f his syllogism. The minor will then be,
'I possess or do not possess them'; and the conclusion will follow, 'I
ought to be a clergyman or a lawyer.' Although it is easy to see that
the 'major' is really constructed with a view to its applicability to
his own character, he does not explicitly give any opinions about
himself. He digested the results of the general discussions into
thirteen questions which are not stated, though it is clear that they
must have amounted to asking, Have I the desirable aptitudes? He has,
however, elaborately recorded his answers, 'Yes' or 'No,' and noted the
precise time and place of answering and the length of time devoted to
considering each. He began the inquiry on June 16, 1850. On September 23
he proceeds to answer the questions which he, acting (as he notes) as
judge, had left to himself as jury. Questions 1 and 2 can be answered
'immediately'; but No. 3 takes two hours. The 8th, 9th, and 10th were
considered together, and are estimated to have taken an hour and a half,
between 7 and 11.30 P.M.; though, as he was in an omnibus for part of
the time and there fell asleep, this must be conjectural. The 13th
question could not be answered at all; but was luckily not important. He
had answered the 11th and 12th during a railway journey to Paris on
October 2, and had thereupon made up his mind.

One peculiarity of this performance is the cramped and tortuous mode of
expressing himself. His thoughts are entangled, and are oddly crossed
by phrases clearly showing the influence of Maurice and Coleridge, and,
above all, of his father. 'Maurice's books,' he notes in 1865, 'did
their utmost to make me squint intellectually about this time, but I
never learnt the trick.' A very different writer of whom he read a good
deal at college was Baxter, introduced to him, I guess, by one of his
father's essays. 'What a little prig I was when I made all these
antitheses!' he says in 1865. 'I learnt it of my daddy' is the comment
of 1880. 'Was any other human being,' he asks in 1880, 'ever constructed
with such a clumsy, elaborate set of principles, setting his feelings
going as if they were clockwork?' This is the comment upon a passage
where he has twisted his thoughts into a cumbrous and perfectly needless
syllogism. He makes a similar comment on another passage in 1865, but 'I
think,' he says in 1880, 'that I was a heavy old man thirty years ago.
Fifteen years ago I was at the height of my strength. I am