All Talked Out: Naturalism and the

Future of Philosophy J. D. Trout

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/all-talked-out-naturalism-and-the-future-of-philosophy
-j-d-trout/
i

ALL TALKED OU T
ii

THE ROMANELL LECTURES

The Romanell-​Phi Beta Kappa Professorship, first awarded in 1983, was estab-
lished by an endowment from Patrick and Edna Romanell. Patrick Romanell, a
Phi Beta Kappa member from Brooklyn College, was H. Y. Benedict Professor
of Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso. The Phi Beta Kappa Society
administers the Professorship, which takes the form of three lectures given
each year by a distinguished philosopher, at his or her home institution, on a
topic important to an audience beyond professional philosophers. The intent of
this series is to publish the results of those lectures in affordable and accessible
editions.

Also published in the series

What Do Philosophers Do?
Skepticism and the Practice of Philosophy
Penelope Maddy

Tragic Failures
How and Why We Are Harmed by Toxic Chemicals
Carl F. Cranor
iii

ALL TALKED OU T

Naturalism and the Future of Philosophy

J.D. Trout

1
iv

1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 978–0–19–068680–2

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
v

To Norma Brandt Reichling

for her magical presence
vi
vi

CONTENTS

Preface  xi

I. Introduction: The Shape of Evidence-​Based

Epistemology  1
1. Where We Are: An Overview  1
2. Naturalism as a Hypothesis  6
3. How Did We Get Here?  12
4. A Better Alternative: Strategic Reliabilism? 17
5. Ameliorative Psychology and Better
Reasoning  25
6. Conclusion  33

II. Good Reasoning and Evidence-​Based

Epistemology  37
1. The Limits of Reasoning  37
2. Standard Analytic Epistemology
and Professional Philosophy  41
vi

Contents

3. The Failure of Constructive Philosophy  46

4. The Department of Things I Find Really
Cool to Think About  51
5. Strategic Reliabilism: Philosophy as Coach  58
6. Conclusion  64

III. The Natural Limits of Explanation  67

1. Owning Up to Human Limitations  67
2. The Delicate Feeling of Explaining  72
3. Understanding and the “Aha!” Moment  85
4. The Romanticized View of Insight  87
5. Creepy Truths and Estrangement: Fluency,
Narrative Coherence, and Explanation  91
6. Conclusion  101

IV. Taking People as We Find Them: Philosophy

and Evidence-​Based Policy  102
1. Introduction  102
2. Do Inheritors Deserve Their Bequests?
Inheritance and the Luck Subsidy  106
3. The Science of Happiness and a Utilitarian
Argument for Redistribution  115
4. A Modest Proposal: Getting Rid of
the House Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology  123

viii
ix

Contents

5. Outside Strategies and the Dangers

of Complicated Rules: The Index
of Honesty  133
6. Conclusion  142

Notes  145
References  155
Index  163

ix
x
xi

PREFACE

The Romanell-Phi Beta Kappa Professorship has a special inter-

est in applied philosophy, to select scholars who have made a
“contribution to public understanding of philosophy.” I hope the
chapters that follow honor that charge. For me, that trust carries
both an obligation and a prohibition. The obligation is to make
approachable some current ideas in epistemology, in the philos-
ophy of science (on explanation), and in ethics and social and
political philosophy. The prohibition is on diving too deeply into
forbidding, arcane technical issues in a philosophical specializa-
tion. In order to honor this prohibition, I made judgments about
which narrowly philosophical disputes and issues could be safely
ignored, either because they have been adequately answered
even when journals have kept them alive, or because the distri-
bution of currently live topics in professional philosophy reflects
xi

