Part 1 (2/2)

[Lady Fritterly _is_ ”_delighted_.” _The rest of the party arrive in rapid succession_.

_Mrs Allmash_. Dear Mr Germsell, I was just telling Lady Fritterly what an interesting conversation we were having last night when it was unfortunately interrupted. I shall be so glad if you would explain more fully now what you were telling me. I am sure everybody would be interested.

_Lady Fritterly_. Oh do, Mr Germsell; it would be quite too nice of you.

And, Mr Drygull, will you ask the Khoja to--

_Mr Drygull_. My friend's name is Ali Seyyid, Lady Fritterly.

_Lady Fritterly_. Pray excuse my stupidity, Mr Allyside, and come and sit near me. Lord Fondleton, find Mrs Gloring a chair.

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. Who's our black friend?

_Mrs Gloring_. I am sure I don't know. I think Lady Fritterly called him a codger.

_Lord Fondleton_. Ah, he looks like it,--and a rum one at that, as our American cousins say.

_Mrs Gloring_. Hus.h.!.+ Mr Germsell is going to begin.

_Mr Germsell_. Mrs Allmash asked me last night whether my thoughts had been directed to the topic which is uppermost just now in so many minds in regard to the religion of the future, and I ventured to tell her that it would be found to be contained in the generalised expediency of the past.

_Mr Fussle_. Pardon me, but the religion of the future must be the result of an evolutionary process, and I don't see how generalisations of past expediency are to help the evolution of humanity.

_Germsell_. They throw light upon it; and the study of the evolutionary process so far teaches us how we may evolve in the future. For instance, you have only got to think of evolution as divided into moral, astronomic, geologic, biologic, psychologic, sociologic, aesthetic, and so forth, and you will find that there is always an evolution of the parts into which it divides itself, and that therefore there is but one evolution going on everywhere after the same manner. The work of science has been not to extend our experience, for that is impossible, but to systematise it; and in that systematisation of it will be found the religion of which we are in search.

_Drygull_. May I ask why you deem it impossible that our experience can be extended?

_Germsell_. Because it has itself defined its limits. The combined experience of humanity, so far as its earliest records go, has been limited by laws, the nature of which have been ascertained: it is impossible that it should be transcended without violation of the conclusions arrived at by positive science.

_Drygull_. I can more easily understand that the conclusions arrived at by men of science should be limited, than that the experience of humanity should be confined by those conclusions; but I fail to perceive why those philosophers should deny the existence of certain human faculties, because they don't happen to possess them themselves. I think I know a Ris.h.i.+ who can produce experiences which would scatter all their conclusions to the winds, when the whole system which is built upon them would collapse.

_Mrs Gloring_ [_aside to_ Lord Fondleton]. Pray, Lord Fondleton, can you tell me what a Ris.h.i.+ is?

_Lord Fondleton_. A man who has got into higher states, you know--what I heard Mr Drygull call a transcendentalist the other day, whatever that may be. I don't understand much about these matters myself, but I take it he is a sort of evolved codger.

_Mrs Allmash_. Oh, how awfully interesting! Dear Mr Drygull, do tell us some of the extraordinary things the Ris.h.i.+ can do.

_Drygull_. If you will only all of you listen attentively, and if Mr Germsell will have the goodness to modify to some degree the prejudiced att.i.tude of mind common to all men of science, you will hear him as plainly as I can at this moment beating a tom-tom in his cottage in the Himalayas.

[Mr Germsell _gets up impatiently_, _and walks to the other end of the back drawing-room_.

_Drygull_ [_casting a compa.s.sionate glance after him_]. Perhaps it is better so. Now please, Lady Fritterly, I must request a few moments of the most profound silence on the part of all. You will not hear the sound as though coming from a distance, but it will seem rather like a m.u.f.fled drumming taking place inside your head, scarcely perceptible at first, when its volume will gradually increase.

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. Some bad champagne produced the same phenomenon in my head last night.

_Lady Fritterly_ [_severely_]. Hus.h.!.+ Lord Fondleton.

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