MATTHEW ARNOLD'S CRITICISM 125 



commonplace, ■when used with, uncommon cleverness 

 and aptness, is always the most telling. He thinks 

 the great weakness of Christianity at the present 

 time is its reliance, or pretended reliance, upon the 

 preternatural, and the whole burden of his own effort 

 in this field is to show its basis upon common- sense, 

 upon a universal need and want of mankind. For 

 ingenious, for abstruse reasons Arnold has no taste 

 at all, either in religion, in literature, or in politics, 

 and the mass of readers will sympathize with him. 

 "At the mention of that name metaphysics," he 

 says, "lo, essence, existence, substance, finite and 

 infinite, cause and succession, something and nothing, 

 begin to weave their eternal dance before us, with 

 the confused murmur of their combinations filling 

 all the region governed by her who, far more in- 

 disputably than her late-born rival, political econ- 

 omy, has earned the title of the Dismal Science." 



The dangers of such steadiness and literary con- 

 servatism as Arnold's are the humdrum and the 

 commonplace; but he is saved from these by his 

 poetic sensibility. How homogeneous his page is, 

 like air or water! There is little color, little vari- 

 ety, but there is an interior harmony and fitness, 

 that are like good digestion or good health. Viva- 

 city of mind he is not remarkable for, but in single- 

 ness and continuity he is extraordinary. His seri- 

 ousness of purpose seldom permits him to indulge in 

 wit; humor is a more constant quality with him. 

 But never is there wit for wit's sake, nor humor for 

 humor's sake; they are entirely in the service of the 



