l thought did alone harmonize--the great
facts of man's essentially religious constitution and his eternally
varied and most egregiously corrupt religious development.

However, I told him that, even in the concession of the probable as a
sufficient rule of conduct in this life, he had granted enough to
condemn utterly his sceptical position.

He now looked sincerely interested. "Let me," said I, "ask you a few
questions." He glanced towards me an arch look. "What!" he said, "you
wish to get the Socratic weather-gage of me, do you? You forget, my dear
uncle, that you introduced me to the Platonic dialectics."

"Heaven forgive you," said I, "for the thought. You know I make little
pretension to your favorite erotetic method: and if I did, oh! do you not
know, Harrington, my son, that, if I could but convince you on this
one subject, I would consent to be confuted by you on every other every
day in the year?--nay, to be trampled under your feet?" I added, with a
faltering voice. "And, besides that, do you not know that there can be
no rivalry between father and son; that it is the only human affection
which forbids it; that pride, and not envy, swells a father's heart, when
he finds himself outdone?"

He was not unmoved; told me he knew that I loved him well, and desired
me to ask any questions I pleased.

He saw how gratified his affection made me feel. I said, gayly, "Well,
then, let me ask (as our old friend with the queer face might have said),
Do you not grant there is such a thing as prudence?"

"I do," he said.

"But to be prudent is, I think, to do that which is most likely to
promote our happiness."

"That which seems most likely, for I do not admit that we know what will."

"That which seems, then, for it is of no consequence."

"Of no consequence! surely there is a little difference between being
and seeming to be."

"All the difference in the world," I replied, "but not in relation to
our choice of conduct, We choose, if prudent, that conduct which, on
the whole, deliberately seems most likely to promote our happiness, and,
as far as that goes, what seems is."

"I grant it; and that probabilities are the measure of it,"
said Harrington.

"You are of Bayle's opinion, that there is in relation to the present
life a probable prudent, and that it would be gross folly to neglect it?"

"Certainly."

"And in proportion as the interest was greater, and extended over a longer
time, you would be conte