“That may be; only it makes it none the pleasanter for other people; but, unfortunately, they are not the only or the worst sort of fools. For one born-fool there are a thousand wilful ones. For one man that will honestly face an honest argument, there are ten thousand that will dishonestly shirk it. There’s that curate-fellow now--Wingfold I think aunt called him--look at him now!” “I can’t see much in him to rouse indignation,” said Helen. “He seems a very inoffensive man.” “I don’t call it inoffensive when a man sells himself to the keeping up of a system that----” Here Bascombe checked himself, remembering that a sudden attack upon what was, at least, the more was the pity, a time-honoured system, might rouse a woman’s prejudices; and as Helen had already listened to a large amount of undermining remark without perceiving the direction of his tunnels, he resolved, before venturing an open assault, to make sure that those prejudices stood, lightly borne, over an abyss of seething objection. He had had his experiences as the prophet-pioneer of glad tidings to the nations, and had before now, although such weakness he could not anticipate in Helen, seen one whom he considered a most promising pupil, turned suddenly away in a storm of terror and disgust. “What a folly is it now,” he instantly resumed, leaving the general and attacking a particular, “to think to make people good by promises and threats--promises of a heaven that would bore the dullest among them to death, and threats of a hell the very idea of which, if only half conceived, would be enough to paralyse every nerve of healthy action in the human system!” “All nations have believed in a future state, either of reward or punishment,” objected Helen. “Mere Brocken-spectres of their own approbation or disapprobation of themselves. And whither has it brought the race?” “What then would you substitute for it, George?” “Why substitute anything? Ought not men be good to one another because they are made up of ones and others? Do you or I need threats and promises to make us kind? And what right have we to judge others worse than ourselves? Mutual compassion,” he went on, blowing out a mouthful of smoke and then swelling his big chest with a huge lungsful of air, “might be sufficient to teach poor ephemerals kindness and consideration enough to last their time.” “But how would you bring such reflections to bear?” asked Helen, pertinently. “I would reason thus: You must consider that you are but a part of the whole, and that whatever you do to hurt the whole, or injure any of its parts, will return upon you who form one of those parts.” “How would that influence the man whose favourite amusement is to beat his wife!”