combined with great intellectual force and a strength of feeling which
in some directions and under certain circumstances became prejudice.
He could never, in any case, be made to run a machine. He hated the
obvious way of saying or doing a thing. He cultivated the "unexpected"
almost to a fault, and always gave a touch of originality even to the
commonplace. His pessimistic and unhopeful temperament was doubtless
due to inherent and hereditary bodily weakness, and to the lack of
muscular cultivation in his youth, which might have modified inherent
tendencies. His mental lack was form not force; and he had enough
original elemental ideas to have supplied a dozen men. In that respect
he was superior to every other journalist I have ever known--not
excepting Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond and Frederick Hudson.

But the time has gone by for ideas. It is not that they are a drug in
the market, but that there is no market for them. To-day is the
apotheosis of the commonplace, the iteration of the cries of the
street, the gabble of the sidewalk, and the gossip of the tea-table;
neither originality nor force is needed for such journalism as this,
and they may therefore well rest to the music of the pines.

One of the strongest influences in Mr. Croly's life was his
acquaintance with the Positivist movement in England, and his interest
in the works of Auguste Comte. Up to this time he had experienced none
of the undoubted benefit which accrues to every man and woman from the
possession of an ideal standard, and settled convictions which inspire
or take the place of religious aspiration. Positivism did all this for
Mr. Croly, so far as anything could, and he became one of its most
eager and devoted adherents.

Mr. T.B. Wakeman, himself one of the earliest and most able leaders,