avalanches. Whole systems of belief which had chilled the soul for
centuries, dropped off like icebergs into the warming sea and
drifted away, melting into nothingness.

The minds of many men, witnessing this double ruin by flame and
earthquake, are at such times filled with consternation: to them it
seems that nothing will survive, that beyond these cataclysms there
will never again be stability and peace--a new and better age,
safer footing, wider horizons, clearer skies.

It was so now. The literature of the New Science was followed by a
literature of new Doubt and Despair. But both of these were
followed by yet another literature which rejected alike the New
Science and the New Doubt, and stood by all that was included under
the old beliefs. The voices of these three literatures filled the
world: they were the characteristic notes of that half-century,
heard sounding together: the Old Faith, the New Science, the New
Doubt. And they met at a single point; they met at man's place in
Nature, at the idea of God, and in that system of thought and creed
which is Christianity.

It was at this sublime meeting-place of the Great Three that this
untrained and simple lad soon arrived--searching for the truth.
Here he began to listen to them, one after another: reading a
little in science (he was not prepared for that), a little in the
old faith, but most in the new doubt. For this he was ready; toward
this he had been driven.

Its earliest effects were soon exhibited in him as a student. He
performed all required work, slighted no class, shirked no rule,