y, 'the matter is very
simple. You do not believe in the value of general propositions--you do
not believe in convictions?'

'I don't believe in them, I don't believe in anything!'

'Very good. You are a sceptic.'

'I see no necessity for using such a learned word. However----'

'Don't interrupt!' interposed Darya Mihailovna.

'At him, good dog!' Pandalevsky said to himself at the same instant, and
smiled all over.

'That word expresses my meaning,' pursued Rudin. 'You understand it; why
not make use of it? You don't believe in anything. Why do you believe in
facts?'

'Why? That's good! Facts are matters of experience, every one knows what
facts are. I judge of them by experience, by my own senses.'

'But may not your senses deceive you? Your senses tell you that the sun
goes round the earth,... but perhaps you don't agree with Copernicus?
You don't even believe in him?'

Again a smile passed over every one's face, and all eyes were fastened
on Rudin. 'He's by no means a fool,' every one was thinking.

'You are pleased to keep on joking,' said Pigasov. 'Of course that's
very original, but it's not to the point.'

'In what I have said hitherto,' rejoined Rudin, 'there is,
unfortunately, too little that's original. All that has been well known
a very long time, and has been said a thousand times. That is not the
pith of the matter.'

'What is then?' asked Pigasov, not without insolence.

In discussions he always first bantered his opponent, then grew cross,
and finally sulked and was silent.

'Here it is,' continued Rudin. 'I cannot help, I own, feeling sincere
regret when I hear sensible people attack----'

'Systems?' interposed Pigasov.

'Yes, with your leave, even systems. What frightens you so much in that
word? Every system is founded on a knowledge of fundamental laws, the
principles of life----'

'But there is no knowing them, no discovering them.'

'One minute. Doubtless they are not easy for every one to get at, and to
make mistakes is natural to man. However, you will certainly agree
with me that Newton, for example, discovered some at least of these
fundamental laws? He was a genius, we grant you; but the grandeur of
the discoveries of genius is that they become the heritage of all. The
effort to discover universal principles in the multiplicity of phenomena
is one of the radical characteristics of human thought, and all our
civilisation----'

'That's what you're driving at!' Pigasov br