and clinging to insular associations and sympathies, which
had little interest for him.

Another person, who was at this time even more prominent in the advanced
portion of the movement party, and whose action had more decisive
influence on its course, was Mr. W.G. Ward, Fellow of Balliol. Mr. Ward,
who was first at Christ Church, had distinguished himself greatly at the
Oxford Union as a vigorous speaker, at first on the Tory side; he came
afterwards under the influence of Arthur Stanley, then fresh from Rugby,
and naturally learned to admire Dr. Arnold; but Dr. Arnold's religious
doctrines did not satisfy him; the movement, with its boldness and
originality of idea and ethical character, had laid strong hold on him,
and he passed into one of the most thoroughgoing adherents of Mr.
Newman. There was something to smile at in his person, and in some of
his ways--his unbusiness-like habits, his joyousness of manner, his racy
stories; but few more powerful intellects passed through Oxford in his
time, and he has justified his University reputation by his distinction
since, both as a Roman Catholic theologian and professor, and as a
profound metaphysical thinker, the equal antagonist on their own ground
of J. Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. But his intellect at that time
was as remarkable for its defects as for its powers. He used to divide
his friends, and thinking people in general, into those who had facts
and did not know what to do with them, and those who had in perfection
the logical faculties, but wanted the facts to reason upon. He belonged
himself to the latter class. He had, not unnaturally, boundless
confidence in his argumentative powers; they were subtle, piercing,
nimble, never at a loss, and they included a power of exposition which,
if it was not always succinct and lively, was always weighty and
impressive. Premises in his hands were not long in bringing forth their
conclusions; and if abstractions always corresponded exactly to their
concrete embodiments, and ideals were fulfilled in realities, no one
could point out more perspicuously and decisively the practical
judgments on them which reason must sanction. But that knowledge of
things and of men which mere power of reasoning will not give was not
one of his special endowments. The study of facts, often in their
complicated and perplexing reality, was not to his taste. He was apt to
accept them on what he considered adequate authority, and his
argument