A CONFESSION [20]
it quite correct. The conclusion that life is nothing was
inevitable; but I noticed a mistake. The mistake lay in this, that
my reasoning was not in accord with the question I had put. The
question was: "Why should I live, that is to say, what real,
permanent result will come out of my illusory transitory life --
what meaning has my finite existence in this infinite world?" And
to reply to that question I had studied life.
The solution of all the possible questions of life could
evidently not satisfy me, for my question, simple as it at first
appeared, included a demand for an explanation of the finite in
terms of the infinite, and vice versa.
I asked: "What is the meaning of my life, beyond time, cause,
and space?" And I replied to quite another question: "What is the
meaning of my life within time, cause, and space?" With the
result that, after long efforts of thought, the answer I reached
was: "None."
In my reasonings I constantly compared (nor could I do
otherwise) the finite with the finite, and the infinite with the
infinite; but for that reason I reached the inevitable result:
force is force, matter is matter, will is will, the infinite is the
infinite, nothing is nothing -- and that was all that could result.
It was something like what happens in mathematics, when
thinking to solve an equation, we find we are working on an
identity. the line of reasoning is correct, but results in the
answer that a equals a, or x equals x, or o equals o. the same
thing happened with my reasoning in relation to the question of the
meaning of my life. The replies given by all science to that
question only result in -- identity.
And really, strictly scientific knowledge -- that knowledge
which begins, as Descartes's did, with complete doubt about
everything -- rejects all knowledge admitted on faith and builds
everything afresh on the laws of reason and experience, and cannot
give any other reply to the question of life than that which I
obtained: an indefinite reply. Only at first had it seemed to me
that knowledge had given a positive reply -- the reply of
Schopenhauer: that life has no meaning and is an evil. But on
examining the matter I understood that the reply is not positive,
it was only my feeling that so expressed it. Strictly expressed,
as it is by the Brahmins and by Solomon and Schopenhauer, the reply
is merely indefinite, or an identity: o equals o, life is nothing.
So that philosophic knowledge denies nothing, but only replies that
the question cannot be solved by it -- that for it the solution
remains indefinite.
Having understood this, I understood that it was not possible
to seek in rational knowledge for a reply to my question, and that
the reply given by rational knowledge is a mere indication that a
reply can only be obtained by a different statement of the question
and only when the relation of the finite to the infinite is
included in the question. And I understood that, however
irrational and distorted might be the replies given by faith, they
have this advantage, that they introduce into every answer a
relation between the finite and the infinite, without which there
can be no solution.
In whatever way I stated the question, that relation appeared
in the answer. How am I to live? -- According to the law of God.
What real result will come of my life? -- Eternal torment or
eternal bliss. What meaning has life that death does not destroy?
-- Union with the eternal God: heaven.
So that besides rational knowledge, which had seemed to me the
only knowledge, I was inevitably brought to acknowledge that all
live humanity has another irrational knowledge -- faith which makes
it possible to live. Faith still remained to me as irrational as
it was before, but I could not but admit that it alone gives
mankind a reply to the questions of life, and that consequently it
makes life possible. Reasonable knowledge had brought me to
acknowledge that life is senseless -- my life had come to