"And you really feel in need of a scientific principle ?" "Without it, I should have remained a mere empiric, like the rest of our politicians.

I should have judged measures from the narrow, merely practical point of view; or rather, I should pretty certainly have guided myself by some theory in which I only tried to believe." "So you have now a belief, Dyce?
Come, that's a point to have reached.
That alone should give you a distinction among the aspiring men of to-day.

And _what_ do you believe ?" After drawing a meditative puff or two, Dyce launched into his familiar demonstration.

He would very much rather have left it aside; he felt that he was not speaking as one genuinely convinced, and that his father listened without serious interest.

But the theory had all to be gone through; he unwound it, like thread off a reel, rather mechanically and heavily towards the end.
"And that's what you are going to live for ?" said his father.