Then he sagged and stared at the newspaper, untroubled by notion that this might have been a demon leaving its residence inside him. Not only would he, albeit embarrassed, scoff at this medieval reality; but he could, in all reason, believe that even had he lived then, he would have scoffed. Incubae and succubae, the shriek of the mandrake root pulled from the ground which drove a man mad if he heard it, chloroform a decoy of Satan, smallpox a visitation of God: all those, and many more, he could believe that he would have believed, but would have stood forth, as he was submerged now, in Reason. It was true, there were things he did not understand, realms where Science advanced upon the provinces of God, where he felt rather uncomfortable, looking forward, secretly, to the day where Science would explain all, and vindicate the Doubt which he kept hidden in case it should not.