P r e fa c e

undue comfort with an unpromising way of addressing intellec-

tual and practical problems. The obligation, on the other hand,
called on me to tie philosophical ideas to the topics of reasoning,
the explanatory limits and expanse of cognition, and public pol-
icy. The result, I hope, is a kind of “naturalism in action,” looking
to science for responsible ways to build out foundational (or as
some might say, “philosophical”) theories.
In professional philosophy, the naturalism of this approach
is a polarizing issue. While not making a centerpiece of the
metaphilosophical issues behind the controversies, I routinely
explain trenchant defense of First Philosophy in the same ways
that sociological or psychological scientists would—as an arti-
fact of institutional inertia, professional isolation, effort justifi-
cation, or the psychological rationalization that Upton Sinclair
ties to one’s paycheck.
There are many reasons that grim projections about the
future of philosophy are not most honestly discussed in the
orthodox organs of philosophy. If my occasional critical obser-
vations about professional philosophy seem delivered without
argument, it is often because I am not proposing to argue at
length about the intellectual credibility of professional philos-
ophy. Others have done that before me. Instead, I am impatient
to move on to positive theory-building in reasoning, explana-
tion, and public policy, using methods that are evidence-based.
My version of naturalism does not aim to debunk philoso-
phy, still less the humanities generally. My attachment to other
fields in the humanities has a long history. In addition to many
dissertation committees in philosophy, I have also served in
xii
xi

P r e fa c e

English and Theology. And though I am a philosopher of sci-

ence, I have sat most often on ethics dissertation committees.
The aim of my naturalism is similarly positive. My approach in
this book provides evidence of the power of science in philo-
sophical projects for philosophers genuinely open to it. Indeed,
in some quarters, disputes about naturalism have faded because
some strong version of the doctrine is taken for granted.
Organizations like Society for Philosophy and Psychology
(SPP) now provide a forum for philosophers interested in the
relevance of psychological work, and psychologists interested
in foundational/philosophical issues. SPP conferences teem
with graduate students and young faculty in psychology, philos-
ophy, and neuroscience, and the vibe is vital and enterprising.
But before the days of institutional and collegial support that
organizations like SPP offer, philosophers interested in psycho-
logical research had to depend on the kindness of strangers.
And, I received more than my share of that kindness.
In fact, my hope for a kind of practical naturalism in philos-
ophy comes in part from experiences I have had in psychology,
experiences that might hold out the same hope for others. For
example, when issues in my philosophy dissertation led to exper-
iments I hoped would build out psychological theories, I had
questions about the promise of various experimental avenues.
Familiar with the speech perception research of Robert Remez
and Philip Rubin, I simply contacted them to discuss some of
the more challenging theoretical issues in spoken language per-
ception. We were all going to an Acoustical Society conference
in Honolulu, and they happily offered to meet for lunch. At the
xiii
xvi

P r e fa c e

time, they didn’t know me from Adam. I was in a Philosophy

Department. They couldn’t possibly benefit by talking to a
young philosopher, I thought; they were already quite accom-
plished and respected. (Years later, Philip became President of
Haskins Labs in New Haven, CT, and then Assistant Director
for Science at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in
the Obama Administration.) With Philip, Robert Remez pio-
neered sinewave synthesis and advanced a durable and influ-
ential account of perceptual organization. Robert holds a Chair
in the Barnard/Columbia Psychology Department, and his
Speech Perception Lab at Barnard has been a training site for
more than a generation of students. But Robert has always been
interested in the deepest puzzles of psychological processing.
He graciously turned his attention to the topic in a theoretical
article we co-authored on reductionist research strategies in
speech perception.
It was my good luck to have run into such supportive and
genuine thinkers, motivated only by the joy of ideas. This is pre-
cisely the sort of kindness, patience, and intellectual curiosity I
found in exchanges with other psychologists—Roger Shepard,
Reid Hastie, Nick Epley, Adam Galinsky, Robyn Dawes, David
Pisoni—all of them very willing to talk, and all of them taking
foundational issues generally, and philosophy specifically, very
seriously.
Among Experimental Philosophers, the importance of com-
munity is not news. They have crafted a setting in which prog-
ress no longer depends on having a thick skin or being pushy.
Turf disputes will receive less focus when institutions make it
xiv
xv

