If the sun possessed consciousness it would think, no doubt, that it lived in order to give light to the worlds; but it would also and above all think that the worlds existed in order that it might give them light and enjoy itself in giving them light and so live.  And it would think well.

And all this tragic fight of man to save himself, this immortal craving for immortality which caused the man Kant to make that immortal leap of which I have spoken, all this is simply a fight for consciousness.  If consciousness is, as some inhuman thinker has said, nothing more than a flash of light between two eternities of darkness, then there is nothing more execrable than existence.

Some may espy a fundamental contradiction in everything that I am saying, now expressing a longing for unending life, now affirming that this earthly life does not possess the value that is given to it.  Contradiction?  To be sure!  The contradiction of my heart that says Yes and of my head that says No!  Of course there is contradiction.  Who does not recollect those words of the Gospel, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief”?  Contradiction!  Of course!  Since we only live in and by contradictions, since life is tragedy and the tragedy is perpetual struggle, without victory or the hope of victory, life is contradiction.

The values we are discussing are, as you see, values of the heart, and against values of the heart reasons do not avail.  For reasons are only reasons—­that is to say, they are not even truths.  There is a class of pedantic label-mongers, pedants by nature and by grace, who remind me of that man who, purposing to console a father whose son has suddenly died in the flower of his years, says to him, “Patience, my friend, we all must die!” Would you think it strange if this father were offended at such an impertinence?  For it is an impertinence.  There are times when even an axiom can become an impertinence.  How many times may it not be said—­

    Para pensar cual tu, solo es preciso
    no tener nada mas que inteligencia.[8]

There are, in fact, people who appear to think only with the brain, or with whatever may be the specific thinking organ; while others think with all the body and all the soul, with the blood, with the marrow of the bones, with the heart, with the lungs, with the belly, with the life.  And the people who think only with the brain develop into definition-mongers; they become the professionals of thought.  And you know what a professional is?  You know what a product of the differentiation of labour is?

Take a professional boxer.  He has learnt to hit with such economy of effort that, while concentrating all his strength in the blow, he only brings into play just those muscles that are required for the immediate and definite object of his action—­to knock out his opponent.  A blow given by a non-professional will not have so much immediate, objective efficiency; but it will more greatly vitalize the striker, causing him to bring into play almost the whole of his body.  The one is the blow of a boxer, the other that of a man.  And it is notorious that the Hercules of the circus, the athletes of the ring, are not, as a rule, healthy.  They knock out their opponents, they lift enormous weights, but they die of phthisis or dyspepsia.