entiment is mankind's wretched little lament for
disobeying impulse. Women preserve this divinity because they are
irrational. The New Woman claims equality with man because she claims to
be as reasonable as men. She has fixed on voting for a Member of
Parliament as the medium to display her reasonableness. The franchise is
to be endowed with a sacramental significance. If the New Women win,
they will degrade themselves to the slavery of modern men. But of course
they won't win, because God is so delightfully irrational. By the way,
it's worth noting that the peculiar vestment with which popular fancy
has clothed the New Woman is called rational costume. You often hear of
'rationals' as a synonym for breeches. What was I saying? Oh, yes, about
God being irrational. You never know what he'll do next. He is a
dreadful problem for rationalists. That's why they have abolished him."

"You're confusing two different kinds of reason," said Alan. "What you
call impulse--unless your impulse is mere madness--is what I might call
reason."

"In that case I recommend you as a philosopher to set about the
reconstruction of your terminology. I'm not a philosopher, and therefore
I've given this vague generic name 'impulse' to something which
deserves, such a powerful and infallible and overmastering impetus does
it give to conduct, a very long name indeed."

"But if you're going through life depending on impulse," Alan objected,
"you'll be no better off than a weathercock. You can't discount reason
in this way. You must admit that our judgments are modified by
experience."

"The chief thing we learn from experience is to place upon it no
reliance whatever."

"It's no good arguing with you," Alan said. "Because what you call
impulse I call reason, and what you call reason I call imperfect logic."

"Alan, I can't believe you only got a third. For really, you know, your
conversation is a model of the philosophic manner. Anyway, I'm not going
to try to be a Fellow of All Souls and you are going to be a country
squire. Let's hold on to what certainties we can."

Michael would have liked to lead him into a discussion of the problem
of evil, so that he might ascertain if Alan had ever felt the
intimations of evil which had haunted his own perceptions. However, he
thought he had tested to the utmost that third in Greats, and therefore
he refrained.

There was a discussion that evening about going away. August was already
in sight and