" said Rose. "But I would like to go back again, and say
that what I was praising was consistency."

"But there is no such thing," said Father Payne, "except in combination
with entire irrationality. One can't say at any time of one's life, 'I know
everything worth knowing. I am in a position to form a final judgment.' You
can say, 'I will shut off all fresh light from my mind, and I will consider
no further evidence,' but that isn't a thing to respect! I begin to
suspect, Rose, that why you praised the uncompromising Liberal, as you call
him, is because he is the only kind of opponent who isn't dangerous. A man
who takes up such a position as I have described is practically insane. He
has a fixed idea, which neither argument nor evidence can alter. The
uncompromising man of fixed opinions, whatever those opinions may be, is
almost the only man I do not respect, because he is really the only
inconsistent person. He says, 'I have formed an opinion which is based on
experience, and I shall not alter it.' That is tantamount to saying that
you have done with experience; it is a claim to have attained infallibility
through fallible faculties. Where is the dignity of that? It's just a
deification of stupidity and stubbornness and insolence and complacency."

"But you must take your stand on _some_ certainties," said Rose.

"The fewer the better," said Father Payne. "One may learn to discriminate
between things, and to observe differences; but that is very different from
saying that you have got at the ultimate essence of any one thing. I am all
for clearness--we ought not to confuse things with each other, or use the
same names for different things; but I'm all against claiming absolute and
impeccable knowledge. It may be a comfortable system for a man who doesn't
want to be bothered; but he is only deferring the bother--he is like a man
who stays in bed because he doesn't like dressing. But it isn't a solution
to stay in bed--it is only suspending the solution. No, we mustn't have any
regard for human consistency--it's a very paltry attribute; it's the
opposite of anthropomorphism. That makes out God to be in the image of man,
but consistency claims for man the privilege of God. And that isn't
wholesome, you know, either for a man or his friends!"

"I give up," said Rose: "can nothing be logical?"

"Hardly anything," said Father Payne, "except logic itself. You have to
coin logical ideas into counters to play with. No two