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."