Page 211 - erewhon

of the unreasoning faculties were much more cogent. But
here they depart from the principles on which they justi-
fy their study of hypothetics; for they base the importance
which they assign to hypothetics upon the fact of their be-
ing a preparation for the extraordinary, while their study
of Unreason rests upon its developing those faculties which
are required for the daily conduct of affairs. Hence their
professorships of Inconsistency and Evasion, in both of
which studies the youths are examined before being al-
lowed to proceed to their degree in hypothetics. The more
earnest and conscientious students attain to a proficiency
in these subjects which is quite surprising; there is hardly
any inconsistency so glaring but they soon learn to defend
it, or injunction so clear that they cannot find some pretext
for disregarding it.
Life, they urge, would be intolerable if men were to be
guided in all they did by reason and reason only. Reason
betrays men into the drawing of hard and fast lines, and
to the defining by language—language being like the sun,
which rears and then scorches. Extremes are alone logi-
cal, but they are always absurd; the mean is illogical, but
an illogical mean is better than the sheer absurdity of an
extreme. There are no follies and no unreasonablenesses so
great as those which can apparently be irrefragably defend-
ed by reason itself, and there is hardly an error into which
men may not easily be led if they base their conduct upon
reason only.
Reason might very possibly abolish the double curren-
cy; it might even attack the personality of Hope and Justice.

10 Erewhon