ize and combine a party to pursue
truth and new thought, let us call it _the liberal party_, and let us all
stick to each other, and back each other up. Let us have no nonsense about
independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the
many. Don't let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall
invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us speaks
well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all in
the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of truth."
In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical,
pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, and
advertisements; with the excitement of a little resistance, an occasional
scandal, to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, in general,
plenty of bustle and very little thought. To act is so easy, as Goethe
says; to think is so hard! It is true that the critic has many
temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one
of these _terrae filii_; it seems ungracious to refuse to be a _terrae
filius_, when so many excellent people are; but the critic's duty is to
refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with Obermann:
_Perissons en resistant_.

* * * * *

What then is the duty of criticism here? To take the practical point of
view, to applaud the liberal movement and all its works ... for their
general utility's sake? By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied
with these works, while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect
ideal.

In criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never can be popular,
and in this country they have been very little followed, and one meets
with immense obstacles in following them. That is a reason for asserting
them again and again. Criticism must maintain its independence of the
practical spirit and its aims. Even with well-meant efforts of the
practical spirit, it must express dissatisfaction, if in the sphere of the
ideal they seem impoverishing and limiting. It must not hurry on to the
goal because of its practical importance. It must be patient, and know how
to wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things and how to
withdraw from them. It must be apt to study and praise elements that for
the fulness of spiritual perfection are wanted, even though they belong to
a power that in the practical sphere may be maleficent.