n the other it must be spoilt.

_Montesinos_.--Surely you would not rob us of our hopes for the human
race! If I apprehended that your discourse tended to this end I should
suspect you, notwithstanding your appearance, and be ready to exclaim,
"Avaunt, tempter!" For there is no opinion from which I should so hardly
be driven, and so reluctantly part, as the belief that the world will
continue to improve, even as it has hitherto continually been improving;
and that the progress of knowledge and the diffusion of Christianity will
bring about at last, when men become Christians in reality as well as in
name, something like that Utopian state of which philosophers have loved
to dream--like that millennium in which saints as well as enthusiasts
have trusted.

_Sir Thomas More_.--Do you hold that this consummation must of necessity
come to pass; or that it depends in any degree upon the course of
events--that is to say, upon human actions? The former of these
propositions you would be as unwilling to admit as your friend Wesley, or
the old Welshman Pelagius himself. The latter leaves you little other
foundation for your opinion than a desire, which, from its very
benevolence, is the more likely to be delusive. You are in a dilemma.

_Montesinos_.--Not so, Sir Thomas. Impossible as it may be for us to
reconcile the free will of man with the foreknowledge of God, I
nevertheless believe in both with the most full conviction. When the
human mind plunges into time and space in its speculations, it adventures
beyond its sphere; no wonder, therefore, that its powers fail, and it is
lost. But that my will is free, I know feelingly: it is proved to me by
my conscience. And that God provideth all things I know by His own Word,
and by that instinct which He hath implanted in me to assure me of His
being. My answer to your question, then, is this: I believe that the
happy consummation which I desire is appointed, and must come to pass;
but that when it is to come depends upon the obedience of man to the will
of God, that is, upon human actions.

_Sir Thomas More_.--You hold then that the human race will one day attain
the utmost degree of general virtue, and thereby general happiness, of
which humanity is capable. Upon what do you found this belief?

_Montesinos_.--The opinion is stated more broadly than I should choose to
advance it. But this is ever the manner of argumentative discourse: the
opponent endeavours to draw