Choosing the safe side, however, appeared to me to be playing a rather dastardly part.

I had never been an admirer of people who chose the safe side in everything; indeed I had always entertained a thorough contempt for them.

Surely it would be showing more manhood to adopt the dangerous side, that of disbelief; I almost resolved to do so--but yet in a question of so much importance, I ought not to be guided by vanity.

The question was not which was the safe, but the true side?
yet how was I to know which was the true side?
Then I thought of the Bible--which I had been reading in the morning--that spoke of the soul and a future state; but was the Bible true?
I had heard learned and moral men say that it was true, but I had also heard learned and moral men say that it was not: how was I to decide?
Still that balance of probabilities! If I could but see the way of truth, I would follow it, if necessary, upon hands and knees; on that I was determined; but I could not see it.

Feeling my brain begin to turn round, I resolved to think of something else; and forthwith began to think of what had passed between Ursula and myself in our discourse beneath the hedge.
I mused deeply on what she had told me as to the virtue of the females of her race.