Note 164 — THE SUPREMACY OF REASON (TO THE MEMORY OF MAIMONIDES) (1904)

Luzzatto (ubi supra) seems to suspect that Maimonides’ whole treatment of resurrection was insincere, and that he was deliberately throwing dust in the reader’s eyes, in order to conceal his heresy. But this suspicion is absurd: Maimonides was a man who was not afraid openly to reject even the immortality of the soul, and to recast all the fundamental beliefs of Judaism. Any unbiassed reader of the treatise must realise that Maimonides defends resurrection with perfect sincerity, but that he is unable to find the real grounds of his own conviction, because he looks for them in his reason and not in his feelings.