Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain exposed to frequent misunderstandings, and nowhere so much as in this country.  For here people are particularly indisposed even to comprehend that without this free disinterested treatment of things, truth and the highest culture are out of the question.  So immersed are they in practical life, so accustomed to take all their notions from this life and its processes, that they are apt to think that truth and culture themselves can be reached by the processes of this life, and that it is an impertinent singularity to think of reaching them in any other.  “We are all terrae filii,"[45] cries their eloquent advocate; “all Philistines[46] together.  Away with the notion of proceeding by any other course than the course dear to the Philistines; let us have a social movement, let us organize and combine a party to pursue truth and new thought, let us call it the liberal party, and let us all stick to each other, and back each other up.  Let us have no nonsense about independent criticism, and intellectual delicacy, and the few and the many.  Don’t let us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall invent the whole thing for ourselves as we go along.  If one of us speaks well, applaud him; if one of us speaks ill, applaud him too; we are all in the same movement, we are all liberals, we are all in pursuit of truth.”  In this way the pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical, pleasurable affair, almost requiring a chairman, a secretary, and advertisements; with the excitement of an occasional scandal, with a little resistance to give the happy sense of difficulty overcome; but, in general, plenty of bustle and very little thought.  To act is so easy, as Goethe says; to think is so hard![47] It is true that the critic has many temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one of these terrae filii; it seems ungracious to refuse to be a terrae filius, when so many excellent people are; but the critic’s duty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with Obermann:  Perissons en resistant[48].

How serious a matter it is to try and resist, I had ample opportunity of experiencing when I ventured some time ago to criticize the celebrated first volume of Bishop Colenso.[49] The echoes of the storm which was then raised I still, from time to time, hear grumbling round me.  That storm arose out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable.  It is a result of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science and religion are two wholly different things.  The multitude will forever confuse them; but happily that is of no great real importance, for while the multitude imagines itself to live by its false science, it does really live by its true religion.  Dr. Colenso, however, in his first volume did all he could to strengthen the confusion,[50] and to make it dangerous.  He did this with the best intentions, I freely admit,