Beulah - Page 300/348

He watched her closely.

"Certainly, sir. I am not writing merely to see myself in print, nor

wholly for remuneration in dollars and cents. I am earnestly

searching for truth, and if in my articles you discover error and

can correct it, I shall be glad to have you do so, provided you

adopt the catholic spirit which should distinguish such

undertakings. Now, if you merely intend to hold me up for ridicule

as thoroughly as possible, I prefer that you let me and my articles

rest; but a calm, dispassionate criticism I should not shrink from.

I write only what I believe, and if I am in error, I shall be glad

to have it corrected."

"Miss Benton, may I venture to correct it without having recourse to

the vehicle of public criticism? Will you permit me to discuss with

you, here in your quiet home, those vital questions whose solution

seems to engage your every thought?"

She drew back, and answered, with a dreary sort of smile: "I am afraid you would derive little pleasure, and I less profit,

from such disputation. I have learned from bitter experience that

merely logical forms of argumentation do not satisfy the hungry

soul. The rigid processes of Idealism annihilated the external

world; and Hume proved that Mind was a like chimera; yet who was

ever seriously converted by their incontrovertible reasoning? I have

lost faith in ratiocination."

"Still you cling to opinions founded on its errors. Why not be

consistent, and, in rejecting its most potent ally, reject the

conclusions of Rationalism also?"

"Because I must believe something. Faith in some creed is an

absolute necessity of human nature."

"You distinguish faith, then, from intellectual belief?"

"No; I compound them; my faith is based on mental conviction,"

replied Beulah, perceiving whither he was leading her, and resolved

not to follow.

"And this conviction results from those same processes of

ratiocination which you condemn as unworthy of credence, because

subject to gross, sometimes ludicrous, perversions?"

"I am unable to detect any such perversion or inaccuracy in the

cautious course of reasoning which has assisted me to my present

belief."

"Pardon me; but does this fact convince you of the Infallibility of

the course? Have you constituted your individual reason the sole

judge?"

"Yes; there is no other left me."

"And your conclusions are true for you only, since the individual

organism of your mind makes them so. To an intellect of a higher or

lower grade these conclusions would be untenable, since the

depressed or exalted reason judged them accordingly. You may cling

to some doctrine as absolutely and necessarily true, yet to my mind

it may seem a shallow delusion, like the vagaries of spirit-

rappers."