to forget that the probability of this second is at most only half
the probability of the first; the process is continued in the same
way; and when the whole superstructure is complete, the reader is
provoked to perceive how much dialectical skill has been wasted upon
a series of hypotheses which a breath of common-sense criticism
dissipates. If one is asked to explain the weakness in this
particular department of so otherwise strong a mind, the answer
would seem to be that the element of fancifulness in Mr. Gladstone's
intellect, and his tendency to mistake mere argumentation for
verification, were checked in practical politics by constant
intercourse with friends and colleagues as well as by the need of
convincing visible audiences, while in theological or historical
inquiries his ingenuity roamed with a dangerous freedom over wide
plains where no obstacles checked its course. Something may also be
due to the fact that his philosophical and historical education was
received at a time when the modern critical spirit and the canons it
recognizes had scarcely begun to assert themselves at Oxford.
Similar defects may be discerned in other eminent writers of his own
and preceding generations of Oxford men, defects which persons of
equal or even inferior power in later generations would not display.
In some of these, and particularly in Cardinal Newman, the contrast
between dialectical acumen, coupled with surpassing rhetorical
skill, and the vitiation of the argument by a want of the critical
faculty, is even more striking than in Mr. Gladstone's case; and the
example of that illustrious man suggests that the dominance of the
theological view of literary and historical problems, a dominance
evident in Mr. Gladstone, counts for something in producing the
phenomenon noted.

With these deficiencies, Mr. Gladstone's Homeric work had the great