REASON AND PREDISPOSITION 141 



surface of the other with hardly an impression. One 

 soon sees that the difference between them is not so 

 much in their reasoning powers as in their attitude of 

 mind, their mental bias, their point of view, their 

 susceptibility to certain considerations. A process 

 which antedates reason has shaped the mind of each 

 to a particular pattern, and the lines of their belief 

 can never coincide. St. George Mivart begins one 

 of his sentences thus : " My belief in a future life 

 convinces me that conscious intelligences may exist 

 without bodies," etc. There he lets out the whole 

 secret ; it is his " belief " that " convinces " him, 

 just as it convinces all of us. He already believes, 

 therefore he is convinced. If he could give us 

 every step of the process through which his belief 

 arose, that would be interesting. But he cannot, or 

 does not. He starts with the belief, and probably 

 the road by which he came to it is deep down be- 

 yond the reach of his consciousness. He says his 

 conviction of the truth of revealed religion and of the 

 authority of the church as its divine guardian and 

 exponent is not due to " emotional feelings and 

 sentiments, and still less to any declarations of 

 authority," but to the " evident dictates of calm and 

 solid reason." Yet these reasons he cannot set forth 

 so as to satisfy Sir James or any other impartial 

 reader. It is evidently his belief in them that con- 

 vinces him of their truth. 



The Catholic note which Mr. Mivart sounds is 

 immistakable, and is frequently met with in the cur- 

 rent British reviews. Here it is in an essay by 



