Do what one may, and no matter how scientific one may be, one cannot attain absolute truth. The question is rather, how do people like to have their error? than, will they go without any error at all? All truth and no error cannot be given by the scientist more than by the artist; each has to sacrifice truth in one way or another; and even if perfect truth could be given, it is doubtful whether it would not resolve itself into unconsciousness pure and simple, consciousness being, as it were, the clash of small conflicting perceptions, without which there is neither intelligence nor recollection possible. It is not, then, what a man has said, nor what he has put down with actual paint upon his canvass, which speaks to us with living language—_it is what he has thought to us_ (as is so well put in the letter quoted on page 83), by which our opinion should be guided;—what has he made us feel that he had it in him, and wished to do? If he has said or painted enough to make us feel that he meant and felt as we should wish him to have done, he has done the utmost that man can hope to do. I feel sure that no additional amount of technical accuracy would make me more likely to succeed, in this respect, if I have otherwise failed; and as this is the only success about which I greatly care, I have left my scientific inaccuracies uncorrected, even when aware of them. At the same time, I should say that I have taken all possible pains as regards anything which I thought could materially affect the argument one way or another. It may be said that I have fallen between two stools, and that the subject is one which, in my hands, has shown neither artistic nor scientific value. This would be serious. To fall between two stools, and to be hanged for a lamb, are the two crimes which— “Nor gods, nor men, nor any schools allow.” Of the latter, I go in but little danger; about the former, I shall know better when the public have enlightened me.