Beliefs of this
kind, in so far as they exalt man, prove greatness and generosity, and
may be truer than the scepticism which is formally justified in
rejecting them. If Christ never rose from the dead, the women who
waited at the sepulchre were nearer to reality than the Sadducees, who
denied the resurrection.
There is a half-belief, which we find in Virgil that is not
superstition, nor inconstancy, nor cowardice. A child-like faith in the
old creed is no longer possible, but it is equally impossible to
surrender it. I refer now not to those who select from it what they
think to be in accordance with their reason, and throw overboard the
remainder with no remorse, but rather to those who cannot endure to
touch with sacrilegious hands the ancient histories and doctrines which
have been the depositaries of so much that is eternal, and who dread
lest with the destruction of a story something precious should also be
destroyed. The so-called superstitious ages were not merely
transitionary. Our regret that they have departed is to be explained
not by a mere idealisation of the past, but by a conviction that truths
have been lost, or at least have been submerged.
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