hen I say Catholics have logically the advantage over
Protestants, I mean that starting from premises which both sides admit, a
merely logical Protestant will find himself driven to the Church of Rome.
Most men as they grow older will, I think, feel this, and they will see
in it the explanation of the comparatively narrow area over which the
Reformation extended, and of the gain which Catholicism has made of late
years here in England. On the other hand, reasonable people will look
with distrust upon too much reason. The foundations of action lie deeper
than reason can reach. They rest on faith--for there is no absolutely
certain incontrovertible premise which can be laid by man, any more than
there is any investment for money or security in the daily affairs of
life which is absolutely unimpeachable. The Funds are not absolutely
safe; a volcano might break out under the Bank of England. A railway
journey is not absolutely safe; one person at least in several millions
gets killed. We invest our money upon faith, mainly. We choose our
doctor upon faith, for how little independent judgment can we form
concerning his capacity? We choose schools for our children chiefly upon
faith. The most important things a man has are his body, his soul, and
his money. It is generally better for him to commit these interests to
the care of others of whom he can know little, rather than be his own
medical man, or invest his money on his own judgment; and this is nothing
else than making a faith which lies deeper than reason can reach, the
basis of our action in those respects which touch us most nearly.

On the other hand, as good a case could be made out for placing reason as
the foundation, inasmuch as it would be easy to show that a faith, to be
worth anything, must be a reasonable one--one, that is to say, which is
based upon reason. The fact is that faith and reason are like function
and organ, desire and power, or demand and supply; it is impossible to
say which comes first: they come up hand in hand, and are so small when
we can first descry them, that it is impossible to say which we first
caught sight of. All we can now see is that each has a tendency
continually to outstrip the other by a little, but by a very little only.
Strictly they are not two things, but two aspects of one thing; for
convenience' sake, however, we classify them separately.

It follows, therefore--but whether it follows or no, it is certainly
tr