Ye of Little Faith

ar about this," he said to himself, drumming on his desk nervously with his fingers. "Undoubtedly there's a connection between the vanishing and my theory. Both Horace and John arrived at something I've missed. And since my theory is exhaustive it can't be there. It must be--yes--it must be that they went a step farther." He pondered this a moment and added grudgingly, "A step I have missed." Then even more grudgingly, "An obvious step."

Automatically he opened a drawer and brought out a sheet of paper and a pencil. He wrote:

The theory contains within itself the proof that the universe must, by logical necessity, be constructed according to said theory. But observation and experience say this is not true.

He frowned at what he had written. This was the conclusion to which he had led both men. It was the conclusion upon which he had rested. They, obviously, had not rested there. They had gone on.

Under what he had written he wrote "Either:" on the left ha