[3] I propose an honest paragraph: I have been convinced that everything, ultimately, is a question of valuation. And I suppose, in this matter at least, that I may have been told, and believed, a lie, or two, or three. Like all living things, my voluntary movement is towards that which I consider to be good. Aristotle began his Politics and his Ethics with statements of a similar sort. But where did my idea of the good originate? That was the most terrible question that Friedrich Nietzsche put to me. Realizing that I exist for only a little while, and in an imperfect state, it has become a somewhat urgent matter to see these things with the greatest possible clarity. How? It's not my eyes that are in question, but rather my faculty of knowing - whatever that may be, and wherever it may lie. A higher man than myself will debate the existence of such a faculty. I have only to know which end to pursue with my own being. And so I have only to know what to call good. And so I have only to comprehend the whole, knowing being as it is, establishing a hierarchy through my own valuation. How? I would suppose that is why I have turned to philosophy - though I know the task is beyond me. Suppose: I criticize the blind faith that a religious man puts in his god's revelation. Isn't it the case that I too have faith in my reason's ability to lead me to my truth? If I knew the end to which reason would lead me, I wouldn't need reason. And, not knowing the end, how do I know that reason will lead me there? It's unreasonable. We are all sinners against the things in which we believe. And it seems to me to be utter foolishness to discount religion or poetry, or to dogmatically insist that they occupy a position subordinate to reason - without knowing the end, and the whole. Who will claim to know such things? no philosopher who speaks honestly. The really serious problem, as I understand it, is not only that I face the possibility of pursuing some bad end, but also that all of my efforts to determine the good end are vain.