“I don’t.”
“Can you go on?”
“Like the rest of the world, I do what I am told. If I examined and scrutinised everything that I was told to do I should do very little of it. . . . On the whole we do good. We save a certain number of men from sinking into brutality, and to a certain number of others we give an outlet for their emotions, which amounts to the same thing.”
“How much do you believe of what you tell them?”
“I have never examined my belief. Like your father, I do what I am told to do. Suppose I renounced my faith and the priesthood. My place would be taken by another. There are too many men, my friend, too many women, and life moves both too slowly and too swiftly . . . What can you do? You say that the good life consists wholly of work and love. Then work, my friend, and love. There is nothing to prevent you. I also work, and I also love. Very lovingly I despise men, because I know them, as you, I think, do not.”
“Quite candidly, it seems to me cowardly and rather despicable to teach men to believe in another life beyond the grave.”
“Life, as it is, must be made supportable.”
“From within, not from without.”
“You seem to be levelling an accusation at my Church, but you must be just and observe that we do display, for the benefit of the men whose souls are our care, a certain faith in the next life by renouncing the pleasures of this.”
“You stifle an instinct. That seems to me as great a sin as abusing it by excess of the pleasure derived from its satisfaction.”