s equally. This perfection of
knowledge sometimes extends to positive disbelief in the thing known, so
that the most thorough knower shall believe himself altogether ignorant.
No thief, for example, is such an utter thief--so _good_ a thief--as the
kleptomaniac. Until he has become a kleptomaniac, and can steal a horse
as it were by a reflex action, he is still but half a thief, with many
unthievish notions still clinging to him. Yet the kleptomaniac is
probably unaware that he can steal at all, much less that he can steal so
well. He would be shocked if he were to know the truth. So again, no
man is a great hypocrite until he has left off knowing that he is a
hypocrite. The great hypocrites of the world are almost invariably under
the impression that they are among the very few really honest people to
be found; and, as we must all have observed, it is rare to find any one
strongly under this impression without ourselves having good reason to
differ from him.

Again, it has been often and very truly said that it is not the conscious
and self-styled sceptic, as Shelley, for example, who is the true
unbeliever. Such a man as Shelley will, as indeed his life abundantly
proves, have more in common than not with the true unselfconscious
believer. Gallio again, whose indifference to religious animosities has
won him the cheapest immortality which, so far as I can remember, was
ever yet won, was probably, if the truth were known, a person of the
sincerest piety. It is the unconscious unbeliever who is the true
infidel, however greatly he would be surprised to know the truth. Mr.
Spurgeon was reported as having asked God to remove Lord Beaconsfield
from office "_as soon as possible_." There lurks a more profound
distrust of God's power in these words than in almost any open denial of
His existence.

In like manner, the most perfect humour and irony is generally quite
unconscious. Examples of both are frequently given by men whom the world
considers as deficient in humour; it is more probably true that these
persons are unconscious of their own delightful power through the very
mastery and perfection with which they hold it. There is a play, for
instance, of genuine fun in some of the more serious scientific and
theological journals which for some time past we have looked for in vain
in "---"

The following extract, from a journal which I will not advertise, may
serve as an example:

"Lycurgus, when they had ab