renuous
member of parliament, the fervid minister fighting the clauses of his
bill, the disputant in cabinet, when he passed from man of action to the
topics of balanced thought, nice scrutiny, long meditation, did not
always succeed in getting his thread into the needle's eye.

As to the problems of the metaphysician, Mr. Gladstone showed little
curiosity. Nor for abstract discussion in its highest shape--for
investigation of ultimate propositions--had he any of that power of
subtle and ingenious reasoning which was often so extraordinary when he
came to deal with the concrete, the historic, and the demonstrable. A
still more singular limitation on the extent of his intellectual
curiosity was hardly noticed at this early epoch. The scientific
movement, which along with the growth of democracy and the growth of
industrialism formed the three propelling forces of a new age,--was not
yet developed in all its range. The astonishing discoveries in the realm
of natural science, and the philosophic speculations that were built
upon them, though quite close at hand, were still to come. Darwin's
_Origin of Species_, for example, was not given to the world until 1859.
Mr. Gladstone watched these things vaguely and with misgiving; instinct
must have told him that the advance of natural explanation, whether
legitimately or not, would be in some degree at the expense of the
supernatural. But from any full or serious examination of the details of
the scientific movement he stood aside, safe and steadfast within the
citadel of Tradition.

He was once asked to subscribe to a memorial of Tyndale, the translator
of the Bible,[131] and he put his refusal upon grounds that show one
source at least of his scruple about words. He replies that he has been
driven to a determination to renounce all subscriptions for the
commemoration of ancient worthies, as he finds that he cannot signify
gratitude for services rendered, without being understood to sanction
all that they have said or done, and thus becoming involved in
controversy or imputation about them. 'I am often amazed,' he goes on,
'at the construction put upon my acts and words; but experience has
shown me that they are commonly put under the microscope, and then found
to contain all manner of horrors, like the animalcules in Thames water.'
This microscope was far too valuable an instrument in the contentions of
party, ever to be put aside; and the animalcules, duly magnified to the