Finding himself driven into a corner, he spoke out boldly. "Miss King, I hope you will forgive me when I tell you that I feel a deep interest in you. I hope you will look on me as your friend, and that we shall know each other better some day. Do not think I am impertinent if I explain what I meant."
"I do not think so, Dr. Duncan."
"Well, I know what your aunt's opinions on certain matters—religion for instance—are, and I should be very sorry to think that you entertained the same."
"Oh! are they false opinions?"
"I think so; but that is hardly the question. Some false opinions are at any rate harmless, but these I speak of are certainly bad in their effects, whether they be true or false."
"Do you then believe that to know the truth can be bad?" she asked in a sarcastic tone.
"I don't say that; but don't you think that when a theory is put before you, you should be much more careful than usual in your examination of it, should require much more—indeed, absolute proof—before you accept it, if it is a theory, the belief in which cannot fail to have bad consequences?"
"A theory should stand on its own merits. It is no argument against an opinion to say that it is an unhappy one."
"Certainly not; but, surely, unless we are quite convinced that such a theory is correct—a difficult matter, as a rule—we should be very rash in not only accepting it, but in acting up to it. Take a parallel case, Miss King. In a court of law a far stronger and more indisputable chain of evidence is required to bring about an adverse verdict in the case of a prisoner charged with a capital crime, than in the case of one who is accused of an injury to a fellow that only makes him liable to a civil action. It is in that spirit, I think, we should try opinions on which the whole happiness of mankind depends. Before we condemn religion, and put away the system of morality which follows it, we should surely ask for more convincing evidence against them, than if it were merely a question of the truth or falsehood of some opinion which cannot influence mankind much either way for good or evil."
"Don't you call that an 'argumentum ad hominem?'" Mary said.