"I grant," he had said, "that there's a great ultimate Mystery, that we
shall never know anything for certain about the origin of life and
the principle of the Universe; but why should we suddenly shut up our
enquiring apparatus and deny all the evidence of our reason--say, about
the story of Christ, or the question of a future life, or our moral
code? If you want me to enter a temple of little mysteries, leaving my
reason and senses behind--as a Mohammedan leaves his shoes--it won't do
to say to me simply: 'There it is! Enter!' You must show me the door;
and you can't! And I'll tell you why, sir. Because in your brain there's
a little twist which is not in mine, or the lack of a little twist which
is in mine. Nothing more than that divides us into the two main species
of mankind, one of whom worships, and one of whom doesn't. Oh, yes!
I know; you won't admit that, because it makes your religions natural
instead of what you call supernatural. But I assure you there's nothing
more to it. Your eyes look up or they look down--they never look
straight before them. Well, mine do just the opposite."

That day Pierson had been feeling very tired, and though to meet
this attack was vital, he had been unable to meet it. His brain had
stammered. He had turned a little away, leaning his cheek on his hand,
as if to cover that momentary break in his defences. Some days later he
had said:

"I am able now to answer your questions, George. I think I can make you
understand."

Laird had answered: "All right, sir; go ahead."

"You begin by assuming that the human reason is the final test of all
things. What right have you to assume that? Suppose you were an ant. You
would take your ant's reason as the final test, wouldn't you? Would that
be the truth?" And a smile had fixed itself on his lips above his little
grave beard.

George Laird also had smiled.

"That seems a good point, sir," he said, "until you recognise that I
don't take, the human reason as final test in any absolute sense. I only
say it's the highest test we can apply; and that, behind that test all
is quite dark and unknowable."

"Revelation, then, means nothing to you?"

"Nothing, sir."

"I don't think we can usefully go on, George."

"I don't think we can, sir. In talking with you, I always feel like
fighting a man with one hand tied behind his back."

"And I, perhaps, feel that I am arguing with one who was blind from
birth."

For all that, they had often