and conscientious a man.

"You are fond of attributing those fine qualities to Mordax," said
Acer, the other day, "but I have not much belief in virtues that are
always requiring to be asserted in spite of appearances against them.
True fairness and goodwill show themselves precisely where his are
conspicuously absent. I mean, in recognising claims which the rest of
the world are not likely to stand up for. It does not need much love of
truth and justice in me to say that Aldebaran is a bright star, or Isaac
Newton the greatest of discoverers; nor much kindliness in me to want my
notes to be heard above the rest in a chorus of hallelujahs to one
already crowned. It is my way to apply tests. Does the man who has the
ear of the public use his advantage tenderly towards poor fellows who
may be hindered of their due if he treats their pretensions with scorn?
That is my test of his justice and benevolence."

My answer was, that his system of moral tests might be as delusive as
what ignorant people take to be tests of intellect and learning. If the
scholar or _savant_ cannot answer their haphazard questions on the
shortest notice, their belief in his capacity is shaken. But the
better-informed have given up the Johnsonian theory of mind as a pair of
legs able to walk east or west according to choice. Intellect is no
longer taken to be a ready-made dose of ability to attain eminence (or
mediocrity) in all departments; it is even admitted that application in
one line of study or practice has often a laming effect in other
directions, and that an intellectual quality or special facility which
is a furtherance in one medium of effort is a drag in another. We have
convinced ourselves by this time that a man may be a sage in celestial
physics and a poor creature in the purchase of seed-corn, or even in
theorising about the affections; that he may be a mere fumbler in
physiology and yet show a keen insight into human motives; that he may
seem the "poor Poll" of the company in conversation and yet write with
some humorous vigour. It is not true that a man's intellectual power is
like the strength of a timber beam, to be measured by its weakest point.

Why should we any more apply that fallacious standard of what is called
consistency to a man's moral nature, and argue against the existence of
fine impulses or habits of feeling in relation to his actions
generally, because those better movements are absent in a class of cases
which