86 GEOKGE JOHN EOMANES 1878 



lines, and the limitations of thought produced by such 

 education are clearly seen in that essay ; ' limita- 

 tions ' which the philosophical and the metaphysical 

 tendencies of his mind soon led him to overstep. 



The reaction against the conclusions of the essay 

 set in far sooner than has been at all suspected. 

 Perhaps the first published mark of reaction is the 

 Rede Lecture 1 of 1885. 



Yet anyone who reads carefully the conclusion ol 

 the ' Candid Examination' will see the note of ' long- 

 ing and thirsting for God.' 



And forasmuch as I am far from being able to 

 agree with those who affirm that the twilight doctriue 

 of the ' new faith ' is a desirable substitute for the 

 waning splendour of ' the old,' I am not ashamed to 

 confess that with this. virtual negation of God the 

 universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness ; and 

 although from henceforth the precept to ' work while 

 it is day ' will doubtless but gain an intensified force 

 from the terribly intensified meaning of the words 

 that ' the night cometh when no man can work,' 

 yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, 

 of the appalling contrast beween the hallowed glory 

 of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely 

 mystery of existence as now I find it, at such times 

 I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest 

 pang of which my nature is susceptible. For whether 

 it be due to my intelligence not being sufficiently 

 advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or 

 whether it be due to the memory of those sacred asso- 

 ciations which to me at least were the sweetest that 

 life has given, I cannot but feel that for me, and for 

 others who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in 

 those words of Hamilton, philosophy having become 

 a meditation not merely of death but of annihilation, 



1 Now republished in a book called ' Mind and Motion.' 



