moment a strength such as no hero of the
battlefield needs. A great soldier must be filled
with the profound convictions of the justness
of his cause and the rightness of his method.
The man who wars against himself and wins
the battle can do it only when he knows that
in that war he is doing the one thing which
is worth doing, and when he knows that in
doing it he is winning heaven and hell as his
servitors. Yes, he stands on both. He needs
no heaven where pleasure comes as a long-promised
reward; he fears no hell where pain
waits to punish him for his sins. For he has
conquered once for all that shifting serpent
in himself which turns from side to side in
its constant desire of contact, in its perpetual
search after pleasure and pain. Never again
(the victory once really won) can he tremble
or grow exultant at any thought of that which
the future holds. Those burning sensations
which seemed to him to be the only proofs
of his existence are his no longer. How, then,
can he know that he lives? He knows it only
by argument. And in time he does not care to
argue about it. For him there is then peace;
and he will find in that peace the power he
has coveted. Then he will know what is that
faith which can remove mountains.