Chapter XII: Wrestling Jacob (3)

As the reader has probably perceived, the second part of this book, called "Wrestling Jacob," is an attempt to give a symbolical description of the religious struggles of the author, and as such it is a failure. Therefore it has only remained a fragment, and, like all religious crises, has ended in a chaos. The inference seems to be that all investigation of the secrets of Providence, like all attempts to take heaven by storm, are struck with confusion, and that every attempt to approach religion by the way of argument leads to absurdities. The reason is that religion like science begins with axioms, whose peculiarity is that they do not need to be proved, and _cannot_ be proved, so that when we try to prove self-evident necessary pre-suppositions we fall into absurdities.

When the author, in 1894, gave up his scepticism, which threatened to make havoc of the whole of his intellectual life, and began to place himself experimentally at the stand-point of a believer, there opened to him a new spiritual life, which is described in the _Inferno_ and in these _Legends_. As time went on, and the author had given up all resistance, he found himself attacked by influences and powers which threatened to destroy him. Feeling himself sinking, he clutched at lighter objects which might keep him afloat; but these also began to give way, and it was only a question of time when he would perish. At such moments the terror of the drowning man takes a straw for a support, and then the faith, to which he is compelled, lifts him out of the waves in which he is sinking, so that he can walk upon the water. Credo quia absurdum. I believe, because the absurdity which reasoning leads to, shows me that I was trying to prove an axiom. And thus we are linked to what is above us.