P r e fa c e

even easier to collaborate (as SPP has). Institutional structures

can support those collaborative efforts. I benefited from one
such arrangement early on. When I arrived at the Sage School
of Philosophy at Cornell as a fresh, young, grad student, there
were no university-wide requirements for the PhD. That made
it much easier to pursue graduate coursework in different fields.
The philosophers I most wanted to study with—Richard Boyd,
Robert Stalnaker, and Sydney Shoemaker—all went along with
my plan to take lots of Psychology courses, in addition to the
Philosophy curriculum. The Psychology Department that year
housed as distinguished visitor Roger Shepard, the father of
work on the rotation of mental images. I took his graduate sem-
inar on mental representation, and was immediately struck by
how intently everyone listened to, and thought about, concep-
tual points that arose in class and in the readings. I encouraged
fellow philosophers to attend this class, and they found the same
thing. Those philosophy graduate students also found, to their
surprise, they were very good at organizing the concepts they
learned, and theorizing about causes in the field. (Perhaps they
should not have been surprised that, as philosophers, they were
very good at generating and evaluating the deductive conse-
quences of theoretical commitments.)
The psychology professors sitting in on the course would
hang out after class and talk, and psychology graduate students
invited us out for beer. Most striking was the respect they seemed
to have for deep, sustained, clear reflection on hard topics they
identified at the foundations of the discipline. To me, I was just
doing philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. As long
xv
xvi

P r e fa c e

as you knew enough about experimental design and statistics

so that the fluency of conversation wasn’t interrupted by uncer-
tainty about technical details, there was no limit to what you
could learn from graduate students and faculty in Psychology.
And there was no end to the appreciation they had for the con-
ceptual analysis of theoretical notions.
Frank Keil, known then for his research on conceptual
development in children, and now for a special focus on the psy-
chology of explanation, was tremendously busy. But he had a
key property as a potential committee member: He could not
say “no” to a graduate student interested in the field. So I took
his graduate course in Psycholinguistics, and another one on
Concepts and Categories. In the latter, we read Locke on con-
cepts, and on nominal essences, and he, too, ended up on my
dissertation committee.
Still other psychologists and linguists lent a hand in my
research, and their kindness, too, strained credulity. Arty Samuel
once indulged a long phone conversation with me on the inter-
pretation of Beta, a measure of response bias in psychophysics.
And though he gave no hint of it at the time, I later found out
that he was actually headed out the door for vacation. Bill Poser
(then a linguist at Stanford) had no idea why a philosophy grad-
uate student was calling him to talk about laboratory phonology,
but welcomed me into his Phonetics/Phonology lab at Stanford
to pursue an idea of my own for experiments that would later
turn into a paper in Language and Speech. And then, I had the
good fortune to work at the Parmly Hearing Institute housed
at Loyola University in Chicago. Until Loyola closed it down in
xvi
xvi

P r e fa c e

2010, Parmly was a model of basic research, and its faculty and
administration supplied me with stimulation and resources for
a more than a decade and a half. I remain indebted to Bill Yost,
Parmly’s Director, and indeed to everyone there.
Despite all of this help and enjoyment, there were many
times I found it almost too challenging to keep up in two fields,
maintaining a small lab in my office and publishing work in my
home field of philosophy. But the challenges never came from
colleagues in Psychology, whose labs and time and good will
(and often, financial support for research) were open to me
without question. Nor did they come from my well-meaning
philosophy colleagues, who always made space for ideas. By far,
it was the institutional isolation of philosophy from the sciences
that created the most important obstacles to research. I have
often wondered whether philosophers of literature or art iden-
tify the same kind of problematic institutional isolation from
departments of literature and art. At any rate, this isolation made
it chronically difficult to perform research that was at once foun-
dational and empirically well-informed. Separate departments,
separate hiring lines, separate funding sources, separate majors
and distinctive degrees. You could observe their activities from
a distance, but that organizational separation made it difficult for
idea-sharing to occur organically. And so, you establish reading
groups or research centers, in the hope that busy scholars with
disciplinary and departmental responsibilities will make yet
more room in their schedules for another activity. Even when
interdisciplinary centers provide a place for researchers from
different fields to share ideas, these centers are always struggling
xvii
xvi

