We must needs believe in the other life, in the eternal life beyond the grave, and in an individual and personal life, in a life in which each one of us may feel his consciousness and fed that it is united, without being confounded, with all other consciousnesses in the Supreme Consciousness, in God; we must needs believe in that other life in order that we may live this life, and endure it, and give it meaning and finality. And we must needs believe in that other life, perhaps, in order that we may deserve it, in order that we may obtain it, for it may be that he neither deserves it nor will obtain it who does not passionately desire it above reason and, if need be, against reason. And above all, we must feel and act as if an endless continuation of our earthly life awaited us after death; and if it be that nothingness is the fate that awaits us we must not, in the words of _Obermann_, so act that it shall be a just fate. And this leads us directly to the examination of the practical or ethical aspect of our sole problem. FOOTNOTES: [47] _De natura deorum_, lib. i., cap. 41. [48] _Op. cit._ [49] _Guía Espiritual que desembaraza al alma y la conduce por el interior camino para alcanzar la perfecta contemplación y el rico tesoro de la paz interior_, book iii., chap. xviii., § 185. [50] O land of Alvargonzález, In the heart of Spain, Sad land, poor land, So sad that it has a soul! [51] To living a life of blessed quiet here on earth, Either matter or soul is a hindrance. [52] Eso que llaman derecho penal, y que es todo menos derecho. [53] _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table._ XI THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM L'homme est périssable. II se peut; mais périssons en résistant, et, si le néant nous est reservé, ne faisons pas que ce soit une justice.--SÉNANCOUR: _Obermann_, lettre xc. Several times in the devious course of these essays I have defined, in spite of my horror of definitions, my own position with regard to the problem that I have been examining; but I know there will always be some dissatisfied reader, educated in some dogmatism or other, who will say: "This man comes to no conclusion, he vacillates--now he seems to affirm one thing and then its contrary--he is full of contradictions--I can't label him. What is he?" Just this--one who affirms contraries, a man of contradiction and strife, as Jeremiah said of himself; one who says one thing with his heart and the contrary with his head, and for whom this conflict is the very stuff of life. And that is as clear as the water that flows from the melted snow upon the mountain tops.