that it
is anything surprising: Milton, again, is more conscious of his
faculty, which accordingly is an inferior one. On the other hand, what
cackling and strutting must we not often hear and see, when, in some
shape of academical prolusion, maiden speech, review article, this or
the other well-fledged goose has produced its goose-egg, of quite
measurable value, were it the pink of its whole kind; and wonders why
all mortals do not wonder!

Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor's surprise at Walter
Shandy: how, though unread in Aristotle, he could nevertheless argue;
and not knowing the name of any dialectic tool, handled them all to
perfection. Is it the skilfullest anatomist that cuts the best figure
at Sadler's Wells? Or does the boxer hit better for knowing that he
has a _flexor longus_ and a _flexor brevis_? But indeed, as in the
higher case of the Poet, so here in that of the Speaker and Inquirer,
the true force is an unconscious one. The healthy Understanding, we
should say, is not the Logical, argumentative, but the Intuitive; for
the end of Understanding is not to prove and find reasons, but to know
and believe. Of logic, and its limits, and uses and abuses, there were
much to be said and examined; one fact, however, which chiefly
concerns us here, has long been familiar: that the man of logic and
the man of insight; the Reasoner and the Discoverer, or even Knower,
are quite separable,--indeed, for most part, quite separate
characters. In practical matters, for example, has it not become
almost proverbial that the man of logic cannot prosper? This is he
whom business-people call Systematic and Theoriser and Word-monger;
his _vital_ intellectual force lies dormant or extinct, his whole
force is mechanical, conscious: of such a one it is foreseen that,
when once confronted with the infinite complexities of the real world,
his little compact theorem of the world will be found wanting; that
unless he can throw it overboard, and become a new creature, he will
necessarily founder. Nay, in mere Speculation itself, the most
ineffectual of all characters, generally speaking, is your dialectic
man-at-arms; were he armed cap-a-pie in syllogistic mail of proof, and
perfect master of logic-fence, how little does it avail him! Consider
the old Schoolmen, and their pilgrimage towards Truth: the
faithfullest endeavour, incessant unwearied motion, often great
natural vigour; only no progress: nothing but antic feats of o