ines in which thought is
developing, is not of the less importance. Arnold, like others, pointed
the moral by a contrast between England and Germany. The best that has
been done in England, it is said, has generally been done by amateurs
and outsiders. They have, perhaps, certain advantages, as being less
afraid to strike into original paths, and even the originality of
ignorance is not always, though it may be in nine cases out of ten, a
name for fresh blundering. But if sporadic English writers have now and
then hit off valuable thoughts, there can be no doubt that we have had
a heavy price to pay. The comparative absence of any class, devoted,
like German professors, to a systematic and combined attempt to spread
the borders of knowledge and speculation, has been an evil which is the
more felt in proportion as specialisation of science and familiarity
with previous achievements become more important. It would be very easy
to give particular instances of our backwardness. How different would
have been the course of English church history, said somebody, if
Newman had only known German! He would have breathed a larger air, and
might have desisted--I suppose that was the meaning--from the attempt
to put life into certain dead bones. And with equal truth, it may be
urged, how much better work might have been done by J. S. Mill if he
had really read Kant! He might not have been converted, but he would
have been saved from maintaining in their crude form, doctrines which
undoubtedly require modification. Under his reign, English thought was
constantly busied with false issues, simply from ignorance of the most
effective criticism. It is needless to point out how much time is
wasted in the defence of positions that have long been turned by the
enemy from sheer want of acquaintance with the relevant evidence, or
with the logic that has been revealed by the slow thrashing out of
thorough controversy. It would be invidious perhaps to insist too much
upon another obvious result: the ease with which a man endowed with a
gift of popular rhetoric, and a facility for catching at the current
phrases, can set up as a teacher, however palpable to the initiated may
be his ignorance. Scientific thought has perhaps as much to fear from
the false prophets who take its name as from the open enemies who try
to stifle its voice. I would rather emphasise another point, perhaps
less generally remarked. The study has its idols as well as its
mar