Descartes, Dr. Johnson, Newton,
Faraday, Newman, Gladstone, Pasteur, Browning, Brunetiere--as many more
as you please." To which that quite admirable and idealistic young man
made this astonishing reply--"Oh, but of course they _had_ to say that;
they were Christians." First he challenged me to find a black swan, and
then he ruled out all my swans because they were black. The fact that
all these great intellects had come to the Christian view was somehow or
other a proof either that they were not great intellects or that they
had not really come to that view. The argument thus stood in a
charmingly convenient form: "All men that count have come to my
conclusion; for if they come to your conclusion they do not count."
It did not seem to occur to such controversialists that if Cardinal
Newman was really a man of intellect, the fact that he adhered to
dogmatic religion proved exactly as much as the fact that Professor
Huxley, another man of intellect, found that he could not adhere to
dogmatic religion; that is to say (as I cheerfully admit), it proved
precious little either way. If there is one class of men whom history
has proved especially and supremely capable of going quite wrong in all
directions, it is the class of highly intellectual men.
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