48 Luck, or Cunning ? 
merely on the ground that he could not escape contradic- 
tion in terms: who can? When facts conflict, con- 
tradict one another, melt into one another as the colours 
of the spectrum so insensibly that none can say where one 
begins and the other ends, contradictions in terms become 
first fruits of thought and speech. They are the basis of 
intellectual consciousness, in the same way that a physical 
obstacle is the basis of physical sensation. No opposition, 
no sensation, applies as much to the psychical as to the 
physical kingdom, as soon as these two have got well 
above the horizon of our thoughts and can be seen as 
two. No contradiction, no consciousness; no cross, no 
crown ; contradictions are the very small deadlocks with- 
out which there is no going; going is our sense of a 
succession of small impediments or deadlocks; it is a 
succession of cutting Gordian knots, which on a small 
scale please or pain as the case may be; on a larger, give 
an ecstasy of pleasure, or shock to the extreme of endur- 
ance; and on a still larger, kill whether they be on the 
right side or the wrong. Nature, as I said in “ Life and 
Habit,” hates that any principle should breed herma- 
phroditically, but will give to each an helpmeet for it 
which shall cross it and be the undoing of it; and in the 
undoing, do ; and in the doing, undo, and so ad infinitum. 
Cross-fertilisation is just as necessary for continued fer- 
tility of ideas as for that of organic life, and the attempt to 
frown this or that down merely on the ground that it 
involves contradiction in terms, without at the same time 
showing that the contradiction is on a larger scale than 
healthy thought can stomach, argues either small sense or 
small sincerity on the part of those who make it. The 
contradictions employed by Mr. Spencer are objectionable, 
not on the ground of their being contradictions at all, 
but on the ground of their being blinked, and used 
unintelligently. 
But though it is not possible for any one to get a clear 
