Arnold 'agreed with Carlyle that the Liberals greatly overrate Bentham, and the political economists generally; the _summum bonum_ of their science is not identical with human life ... and the economical good is often, from the neglect of other points, a social evil.' Newman held that to allow the right of private judgment was to enter upon the path of scepticism; and the latest infidel device, he says, is to leave theology alone. He set up the argument, well-worn but always impressive, that science gives no certainty; and Mr. Stephen contends against it with the weapons of empiricism:-- 'The scientific doctrines must lay down the base to which all other truth, so far as it is discoverable, must conform. The essential feature of contemporary thought was just this: that science was passing from purely physical questions to historical, ethical, and social problems. The dogmatist objects to private judgment or free thought on the ground that, as it gives no criterion, it cannot lead to certainty. His real danger was precisely that it leads irresistibly to certainty. The scientific method shows how such certainty as is possible must be obtained. The man of science advocates free inquiry precisely because it is the way to truth, and the only way, though a way which leads through many errors.' Mr. Stephen is himself a large-minded Utilitarian. He will have nothing to do with a transcendental basis of morals; and the dogmatist who dislikes cross-examination is out of his court. Dogmatic authority, he says, stands only on its own assertions; and if you may not reason upon them, the inference is that on those points reason is against them. You may withdraw beyond this range by sublimating religion into a philosophy, but then it loses touch with terrestrial affairs, and has a very feeble control over the unruly affections of sinful men. Newman himself resorted to scientific methods in his theory of Development, that is, of the growth and evolution of doctrine. We may agree that these destructive arguments have much logical force, yet on the other hand such certitude as empiricism can provide brings little consolation to the multitude, who require some imperative command; they look for a pillar of cloud or fire to go before them day and night, and a land of promise in the distance. Scientific exposition works slowly for the improvement of ethics, which to the average mind are rather weakened than strengthened by loosening their foundations; and religious beliefs suffer from a similar constitutional delicacy. Conduct is not much fortified by being treated as a function of character and circumstance; for in religion and morals ordinary humanity demands something impervious to reasoning, wherein lies the advantage of the intuitionist.