drew you on to love, you and the others who worship the same phantom,
was, if I am not mistaken, the consistent way in which the inventor of
the lady added to his picture, when once he had got your ear. That was
the only thing you all looked to, with that he turned you about as he
would, having got his first hold upon you, averring that he was leading
you the straight way to your beloved. After the first step, you see, all
was easy; none of you ever looked round when he came to the entrance, and
inquired whether it was the right one, or whether he had accidentally
taken the wrong; no, you all followed in your predecessors' footsteps,
like sheep after the bell-wether, whereas the right thing was to decide
at the entrance whether you should go in.

Perhaps an illustration will make my meaning clearer: when one of those
audacious poets affirms that there was once a three-headed and six-handed
man, if you accept that quietly without questioning its possibility, he
will proceed to fill in the picture consistently--six eyes and ears,
three voices talking at once, three mouths eating, and thirty fingers
instead of our poor ten all told; if he has to fight, three of his hands
will have a buckler, wicker targe, or shield apiece, while of the other
three one swings an axe, another hurls a spear, and the third wields a
sword. It is too late to carp at these details, when they come; they are
consistent with the beginning; it was about that that the question ought
to have been raised whether it was to be accepted and passed as true.
Once grant that, and the rest comes flooding in, irresistible, hardly now
susceptible of doubt, because it is consistent and accordant with your
initial admissions. That is just your case; your love-yearning would not
allow you to look into the facts at each entrance, and so you are dragged
on by consistency; it never occurs to you that a thing may be self-
consistent and yet false; if a man says twice five is seven, and you take
his word for it without checking the sum, he will naturally deduce that