But perhaps the text is of late origin, interpolated. The
Dutch and German savants rise in their might, with their ingenious
theories and microscopic scholarship. But there are other scientists who
bid us not heed the Bible at all, because it contradicts the latest
editions of their primers. Is, then, science strictly accurate? To answer
this you must have a thorough acquaintance with biology, geology,
astronomy, besides deciding for yourself between the conflicting views at
nearly every point. By the time you have made up your mind as to whether
capital punishment should be abolished, it has passed out of the
statute-book, and you are dead, or mad, or murdered.
"But were this the only question a man has to settle in his short span of
years, he might cheerfully engage in its solution. But life bristles with
a hundred questions equally capital, and with a thousand-and-one minor
problems on which he is expected to have an opinion, and about which he
is asked at one time or other, if only at dinner."
At this moment the Poet who shares my chambers came in--later than he
should have done--and interrupted my soliloquy. But I was still hot, and
enlisted his interest in my vision and my apologia, and began drawing up
a list of the questions, in which after a while he became so interested
that he started adding to it.
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