She reminded him that he had preached there without a surplice, and that she had therefore not thought it right to listen to a word he said.
'Ah!' cried the Professor, with a sigh of intense relief, 'I see it all now. How can Humanity ever be unspeakably holy so long as one half of it grovels in dreams of an unspeakably holy God? As Mr. Frederic Harrison truly says, a want of faith in "the essential dignity of man is one of the surest marks of the enervating influence of this dream of a celestial glory."' The Professor accordingly re-delivered to Virginia the entire substance of his lectures in the ship. He fully impressed on her that all the intellect of the world was on the side of Humanity; and that God's existence could be disproved with a box of chemicals. He was agreeably surprised at finding her not at all unwilling to be convinced, and extremely unexacting in her demands for proof. In a few days she had not a remnant of superstition left. 'At last!' exclaimed the Professor; 'it has come at last. Unspeakable happiness will surely begin now.'
CHAPTER XVI.
No one now could possibly be more emancipated than Virginia. She tittered all day long and whenever the Professor asked her why, she always told him she was thinking of 'an intelligent First Cause,' a conception which she said 'was really quite killing.' But when her first burst of intellectual excitement was over, she became more serious. 'All thought, Paul,' she said, 'is valuable mainly because it leads to action. Come, my love, my dove, my beauty, and let us kiss each other all daylong. Let us enjoy the charming license which exact thought shows us we shall never be punished for.'
This was a result of freedom that the Professor had never bargained for. He could not understand it, 'because,' he argued, 'if people were to reason in that way, morality would at once cease to be possible.' But he had seen so much of the world lately, that he soon recovered himself, and recollecting that immorality was only ignorance, he began to show Virginia where her error lay—-her one remaining error. 'I perceive,' he said, 'that you are ignorant of one of the greatest triumphs of exact thought—the distinction it has established between the lower and the higher pleasures. Philosophers, who have thought the whole thing over in their studies, have become sure that as soon as the latter are presented to men they will at once leave all and follow them.'
'They must be very nice pleasures,' said Virginia, 'if they would make me leave kissing you for the sake of them.'
'They are nice,' said the Professor. 'They are the pleasures of the imagination, the intellect, and the glorious apprehension of truth. Compared with these, kissing me would be quite insipid. Remain here for a moment, whilst I go to fetch something, and you shall then begin to taste them.'
In a few moments Paul came back again, and found Virginia in a state of intense expectancy.
'Now—,' he exclaimed triumphantly.