We can best fortify ourselves by recognizing
and submitting to the inevitable and by anchoring our minds on the
firmest holding ground. Science will tell us that by working with the
great forces that move the world, we may contribute some fragment to an
edifice which will not be broken down; that to think for others instead
of limiting our hopes to our petty interests is the best remedy for
unavailing regret. We can take our part in the long warfare of man
against the world, which is nothing else but the gradual accommodation
of the race to the conditions of its dwelling-place. By so disciplining
our thoughts that we may fight eagerly and hopefully, we have the best
security for happiness, and not in encouraging an idle dwelling upon
visions which can never be verified, and which are apt to become most
ghastly when we most wish for consolation.
To the question, then, from which I started, it seems that an
unequivocal reply can be given. Why help to destroy the old faith from
which people derive, or believe themselves to derive, so much spiritual
solace? The answer is, that the loss is overbalanced by the gain.
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