Then came Delia. She would not admit that her faith depended upon texts and legends; it was a faith in the living God. She was not afraid of reason--she did not outrage it-- “But you do, you do!” cried Thyrsis. “Your whole attitude is an outrage to it! You never speak of ‘science’ except as an evil thing. You told Corydon that ‘evolution’ was wicked!” “I don’t see how evolution can help my faith”--began the other. “That’s just it!” cried Thyrsis again. “That is exactly what I mean! You do not pay homage to truth, you do not seek it for its own sake! You require that it should fit into certain formulas that you have set up--in other words that it should not interfere with your texts and your legends! And what is the result of that--you have paralyzed all your activities, you have condemned your intellectual life to sterility! For we live in an age of science, we cannot solve our problems except by means of it; the forces of evil are using it, and you are not using it, and so you are like a child in their hands! Not one of the social wrongs but could be put an end to--child-labor, poverty and disease, prostitution and drunkenness, crime and war! But you don’t know how, and you can’t find out how--simply because you have thrown away the sharp tools of the intellect, and filled your mind with formulas that mean nothing! How can you understand modern problems, when you know nothing about economics? You have rejected ‘evolution’--so how can you comprehend the evolution of society? How can you know that civilization at this hour is going down into the abyss--dragging you and your churches and your Congo savages with it? I who do understand these things--I have to go out and fight alone, while you are shut up in your churches, mumbling your spells and incantations, and poring over your Hebrew texts! And think of what I must suffer, knowing as I do that the spirit that animates you--the fervor and devotion, the ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness’--would banish horror from the earth forever, if only it could be guided by intelligence!” Section 5. All this, of course, was effort utterly wasted. Thyrsis poured out his pleadings and exhortations, his longing and his pain; and when he had finished, the girl was exactly where she had been before--just as distrustful of “science”, and just as blindly bent upon getting away to her savages and binding up their wounds and baptizing them. And so at last he gave up in despair, and left Delia to go to bed, and went out and sat alone in the moonlight. Afterwards, though it was long after midnight, Corydon came out and joined him. He saw that she was flushed and trembling with excitement. “Thyrsis!” she whispered. “That was a marvellous thing!” He pressed her hand. “And all thrown away!” she cried. “You realized that, did you?” he asked. “I realized many things. Why you set so much store by ideas, for instance! I see that you are right--one has to think straight!”