l in use at Oxford, his triumphs would have been signal and
memorable. His success, compared with that of other leaders of the
movement, in influencing life and judgment, was a pre-eminently
intellectual success; and it cut two ways. The stress which he laid on
the moral side of questions, his own generosity, his earnestness on
behalf of fair play and good faith, elevated and purified intercourse.
But he did not always win assent in proportion to his power of argument.
Abstract reasoning, in matters with which human action is concerned, may
be too absolute to be convincing. It may not leave sufficient margin for
the play and interference of actual experience. And Mr. Ward, having
perfect confidence in his conclusions, rather liked to leave them in a
startling form, which he innocently declared to be manifest and
inevitable. And so stories of Ward's audacity and paradoxes flew all
over Oxford, shocking and perplexing grave heads with fear of they knew
not what. Dr. Jenkyns, the Master of Balliol, one of those curious
mixtures of pompous absurdity with genuine shrewdness which used to pass
across the University stage, not clever himself but an unfailing judge
of a clever man, as a jockey might be of a horse, liking Ward and proud
of him for his cleverness, was aghast at his monstrous and
unintelligible language, and driven half wild with it. Mr. Tait, a
fellow-tutor, though living on terms of hearty friendship with Ward,
prevailed on the Master after No. 90 to dismiss Ward from the office of
teaching mathematics. It seemed a petty step thus to mix up theology
with mathematics, though it was not so absurd as it looked, for Ward
brought in theology everywhere, and discussed it when his mathematics
were done. But Ward accepted it frankly and defended it. It was natural,
he said, that Tait, thinking his principles mischievous, should wish to
silence him as a teacher; and their friendship remained unbroken.

Mr. Ward's theological position was really a provisional one, though, at
starting at least, he would not have allowed it. He had no early or
traditional attachment to the English Church, such as that which acted
so strongly on the leaders of the movement: but he found himself a
member of it, and Mr. Newman had interpreted it to him. He so accepted
it, quite loyally and in earnest, as a point of departure. But he
proceeded at once to put "our Church" (as he called it) on its trial, in
comparison with its own professions, and