"Do
ut des" is the writing on all flesh to him that eats it; and no
creature is dearer to itself than it is to some other that would
devour it.
Nor is there any statement or proposition more invulnerable than
living forms are. Propositions prey upon and are grounded upon one
another just like living forms. They support one another as plants
and animals do; they are based ultimately on credit, or faith,
rather than the cash of irrefragable conviction. The whole universe
is carried on on the credit system, and if the mutual confidence on
which it is based were to collapse, it must itself collapse
immediately. Just or unjust, it lives by faith; it is based on
vague and impalpable opinion that by some inscrutable process passes
into will and action, and is made manifest in matter and in flesh:
it is meteoric--suspended in mid-air; it is the baseless fabric of a
vision so vast, so vivid, and so gorgeous that no base can seem more
broad than such stupendous baselessness, and yet any man can bring
it about his ears by being over-curious; when faith fails, a system
based on faith fails also.
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