should never think fit to publish them.  For one thing, as we shall see in our next division, the conditions which make against frank declaration of our convictions are of rare occurrence.  And, apart from this, convictions may well exert a most decisive influence over our conduct, even if reasons exist, or seem to exist, for not pressing them on others.  Though themselves invisible to the outer world, they may yet operate with magnetic force both upon other parts of our belief which the outer world does see, and upon the whole of our dealings with it.  Whether we are good or bad, it is only a broken and incoherent fragment of our whole personality that even those who are intimate with us, much less the common world, can ever come into contact with.  The important thing is that the personality itself should be as little as possible broken, incoherent, and fragmentary; that reasoned and consistent opinions should back a firm will, and independent convictions inspire the intellectual self-respect and strenuous self-possession which the clamour of majorities and the silent yet ever-pressing force of the status quo are equally powerless to shake.

Character is doubtless of far more importance than mere intellectual opinion.  We only too often see highly rationalised convictions in persons of weak purpose or low motives.  But while fully recognising this, and the sort of possible reality which lies at the root of such a phrase as ‘godless intellect’ or ’intellectual devils’—­though the phrase has no reality when it is used by self-seeking politicians or prelates—­yet it is well to remember the very obvious truth that opinions are at least an extremely important part of character.  As it is sometimes put, what we think has a prodigiously close connection with what we are.  The consciousness of having reflected seriously and conclusively on important questions, whether social or spiritual, augments dignity while it does not lessen humility.  In this sense, taking thought can and does add a cubit to our stature.  Opinions which we may not feel bound or even permitted to press on other people, are not the less forces for being latent.  They shape ideals, and it is ideals that inspire conduct.  They do this, though from afar, and though he who possesses them may not presume to take the world into his confidence.  Finally, unless a man follows out ideas to their full conclusion without fear what the conclusion may be, whether he thinks it expedient to make his thought and its goal fully known or not, it is impossible that he should acquire a commanding grasp of principles.  And a commanding grasp of principles, whether they are public or not, is at the very root of coherency of character.  It raises mediocrity near to a level with the highest talents, if those talents are in company with a disposition that allows the little prudences of the hour incessantly to obscure the persistent laws of things.  These persistencies, if a man has once satisfied himself of their direction and mastered their bearings and application, are just as cogent and valuable a guide to conduct, whether he publishes them ad urbem et orbem, or esteems them too strong meat for people who have, through indurated use and wont, lost the courage of facing unexpected truths.