disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and
somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old
gentleman waggles his head and says: "Ah, so I thought when I
was your age." It is not thought an answer at all, if the
young man retorts: "My venerable sir, so I shall most probably
think when I am yours." And yet the one is as good as the
other: pass for pass, tit for tat, a Roland for an Oliver.

"Opinion in good men," says Milton, "is but knowledge in
the making." All opinions, properly so called, are stages on
the road to truth. It does not follow that a man will travel
any further; but if he has really considered the world and
drawn a conclusion, he has travelled as far. This does not
apply to formulae got by rote, which are stages on the road to
nowhere but second childhood and the grave. To have a
catchword in your mouth is not the same thing as to hold an
opinion; still less is it the same thing as to have made one
for yourself. There are too many of these catchwords in the
world for people to rap out upon you like an oath and by way
of an argument. They have a currency as intellectual
counters; and many respectable persons pay their way with
nothing else. They seem to stand for vague bodies of theory
in the background. The imputed virtue of folios full of
knockdown arguments is supposed to reside in them, just as
some of the majesty of the British Empire dwells in the
constable's truncheon. They are used in pure superstition, as
old clodhoppers spoil Latin by way of an exorcism. And yet
they are vastly serviceable for checking unprofitable
discussion and stopping the mouths of babes and sucklings.
And when a young man comes to a certain stage of intellectual