"Do you think, Mr. Jones, that Dr. Sharpe's views of the natural immortality of the soul and the future condition of the wicked are tenable by reason and Scripture?" asked Mr. Manly.
"There is neither reason nor Scripture in them," replied Mr. Jones, with dogmatic emphasis. "He is hemmed in by your 'orthodoxy.' He is narrow in his conceptions. He lacks breadth of thought. His logic is feeble. He is deficient in true exegesis of Scripture. He has not looked into nature to catch its unfettered inspirations. His arguments are as weak as an infant's."
"But are you not forgetting the scholarship of the Doctor, underrating his powers, and losing sight of the general favour with which his work is received?" asked Mr. Manly.
"Forgetting his scholarship!" replied Jones, with a dogmatic sneer; "how can I forget what he never had, and underrate powers which he never possessed? And as for the favour with which his book has been received, that is nothing to me. I think for myself: I speak for myself. I care nothing for the opinion of others. I say, and when I say I mean what I say, that there is no force in the Doctor's arguments."
"Yes, but, Mr. Jones, all that is mere dogmatism on your part, and no argument," said Mr. Manly, calmly and firmly.
"You accuse me of dogmatism, do you?" roared Mr. Jones, "dogmatism indeed! Who are you, to be so bold? No argument, either! If I do not argue, who does? It is impudence on your part to say such a thing in my presence."
Mr. Manly thought it wise to say no more about Dr. Sharpe's book. After a brief pause Mr. Jones told a most marvellous account of two men in South Africa, to which Mr. Manly observed,--
"That is a strange story, and hard to believe, Mr. Jones."
"_It is so_, whether you believe it or no: _I_ know it is true, and _it is so_," replied Mr. Jones, positively.
"But your _ipse dixit_ does not make it true."
"My _ipse dixit_, indeed! Have not I read it? Do not I know it? Be it true or false, I believe it; and I wonder at your impudence to call in question anything that I say," said Jones, somewhat furiously.
"Excite myself! isn't there enough to excite me? _I said so_, and that ought to have been enough without your contradiction."
Mr. Manly said no more on that point, but after a while observed,--