is a remarkable description of man as a social being. Again, the cultus of 'culture,' to which he gave the vogue, was in his hands something precise. Civilisation is a big thing to analyse or to talk about, yet we felt, when he was talking about it, that it was something real and definite that he was discussing, and not the vague abstractions of the sophist.
This power of analysis showed itself in the series of theological studies beginning with Literature and Dogma. As regards his own solution of the religious problem, if solution it can be called, little need here be said. His very formula, purposely vague and indefinite as it was, is its own condemnation. But it has not been sufficiently recognised how the introduction of his literary tone, his many-sidedness, and the gentle irony with which he treated all extremes helped to prevent an explosion of theological or anti-theological polemics. Mr. Morley has recently been confessing that the tone of the Fortnightly was needlessly aggressive. But for Matthew Arnold's intervention the struggle would have been à outrance. He brought into it the spirit of an 'honest broker,' and had effect with both parties, because each felt that he was in sympathy with its best self.
Yes, that is even so with the Philistines and the Nonconformists. Amid all his wit—or
