"Exactly so."
"But is not the other doctrine as much authenticated by the miracles and so forth? or have you any thing to show that, while all those passages which relate to the former are true assertions, as well as truly the assertions of those who published the revelation, those which relate to the latter are not?"
"I acknowledge I have not," replied the youth.
"Or supposing they are not their sayings at all, have you any evidence by which you can show that they are not, so as to separate them from those that are?"
"I must admit that I have no criterion of this kind."
"For aught you know, then, since you know nothing of Christianity except from those documents in which the miracles and the doctrines are alike consigned to you, the said miracles, together with the other evidence, do equally establish the truths which you say are a part of divine revelation, and the errors which you say your 'spiritual faculty,' 'moral intuitions,' or what you will, tells you that you are to reject. You believe, then, in the force of evidence, which equally establishes truth and falsehood?"
"You can hardly expect me to admit that."
"But I expect you to answer a plain question?"
"Why," said the youth, with a little flippancy, but with a good-humored laugh too, "the proverb says 'Even a fool may ask questions which a wise man cannot answer.'"
"I acknowledge myself to be a fool" said Harrington, with a half serious, half comic air; "and you shall be the wise man who does not —for I will not say cannot—answer the fool's question."