assailed. The central truths of religion have often proved themselves to
possess some stubborn, though semi-articulate power, which could
ultimately overcome or subordinate the more partial and explicit truths
of abstract science. It is this that gives plausibility to the idea,
that the testimony of the heart is more reliable than that of the
intellect. But, in this case also, it was really reason that triumphed.
It was the truth which proved itself to be immortal, and not any mere
emotion. The insurrection of the intellect against the heart is quelled,
only when the untruth, or abstract character, of the principle of the
assailants has been made manifest, and when the old faith has yielded up
its unjust gains, and proved its vitality and strength by absorbing the
truth that gave vigour to the attack. Just as in morality it is the
ideal, or the unity of the whole moral life, that breaks up into
differences, so also here it is the implicit faith which, as it grows,
breaks forth into doubts. In both cases alike, the negative movement
which induces despair, is only a phase of a positive process--the
process of reason towards a fuller, a more articulate and complex,
realization of itself.

Hence it follows that the value and strength of a faith corresponds
accurately to the doubts it has overcome. Those who never went forth to
battle cannot come home heroes. It is only when the earthquake has tried
the towers, and destroyed the sense of security, that

"Man stands out again, pale, resolute,
Prepared to die,--that is, alive at last.
As we broke up that old faith of the world,
Have we, next age, to break up this the new--
Faith, in the thing, grown faith in the report--
Whence need to bravely disbelieve report