 a year ago he had bounded forth to welcome Mr. Hawke's sermon; since
then he had bounded after a college of Spiritual Pathology; now he was in full
cry after rationalism pure and simple; how could he be sure that his present
state of mind would be more lasting than his previous ones? He could not be
certain, but he felt as though he were on firmer ground now than he had ever
been before, and no matter how fleeting his present opinions might prove to be,
he was bound to act according to them till he saw reason to change them. How
impossible, he reflected, it would have been for him to do this if he had
remained surrounded by people like his father and mother, or Pryer and Pryer's
friends, and his rector. He had been observing, reflecting, and assimilating all
these months with no more consciousness of mental growth than a schoolboy has of
growth of body, but should he have been able to admit his growth to himself and
act up to his increased strength if he had remained in constant close connection
with people who assured him solemnly one and all that he was under a
hallucination? The combination against him was greater than his unaided strength
could have broken through, and he felt doubtful how far any shock less severe
than the one from which he was still suffering would have sufficed to free him.
 

                                   Chapter 66

As he lay on his bed day after day slowly recovering he woke up to the fact
which most men arrive at sooner or later, I mean, that very few care two straws
about truth, or have any confidence that it is righter and better to believe
what is true than what is untrue even though belief in the untruth may seem at
first sight most expedient. Yet it is only these few who can be said to believe
anything at all; the rest are simply unbelievers in disguise. Perhaps, after
all, these last are right; they have numbers and prosperity on their side; they
have all which the rationalist appeals to as his tests of right and wrong.
Right, according to him, is what seems right to the majority of sensible
well-to-do people; we know of no safer criterion than this, but what does the
decision thus arrived at involve? Simply this, that a conspiracy of silence
about things whose truth would be immediately apparent to disinterested
enquirers is not only tolerable but righteous on the part of those who profess
to be and take money for being par excellence guardians and teachers of truth.
Ernest saw no logical escape from this conclusion. He saw that belief on the
