“I suppose they would.”
“But what if I were to come on them slily behind and hit them on their pates before they had a chance to see or to exert their terribly real and powerful minds?” demanded Watty.
“You must ask one of themselves, Watty, for I don’t know much about their views; indeed, I’m not sure that I have represented them correctly, though it’s very likely I have, for there is no species of nonsense under the sun that men have not been found to hold and defend with more or less vigour.”
“Would you not call that a proof of the Creator’s intention that man should exercise the investigative powers of his mind?” asked Ben.
“I would call it a proof of man’s depravity,” said Wilkins.
“What does Polly think?” asked Jack, with an amused look at the child, whose fair brow wore an anxious little frown as she tried to understand.
“I think it’s a proof of both,” replied Polly, with a blush and a laugh; “we have got the power to think and speak and reason, and we are sometimes very naughty.”
“Well said, Polly; we must call you the philosopher in future,” cried Watty. “But Jack,” he added, with a perplexed air, “it seems to me that we live in such a world of confusion, both as to the limited amount of our knowledge, and the extent of our differences of opinion, while presumptuous incapacity attempts to teach us on the one hand, and designing iniquity, or pure prejudice, seeks to mislead us on the other, and misconception of one’s meaning and motives all round makes such a muddle of the whole that—that—it seems to me the search after truth is almost hopeless, at least to ordinary minds.”
“I admit it to be a great difficulty,” replied Jack, “but it is by no means hopeless. We must not forget that the world is well supplied with extraordinary minds to keep the ordinary minds right.”
“True, but when the extraordinary minds differ, what are the poor ordinary ones to do?” asked Watty.