purely to the understanding as an insulated faculty; or do so primarily.
Let me call them by the general name of ESSAYS. These, as in other
cases of the same kind, must have their value measured by two separate
questions. A. What is the problem, and of what rank in dignity or in
use, which the essay undertakes? And next, that point being settled,
B. What is the success obtained? and (as a separate question) what is
the executive ability displayed in the solution of the problem? This
latter question is naturally no question for myself, as the answer
would involve a verdict upon my own merit. But, generally, there will
be quite enough in the answer to question A for establishing the value
of any essay on its soundest basis. _Prudens interrogatio est dimidium
scientiae._ Skilfully to frame your question, is half way towards
insuring the true answer. Two or three of the problems treated in these
essays I will here rehearse.

1. ESSENISM--The essay on this, where mentioned at all in print, has
been mentioned as dealing with a question of pure speculative curiosity:
so little suspicion is abroad of that real question which lies below.
Essenism means simply this--Christianity before Christ, and consequently
without Christ. If, therefore, Essenism could make good its pretensions,
there at one blow would be an end of Christianity, which in that case
is not only superseded as an idle repetition of a religious system
already published, but also as a criminal plagiarism. Nor can the wit
of man evade that conclusion. But even _that_ is not the worst. When
we contemplate the total orb of Christianity, we see it divide into
two hemispheres: first, an ethical system, differing _centrally_ from
any previously made known to man; secondly, a mysterious and divine
machinery for reconciling man to God; a teaching to be taught, but
also a work to be worked. Now, the first we find again in the ethics
of the counterfeit Essenes--which ought not to surprise us at all;