He asked himself, what were they? Ah! that was a difficult matter; there
were so many, and the rules which governed them were sometimes so subtle,
that mistakes always had and always would be made; it was just this that
made it impossible to reduce life to an exact science. There was a rough
and ready rule-of-thumb test of truth, and a number of rules as regards
exceptions which could be mastered without much trouble, yet there was a
residue of cases in which decision was difficult--so difficult that a man
had better follow his instinct than attempt to decide them by any process
of reasoning.
Instinct then is the ultimate court of appeal. And what is instinct? It
is a mode of faith in the evidence of things not actually seen. And so
my hero returned almost to the point from which he had started
originally, namely that the just shall live by faith.
And this is what the just--that is to say reasonable people--do as
regards those daily affairs of life which most concern them. They settle
smaller matters by the exercise of their own deliberation. More
important ones, such as the cure of their own bodies and the bodies of
those whom they love, the investment of their money, the extrication of
their affairs from any serious mess--these things they generally entrust
to others of whose capacity they know little save from general report;
they act therefore on the strength of faith, not of knowledge.
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