other course than the course dear to the Philistines; let us have a
social movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue truth and
new thought, let us call it _the liberal party_, and let us all stick to
each other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about
independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the
many. Don't let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall
invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks
well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all
in the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of
truth." In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social,
practical, pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary,
and advertisements; with the excitement of an occasional scandal, with a
little resistance to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but,
in general, plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy,
as Goethe says; to think is so hard![47] It is true that the critic has
many temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party
movement, one of these _terræ filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse to
be a _terræ filius_, when so many excellent people are; but the critic's
duty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with
Obermann: _Périssons en résistant_[48].

How serious a matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity of
experiencing when I ventured some time ago to criticize the celebrated
first volume of Bishop Colenso.[49] The echoes of the storm which was
then raised I still, from time to time, hear grumbling round me. That
storm arose out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a result
of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science and
religion are two wholly different things. The multitude will forever
confuse them; but happily that is of no great real importance, for while
the multitude imagines itself to live by its false science, it does