"That," said Fellowes, "I can easily conceive; and, let me add, no sceptic can understand it." "I see no reason why he should not," said Harrington, laughing, "if, as you and Mr. Newman suppose, the 'spiritual' can be so perfectly divorced from the 'intellectual.' According to your reasoning, the and the idolater cannot be incapable of exercising this mysterious 'faith,'--when their errors are supposed purely speculative,--since faith has nothing to do with the intellect; neither therefore ought the sceptic to be quite beyond the pale of your charity. Nay, his intellect being a rasa tabula in these matters, I should think he is in more favorable circumstances than they can be. But, seriously, let me try, if possible, to fathom this curious dogma,--I beg your pardon,--sentiment, I mean. Belief without faith in an intelligible sense (if by this last we mean a condition of the emotions or affections), I can understand; though if the truth believed be of a nature to excite to emotion and to dictate action, and fail to do so, I doubt whether men in general would not call that belief spurious. For example, if a man, on being told that his house was on fire, sat still in his neighbor's chimney-corner, and took no notice of the matter, most persons would say that his assent was no true belief; for it did not produce its effects, did not produce faith. But whether faith can ever exist independently of belief,--whether it is not always involved with it,--and whether there can be a faith worth a farthing that is not based on a true belief,--that is the point on which I want light. If I understand you, an acceptable faith may or may not coexist with a true belief; and men who believe in Jupiter or Jehovah, in one God or a thousand, who worship the sun, or an idol, or a cat, or a monkey, all may have an equally acceptable faith." "I affirm it." "That as there may be belief in a truth without faith, so there may be faith, though the intellect believes in a falsehood;--that faith, in fact, is independent of knowledge, or of any particular condition of the intellect?" "I do not like the terms in which you express the sentiment, but I, for one, believe it substantially correct." "Never mind the form; I am quite willing to employ other terms, if you will supply them" "Well, then," said Fellowes, "I should say, with Mr. Parker, that the principle of true faith may be found to coexist with the grossest and most hideous misconceptions of God, while the absence of it may coexist with the truest and most elevated belief."