sm is
repugnant to her, and he does not give prominence enough to please her to
those positivist influences in which she so strongly believed. Her
dissatisfaction with his idealism appears in her very first words.

There is a valuable class of books on great subjects which have
something of the character and functions of good popular lecturing.
They are not original, not subtle, not of close logical texture, not
exquisite either in thought or style; but by virtue of these negatives
they are all the more fit to act on the average intelligence. They have
enough of organizing purpose in them to make their facts illustrative,
and to leave a distinct result in the mind even when most of the facts
are forgotten; and they have enough of vagueness and vacillation in
their theory to win them ready acceptance from a mixed audience. The
vagueness and vacillation are not devices of timidity; they are the
honest result of the writer's own mental character, which adapts him to
be the instructor and the favorite of "the general reader." For the
most part, the general reader of the present day does not exactly know
what distance he goes; he only knows that he does not go "too far." Of
any remarkable thinker, whose writings have excited controversy, he
likes to have it said "that his errors are to be deplored." leaving it
not too certain what those errors are; he is fond of what may be called
disembodied opinions, that float in vapory phrases above all systems of
thought or action; he likes an undefined Christianity which opposes
itself to nothing in particular, an undefined education of the people,
an undefined amelioration of all things: in fact, he likes sound
views--nothing extreme, but something between the excesses of the past
and the excesses of the present. This modern type of the general reader
may be known in conversation by the cordiality with which he assents to
indistinct, blurred statements. Say that black is black, he will shake
his head and hardly think it; say that black is not so very black, he
will reply, "Exactly." He has no hesitation, if you wish it, even to
get up at a public meeting and express his conviction that at times,
and within certain limits, the radii of a circle have a tendency to be
equal; but, on the other hand, he would urge that the spirit of
geometry may be carried a little too