He has always placed greater weight in that which can be quantified. It is not so much that he must hold something in his hands to believe it is real as that he would like proof that what there is something of substance in his hands before he declares it to be so.

Others do not share this opinion, and he cannot entirely dismiss their point of view out of hand (though, in his more contrary moments, he would like to). He knows, after all, that sailors could find their way from England to the farthest reaches of Russia long before anyone had penned the North Atlantic drift onto maps, that cyclones began and ended out on the ocean long before they knew the reason why (and he further knows that explaining to the average person that cyclones arise because a= -2w x v would do little to clarify the matter to this day).

He knows that there are boundaries and bonds that stand between people (jealousy, rivalry, paranoia on the one hand; friendship, love, loyalty on the other) that are not as easily described or observed as the layers of the ocean or a locked library door.

And he can accept this, for the time being. That, he decides, is the difference. He can live with the easy answers, the ones that are little more than declarations of "Because that is the way it is" or "Because I have believe that it is true," until something better comes along, and something better will always come along.

Gottfried cannot accept that there is ever a place where scrutiny and questions should end, where a line should be drawn to say that, beyond this point, faith alone must do. And that is the difference. Because Isaac drew that line long ago.