P r e fa c e

against (institutionally conservative) strategies of departmental

preservation. Disciplines have their own cultural histories, and
culture is dynamic. A certain way of doing philosophy, or a pre-
occupation with a particular set of issues, shouldn’t dominate
simply because it has a long tradition and the loyalty of its adher-
ents. After all, so did lots of regrettable movements in history.
We should take this observation as an invitation to establish phi-
losophy’s intellectual and practical importance.
I have tried to honor the vision of the Romanell Award by
remaining true to its aim of intellectual public service. In keep-
ing with the public impulse of the Romanell Award, some of the
material in this book has appeared in popular venues. In particu-
lar, part of the House Science Committee discussion in Chapter
IV found its way into a Salon.com article. The public purpose of
applied philosophy has shaped this book in other ways as well.
For example, I have resisted the scholarly norm of elaborate cita-
tion. By reducing the clutter and abbreviating discussions of the
voluminous research in such areas as epistemology, I have tried
to honor the historical and contemporary lessons of that work.
I am grateful to practitioners in those fields for letting me get
on with the job of framing a view and defending it, even when
that means I cannot explore its many debts. But I have learned
the most about epistemology and naturalism from the work
of Hilary Kornblith, Stephen Stich, Paul Churchland, Philip
Kitcher, Dick Boyd, and Mike Bishop, and there are many others,
like Jonathan Weinberg and Ron Mallon, whose work I admire
and respect. And I continue to benefit from the philosophi-
cal insights of psychologists like Tania Lombrozo and Deena
xviii
xi

P r e fa c e

Skolnick Weisberg who, for sheer philosophical skill, could be

found in any top Philosophy Department. The same goes for
their more senior naturalistic colleagues, Lance Rips and Frank
Keil.
I want to thank the Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Loyola
University, then my home institution, for sponsoring
the Romanell Lectures in 2013, entitled “The Lessons of
Naturalism.” I also want to thank the audiences there, and my
colleague Robert Bucholz for the gracious introduction on that
occasion. My family attended that series of lectures, displaying
a level of attention to my career that I ordinarily discourage, but
it was much appreciated. I am lucky to have kind, bright and
accomplished friends, like Kathleen Adams, Mike Bishop, Joe
Mendola, David Reichling, and Peter Sanchez, who talk about
this material with me. Also lending a hand were Abram Capone,
Jay Carlson, Andy Kondrat, and Clinton Neptune.
J.D. Trout
Wilmette, IL

xix
x
xxi

ALL TALKED OU T
xxi
1

Chapter I

Introduction
The Shape of Evidence-​Based Epistemology

1. WHERE WE ARE: AN OVERVIEW

Many fields of human study range over a complicated terrain,

a tissue of detail and a network of gnarled causes. Yet when an
intellectual enterprise is granted life on the promise of tackling
big problems like immortality or perpetual motion, it is natural
that it should downplay the severity and frequency of the prob-
lems facing them. Sometimes the underestimation is “motivated,”
as psychologists say, in that people have the self-​serving inclina-
tion to believe the most flattering interpretation of their own
behavior, no matter what the real truth. Sometimes it is overcon-
fidence from sheer Enlightenment optimism, as when Rayleigh
announced that “our future discoveries must be looked for in
the sixth place of decimals.”1 Sometimes it is a bit of both. But
whatever the cause of its tone-​deaf treatment of symphonic ter-
rain, there is no doubt that epistemology has faced its intellectual
1
2

