true of other faiths?" asked Kate.

"No, there's a difference. For example, I would take your brother's
evidence as to a new germ; but as to a spirit--no. And yet one is
quite as incredible as another. Crookes applied the same methods to
the study of these manifestations that he used in his other
researches, and piled up a mass of evidence, yet his fellows of the
Royal Academy sneered or haw-hawed--and do yet. Do you know, doctor,"
he continued, "I have moments when I dimly suspicion that we
scientists are a thought too arrogant. We lose the expectant mind. We
assume that we've corralled and branded all facts, when, as a matter
of history, there are scattered bunches of cattle all through the
hills. Take Haeckel, for instance. He talks very like the head of a
church laying down the law to you and to me as well as to the ignorant
outsider. Spencer was a good deal less sure of himself. It takes a
physical specialist to be cock-sure. Darwin never professed to solve
the final mystery of life or death, but Haeckel and Metchnikoff do.
They are so militant against religion that they become intolerant of
their colleagues who presume to differ with them on matters that are
purely speculative. Any one attempting to discuss new phases of human
thought is a fakir. I am not willing to say that all the notions of
the 'dualists' are survivals of the age of superstition, as Haeckel
does. It may be that in the midst of all their fancies which _are_
survivals there are some subtle perceptions of the future."

Serviss lifted his eyebrows in surprise. "That's a whole lot for you
to concede. Weissmann must have been corrupting you."

Britt went on: "We must always remember that every age is an age of
transition. We are losing faith in the revelations of the past, but we
should not presume to define the faith of the future. Men will not
live in the hopelessness which the monists would thrust upon them,
they will not patiently wait while Pasteur and Koch and the other germ
theorists labor to prolong the life of some other generation. They
will always insist on having something to live for and to die for. I
don't pretend to say what this faith will be, but it will be
sufficing."

Kate exclaimed with glowing eyes: "And all this change in you two men
has come about through the influence of a pretty girl!"

The two inexorables looked at each other with a certain air of
timidity, and Britt's face expanded in a slow, sly smile. "You've
discov