IV
I went in and sat down again on the end of the table. I was rather heated. I lit another cigarette and stared at the Wonder, who was still looking out of the window.
There was silence for a few seconds, and then he spoke of his own initiative.
“Illustrates the weakness of argument from history and analogy,” he said in a clear, small voice, addressing no one in particular. “Hegel’s limitations are qualitatively those of Harrison, who argues that I and he are similar in kind.”
The proposition was so astounding that I could find no answer immediately. If the statement had been made in boyish language I should have laughed at it, but the phraseology impressed me.
“You’ve read Hegel, then?” I asked evasively.
“Subtract the endeavour to demonstrate a preconceived hypothesis from any known philosophy,” continued the Wonder, without heeding my question, “and the remainder, the only valuable material, is found to be distorted.” He paused as if waiting for my reply.
How could one answer such propositions as these offhand? I tried, however, to get at the gist of the sentence, and, as the silence continued, I said with some hesitation: “But it is impossible, surely, to approach the work of writing, say a philosophy, without some apprehension of the end in view?”
“Illogical,” replied the Wonder, “not philosophy; a system of trial and error—to evaluate a complex variable function.” He paused a moment, and then glanced down at the pile of books on the floor. “More millions,” he said.
I think he meant that more millions of books might be written on this system without arriving at an answer to the problem, but I admit that I am at a loss, that I cannot interpret his remarks. I wrote them down within an hour or two after they were uttered, but I may have made mistakes. The mathematical metaphor is beyond me. I have no acquaintance with higher mathematics.
The Wonder had a very expressionless face, but I thought at this moment that he wore a look of sadness; and that look was one of the factors which helped me to understand the unbridgeable gulf that lay between his intellect and mine. I think it was at this moment that I first began to change my opinion. I had been regarding him as an unbearable little prig, but it flashed across me as I watched him now, that his mind and my own might be so far differentiated that he was unable to convey his thoughts to me. “Was it possible,” I wondered, “that he had been trying to talk down to my level?”
“I am afraid I don’t quite follow you,” I said. I had intended to question him further, to urge him to explain, but it came to me that it would be quite hopeless to go on. How can one answer the unreasoning questions of a child? Here I was the child, though a child of slightly advanced development. I could appreciate that it was useless to persist in a futile “Why, why?” when the answer could only be given in terms that I could not comprehend. Therefore I hesitated, sighed, and then with that obstinacy of vanity which creates an image of self-perfection and refuses to relinquish it, I said:
“I wish you could explain yourself; not on this particular point of philosophy, but your life——” I stopped, because I did not know how to phrase my demand. What was it, after all, that I wanted to learn?
“That I can’t explain,” said the Wonder. “There are no data.”
I saw that he had accepted my request for explanation in a much wider sense than I had intended, and I took him up on this.
“But haven’t you any hypothesis?”
“I cannot work on the system of trial and error,” replied the Wonder.
Our conversation went no further this afternoon, for Mrs. Berridge came in to lay the cloth. She looked askance, I thought, at the figure on the window-sill, but she ventured no remark save to ask if I was ready for my supper.
“Yes, oh! yes!” I said.
“Shall I lay for two, sir?” asked Mrs. Berridge.
“Will you stay and have supper?” I said to the Wonder, but he shook his head, got up and walked out of the room. I watched him cross the farmyard and make his way over the Common.
“Well!” I said to Mrs. Berridge, when the boy was out of sight, “that child is what in America they call ‘the limit,’ Mrs. Berridge.”
My landlady put her lips together, shook her head, and shivered slightly. “He gives me the shudders,” she said.