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objective existence of beings which so readily explain them-
selves as abstractions, and whose personality demands
a quasi-materialism which it baffles the imagination to
realise. They keep their opinions, however, greatly to them-
selves, inasmuch as most of their countrymen feel strongly
about the gods, and they hold it wrong to give pain, unless
for some greater good than seems likely to arise from their
plain speaking.
On the other hand, surely those whose own minds are
clear about any given matter (even though it be only that
there is little certainty) should go so far towards imparting
that clearness to others, as to say openly what they think
and why they think it, whenever they can properly do so; for
they may be sure that they owe their own clearness almost
entirely to the fact that others have done this by them: after
all, they may be mistaken, and if so, it is for their own and
the general well-being that they should let their error be
seen as distinctly as possible, so that it may be more easily
refuted. I own, therefore, that on this one point I disap-
proved of the practice even of the highest Ydgrunites, and
objected to it all the more because I knew that I should find
my own future task more easy if the high Ydgrunites had
already undermined the belief which is supposed to prevail
at present.
In other respects they were more like the best class of
Englishmen than any whom I have seen in other countries.
I should have liked to have persuaded half-a-dozen of them
to come over to England and go upon the stage, for they
had most of them a keen sense of humour and a taste for

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