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Deep conviction
It is an awe-inspiring quality,[Pg 106] especially to youth, which secretly doubts everything. The man of strong convictions is a cause of optimism in others, for life would appear a sad cheat if the payment for sixty years of it did not include one certainty. Youth’s certainties make as much noise, but everybody detects the bluff. A fearful man shouts to hearten himself, as all the world knows. Between the certainties of youth and age, there is scepticism, a fine fleur of brief life, an exquisite tempering of the soul, neither too soft nor too hard, an infinite flexibility. It is a state of intense activity; life lived at this pace cannot long endure; the tired spirit relaxes, and one finds rest either in credulity or in dogmatism, accident determining which attitude affords the soundest slumber. It is not always easy to detect the true sceptic; that honourable title has often been wrongly bestowed — Voltaire, for instance, was a dogmatist. Sceptics exist in all ages, but they are more clearly revealed at those periods when some new inquiry is born. It is essential to their indubitable manifestation that the passionate interest of a large number of people should attend the inquiry. At the present day, an excellent test inquiry is spiritualism. It is a very much better test than Free Trade and Tariff Reform, for, owing to its comparative remoteness, the true sceptic of that alternative might live and die in obscurity. But spiritualism is a…
