But, on the other hand, there are also moments in human life where the final issue turns not so much on a steady and uniform perseverance in continuous activity, as on a decided resolution and firmness of purpose. Among these we may place foremost, perhaps, in an intellectual relation, the dissension between faith and infidelity, and the choice at the point where the two branch off forever.
It is not here my design to set up, to commend, and to extol faith, nor to decry, to attack, and to make war upon infidelity. For the former would take me beyond my present limits; the latter would lead me into a boundless field of details, and require me to take an exhaustive survey, not only of all actually existent, but also of all conceivable, prejudices and delusions. My principal object is rather to sketch a true and exact picture of both, comprising, at the same time, all their historical manifestations, and explaining their psychological causes, in order to exhibit them both in their true light, so that man may choose for himself and decide between them.
Now the apparent--or it may be real, but still only accidental--schism between science and faith is, in the first place, internal. It is often, indeed, profoundly hidden and concealed in the inmost depths of the heart. It is therefore inwardly only that it admits of being adjusted and finally reconciled. When this task is once accomplished in the heart of an individual, and the choice is at least made one way or the other, then this decision manifests itself outwardly, either as the triumph of truth in the unity of science and faith, or as infidelity and skepticism, shows itself in the form of a determined opposition to this unity, or to faith itself. And the latter is the form it also assumes in the intermediate case when the schism between science and faith is declared to be irreconcilable. Openly expressed, therefore, these two views go far beyond the original dissension, and pass into the second schism and conflict between faith and infidelity. And although this problem be itself an original and internal one, still it reveals itself pre-eminently as a practical schism in actual life, and it is as such, also, that it develops and manifests itself in history.