is inferiors would have been competent. I do not know whether it was to
diffidence and reserve or to the gentleness which shrinks from
dispelling illusions that another peculiarity is to be attributed. On
religious matters, says his biographer, he was 'absolutely reticent';
he would discuss such topics indeed, but without ever mentioning his own
faith.

I mention this because it is relevant to his relations with my brother.
Fitzjames was always in the habit of expressing his own convictions in
the most downright and uncompromising fashion. He loved nothing better
than an argument upon first principles. His intimacy with Smith was
confirmed by many long rambles together; and for many years he made a
practice of spending a night at Smith's house at Oxford on his way to
and from the Midland Circuit. There, as he says, 'we used to sit up
talking ethics and religion till 2 or 3 A.M.' I could not however, if I
wished, throw any light upon Smith's views; Smith, he says in 1862, is a
most delightful companion when he has got over his 'reserve'; and a year
later he says that Smith is 'nearly the only man who cordially and fully
sympathises with my pet views.' What were the pet views is more than I
can precisely say. I infer, however, from a phrase or two that Smith's
conversation was probably sceptical in the proper sense; that is, that
he discussed first principles as open questions, and suggested logical
puzzles. But my brother also admits that he never came to know what was
Smith's personal position. He always talked 'in the abstract' or 'in the
historical vein,' and 'seemed to have fewer personal plans, wishes and
objects of any kind than almost any man I have ever known.'

These talks at any rate, with distinguished Oxford men, must have helped
to widen my brother's intellectual horizon. They had looked at the
problems of the day from a point of view to which the apostles seem to
have been comparatively blind. Another influence had a more obvious
result. Fitzjames had to read Stephen's commentaries and Bentham[62]
for the London scholarship. Bentham now ceased to be an object of holy
horror. My brother, in fact, became before long what he always remained,
a thorough Benthamite with certain modifications. It was less a case of
influence, however, than of 'elective affinity' of intellect. The
account of Fitzjames's experience at Cambridge recalls memories of the
earlier group who discussed utilitarianism under the leadership