holastic dogma. It is hard to
admit on equal terms a partner to the old undivided rule of books and
learning. With Charles Lamb, we cry in some distress, "must knowledge
come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of intuition,
and no longer by this familiar process of reading?" ("Essays of Elia",
"New Year's Eve", page 41; Ainger's edition. London, 1899.) and we are
answered that the old process has an imperishable value, only we have
not yet made clear its connection with other contributions. And all
the work is young, liable to be drawn into unprofitable excursions,
side-tracked by self-deceit and pretence; and it fatally attracts, like
the older mysticism, the curiosity and the expository powers of those
least in sympathy with it, ready writers who, with all the air of
extended research, have been content with narrow grounds for induction.
There is a danger, besides, which accompanies even the most genuine
work of this science and must be provided against by all its serious
students. I mean the danger of unbalanced introspection both for
individuals and for societies; of a preoccupation comparable to our
modern social preoccupation with bodily health; of reflection upon
mental states not accompanied by exercise and growth of the mental
powers; the danger of contemplating will and neglecting work, of
analysing conviction and not criticising evidence.

Still, in spite of dangers and mistakes, the work remains full of
hopeful indications, and, in the best examples (Such an example is given
in Baron F. von Hugel's recently finished book, the result of thirty
years' research: "The Mystical Element of Religion, as studied in
Saint Catherine of Genoa and her Friends". London, 1908.), it is truly
scientific in its determination to know the very truth, to tell what
we think, not what we think we ought to think. (G. Tyrrell, in
"Mediaevalism", has a chapter which is full of the important MORAL
element in a scientific attitude. "The only infallible guardian of truth
is the spirit of truthfulness." "Mediaevalism" page 182, London, 1908.),
truly scientific in its employment of hypothesis and verification, and
in growing conviction of the reality of its subject-matter through the
repeated victories of a mastery which advances, like science, in the
Baconian road of obedience. It is reasonable to hope that progress in
this respect will be more rapid and sure when religious study enlists
more men affected by scientific