Tristram records the attitudes and positions of his father in getting up from the bed; attitudes are important because they are the "resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all." Walter rises and addresses his brother about the misfortunes that afflict humanity. In his simple fashion, Toby believes that God will take care of everything, but Walter points out that that is no solution: humanity carries its share of counteracting and undoing misfortune. In order to "set my child's nose on" (religion "makes every thing straight for us," Toby says), "He shall be christened Trismegistus," says Walter. Toby piously hopes that that will do the trick.
As they walk down the stairs, Walter comments on the incredible laws of chance that accounted for the forceps breaking his child's nose; Toby points out that it could have been worse: "Suppose the hip had presented" itself. Walter agrees.
Tristram tells about the chapters he has been planning to write, and he wonders how he will ever get them all done. He tells about his capriciousness, how he ends a scene when he has something else to do — just as he has now left his father and his uncle upon the stairs in order to write his chapter on Chapters.
Still on the stairs, Walter tells Toby what a great man Trismegistus was. Susannah rushes by; Walter inquires about his wife and the child, but Susannah is gone in a flash. Commenting upon the burden that women have in bearing children, Toby says "God bless them" and Walter says "Devil take them" simultaneously.
