The Professor at the Breakfast-Table

"Faith" is the most precious of possessions, and it dislikes being meddled with. It means, of course, self-trust, —that is, a belief in the value of our own opinion of a doctrine, of a church, of a religion, of a Being, a belief quite independent of any evidence that we can bring to convince a jury of our fellow beings. Its roots are thus inextricably entangled with those of self-love and bleed as mandrakes were said to, when pulled up as weeds.