2. The second manifestation of the philosophical habit of mind was the tendency to speculate, that is, to draw inferences from definitions, to weave the inferences into systems, and to test assertions by their logical consistency or inconsistency with those systems. The earliest Christians had but little conception of a system. The inconsistency of one apparently true statement with another did not vex their souls. Their beliefs reflected the variety of the world and of men’s thoughts about the world. It was one of the secrets of the first great successes of Christianity. There were different and apparently irreconcilable elements in it. It appealed to men of various mould. It furnished a basis for the construction of strangely diverse edifices. But the result of the ascendency of philosophy was, that in the fourth and fifth centuries the majority of churches insisted not only upon a unity of belief in the fundamental facts of Christianity, but also upon a uniformity of speculations in regard to those facts. The premises of those speculations were assumed; the conclusions logically followed: the propositions which were contrary or contradictory to them were measured, not by the greater or less probability of the premises, but by the logical certainty of the conclusions; and symmetry became a test of truth. 3. The new habit of mind manifested itself not less in the importance which came to be attached to it. The holding of approved opinions was elevated to a position at first co-ordinate with, and at last superior to, trust in God and the effort to live a holy life. There had been indeed from the first an element of knowledge in the conception of the means of salvation. The knowledge of the facts of the life of Jesus Christ necessarily precedes faith in him. But under the touch of Greek philosophy, knowledge had become speculation: whatever obligation attached to faith in its original sense was conceived to attach to it in its new sense: the new form of knowledge was held to be not less necessary than the old. * * * * *