THE MSS. OF “THE SEVEN LAMPS” 281

arrangement of evidence only to be obtained by research in many branches of physical science as well as of art, and the care especially necessary in the statement of views liable to no ordinary share of opposition, render such delay altogether unavoidable.”

INTRODUCTION

Next we may notice the preliminary draft of the Introduction to the work, referred to on p. 19 n.:-

“It is properly a subject of ridicule, and sometimes of blame, when men propose to themselves the attainment of a perfection, in any kind, which experience or reason, had either been temperately consulted, would have shown to be impossible under the conditions of their action, or with the means at their disposal. But it is a more dangerous, because a less ridiculous error, to permit the consideration of human means, or even of natural limitations, to interfere with the abstract conception, or hinder the reverent acknowledgment of goodness and perfection in themselves. Nor can any enterprise be wisely conducted, nor any object in the highest degree of its capabilities attained, unless the understanding of the nature and nobility of the end precede, and be kept distinct from, all consideration of the means and materials thereunto: so that doubtfulness of the one may not cause indistinctness of the other. For the fewer and feebler these means may be, the more necessary it is that they should be used with discretion, and precision, and energy, which can only be when the perfectness of the thing to be reached is absolutely proposed, and when the entire admirableness and difficulty of what is to be done are comprehended. I find, however, that in their discussions of operations in which the powers of man are the instruments, most writers, desiring to show their wisdom by an accurate, and their humility by a modest estimate of their instruments, and thus encumbering themselves with considerations of facts which no single experience can be long enough, nor any human experience authoritative enough, absolutely to arrange or to value, have lost sight of those general and simple principles of right and of desirableness, to which a man’s sense and conscience, aided by Revelation, are in all subjects faithful guides, and which, if set fairly enough and often enough in their simplicity before the eyes and the thoughts of men, would at all events give true direction to their powers-unknown as well as known-rendering therefore their success surer and higher; yet teaching humility better by their absolute unattainableness than the ignoble calculation which sets before the sight nothing but what the hand can reach, and contemplates rather the decrepitude of the limb than the reward of the journey.

“To regulate the aims, is a nobler work than to order or husband the powers, of men, and a work which must be done the first; accepting always as a certain truth, that when approach to an object is impossible there is crime in desire, and when approach is possible,

[Version 0.04: March 2008]