His devotion to truth, if it mean anything--and the language he often uses about it betrays this--let us know the worst, not let us find out the best:--a wish which is neither more nor less noble than the wish to sit down at once in a slop upon the floor rather than sustain oneself any longer above it on a chair that is discovered to be rickety.
Here then again, in this last resource of positivism we have religion embodied as a yet more important element than in any of the others; and when this element is driven out of it, it collapses yet more hopelessly than they do.

By the whole positive system we are bound to human life.
There is no mystical machinery by which we can rise above it.

It is by its own isolated worth that this life must stand or fall.
And what, let us again ask, will this worth, be?
The question is of course, as I have said, too vague to admit of more than a general answer, but a general answer, as I have said also, may be given confidently enough.

Man when fully imbued with the positive view of himself, will inevitably be an animal of far fewer capacities than he at present is.

He will not be able to suffer so much; but also he will not be able to enjoy so much.