mental states not
accompanied by exercise and growth of the mental powers; the danger of
contemplating will and neglecting work, of analysing conviction and
not criticising evidence.

Still, in spite of dangers and mistakes, the work remains full of
hopeful indications, and, in the best examples,[221] it is truly
scientific in its determination to know the very truth, to tell what
we think, not what we think we ought to think,[222] truly scientific
in its employment of hypothesis and verification, and in growing
conviction of the reality of its subject-matter through the repeated
victories of a mastery which advances, like science, in the Baconian
road of obedience. It is reasonable to hope that progress in this
respect will be more rapid and sure when religious study enlists more
men affected by scientific desire and endowed with scientific
capacity.

The class of investigating minds is a small one, possibly even smaller
than that of reflecting minds. Very few persons at any period are able
to find out anything whatever. There are few observers, few
discoverers, few who even wish to discover truth. In how many
societies the problems of philology which face every person who speaks
English are left unattempted! And if the inquiring or the successfully
inquiring class of minds is small, much smaller, of course, is the
class of those possessing the scientific aptitude in an eminent
degree. During the last age this most distinguished class was to a
very great extent absorbed in the study of phenomena, a study which
had fallen into arrears. For we stood possessed, in rudiment, of means
of observation, means for travelling and acquisition, qualifying men
for a larger knowledge than had yet been attempted. These were now to
be directed with new accuracy and ardour upon the fabric and behaviour
of the world of sense. Our debt to the great masters in physical
science who overtook and almost outstripped the task cannot be
measured; and, under the honourable leadership of Ruskin, we may all
well do penance if we have failed "in the respect due to their great
powers of thought, or in the admiration due to the far scope of their
discovery."[223] With what miraculous mental energy and divine good
fortune--as Romans said of their soldiers--did our men of curiosity
face the apparently impenetrable mysteries of nature! And how natural
it was that immense accessions of knowledge, unrelated to the
spiritual facts of life, should discr