II.
But this was not the case. There was a great obstacle to this course, so clearly indicated by logic and conscience; namely, pride. Pride was the ruling spirit from one end of the scale to the other, from Jacomet up to Rouland, including Baron Massy and the philosophical coterie. It seemed hard to them to retreat and lay down their arms. Pride never surrenders. It prefers rather to take an illogical position than to bow to the authority of reason. Furious, beside itself, and absurd, it revolts against evidence. Like Satan, it says, "Non serviam." It resists, it refuses to bend, it stiffens its neck, till suddenly it is broken by some contemptuous and superior power.