense and comprehension would be meaningless unless there were set up along with it an inward certainty of a “something” which as other and alien _is_--and is, moreover, exactly under the ascertained shape--in the concatenation of cause and effect. The highest intellectual possession, therefore, known to man as a being of speech-deduced thought, is the firm and hard-won belief in this something, withdrawn from the courses of time and destiny, which he has separated out by contemplation and labelled by name and number. But _what_ that something is remains in the last analysis obscure. Was it the something of secret logic of the universe that was touched, or only a silhouette? And all the struggle and passion starts afresh, and anxious investigation directs itself upon this new doubt, which may well turn to despair. He needs in his intellectual boring of belief a _final_ something attainable by thought, an end of dissection that leaves no remainder of mystery. The corners and pockets of his world of contemplation must all be illuminated--nothing less will give him his release. Here belief passes over into the knowledge evoked by mistrust, or, more accurately, becomes belief in that knowledge. For the latter form of the understanding is radically dependent upon the former; it is posterior, more artificial, more questionable. Further, religious theory--that is, the contemplation of the believer--_leads to_ priestly practice, but scientific theory, on the contrary, _liberates itself_ by contemplation _from_ the technical knowledge of every day life.[471] The firm belief that is bred by illuminations, revelations, sudden deep glimpses, can dispense with critical work. But critical knowledge presupposes the belief that its methods will lead to just that which is desired--that is, not to fresh imaginings, but to the “actual.” History, however, teaches that doubt as to belief leads to knowledge, and doubt as to knowledge (after a period of critical optimism) back again to belief. As theoretical knowledge frees itself from confiding acceptance, it is marching to self-destruction, after which what remains is simply and solely technical experience.