CHARACTERISTICS. 137 



even when he headed an assault upon what seemed to him 

 injurious error, or absolute folly, or defended on his own 

 side some cherished position, he sought to distinguish 

 between the opinions which he condemned and the per- 

 sons who held them, for whom he even sometimes came 

 to feel an unexpected tenderness. In his pursuit of truth 

 there were no reserves ; honesty of purpose was stamped 

 upon all he wrote. Thoroughness marked all his perform- 

 ance, whether in scientific investigation, in the discharge 

 of official duty, or the administration of private or public 

 trusts ; he could be content with nothing but his best, 

 and he could endure no slovenliness in others born of 

 weakness or indolence. This very thoroughness made 

 him often slow in forming opinions, till all available evi- 

 dence should be before him ; and though his convictions 

 when once formed were exceedingly tenacious, he strove 

 earnestly to guard himself against allowing them to be- 

 come mere prejudices, and he was not betrayed into 

 quitting the attitude of the teacher, with its open outlook 

 towards all possibilities, for that of the partisan. Hence in 

 his treatment of religious questions he could reason with- 

 out dogmatism. There was in his mind what one of his 

 friends described as an " abiding and apparently inde- 

 " structible instinct of reverence ;" but it was united with 

 perfect intellectual freedom. This quality commanded the 

 sympathy of many who had become more or less detached 

 from the traditional forms of belief ; they read what he 

 wrote on the deeper issues of faith " without the kind of 

 "mental protest which is elicited both by orthodox denun- 

 "ciations of scientific agnosticism, and not less so by the 

 "pert and aggressive attitude of many modern agnostics." 

 At the same time there was nothing visionary about 

 Dr. Carpenter's modes of thought. Of the two great seers 

 with whom he was acquainted, he probably derived from 



