"That, I think, comes to much the same as I said. Now about the latter we have no dispute. It is the former that I want light upon: the latter only shows that a belief, which ought to be practical, and if not practical is nothing, is but a species of hypocrisy; and, of course, I have nothing to say for it. My uncle here, who is still one of the orthodox, who believes that an 'acceptable faith' and a belief in the divinity of a monkey or a cat are somehow quite incompatible, would be among the first to acknowledge the latter position. He would say, 'No doubt there has often been such a thing as "dead orthodoxy,"--a creed of the "letter,"--a religion exclusively dependent on logic, and nothing to do with the feeling's; --belief that is not sublimated into faith;--a system of arteries and veins infiltrated with some colored substance, like the specimens in an anatomical museum, but in which none of the lifeblood of religion circulates. But surely,' he would say, 'it does not follow, that, because there has been belief without faith, there is or can be any independent of some belief, or an acceptable faith without a true belief.'" "I affirm," said Fellowes, "that 'faith' has nothing to do with the intellect, but is a state of the affections exclusively. I affirm, with a recent acute writer, that there is, properly speaking, no belief at all that is distinguishable from reason. For what is meant by belief of a proposition, but the receiving that proposition true upon evidence, from a supposed preponderance of reasons in its favor? Now, whether that preponderance be a ton weight or a single grain, down goes the balance, and reason as strictly decides that it is to be received as if it were a mathematical demonstration. If the arguments, whether abstract or otherwise, absolutely demonstrative or only probable, are supposed to be exactly balanced, there is no reason for deciding in favor of one side more than the other; and there is, therefore, no belief, for the very reason that reason cannot be exercised." "Very well indeed," said Harrington, "so far as it goes; but I forthwith see, that, so far from deriving any benefit from this ingenious reasoning, there is no such thing as either faith or belief: belief and faith have both vanished at the same time; the first is resolved into reason, and the second becomes impossible." "Belief may," said Fellowes, "but faith never. Its divine beauty is all the brighter, when happily divorced from logic and syllogisms, its misalliance with which can only be compared to that cruel punishment by which the living was chained to the dead. Say what you will, it still reigns and triumphs in the soul in spite of all."