“He too,” answered Gildea, “as Fitzgerald clearly demonstrated, is a victim of superstition. But he is not, for all that, without his belief, without his appreciation of truth. He believes in that portion of the spiritual life which we call intellect. Men like him have their enthusiasm, for which they are ready to suffer and do suffer all things; and that enthusiasm is the enthusiasm for that portion of truth which we call Science.”
“And your Fitzgerald—is he too both right and wrong?”
“Of course he is; for has he not both belief and negation? All belief is truth, not the whole truth, but a part of the truth. There is but one thing that is the whole truth.”
“God?”
“No, not God, for God does not include Nature, from which He is the outcome—not God, not Nature, but that which contains them both, Everything, the All!”
“Pooh,” said Maddock, “flat Pantheism!”
“And suppose,” cried Gildea, “it were Pot-theism, if the thing is true!” (He laughed outright.) “—That answer of Carlyle’s,” he said, “is immortal.”
“Oh, it was Carlyle said it?” said Maddock, “I had forgotten.—And so,” he proceeded, “the secret is out, and Sir Horace Gildea ‘stands confessed a Pantheist in all his charms!’”
“Two of the happy family still remain unaccounted for,” Gildea said, “although they too have not probably attained to perfect truth.”
“Oh, that is you and I. As for me, I can describe myself without your aid. I believe in morality and religion, with a touch of superstition in both.”