r a cat, or a
monkey, all may have an equally acceptable faith."

"I affirm it."

"That as there may be belief in a truth without faith, so there may
be faith, though the intellect believes in a falsehood;--that faith,
in fact, is independent of knowledge, or of any particular condition
of the intellect?"

"I do not like the terms in which you express the sentiment, but I,
for one, believe it substantially correct."

"Never mind the form; I am quite willing to employ other terms, if you
will supply them"

"Well, then," said Fellowes, "I should say, with Mr. Parker, that
the principle of true faith may be found to coexist with the grossest
and most hideous misconceptions of God, while the absence of it may
coexist with the truest and most elevated belief."

"That, I think, comes to much the same as I said. Now about the latter
we have no dispute. It is the former that I want light upon: the
latter only shows that a belief, which ought to be practical, and if
not practical is nothing, is but a species of hypocrisy; and, of
course, I have nothing to say for it. My uncle here, who is still one
of the orthodox, who believes that an 'acceptable faith' and a
belief in the divinity of a monkey or a cat are somehow quite
incompatible, would be among the first to acknowledge the latter
position. He would say, 'No doubt there has often been such a
thing as "dead orthodoxy,"--a creed of the "letter,"--a religion
exclusively dependent on logic, and nothing to do with the feeling's;
--belief that is not sublimated into faith;--a system of arteries and
veins infiltrated with some colored substance, like the specimens
in an anatomical museum, but in which none of the lifeblood of
religion circulates. But surely,' he would say, 'it does not follow,
that, because there has been belief without faith, there is or can
be any independent of some belief, or an acceptable faith without
a true belief.'"

"I affirm," said Fellowes, "that 'faith' has nothing to do with
the intellect, but is a state of the affections exclusively. I affirm,
with a recent acute writer, that there is, properly speaking, no
belief at all that is distinguishable from reason. For what is meant
by belief of a proposition, but the receiving that proposition
true upon evidence, from a supposed preponderance of reasons in
its favor? Now, whether that preponderance be a ton weight or a single
grain, down goes the balance, and reason as strictly decides that it
is