"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "just as in an engine something causes
both the steam and the piston-rod; it's an intelligence somewhere
that fits the one to the other. But then, as you say, what is the
cause of all this extravagance and violence of expression?"

"That is the human element," said Howard--"the cautious,
conservative, business-like side that can't bear to let anything
go. All religion begins, it seems to me, by an outburst of moral
force, an attempt to simplify, to get a principle; and then the
people who don't understand it begin to make it technical and
defined; uncritical minds begin to attribute all sorts of vague
wonders to it--things unattested, natural exaggerations, excited
statements, impossible claims; and then these take traditional
shape and the poor steed gets hung with all sorts of incongruous
burdens."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "but the force is there all the time; the
old hard words, like regeneration and atonement, do not mean
DEFINITE things--that is the mischief; they are the receipts made
up by stupid, hard-headed people who do not understand; but they
stand for large and wonderful experiences and are like the language
of children telling their dreams. The moral genius who sees through
it all and gives the first impulse is trying to deal with life
directly and frankly; and the difficulty arises from people who see
the attendant circumstances and mistake them for the causes. But I
do not see it from that side, of course! I understand what you are
aiming at. You are trying to disentangle all the phenomena, are you
not, and referring them to their real causes, instead of lumping
them all together as the phenomena of religion?"