believe in Him, without caring on what grounds they believed, although
that is obviously the main point. When to this was added the threat of
"damnation" on those who did not believe, the case became far worse:
for I felt that if such a threat were allowed to operate, I might
become a Mohammedan or a Roman Catholic. Could I in any case
rationally assign this as a ground for believing in Christ,--"because
I am frightened by his threats"--?

Farther thought showed me that a question of _logic_, such as I here
had before me, was peculiarly one on which the propagator of a new
religion could not be allowed to dictate; for if so, every false
system could establish itself. Let Hindooism dictate our logic,--let
us submit to its tests of a divine revelation, and its mode
of applying them,--and we may, perhaps, at once find ourselves
necessitated to "become little children" in a Brahminical school.
Might not then this very thing account for the Bible not enlightening
us on the topic? namely, since Logic, like Mathematics, belongs to the
common intellect,--Possibly so: but still, it cannot reconcile us
to _vacillations_ and _contradictions_ in the Bible on so critical a
point.

Gradually I saw that deeper and deeper difficulties lay at bottom. If
Logic _cannot_ be matter of authoritative revelation, so long as the
nature of the human mind is what it is,--if it appears, as a fact,
that in the writings and speeches of the New Testament the logic is
far from lucid,--if we are to compare Logic with Mathematics and other
sciences, which grew up with civilization and long time,--we cannot
doubt that the apostles imbibed the logic, like the astronomy, of
their own day, with all its defects. Indeed, the same is otherwise
plain. Paul's reasonings are those of a Gamaliel, and often are