Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 5).pdf/196

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

( 188 )

credulity, by faith! For where is the mathematician who can calculate what may be pronounced of the mind, from what is seen in the countenance, or uttered by speech? yet is any one therefore so wretched, as not to feel any social reliance beyond what he can mathematically demonstrate to be merited?"

"And to what but that, Albert, precisely that, do we owe being so perpetually duped and betrayed? to what but building upon false trust? upon appearance, and not certainty?"

"Certainty, Elinor! Where, and in what is certainty to be found? If you disclaim belief in immortality upon faith, as insufficient to satisfy reason, what is the basis even of your disbelief? Is it not faith also? When you demand the proofs of immortality, let me demand, in return, what are your proofs of materialism? And, till you can bring to demonstration the operations of the soul while we live, presume not to decide upon its extinction when we