"That is fair; I accept the proposition."
The price per volume was agreed upon, and Benjamin reveled in books every night. He never advanced more rapidly in intellectual attainments than he did after this arrangement with Wilcox.
This is the first instance of loaning books for a price on record—a practice that has become well-nigh universal since that day.
He had not been at Palmer's long before he was employed in composing for the second edition of Wollaston's "Religion of Nature," which was just the kind of a treatise to arouse his intellect, and to set him to thinking and also to speculating.
"Poor reasoning!" he said to Mr. Watts; "very fallacious and superficial, too."
"Ah!" replied Mr. Watts, considerably surprised that his new employee, just over from a new and uncultivated country, should handle a treatise like that so gingerly; "how is that? Rather a popular work, that of Wollaston's."
"Popular enough it may be, but error is often popular. The work is illogical, and not altogether in harmony with facts." Benjamin's criticisms impressed Mr. Watts somewhat, though he thought he was laboring under a mistake.
"Perhaps the trouble is in your own mind, and not in Wollaston's," he suggested.
"That may be; but I am going to review it for my own satisfaction and benefit," answered Benjamin.
"Then I will suspend judgment until I can read your review," said Mr. Watts, at the same time being still more surprised that a youth of his age should be so familiar with such topics.