e to ordinary people, not to segregate it. I would rather have in
every parish a wise and kindly man with the same interests as his
neighbours, but with a good simple standard of virtuous and brotherly
living, than a man endowed with spiritual powers and influences,
upholding a standard of life that is subtle, delicate, and refined
indeed, but which is neither simple nor practical, and to which the
ordinary human being cannot conform, because it lies quite outside of
his range of thought. To my mind, the essence of the Gospel is liberty
and simplicity; but the Gospel of ecclesiasticism is neither simple nor
free.

XLI

It was a pleasant, fresh autumn day, and the philosopher was in a good
temper. He was my walking companion for that afternoon. He is always in
a good temper, for the matter of that, but his temper has different
kinds of goodness. He is always courteous and amiable; but sometimes he
has a gentle irony about him and evades all attempts to be
serious--to-day, however, he was both benevolent and expansive; and I
plunged into his vast mind like a diver leaping headlong from a
splash-board.

Let me describe my philosopher first. He is not what is called a social
philosopher, a pretentious hedonist, who talks continuously and
floridly about himself. I know one such, of whom an enthusiastic maiden
said, in a confidential moment, that he seemed to her exactly like
Goethe without any of his horrid immorality. Neither is he a technical
philosopher, a dreary, hurrying man, travel-stained by faring through
the ultimate, spectacled, cadaverous, uncertain of movement,
inarticulate of speech. No, my philosopher is a trim, well-brushed man
of the world, rather scrupulous about social conventions, as vigorous
as Mr. Greatheart, and with a tenderness for the feebler sort of
pilgrims. To-day he was blithe and yet serious; he allowed me to ask
him questions, and he explained to me technical terms. I felt like a
child dandled in the arms of a sage, allowed to blow upon his watch
till it opened, and to pull his beard. "No," he said, "I don't advise
you, at your age, to try and study philosophy. It requires rather a
peculiar kind of mind. You will have to divest words of poetical
associations and half-meanings, and arrive at a kind of mathematical
appreciation of their value. You had much better talk to me, if you
care to, and I will tell you all I can. Besides," he added, "much
modern philosophy is a criticism of me