The conceivable is and ever must be bounded by the inconceivable; the domain of the former is finite, that of the latter is infinite. It matters not how far we press our speculations, how extravagant our hypotheses, how distant our vision, we reach at length the confines of our thought and admit the inconceivable. The inconceivable is a postulate as essential to reason as is the conceivable. That the inconceivable exists is as certain as the existence of the conceivable; it is in a sense more certain, since we constantly find ourselves in error in our conclusions concerning the existence of the things we know, while we can never be in error concerning the existence of things we can never know, being sure that beyond the confines of the finite there must necessarily be the infinite.
We may indulge in assumptions concerning the infinite based upon our knowledge of the finite, or, rather, based upon the inflexible laws of our mental processes. We may say that there must be one all-pervading soul, not because we can form any conception whatsoever of the true nature of such a soul, but because the alternative hypothesis of many individual souls is utterly obnoxious to our reason.
To those who urge that it is idle to reason about what we cannot conceive, it is sufficient answer to say that man cannot help it. The scientist and the materialist in the ardent pursuit of knowledge soon experience the necessity of indulging in assumptions concerning force and matter, the hypothetical ether and molecules, atoms and vortices, which are as purely metaphysical as any assumptions concerning the soul. The distinction between the realist and the idealist is a matter of temperament. All that separated Huxley from Gladstone was a word; each argued from the unknowable, but disputed over the name and attributes of the inconceivable. Huxley said he did not know, which was equivalent to the dogmatic assertion that he did; Gladstone said he did know, which was a confession of ignorance denser than that of agnosticism.
Those men who try not to think or reason concerning the infinite simply imprison themselves within the four walls of the cell they construct. It is better to think and be wrong than not to think at all. Any assumption is better than no assumption, any belief better than none.
Hypotheses enlarge the boundaries of knowledge. With assumptions the intellectual prospector stakes out the infinite. In life we may not verify our premises, but death is the proof of all things.
We stopped at Wright's tavern, where patriots used to meet before the days of the revolution, and where Major Pitcairn is said— wrongfully in all probability—to have made his boast on the morning of the 19th, as he stirred his toddy, that they would stir the rebels' blood before night.
One realizes that "there is but one Concord" as the carriages of pilgrims are counted in the Square, and the swarm of young guides, with pamphlets and maps, importune the chance visitor.
We chose the most persistent little urchin, not that we could not find our way about so small a village, but because he wanted to ride, and it is always interesting to draw out a child; his story of the town and its famous places was, of course, the one he had learned from the others, but his comments were his own, and the incongruity of going over the sacred ground in an automobile had its effect.
It was a short run down Monument Street to the turn just beyond the "Old Manse." Here the British turned to cross the North Bridge on their way to Colonel Barrett's house, where the ammunition was stored. Just across the narrow bridge the "embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world." A monument marks the spot where the British received the fire of the farmers, and a stone at the side recites "Graves of two British soldiers,"— unknown wanderers from home they surrendered their lives in a quarrel, the merits of which they did not know. "Soon was their warfare ended; a weary night march from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry across the river, and then these many years of rest. In the long procession of slain invaders who passed into eternity from the battle-field of the revolution, these two nameless soldiers led the way." While standing by the grave, Hawthorne was told a story, a tradition of how a youth, hurrying to the battle-field axe in hand, came upon these two soldiers, one not yet dead raised himself up painfully on his hands and knees, and how the youth on the impulse of the moment cleft the wounded man's head with the axe. The tradition is probably false, but it made its impression on Hawthorne, who continues, "I could wish that the grave might be opened; for I would fain know whether either of the skeleton soldiers has the mark of an axe in his skull. The story comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an intellectual and moral exercise, I have sought to follow that poor youth through his subsequent career and observe how his soul was tortured by the blood-stain, contracted as it had been before the long custom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity, and while it still seemed murderous to slay a brother man. This one circumstance has borne more fruit for me than all that history tells us of the fight."
There are souls so callous that the taking of a human life is no more than the killing of a beast; there are souls so sensitive that they will not kill a living thing. The man who can relate without regret so profound it is close akin to remorse the killing of another—no matter what the provocation, no matter what the circumstances—is next kin to the common hangman.