Like many other persons, too, whom I have known--just in proportion
to his lack of penetrative power was his tendency to occupy himself
with difficult questions. By a cruel destiny he was impelled to
dabble in matters for which he was totally unfitted. He never could
go beyond his author a single step, and he lost himself in endless
mazes. If he could but have been persuaded to content himself with
sweet presentations of wholesome happy existence, with stories and
with history, how much better it would have been for him! He had had
no proper training whatever for anything more, he was ignorant of the
exact meaning of the proper terminology of science, and an unlucky
day it was for him when he picked up on a bookstall some very early
translation of some German book on philosophy. One reason, as may be
conjectured, for his mistakes was his education in dissenting
Calvinism, a religion which is entirely metaphysical, and encourages,
unhappily, in everybody a taste for tremendous problems. So long as
Calvinism is unshaken, the mischief is often not obvious, because a
ready solution taken on trust is provided; but when doubts arise, the
evil results become apparent, and the poor helpless victim, totally
at a loss, is torn first in this direction and then in the other, and
cannot let these questions alone.
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