Of the struggle between animal instincts and
reason, which is the essence of human life, this doc-
trine takes no account. The struggle that Adam
underwent in paradise, in deciding whether to eat



MT RELIGION. 119

or not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, is,
according to this doctrine, no longer within the
range of human experience. The question was
decided, once for all, by Adam in paradise. Adam
sinned for all ; in other words, he did wrong, and all
men are irretrievably degraded ; and all our efforts
to live by reason are vain and even impious. This
I ought to know, for I am irreparably bad. My
salvation does not depend upon living by the light
of reason, and, after distinguishing between good
and evil, choosing the good ; no, Adam, once for
aU, sinned for me, and Jesus, once for all, has
atoned for the wrong committed by Adam ; and so
I ought, as a looker-on, to mourn over the fall of
Adam and rejoice at the redemption through Jesus.
All the love for truth and goodness in the heart
of man, aU his efforts to illuminate his spiritual life
by the light of reason, are not only of slight
importance, according to this doctrine ; they are a
temptation, an incitement to pride. Life as it is
upon this earth, with aU its joys and its splendors,
its struggles of reason with darkness, — the life of
all men that have lived before me, my own life with
its inner struggles and triumphs, — all this is not
the true hfe ; it is the fallen life, a life irretrievably
bad. The true life, the life without sin, is only in
faith, that is, in imagination, that is, in lunacy.