A l l Ta l k e d O u t

challenges with uncritical acceptance of anecdotal methods of

poorly evaluated merit and crass categories like knowledge and
justification that may have a rustic charm for the philosophical
population but win no points from scientists on that score.
Thinking is hard. So is reasoning. We shouldn’t use meth-
ods that will prevent us from appreciating the full complexity of
human thought. The naturalistic perspective developed in this
book allows us to capture and track that complexity, its unob-
servable processes, multiple causes, and neural bases—​wherever
the evidence leads us. Use the chronically poor methodology of
reliance on impressionistic, intuitive or anecdotal concepts, and
your theory and evidence are sure to be pinched (as will your
vision), reducing you to a tool of documented biases and, as a
result, terrible inaccuracy. But use science to identify the hand-
ful of causes that matter most, and you will surely outperform
human experts and naïve judges. Traditional epistemologists
have made their choice.
As practiced in the English-​speaking world, epistemology, or
the theory of knowledge, began with the Ancient Greeks in their
pre-​scientific world. Its preoccupations with knowledge and its
relation to belief, opinion, and reasons, marked an early but dig-
nified effort to discover what was special about knowledge. What
made knowledge different from mere true belief? What made it
different from opinion? Was the difference due to the way that
evidence or reasons supported the belief? There was plenty of
undisciplined discussion and earnest speculation in the agora,
no doubt, and later plenty of medieval thinkers enjoying the
patronage, or toiling in the shadows, of church authorities who
2
3

Introduction

had their own ideas about knowledge. And while the 20th cen-
tury began to see a psychology coming into its own as a scientific
enterprise, anecdote was not yet clearly inferior. So philosophy
was still in the game. Bite-​sized papers were written containing
expressions of intuition, outlandish scenarios to hone a position,
and clever counterexamples to argue against another. Young
scholars, anxious to carve out their own space in this crowded
market, wrote dissertations criticizing the theories of the day
and introducing their own unique twists to resuscitate or replace
the most recent decade’s dominant account of justification.
Their method was utterly formulaic: Present an old judgment
about a case of putative knowledge, present a counterexample it
can’t capture, and dub a new position that accommodates both.
And there begin different accounts of justification and knowl-
edge: skepticism, contextualism, evidentialism, reliabilism,
compatibilism, and various combinations, foundationalism,
coherentism, and yes, founderentism. The narrow research pro-
gram and plentiful publication in philosophy made it look just
like the kind of roll science was on, and the endless generation
and adjustment of epistemological intuitions had the superfi-
cial appearance of the healthy give-​and-​take found in the sci-
ences. Another striking feature about these papers is that they
were possible to write even if you didn’t know anything about
anything.
One major influence that shaped the professional practices
of contemporary epistemology was that in the second half of
the 20th century, universities and colleges were styling them-
selves on the scientific model of academic achievement and
3
4

A l l Ta l k e d O u t

technical competence. Papers (with a bias toward short ones)

became the gold standard for professional advancement, like
tenure, and professional recognition, like being thought well of
by other people who write the same kinds of papers. But there
was no progress in epistemology itself, whose only success con-
dition was to leave our intuitions unchanged. The papers kept
philosophers busy, and continue to do so. Taken together, the
cycle of invention and abandonment of vocabulary and prob-
lems has the superficial appearance of technical progress. But in
the hunt for pearls of wisdom, contemporary epistemologists
have scraped off the meat and kept only the shell.
In the decades that followed the vintage quotes of the
1970s, there were multiple invitations from epistemologists like
Stephen Stich and Hilary Kornblith to join with psychologists
and philosophers of science to construct better reasoning strate-
gies. Taking their lead, I wrote a book in 1998 called Measuring
the Intentional World which argued that many of the narrative tra-
ditions in the social and psychological sciences would be much
improved by attention to quantitative features of their subjects,
and in order to do this they would need to take more seriously
the growing psychological evidence of our cognitive limitations
in judgment and decision making. Kornblith proposed that phi-
losophers take a more comparative approach to epistemology,
placing humans in the context of nonhuman animal capacities.
Stich introduced a generation of young philosophers to psy-
chologists like Tversky, Nisbett, and Kahneman who labored to
bring realistic normative proposals to a species of troubled rea-
soners. In psychology, Robyn Dawes and Paul Meehl entreated
4
5

