The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental
emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who
knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good
as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery--even if
mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of
something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest
reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in
their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that
constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a
deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes
his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves.
An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my
comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or
absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of
life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the
single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the
reason that manifests itself in nature.