Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/88

These three classes, in ordinary times, hate each other with very sufficient cordiality. There is a fourth class—honest cautious men who have picked up their notions of Logic from the study of what is called "Natural Science," and who imagine that no Law can be truly known unless it be generalized from a large number of instances. The Algebraizer is a mark for the sneers of all four classes. To the conventional he seems to be defying Law, because he ignores rules made in ignorance of the the true Law. To the self-styled Free-thinkers he seems to be attacking freedom, because he asserts that there is a Law which cannot be broken, and which will avenge attempts to ignore it. To Idealists he seems to be extinguishing Light, because their fancy-lamps fade when he dazzles them by opening the shutters and revealing the Sun. And the so-called "scientific" despise him as rash, because he illustrates his meaning by reference to only one or two instances, which (as matters of historical fact) may be of doubtful authenticity. He can never do right. If he speaks, he is arrogant, in that he professes to know more than other men; if he keeps silence, he is contemptuous and proud. He longs to give freely that wonder of joy which has been freely given to him. He longs to give freely, but Humanity will not have his gift; yet it reproaches him for hardness, in that he takes no trouble to slake its thirst for the living Truth. If he be of philosophic temperament, he retires into his study, and confides to his wife, or perhaps to some favourite dog or cat, refined satires about the absurd inconsistency of mankind. But if he be tender-hearted, his heart breaks, and he dies in despair. O! Jerusalem, that stonest the Prophets!