Introduction

epistemologists to adopt methods from mathematical psy-

chology, and Meehl, in addition, from methods of mathema-
tician Ronald Fisher, philosopher of science Karl Popper, and
what Meehl and others called “The Dustbowl Empiricists.” Yet
epistemology still exists in its historic form. Even the work of
Quine, an early and influential contributor to the naturalistic
tradition, was politely ignored or spuriously “refuted” by those
keen to return to the analysis of their own intuitions. And thus,
the tradition of personal intuitions, of uncalibrated “considered
judgments,” continues into the 21st century, another century of
autobiography as evidence for this one area of philosophy called
epistemology.
In the late 1990s, my friend Mike Bishop and I began spin-
ning an epistemological theory called Strategic Reliabilism. This
theory, naturalistic both in outline and detail, was designed to fit
loosely within a growing movement in cognitive research that
we conceived as Ameliorative Psychology. This project recruits
psychological findings to improve reasoning strategies. The goal
was to become an epistemically excellent reasoner, which means
learning to allocate your cognitive resources to robustly reliable
reasoning strategies and applying those cognitive resources to
problems that were significant. The critical target of our proj-
ect was clear: Standard Analytic Epistemology. We paid special
attention to its reliance on appeals to intuition, a practice that
ignores the unreliable cognitive sources of “intuition,” and in
any case persistently skirts normal scientific standards. It is for
this reason, among others, that many philosophers, especially
philosophers of science, find Analytic Epistemology profoundly
5
6

A l l Ta l k e d O u t

antinaturalistic. To establish that this romance with intuition

dominated the field, we called out frequent, and often promi-
nent, contributors to contemporary epistemology. We pulled
quotes from the standard publications by representative and
influential philosophers who announced that their intuitions
drive opponents to untenable conclusions, or provide evi-
dence for their own: Dretske, Pappas, Swain, Foley, Armstrong,
Lehrer, and Paxon. Intuitions were not the only resource that
these philosophers used, but intuitions were the main sources of
evidence in these passages. They still are:

Hence, we couldn’t explain our intuition that Carl lacks

knowledge by saying that he violates a safety-​requirement.2

In other words, I think the intuition that impermissibil-

ity applies in the realm of belief is stronger than the “ought
implies can” rule.3

We could have picked many other expressions of intuitions as

evidence. A dozen years later, the slim pickins are still easy.

2. NATURALISM AS A HYPOTHESIS

The version of naturalism that I will defend is nothing special or

fancy. It will be familiar to anyone who has followed the disputes
since Quine’s pronouncements in its favor. Naturalism is not the
official doctrine of science in the way that Snickers is the offi-
cial candy bar of the Olympics. Rather, Naturalism is a working
6
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Fred is not a doctor yet."

"Then we may keep him till he is a doctor. Is that what you

mean?"

"If you wish it. Of course, we would pay all his fees, or
whatever expenses there are; but we could not bear to
think that you, who have been so good to him—the truth is,
Lucy, we have talked this over several times, and we cannot
get further than this: he must stay in England to finish his
studies."

"That will be another year. When that year is over, Alick will
not be sorry to leave Edgestone. I will speak to him, and I
hope he will go out with Fred and settle in Gattigo."

"But you?" Janet said softly.

"I shall be at rest, my dear. It cannot last another year. Fred

has made all the brightness poor Alick has had in his life
since our boy died and my long illness began. It is only right
that Fred should go out to you, but it would be hard on Alick
to be left alone. I shall be happy about him now."

"I am sure of one thing—Dr. Wentworth will be Fred's first

thought," said Janet, earnestly. "And I am glad to know
your wishes. My husband cannot be absent from Gattigo
much longer, but this makes it possible to arrange matters."

