Tuesday, November 30, 2010

from a Letter Henrietta Heathorn, September, 1851

"Of one thing I am more and more convinced---that however painful for oneself this destruction of things that have been holy may be---it is the only hope for a new state of belief . . . That a new belief---through which the faith and practice of men shall once more work---is possible and will exist---I cannot doubt. At any rate, what am I, that I should not be content even by negation to help in the 'Forderung der Tag'* as the great poet has it?

". . . Fear no shadows---least of all that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy. They say 'how shocking, how miserable to be without this or that belief!' Surely that is little better than cowardice and a form of selfishness. The Intellectual perception of truth and the acting up to it---is so far as I know the only meaning of the phrase 'one-ness with God.' So long as we attain to that end does it matter whether our small selves are happy or miserable?"

T. H. Huxley



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