CHARACTERISTICS. 135 



pity for the agitation to be prolonged, to the suspension of 

 other legislation. 



Dr. Carpenter's recollection of Mr. Fawcett's words 

 touched indeed the central energy of his whole thought 

 and life. To realize Schiller's description of the philo- 

 sopher, to love truth better than his system, had been his 

 constant endeavour. 



In the pursuit of truth (he wrote in a fragment found 

 among his private memoranda), the more faithfully, strictly, 

 and perseveringly we fix our attention on the goal, not allowing 

 ourselves to be distracted by the temptations of self-interest, or 

 by the timid apprehensions of those who fear the risks more 

 than they value the reward, the more shall we find ourselves 

 progressively emancipated from those unconscious prejudices 

 which cling around us as results of early misdirection and 

 erroneous habits of thought, and which are more dangerous to 

 our consistency than those against which we knowingly put 

 ourselves on our guard. And so in the path of life, if we 

 begin by turning to the right, and determinately keep straight 

 on, we find the way become more and more clear before us ; 

 the suggestions of a temporary expediency lose their force 

 when we have formed the fixed habit of trying everything by 

 the test of fundamental principles ; the temptations which 

 arise out of the lower parts of our nature lose their hold upon 

 us in proportion as we keep our attention fixed upon the 

 highest class of motives ; and the determination to act upon 

 those motives becomes more and more easy to carry out with 

 every victory it has already gained. 



Here was his whole philosophy of conduct ; it guided 

 him alike in scientific and social effort, and was the spring 

 of his untiring toil. What influences he had felt most 

 stimulating and helpful from the personalities whom he 

 had known, may be inferred from the concluding words of 

 a lecture on the " Principles of the System of Reformatory 

 and Preventive Discipline as worked out in Theory and 

 Practice by Mary Carpenter," delivered before the Sunday 



