186 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK <». 



forced men of sober judgment to abandon many 

 of the traditions in which they had been reared. 

 And such abandonment is never without its pain 

 and struggle. Often it is accompanied with a 

 violent inclination towards the opposite extreme 

 of thought to that from which they have been 

 evicted. But the majority of men are not of 

 very sober judgment, and of them the traditions 

 have a sustained grip. All those thus gripped 

 fell fiercely on the new doctrines and on their 

 authors, and, as we have seen, Sir John was a 

 foremost champion in the ranks of those who 

 supported the new learning. 



Nevertheless we find him, when at home on 

 the Sundays, sedulously attending the services 

 at the village church. More than that, I have 

 been told by one who has the best of all oppor- 

 tunities of knowing, that on no single morning 

 of his life until death was closing upon him did 

 he omit to read a chapter of the Bible before 

 commencing the long day's work. It is to be 

 remembered, as noticed above, that this was a 

 moment when the swing of the pendulum of 

 thought was liable to be very violent. It was 

 the day of the materialists, who believed that 

 all the problems which the human mind suggests 

 to itself were to be solved in terms of matter. 

 Miracles were defined as " things that do not 

 happen," the universe, it was said, had been 

 proved " so full of atoms that there was no room 

 for spirits." 



In the midst of that extreme materialism we 

 find Sir John, though many of his best friends 

 were among the extremists, surprisingly moderate 



