should
you _not_ believe it? "Because," says you, "there is no
probability[91] in it." I tell you that for this very and
only reason you ought to believe with a perfect faith. For
the Sorbonists say that faith is the evidence of things of
no probability.[92] Is it against our law or our faith?
against reason? against the Sacred Scriptures?[93] For my
part I can find nothing written in the Holy Bible which is
contrary thereto. But if the Will of God had been so, would
you say that He could not have done it? Oh for grace' sake
do not make a mess of your wits in such vain thoughts. For I
tell you that nothing is impossible with God.

And Divinity being done with, the Classics and pure fantasy are drawn
upon; the incredulous being finally knocked down by a citation from
Pliny, and a polite request not to bother any more.

This is, of course, the kind of passage which has been brought against
Rabelais, as similar ones have been brought against Swift, to justify
charges of impiety. But, again, it is not necessary to bother
(_tabuster_) about that. Any one who cannot see that it is the foolish
use of reverend things and not the things themselves that the satire
hits, is hardly worth argument. But there is no doubt that this sort of
mortar, framework, menstruum, canvas, or whatever way it may be best
metaphored, helps the apparent continuity of the work marvellously,
leaving, as it were, no rough edges or ill-mended joints. It is, to use
an admirable phrase of Mr. Balfour's about a greater matter, "the
logical glue which holds together and makes intelligible the
multiplicity" of the narrative units, or perhaps instead of
"intelligible" one should here say "appreciable."

Sometimes the "glue" of ironic comment rather saturates these units of
narrative than surrounds or interjoins them, and this is the case with
what follows. The infantine peculiarities of Gargantua; his dress and
the mystery of its blue and white colours (the blue of heaven and the
white of the joy of earth); how his governesses and he played together;
what smart answers he made; how he became early both a poet and an
experimental philosopher--all this is recounted with a marvellous
mixture of wisdom and burlesque, though sometimes, no doubt, with rather
too much of _haut gout_ seasoning. Then comes the, in Renaissance books,
inevitable "Education" section, and it has been already noted briefly
how diff