人类的智识成长大部分都是建立在二元性对立上的，以怀疑为开始，以思辨为方法，以理性为工具，逐步拓展思维的疆域。不可否认天人合一，也就是西哲的二元的取消，当然是精神的最高境界，然非皓首穷经，或天赋异禀不可得也。
对于普通人，即使是成人，对生活与自我的思考，不也就像Virginia一样会时时刻刻陷入理智与情感的冲突与对立之中吗？而这芸芸世界中，内与外、动与静、精神与物质、自由与规则、直觉与理智，如果没有像Virginia以率真之心，以好奇之眼去打量，我们甚至不会进行反思。这不是我们作为成人的悲哀吗？
科学的进步深刻地揭示了物质世界的本质（让我暂且用essence这个词去肯定人类智识的进步吧），但是正如Frank所说我们只是整个宇宙的蝼蚁，我们怎么可以说一个时代的科学范式就能够让我们主宰于“理解”呢？对科学本身的怀疑只会不停地把我们带向另一个怀疑，这是西西弗的命运显现。然而作为沧海一粟的个体，如伯格森所说，惟有对生命的冲力，创化的活动才是真实的，是本体，是真我。所有的精神的感触就是他本身的明证性，我们不应该用证明法去考究。如果实在需要一个理性地梳理，那就让我们用上证伪法吧！生命本身的存在就是高于一切的真理，生命对于生命爱的力量就是精神的最大寄托。To know is to ignore!
感谢Francis P. Church这类留下人类信仰的字句，如果人类必将走向毁灭，精神之光依然点亮整个星辰，愿我们作为宇宙星尘翩翩起舞！Hope, Believe, Inspiration!
In 1897, on the advice of her father, eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a short, inquisitive letter to the editor of New York’s since-defunct newspaper the Sun, in which she sought confirmation of Santa Claus’s existence. The paper’s editor, Francis P. Church, soon replied to Virginia’s letter by way of an editorial, titled Is There a Santa Claus?, which went on to become, and remains to this day, the most reprinted English-language editorial in history, and which has since spawned numerous adaptations.
Virginia herself went on to become a teacher and as a result of her innocent question received fan mail for much of her life. She passed away in 1971, age eighty-one.
Virginia最后以博士身份成为一家学校的校长。她的这份信被家族保存。
Dear Editor,
I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says “If you see it in the Sun it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon.
115 W.95th St
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank GOD! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
