And here let me answer in advance one question that would undoubtedly be put to me by every one of my readers, Do I believe in fairweather sailing alone? in hugging the shore, and never daring to put to sea? Do I expect that each craft should be so stanch as to defy every wave and every blast of danger? I do neither. It is not the zephyr that calls into being the sturdiness of the oak, nor the mere heat of the sun that separates from the dross its fine gold. It is the burning that causes a child to dread the fire, and the philosophy that learns these things tentatively, and not from chance, is not of necessity sheer wickedness. I am no apologist for vice. A habit of evil doing is one thing, and a slip, or even a momentary plunge into the mire, is a very different thing. The last, by its very taste of earth, may engender a longing, else unknown, for heaven. For myself I have little faith in passive goodness; that is, in us men. Those who have never been exposed to temptation, from staying quietly at home or through accident alone, are the soonest to yield if the tempter comes. Having never tested their strength, they find it but weakness. As with eagles reared in a cage, there is no power of wing. It is the fall to the ground from the eyry, and the often disappointment when too fully self-relying, that gives the force of pinion to soar to the highest ether, face to face with nought but the sun. That I may be rightly understood upon this very threshold of our inquiry, let me quote a few lines from one of the most thoughtful, most chaste, and most accepted writers of the present day, the late Rev. Mr. Robertson, of England. “The first use,” he says, “a man makes of every power and talent given to him is a bad use. The first time a man ever uses a flail, it is to the injury of his own head and of those who stand around him. The first time a child has a sharp-edged tool in his hand, he cuts his fingers. But this is no reason why he should not be ever taught to use a knife. The first use a man makes of his affections is to sensualize his spirit. Yet he cannot be ennobled except through those very affections. The first time a kingdom is put in possession of liberty, the result is anarchy. The first time a man is put in possession of intellectual knowledge, he is conscious of the approaches of sceptical feeling. But that is no proof that liberty is bad, or that instruction should not be given. It is a law of our humanity that man must know both good and evil; he must know good _through_ evil. There never was a principle but what triumphed through much evil; no man ever progressed to greatness and goodness but through great mistakes.”[8]