foundations of the world fail; then when the man, believing in nothing
and in no man, is alone in his own nightmare, then the great
individualistic motto shall be written over him in avenging irony. The
stars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain; his mother's
face will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the walls of
his cell. But over his cell shall be written, with dreadful truth, "He
believes in himself."

All that concerns us here, however, is to note that this panegoistic
extreme of thought exhibits the same paradox as the other extreme of
materialism. It is equally complete in theory and equally crippling in
practice. For the sake of simplicity, it is easier to state the notion
by saying that a man can believe that he is always in a dream. Now,
obviously there can be no positive proof given to him that he is not in
a dream, for the simple reason that no proof can be offered that might
not be offered in a dream. But if the man began to burn down London and
say that his housekeeper would soon call him to breakfast, we should
take him and put him with other logicians in a place which has often
been alluded to in the course of this chapter. The man who cannot
believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are
both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their
argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have
both locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and
stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health and
happiness of heaven, the other even into the health and happiness of the
earth. Their position is quite reasonable; nay, in a sense it is
infinitely reasonable, just as a threepenny bit is infinitely circular.
But there is such a thing as a mean infinity, a base and slavish
eternity. It is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whether
sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol,