definite technical thing--but you will observe that all the discipline here is defensive, and not coercive. I don't want you to take any shape or mould: I want you just to learn to do things in your own way. I don't ever want you to interfere with each other's minds too much. I don't want to interfere with your minds myself, except in so far as to help you to get rid of sloppiness and prejudices. Here, I mustn't go on--it's becoming like a prospectus! but it comes to this, that I believe in the trained mind, and not in the moulded mind; and I think that the moment discipline ceases to train strength, and begins to mould weakness, it's a thoroughly bad thing. No one can be artificially protected from life without losing life--and life is what I am out for." LXVII OF INCREASE I did not hear the argument, but I heard Vincent say to Father Payne: "Of course I couldn't do that--it would have been so inconsistent." "Oh! consistency's a very cheap affair," said Father Payne; "it is mostly a blend of vanity and slow intelligence." "But one must stick to _something_," said Vincent. "There's nothing so tiresome as never knowing how a man is going to behave." "Of course," said Father Payne, "inconsistency isn't a virtue--it is generally the product of a quick and confused intelligence. But consistency ought not to be a principle of thought or action--you ought not to do or think a thing simply because you have thought it before--that is mere laziness! What one wants is a consistent sort of progress--you ought not to stay still." "But you must have principles," said Vincent. "Yes, but you must expect to change them," said Father Payne. "Principles are only deductions after all: and to remain consistent as a rule only means that you have ceased to do anything with your experience, or else it means that you have taken your principles second-hand. They ought to be living things, yielding fruits of increase. I don't mean that you should be at the mercy of a persuasive speaker, or of the last book you have read--but, on the other hand, to meet an interesting man or to read a suggestive book ought to modify your views a little. You ought to be elastic. The only thing that is never quite the same is opinion; and to be holding a ten years' old opinion simply means that you are stranded. There's nothing worse than to be high and dry." "But isn't it worse still," said Vincent, "to see so many sides to a question that you can't take a definite part?"