are virtually in the same condition as their humbler neighbors;
they are profound only by comparison with the superficiality of these
last. Where men must act, the decisive facts, as was said in relation
to history, may be pretty equally grasped by all; and as for the rest,
the enlargement of the circle of a man's knowledge is, in a still
greater proportion, the enlargement of the circle of his ignorance;
for the circumscribing periphery lies in darkness. Doubts, in
proportion to the advance of knowledge, spring up where they were
before unknown; and though the previous ignorance of these was not
knowledge, the knowledge of them (as Harrington has said) is little
better than an increase of our ignorance."

"If, as you suppose, it cannot be our duty to act in reference to any
'historical religion' because a satisfactory investigation is impossible
to the mass of mankind, the argument may be retorted on your own theory.
You assert, indeed, that in relation to religion we have an internal
'spiritual faculty' which evades this difficulty; yet men persist in
saying, in spite of you, that it is doubtful,--1st, whether they have
any such; 2d, whether, if there be one, it be not so debauched and
sophisticated by other faculties, that they can no longer trust it
implicitly; 3d, what is the amount of its genuine utterances; 4th, what
that of its aberrations; 5th, whether it is not so dependent on
development, education, and association, as to leave room enough for
an auxiliary external revelation;--on all which questions the
generality of mankind are just as incapable of deciding, as about
any historical question whatever."

Here Fellowes was called out of the room. Harrington, who had been
glancing at the newspaper, exclaimed,--"Talk about the conditions on
which man is left to act indeed! Only think of his gross ignorance
and folly being left a prey to such quack advertisements as half
fill this column. Here empirics every day almost invite men to be
immortal for the small charge of half a crown. Here is a panacea for
nearly every disease under heaven in the shape of some divine elixir,
and, what is more, we know that thousands are gulled by it. How
satisfactory is that condition of the human intellect in which quack
promises can be proffered with any plausible chance of success!"

I told him I thought the science of medicine would yield an argument
against religious sceptics which they would find it very difficult
to reply