ve; they loosen the tongue, they fill the thoughts with
sensuous images, they harmonize one with the world of sight. We hear
of the 'rich graciousness and courtesy' of Coleridge's manner, of the
white and delicate skin, the abundant black hair, the full, almost
animal lips, that whole physiognomy of the dreamer already touched
with fanaticism. One says of the text of one of his Unitarian sermons,
'his voice rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes'; another,
'he talks like an angel, and does--nothing.'

Meantime, he had designed an intellectual novelty in the shape of a
religious philosophy. Socinian theology and the philosophy of Hartley
had become distasteful. 'Whatever is against right reason, that no
faith can oblige us to believe.' Coleridge quotes these words from
Jeremy Taylor. And yet ever since the dawn of the Renaissance, had
subsisted a conflict between reason and faith. From the first, indeed,
the Christian religion had affirmed the existence of such a conflict,
and had even based its plea upon its own weakness in it. In face of
the classical culture, with its deep wide-struck roots in the world as
it permanently exists, St. Paul asserted the claims of that which
could not appeal with success to any genuinely human principle.
Paradox as it was, that was the strength of the new spirit; for how
much is there at all times in humanity which cannot appeal with
success for encouragement or tolerance to any genuinely human
principle. In the Middle Ages it might seem that faith had reconciled
itself to philosophy; the Catholic church was the leader of the
world's life as well as of the spirit's. Looking closer we see that
the conflict is still latent there; the supremacy of faith is only a
part of the worship of sorrow and weakness which marks the age. The
weak are no longer merely a majority, they are all Europe. It is not
that faith has become one with reason; but a strange winter, a strange
suspension of life, has passed over the classical culture which is
only the human reason in its most trenchant form. Glimpse after
glimpse, as that pagan culture awoke to life, the conflict was felt
once more. It is at the court of Frederick II that the Renaissance
first becomes discernible as an actual power in European society. How
definite and unmistakable is the attitude of faith towards that! Ever
since the Reformation all phases of theology had been imperfect
philosophies--that is, in which there was a religious _ar