, and then to pursue a series of logical deductions from
them. They are, therefore, bolder reasoners than the English, less
content to remain in the region of concrete facts, more prone to throw
themselves into the construction of a body of speculative doctrine.
The Englishman is apt to plume himself on being right in spite of
logic; the Scotchman likes to think that it is through logic he has
reached his results, and that he can by logic defend them. These are
qualities which Mr. Gladstone drew from his Scottish blood. He had a
keen enjoyment of the processes of dialectic. He loved to get hold of
an abstract principle and to derive all sorts of conclusions from it.
He was wont to begin the discussion of a question by laying down two
or three sweeping propositions covering the subject as a whole, and
would then proceed to draw from these others which he could apply to
the particular matter in hand. His well-stored memory and boundless
ingenuity made the discovery of such general propositions so easy a
task that a method in itself agreeable sometimes appeared to be
carried to excess. He frequently arrived at conclusions which the
judgment of the common-sense auditor did not approve, because,
although they seemed to have been legitimately deduced from the
general principles just enunciated, they were somehow at variance with
the plain teaching of the facts. At such moments one felt that the man
who was fascinating but perplexing Englishmen by his subtlety was not
himself an Englishman in mental quality, but had the love for
abstractions and refinements and dialectical analysis which
characterises the Scotch intellect. He had also a large measure of
that warmth and vehemence, called in the sixteenth century the
_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_, which belong to the Scottish
temperament, and particularly to the Celtic Scot. He kindled quickly,
and when kindled, he shot forth a strong and brilliant flame. To any
one with less power of self-control such intensity of emotion as he
frequently showed would have been dangerous; nor did this excitability
fail, even with him, to prompt words and acts which a cooler judgment
would have disapproved. But it gave that spontaneity which was one of
the charms of his nature; it produced that impression of profound
earnestness and of resistless force which raised him out of the rank
of ordinary statesmen. The rush of emotion swelling fast and full
seemed to turn the whole stream of intellectu