"
"We don't separate God and Nature, perhaps, as you do," the Doctor
answered. "When we say that God is omnipresent and omnipotent and
omniscient, we are a little more apt to mean it than your folks are.
We think, when a wound heals, that God's _presence_ and _power_ and
_knowledge_ are there, healing it, just as that old surgeon did. We
think a good many theologians, working among their books, don't see the
facts of the world they live in. When we tell 'em of these facts, they
are apt to call us materialists and atheists and infidels, and all
that. We can't help seeing the facts, and we don't think it's wicked to
mention 'em."
"Do tell me," the Reverend Doctor said, "some of these facts we are in
the habit of overlooking, and which your profession thinks it can see
and understand."
"That's very easy," the Doctor replied. "For instance: you don't
understand or don't allow for idiosyncrasies as we learn to. We know
that food and physic act differently with different people; but you
think the same kind of truth is going to suit, or ought to suit, all
minds. We don't fight with a patient because he can't take magnesia or
opium; but you are all the time quarrelling over your beliefs, as if
belief did not depend very much on race and constitution, to say nothing
of early training."
"Do you mean to say that every man is not absolutely free to choose his
beliefs?"
"The men you write about in your studies are, but not the men we see
in the real world.
Pages:
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307