Page:The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892).djvu/47

Rh in particular, which it is very hard, even for the professional student, after years of study, to attain. All fragmentary views, meanwhile, have something of the misleading about them. Yet, on the other hand, the necessary imperfections of a partial expression of the truth never ought to discourage us from expressing all the truth that we can. The purpose of the subsequent lectures will in any case be sufficiently accomplished, if they bring you nearer to the throbbing heart of this intense modern speculative interest, so that you shall better know that warm blood flows in philosophic veins.

For the rest, I confess to you that, although I myself often take a certain personal delight in the mere subtleties of speculation, although I also enjoy at times that miserliness which makes the professional student hoard up the jewels of reflection for the sake of gloating over their mere hardness and glitter, I find always that when I come to think of the thing fairly, there is, after all, no beauty in a metaphysical system, which does not spring from its value as a record of a spiritual experience. I love the variety of the philosophers, as I love the variety of the thoughtful looks which light up earnest young faces. I love all these because they express passion, wonder, truth. But alas for me if ever I have for professional reasons to study a book behind whose technical subtleties I can catch no glimpse of the manly heart of its author. His conclusions may be sound. I shall then hate him only the more for that. Error may be dull if it chooses; but there is no artistic blasphemy equal to so placing the harp of truth as to make it sound harsh and wooden when you strike it fairly. Philosophical books I have read, with whose doctrines, as doctrines, I have even been forced in great measure to agree; and yet, so lifeless, so bloodless, were their authors, so reptilian were the cold and slowly writhing sentences in which their thought was expressed, that I have laid down such volumes with a