the affections revolt, and proscribing nothing which they crave; and the will obeying the joint impulses of these two directing forces, without liability to capricious or extravagant disturbance of their direction.  Well, if the reason were perfect in information and method, and the affections faultless in their impulse, then organic unity of character would be the final consummation of all human improvement, and it would be criminal, even if it were possible, to undermine a structure of such priceless value.  But short of this there can be no value in coherency and harmonious consistency as such.  So long as error is an element in it, then for so long the whole product is vitiated.  Undeniably and most fortunately, social virtues are found side by side with speculative mistakes and the gravest intellectual imperfections.  We may apply to humanity the idea which, as Hebrew students tell us, is imputed in the Talmud to the Supreme Being. God prays, the Talmud says; and his prayer is this,—­’Be it my will that my mercy overpower my justice.’  And so with men, with or without their will, their mercifulness overpowers their logic.  And not their mercifulness only, but all their good impulses overpower their logic.  To repeat the words which I have put into the objector’s mouth, we do not always work out every vicious principle to its remotest inference.  What, however, is this but to say that in such cases character is saved, not by its coherency, but by the opposite; to say not that error is useful, but what is a very different thing, that its mischievousness is sometimes capable of being averted or minimised?

The apologist may retort that he did not mean answer to the argument from coherency of conduct.  In measuring utility you have to take into account not merely the service rendered to the objects of the present hour, but the contribution to growth, progress, and the future.  From this point of view most of the talk about unity of character is not much more than a glorifying of stagnation.  It leaves out of sight the conditions necessary for the continuance of the unending task of human improvement.  Now whatever ease may be given to an individual or a generation by social or religious error, such error at any rate can conduce nothing to further advancement That, at least, is not one of its possible utilities.

This is also one of the answers to the following plea.  ’Though the knowledge of every positive truth is an useful acquisition, this doctrine cannot without reservation he applied to negative truth.  When the only truth ascertainable is that nothing can be known, we do not, by this knowledge, gain any new fact by which to guide ourselves.’[10] But logical coherency, but a kind of practical everyday coherency, which may be open to a thousand abstract objections, yet which still secures both to the individual and to society a number of advantages that might be endangered by any disturbance of opinion or motive.  No doubt,