138 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



This mutual recognition of one another s services 

 implies more than the consciousness of a common aim, 

 for we may be compelled to regard efforts made from a 

 false starting-point and by an unfitting method as only 

 prejudicial to the aim they are meant to further. The 

 best intentions do not constitute a man a fellow-worker 

 unless we see some fruit of his work which we can recog 

 nise as valuable. It is true that unity of aim may form 

 a basis for mutual respect, and therefore in a sense for 

 friendly discussion in spite of fundamental differences 

 as to the way in which the aim is sought. But in this 

 case the friendliness is personal and the discussion in 

 itself is still polemical ; for the object of the discussion 

 is not mutual instruction by a dialectical process, but 

 the destruction of the whole position of the one or of the 

 other disputant. The friendliness in fact is merely 

 personal, the discussion itself is of the nature of 

 war. 



But from a Society like ours hostile discussion must 

 be excluded. The opposition of opinions must be dia 

 lectical, not polemical ; that is, we must recognise that 

 different views are maintained not from opposing interests, 

 but only because unequal stress is laid by various speakers 

 on different parts of those determining principles which 

 all admit to have real weight. 



And so it will be found that the subjects discussed 

 by us have always been more or less of a concrete nature, 

 and so soon as an abstract and ultimate difference of 

 principles appears in the course of a discussion we all 

 feel that the progress of the debate is cut short at that 

 point. The debate is profitable only so long as each 

 side feels that the other is bringing out in a clearer light 

 some point which is really weighty, which really is a 

 moment in the solution of the question, although perhaps 

 in this case pushed too far. And the advantage to be 

 reaped from such debate is far less change of opinion on 

 concrete points of detail than a clearer grasp of the 



