And since we are to speak here with all the candour of private conversation I confess that I cannot devise or imagine any specific against such a recurrence except an exercise in humility of the kind suggested by Mr Chesterton.

My own argument in that direction is perhaps compromised by the fact that I am an Irishman.

Let us therefore fall back on other testimony.

Out of the cloud of witnesses let us choose two or three, and in the first place M.Alfred Fouillee.

M.Fouillee is a Platonist--the last Platonist in Europe--and consequently an amiable man.