"I think Mr. Newman's principles ought to guide you thither. You seem to hold fast by his skirts at present; but I very much doubt whether you have yet reached the termination of your career. You have, you must admit, made advances quite as extraordinary before. "We shall see.--But I suppose you have reached the end of the objections which your wayward scepticism suggests against a conclusion which we both admit; or have you any more?" "O, plenty; and amongst the rest, I am afraid we must admit--whether we admit or not your expedient of law--a miracle, or something indistinguishable from it, as involved in the creation and preservation of the first man,--since you will have a first man." "What do you mean?" "I mean, that supposing the creation of man to be no miracle, because he entered by law; or that that first fact (which would otherwise be miraculous) is not such, simply because it is the first of a series of such facts,--I should like to see whether we have not even then to deal with a miracle, or a fact as absolutely unique; and which was not connected with any series of similar facts." "I think you would find it very hard to prove it." "Nous verrons. I am sure we shall not disagree as to the fact that man, however he came into the world, sooner or later, by ordinary or extraordinary methods, by some lawful wedlock of nature, or by some miracle which is not 'lawful,' is endowed by nature with various faculties and susceptibilities." "Certainly," said Fellowes, laughing; "if you demand my assent to nothing more than that, I shall easily admit your premises and deny your conclusion." "You will also admit, I think, that the process by which man comes to the use of these faculties, and powers, and so forth, is very gradual?" "Assuredly." "And will you not also admit that the development and command of these is something very different from the, potentialities themselves, as my uncle here would call them?--that, for example, we have the faculty of vision; but that the art of seeing involves a slow laborious process, acquired not without the concurrent exercise of other senses: and that the apparatus for walking is perfect even in an infant; but that the art of walking is, in fact, a wonderful acquisition: further, that the command given us by these faculties, as actually exercised, is immensely greater than would be conferred by each alone. In one word, you will allow that man, when he comes to the use of his faculties, is, as has been well said, a bundle of habits, or, as Burke puts it, is a creature who, to a great extent, has the making of himself." "I am much at my ease," said Fellowes; "I shall not dispute any of these premises either." "And will you not also admit that, as man comes into the world now, a long time is required for this development; and that during that time he is absolutely dependent on the care of those who have already in their turn required similar care?"