250 FAILURE OF THE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT, [ chap . vi . 
all weak; they are good because they are not strong- 
enough to be bad.” 
Some corn had been taken out of a sack for the 
horses, and a few grains lying scattered on the ground, 
I tried the beautiful metaphor of St. Paul as an 
example of a future state. Making a small hole with 
my finger in the ground, I placed a grain within it; 
“ That,” I said, “ represents you when you die.” 
Covering it with earth, I continued, “ That grain will 
decay, but from it will rise the plant that will produce 
a reappearance of the original form.” 
Commoro .— “ Exactly so; that I understand. But 
the original grain does not rise again ; it rots like the 
dead man, and is ended; the fruit produced is not the 
same grain that we buried, but the production of that 
grain : so it is with man,—I die, and decay, and am 
ended; but my children grow up like the fruit of the 
grain. Some men have no children, and some grains 
perish without fruit; then all are ended.” 
I was obliged to change the subject of conversation. 
In this wild naked savage there was not even a super¬ 
stition upon which to found a religious feeling; there 
was a belief in matter; and to his understanding 
everything was material. It was extraordinary to 
find so much clearness of perception combined with 
such complete obtuseness to anything ideal. 
