anic unity of character would be the final consummation of all
human improvement, and it would be criminal, even if it were possible,
to undermine a structure of such priceless value. But short of this
there can be no value in coherency and harmonious consistency as such.
So long as error is an element in it, then for so long the whole product
is vitiated. Undeniably and most fortunately, social virtues are found
side by side with speculative mistakes and the gravest intellectual
imperfections. We may apply to humanity the idea which, as Hebrew
students tell us, is imputed in the Talmud to the Supreme Being. _God
prays_, the Talmud says; and his prayer is this,--'Be it my will that my
mercy overpower my justice.' And so with men, with or without their
will, their mercifulness overpowers their logic. And not their
mercifulness only, but all their good impulses overpower their logic. To
repeat the words which I have put into the objector's mouth, we do not
always work out every vicious principle to its remotest inference. What,
however, is this but to say that in such cases character is saved, not
by its coherency, but by the opposite; to say not that error is useful,
but what is a very different thing, that its mischievousness is
sometimes capable of being averted or minimised?

The apologist may retort that he did not mean answer to the argument
from coherency of conduct. In measuring utility you have to take into
account not merely the service rendered to the objects of the present
hour, but the contribution to growth, progress, and the future. From
this point of view most of the talk about unity of character is not much
more than a glorifying of stagnation. It leaves out of sight the
conditions necessary for the continuance of the unending task of human
improvement. Now whatever ease may be given to an individual or a
generation by social or religious error, such error at any rate can
conduce nothing to further advancement That, at least, is not one of its
possible utilities.

This is also one of the answers to the following plea. 'Though the
knowledge of every positive truth is an useful acquisition, this
doctrine cannot without reservation he applied to negative truth. When
the only truth ascertainable is that nothing can be known, we do not, by
this knowledge, gain any new fact by which to guide ourselves.'[10] But
logical coherency, but a kind of practical everyday coherency, which
may be open to a thousand abstr