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RELIGION
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presuppose, and, though you may feel certain at first about extremes from which you start, you will very shortly find yourself in a region of extreme unreality, almost all definite circumstances being condemned. War, or at least modern war, you would remove; and grinding poverty. And irresponsible wealth? That too. And commonplace mediocrity of circumstances? The worst starting-point of all. A cruel mother? Certainly to be excluded. A devoted self-sacrificing mother? The subtlest of moral dangers. You very soon find that you leave nothing standing. There is no normal. All is individual; and every pushing fibre and tendril of the good is unique, and has its own root to start from and its own issue to find. It is crude and pagan, perhaps, to say that all good comes by suffering, and I do not say it. But religious faith seems to mean a going out