"That seems absurd," I said.
"And, thus," said the fellow, "it, in itself, by the same proof, is shown mostlikely to be true."
"Is that supposed to be self-evident?" I asked.
"Yes," said another.
"It is not self-evident to me," I said.
"That is not the fault of its self-evidence," said another.
"You cannot blame its self-evidence for that."
"Something which is self-evident to one person may not be self-evident toanother," said another fellow.
"How can it be self-evident to one and not to another?" asked.
"One may be more talented in the detecting of self-evidence than another," saidanother.
"How do you distinguish between what merely seems self evident and that which istruly self-evident?" I asked.
"The Priest-Kings would not deceive us," said another.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"That is self-evident," said another.
"Have you ever been mistaken about what is self-evident?"
"Yes, frequently," said Pumpkin.
"How do you explain that?" I asked.
"We are weak, and frail," he said.
"We are only Waniyanpi," said another.
I regarded Pumpkin.
"To be sure," he said, "There is a place for faith in all of this."
"A rather large place, I conjecture," I said.
"Large enough," he said.
"How large is that?" I asked.
"Large enough to protect the Teaching," he said. _,"I thought so," I said.
"One must believe something," said Pumpkin.
"Why not experiment with the truth?" I said.
"We already believe the truth," said one of the fellows about.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"The Teaching tells us," said another.
"You must understand," said another, "that we do not like putting people out todie. It makes us very sorry to do this. On the occasions of expulsion we ofteneat a meal in silence, and weep bitter tears into our gruel."
"I am sure it is a touching sight," I said.
Pumpkin looked down toward the girl. He did not look directly at her, but sheknew herself to be the object of his attention, indirect though that attentionmight have been.
"Teach me your Teaching," she said. "I want to be a Same."
"Wonderful," said Pumpkin. He almost reached out to touch her, so pleased hewas, but suddenly, fearfully, he drew back his hand. He blushed. There was sweaton his forehead.
"Excellent," said more than one of the Waniyanpi "You will not regret it," said another.
"You will love being a Same," said another. "It is the only thing to be," saidanother.
"When we reach the vicinity of the compound," said Pumpkin, "and you are unboundand properly clothed, in suitable Waniyanpi garb, you will lead us all throughthe amRate preceding us, this thus attesting to your honor amongst us and the respectin which you are held."
"I shall look forward eagerly to my reception into the compound, " said thegirl.
"And so, too, shall we, welcome citizen," said Pumpkin.
He then turned to the others. "We must now return to our work," he said. "Thereis refuse to be gathered and debris to be burned."
When the Waniyanpi had filed away, taking their leave, I turned to regard thegirl.
"They are mad," she said, "mad," squirming in the yoke.
"Perhaps," I said. "I suppose it is a matter of definition."
"Definition?" she said.
"If the norms of sanity are social norms," I said, "by definition, the norm issane.
"Even if the society is totally misrelated to reality?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Even if they think they are all urts, or lizards or clouds?"
"I gather so," I said, "and in such a society the one who does not think that heis an urt, or, say, a lizard or a cloud, would be accounted insane."
"And would be insane?" she asked.
"On that definition," I said.
"That is a preposterous definition," she said.
"Yes," I admitted.
"I do not accept it," she said.
"Nor do I," I admitted.
"Surely there can be a better," she said.
"I would hope so," I said, "one that was framed with a closer regard forempirical reality, the actual nature of human beings, and such."
"Someone is insane," she said, "who believes false things."
"But we all, doubtless, believe many false things," I said "Theoretically a society could believe numerous false propositions and still, innormal senses of the word, be regarded as sane, if, in many respects, a mistakensociety."
"What if a society is mistaken, and takes pains to avoid rectifying its errors,what if it refuses, in the light of evidence, to correct its mistakes?"
"Evidence can usually be explained away or reinterpreted to accord withtreasured beliefs," I said. "I think it is usually a matter of degree. Perhapswhen the belief simply becomes too archaic, obsolete and unwieldy to defend,when it becomes simply preposterous and blatantly irrational to seriouslycontinue to defend it, then, perhaps if one still compulsively, to defend it,one might speak of sanity.
"I should think so," she said.
"But even then," I said, "other concepts might be more fruitful, such as radicalobstinacy or institutionalized irrationality."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because of the vagueness of the concept of insanity' " I said, "and its oftenimplicit reference to statistical norms. For example, an individual who believedin, say, magic, assuming that sense could be made of that concept, in a society,which believed in magic, would not normally be accounted insane. Similarly, sucha society, though it might be regarded as being deluded, would not, in alllikelihood, be regarded as insane."
"What if there were such a thing as magic?" she asked.
"That society, then, would simply be correct," I said.
"What of these people who were just here?" she asked. "Are they not insane?"
"By carefully chosen definitions, I suppose we could define them into sanity orinto insanity, depending on whether we approved of them or not, but it isdifficult to derive satisfaction from victories which are achieved by the cheapdevice of surreptitiously altering a conceptual structure."
"I think they are mad, insane," she said.
"They are at least mistaken," I said, "and, in many respects are different fromus."
She shuddered.
"The most pernicious beliefs," I said, "are not actually beliefs at all, but,better put, pseudobeliefs. The pseudobelief is not assailable by evidence orreason, even theoretically. Its security from refutation is the result of itscognitive vacuity. It cannot be refuted for, saying nothing, nothing can beproduced, even in theory, which could count against it. Such a belief is notstrong, but empty. Ultimately it is little more, if anything, than aconcatenation of words, a verbal formula. Men often fear to inquire into theirnature. They tuck them away, and then content themselves with other concerns.
Their anchors, they fear, are straw; their props, they fear, are reeds. Truth ispraised, and judiciously avoided. Is this not human cleverness. at it's mostremarkable? Who knows in what way the sword of truth will cut? Some men, itseems, would rather die for their beliefs than analyze them. I guess that itmust be a very frightening thing to inquire into one's beliefs. So few people doit. Sometimes one grows weary of blood-stainedtwaddle. Battles of formulas, you see, as nothing can count against them, aretoo often decided by wounds and iron. Some men, we have noted, are willing todie for their beliefs. Even larger numbers, it seems, are willing to kill forthem."
"It is not unknown for men to fight for false treasures," she said.
"That is true," I said.
"But, in the end," she said, "I do not think that the battles are fought for theformulas."