‘Only apparently.’
‘Really, sometimes, with the lookers-on who have accepted the doctrines without feeling them. They, having no experience, feel the failure of evidence, where the tangible ends.’
‘Do you mean to say that this was the case with yourself, my dear? I should have thought, if ever child were good—’
‘So did I,’ said Owen, smiling. ‘I simulated the motions to
myself and every one else: and there was a grain of reality, after all; but neither you nor I ever knew how much was mere imitation and personal influence. When I outgrew implicit faith in you, I am afraid my higher faith went with it—first through recklessness, then through questioning. After believing more than enough, the transition is easy to doubting what is worthy of credit at all.’
‘From superstition to rationalism.’
‘Yes; overdoing articles of faith and observances, while the mind and conscience are young and tender, brings a dangerous reaction when liberty and independent reflection begin.’
‘But, Owen, I may have overdone observances, yet I did not teach superstitions,’ said Honor.
‘Not consciously,’ said Owen. ‘You meant to teach me dogmatically only what you absolutely believed yourself. But you did not know how boundless is a child’s readiness to accept what comes as from a spiritual authority, or you would have drawn the line more strongly between doctrine and opinion, fact and allegory, the true and the edifying.’
‘In effect, I treated you as the Romish Church began by doing to the populace.’