"And in anything except a rudimentary state of society they must feed one another. Because no man has the genius to make for himself all the things he wants to eat. Consequently--I put the argument summarily--you will find that, broadly speaking, all the burning and bludgeoning and fighting, all the killing in short, and equally all the refraining from killing, are in the end determined by the consideration whether your action one way or the other will seriously affect your supply of food--to which, in civilized society, you may add clothes, and so on." "Does that apply to the persecution of opinions?" "Certainly it does--usually by way of limitation of killing, though an exception must be made for human sacrifice. There have been temporary aberrations of judgment, but, generally speaking, they never killed more than a decent minimum of any useful heretics--not, anyhow, where secular statesmen had the last word. They had to make some kind of a show, of course, to satisfy, as they supposed, their superior officers. Still--they left a good many Jews, Winnie!" "Wasn't that the spread of toleration?" "Certainly--toleration based on food, originally, and afterwards perhaps reinforced by doubt." He broke into a laugh. "But even to-day I'm hanged if I'd trust to the doubt without the food!" He beamed on her. "I'll tell you a secret--religion's all food, Winnie." Winnie had asked for the exposition--but she had had enough of it. Even Stephen's last--and rather startling--thesis failed to draw further inquiries. "It seems to follow that we oughtn't to keep lunch waiting," she said, laughing, as she put her arm through his. "I do love Shaylor's Patch," she went on, gently patting his arm. "You can always forget yourself and your troubles by talking nonsense--or sense--about something or other. If I come to grief again"--her voice shook for an instant--"you'll give me a shed to lie in here, won't you, Stephen?" "My poor house is thine, and all that is in it," he answered orientally. "Yes, in a way I know it is--and so I needn't quite starve," said Winnie. CHAPTER XIV A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION