134 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



ful reasoner, but what would satisfy his mind will 

 not satisfy all, because we are not all going his way. 

 What is a fair breeze to one may be a foul breeze to 

 another. 



Newman's reason follows his belief, never leads 

 it. Any number of difficulties, intellectual diffi- 

 culties, he says, does not make a doubt. Certainly 

 not where experience attests the thing to be true. 

 But suppose it is contrary to all experience, contrary 

 to all the principles upon which human observation 

 is founded, — how then ? 



Of course we are not always to reject a proposi- 

 tion simply because we cannot understand it or pen- 

 etrate it with the light of reason. We do not know 

 how or why species vary, but we know they do vary. 

 We do not understand the laws of heredity, but we 

 know heredity to be a fact, and so with thousands 

 of other things. Do we know transubstantiation to 

 be a fact ? There are difficulties in the way of evo- 

 lution, but these difficulties are not such as violate 

 nature, but such as indicate that nature may have 

 taken another course in the production of species. 

 The difficulties in the way of believing in the effi- 

 cacy of holy water, or that the image of the Madonna 

 winked, or that Elisha made iron swim, are of quite 

 another sort ; these assumptions contravene all the 

 rest of our knowledge. 



At the best, we all see the truth through a glass, 

 darkly, never face to face. We cannot separate our- 

 selves from our times or our country. We see 

 things through the medium of race, of family, of 