"Tell me, Janet—I know you wrote to that dreadful woman,

Mr. Rayburn's stepmother—have you had an answer?"

"No; but I hope she will write. Poor, unhappy woman!"

"I hardly think she will. She must feel like a murderer."
"She never intended to drive the children to such an act—
they were so young that they did not understand. I think I
hear them at the door. Yes, here they all come, my poor Lily
looking so happy! The cousins at the Ferry Farm will be
jealous."

After this, it was an understood thing that Fred was to live

with the Wentworths until he had completed his medical
studies. His father and mother were obliged to return to
Canada, and the time they had fixed on drew near.

"Fred," said Janet to her husband, "I want you to leave

Edgestone one day before we need go to Liverpool, for—I
want to go to Hemsborough."

"Why, Janet?"

"I want to see Mrs. Rayburn. She has not answered my

letter, but I am sure she is very unhappy—though, indeed, I
tried to be gentle with her. Do you remember, in that first
letter—the one that told us that she had seen our boy—she
seemed to long sore to be forgiven?"

"Janet—how can we forgive her? You ask too much—I'm

only a man."

"Have we no need of forgiveness? And remember 'forgive

us, as we forgive.' Oh, dear Fred, you would not make that
prayer mean 'do not forgive, for I will not'?"

There was no resisting that argument. In a few days,

farewell was said to the Wentworths, and also to the little
grave, where now a marble cross bore Francis Rayburn's
true and full name, and after the date and notice of his age,
the words "Love is strong as death." Fred went with them,
intending to see them off, and then go to London to
continue his studies.
They went to Hemsborough, and walked from the railway
station to the Thompsons' house. They knocked and
inquired if Mrs. Rayburn were at home. The servant said—

"Mrs. Rayburn is not at all well. She keeps her room, and
sees nobody, ma'am."

"Please ask if she will see me," said Janet. "I am her
daughter-in-law."

The girl ran upstairs, and in a minute or so a lady came

down to speak to them. Janet recognized her as one of the
Thompson nieces of whom Mrs. Rayburn used to talk so
much.

"Mrs. Rayburn, my aunt is too ill to see any one but you,"
she began; "Mr. Rayburn must excuse her. Indeed, I have
had great work to persuade her to see you; she is in such a
state of nerves. She is very ill, and has been worse ever
since she had a letter from you."

Anna Thompson was looking curiously at the two young

people all this time. Janet turned to her husband.

"Will you go back to the station, Fred, or will you wait

here?"

"Come in and wait in the parlour. My mother is there," said

Miss Thompson. So they went to the parlour, while she took
Janet upstairs.

"My aunt is a very secret woman," she said. "We know she
has something on her mind, but she never talks of it. This is
her room."

She led Janet in, and, going over to the window, took up
some work that lay there, and sat down.
Mrs. Rayburn lay watching Janet with a strange gleam in
her eyes, but she did not speak. Janet went up to the bed.

"Don't you know me, Mrs. Rayburn?"

"I know you. Is Anna there? Anna, go away—I must see

Janet alone. Don't be angry, Anna—you're very kind, but I
must see Janet alone."

"Oh, certainly," said Miss Thompson, tossing her head. "I

just thought you might be faint, you know; but I'm sure I
don't want to stay."

And she left the room with her nose in the air.

"Janet, you are changed. You have a sad face now. You
never can forgive me?"

"I do forgive you, Mrs. Rayburn. I am sure you have

suffered dreadfully, and been very sorry—and we forgive
you, as we hope to be forgiven."

"Fred—Fred forgives me?"

"Yes; he is here—will you see him? Will you see my boy, and
Lily?"

"No, no. Ah! They may forgive, but I can never forgive
myself. I dare not even pray to be forgiven. Why, Janet, I
murdered your Frank just as surely as I thought all these
years that I might have murdered both. Oh, when I saw
Fred, and felt sure that it was Fred, I never doubted but
what Frank was safe too! My heart got so light, I began to
feel like myself again. Then came your letter, and though
you wrote kindly, every word pierced me through. I don't
know but that I am worse, now I know for certain that
Frank is dead, than I was when I could sometimes hope
that both had escaped."

"Mrs. Rayburn, I have but a little time to stay with you, for
our passages are taken, and we must get on to Liverpool
to-day. But do listen to me, and don't be angry with me for
speaking plainly. Whether one or both of my boys lived or
died makes no difference at all in your share in the
children's flight. You never meant to harm them, I know.
You would not willingly have injured them. So, though they
had perished in the Kelmer, or died in any way, you are no
murderer. Your nerves are shaken, and you think the whole
over and over till you cannot really see it. What you really
have to repent of is, you promised to be kind to the boys,
and you were not. They were used to kindness, and were
more frightened, I suppose, than other children might have
been."

"Janet, I cannot take any comfort till I have told you just
what happened. No one else can tell you."

She sat up and began what proved to be a long story, but

Janet listened patiently, even to the first part, which
concerned her life at the old Gatehouse. When she came to
the story of the children, their mother had no need of
patience. She listened with quiet tears to the history of
Frank's constant care for the little one, and the occurrences
of the last day at Kelmersdale quite accounted for the
children's flight.

"And now, Janet, can you say again that I did not murder
Frank?"

Janet dried her eyes, and, looking gently at the poor

woman, she said—
"I can. You did not intend to injure them in any way. For
what you did, that made them unhappy and drove them
away from you, we forgive you with all our hearts. Mrs.
Rayburn, I must go; but promise me one thing. I am sure
there must be some clergyman here in whom you could
have confidence. Send for him, be as candid with him as
you have been with me; and though we shall hardly meet
again on earth, we shall meet at the right hand of the Judge
—both of us forgiven sinners, for His sake."

"I will—I promise you. Oh, Janet! How good you are to me!
Since you can forgive me, surely I may hope."

"He who taught us to forgive will not be unforgiving."

Janet bent and kissed her, and then went quickly to the
door, for she felt that her stay was longer than had been
intended. As she opened the door, she saw Miss Anna in full
flight down the passage, and could not help suspecting that
she had been listening.

It was not nice of Miss Anna to listen at the door, yet,

strange to say, what she thus heard made a great change in
her.

"There must be some truth in this talk about religion," she

thought. "I expected poor Janet would shake her in the bed,
and instead she forgave her, and seemed quite anxious
about her, and spoke so kindly."

And thus the leaven was hid in the meal, and gradually the
whole was leavened.

The Rayburns had lost the train by which they had meant to
go on to Liverpool, but they were in time for the boat in
which their passage was taken. The parting with Fred was a
trial, but it was, they hoped, only for a time.
And, now that Janet has found both her boys, we may bid
her farewell.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BECCLES.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANET'S BOYS
***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in
these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it
in the United States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of
this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept
and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and
may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the
terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of
the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as
creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.
Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given
away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with
eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject
to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree
to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from
the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in
paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a
few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.
See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in
the United States and you are located in the United States, we do
not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing,
performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the
work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely
sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name
associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of
this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its
attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without
charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms
of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™
work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or
with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is
accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived

from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the
United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must
comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of
this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a
part of this work or any other work associated with Project
Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you
provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work
in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in
the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that
s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
 copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and
discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project
Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™

electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe
and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating
the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may
be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to,
incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a
copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except

for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph
1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner
of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party
distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this
agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and
expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO
REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF
WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE
FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it,
you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must
return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity
that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a
replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may
demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted
by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the
Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability,
costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur:
(a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b)
alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project
Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of

Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.
It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and
donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a
secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help,
see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can
be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the
widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small
donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax
exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and
keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in
locations where we have not received written confirmation of
compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of
compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where

we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no
prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in
such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of
other ways including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project

Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed

editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how
to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.