RUDIN
my championship. You don’t like it, every one to his own taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind you of the old saying, “Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the wrong.” I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems—general propositions—are especially distressing, because together with these systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations alone they are wrong to fear ideas and not to trust in them. Scepticism is always characterised by barrenness and impotence.’
‘That’s all words!’ muttered Pigasov.
‘Perhaps so. But allow me to point out to you that when we say “that’s all words!” we often wish ourselves to avoid the necessity of saying anything more substantial than mere words.’
‘What?’ said Pigasov, winking his eyes.
‘You understood what I meant,’ retorted Rudin, with involuntary, but instantly repressed impatience. ‘I repeat, if man has no steady principle in which he trusts, no ground on
52
