It was not the fact of most men being liars
that shocked him--that was all right enough; but even the momentary doubt
whether the few who were not liars ought not to become liars too. There
was no hope left if this were so; if this were so, let him die, the
sooner the better. "Lord," he exclaimed inwardly, "I don't believe one
word of it. Strengthen Thou and confirm my disbelief." It seemed to him
that he could never henceforth see a bishop going to consecration without
saying to himself: "There, but for the grace of God, went Ernest
Pontifex." It was no doing of his. He could not boast; if he had lived
in the time of Christ he might himself have been an early Christian, or
even an Apostle for aught he knew. On the whole he felt that he had much
to be thankful for.
The conclusion, then, that it might be better to believe error than truth
should be ordered out of court at once, no matter by how clear a logic it
had been arrived at; but what was the alternative? It was this, that our
criterion of truth--i.e. that truth is what commends itself to the great
majority of sensible and successful people--is not infallible. The rule
is sound, and covers by far the greater number of cases, but it has its
exceptions.
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