The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinkerLloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Philosophy
The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinker
Lloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Belief and doubt; Philosophy -- Introductions
sources of doubt lay the real bases of belief. Our own doubted world of
what was relative and artificial, and above all contradictory, had
already turned, without loss of anything that was in it, into a world of
reality and belief.
And so, for this concluding chapter, as but a sort of focussing of what
almost from the beginning has been borne in upon us, but especially at
the close has been rich in reality and meaning, we have a sixth general
fact, which may now be added to the original five. [p.252] _We believe
through our doubts; we believe, not in something apart, but in the very
things we doubt_. To this fact really inclusive of all the others, or if
not to this fact at least to this conviction which we have achieved
here, we shall now turn, and in our concluding chapter we may even
forget, or retain only as the appropriate background, many of those more
special or more technical details that from time to time have occupied
us. After so much, that to some, if not to all, who have followed me to
this place, may have appeared open to the charge of being mere theory,
certain simple, very practical considerations, appealing quite as much
to the emotions as to the reason, can hardly be out of place. Those who
are already satisfied, who foresee only repetition, who are themselves
without emotion, or who consider anything like the drawing of a moral to
be as useless as it is inartistic, need read no further.
I.
We believe in the very things we doubt. Doubt, this is to say, can
destroy nothing. It only calls for closer scrutiny, for wider and deeper
view, for greater achievement. Its effect is only to make over, renew,
or fulfil what has already been and must ever remain an object of faith,
and so doing it keeps the old faith alive. It questions all things, but
properly, consistently it raises, not questions of mere existence or
reality, but questions of meaning and worth, and whatever it truly
questions it always quickens. Have [p.253] we not found that with its
inborn and insatiable passion for truth doubt must believe in
everything, and that to satisfy this passion, since all things must work
together for what is real and true, it must reject nothing but seek even
the universe in everything? All things, from the momentary sensation in
your little finger, or the tree yonder on the lawn, to the personality
of God or the divinity of Christ as an idea in the consciousness of
millions of people, all things are; they are in experience; they are
unassailable realities of experience; but--and just this is as far as
the truth-loving doubter, the doubter who is honest with his own
self-consciousness, can go--what really are they? _What are they?_ is
such an honest question. In this question, too, there is more reality
for the things inquired about even than in any man's assertion that they
are this or that they are that. But the question _Are they?_ would be
downright treachery. We doubters, then, believe, but would ever know
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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