the top of it, a ditch beyond; my horse may be
able to clear it, but the ground looks rather
slippery just here. Suppose he was to strike
that rail with his hoofs; suppose he
miscalculated his spring, and did not clear the ditch;
suppose the ground on the other side were to
prove wanting in firmness. I will go and look
at the gate. The screams in the next field are
getting fainter, by the by, and it is desirable to
decide. The gate is awfully high; it has spikes
on the top bar, and the ground is covered with
loose flints. Impossible to think of it. Suppose
I get off and crawl through the hedge, or
get over the gate; but then I should be so
much more useful on horseback. I should
intimidate the murderer; I should be able to
pursue him. Stay, now I hear no cries—all is
over—what a dreadful state of things!

When it becomes needful for us to form an
opinion on some question of importance, how
terrible in these days are the throes of indecision we
go through, as we examine every side of the
question, and as each side in turn seems to have "so
much to say for itself." What is the ordinary
course of a modern attempt to "come to a
conclusion?" Suppose—it is not too much to
suppose—a Railway accident; and we want to
find out the origin and cause of it with a view
to our future security. An inquiry is set on
foot, and a vast amount of evidence is brought
forward. But oh! the contradictory nature of
that evidence! Each witness in turn takes his
view of the matter, and, as each has generally
a separate interest of his own in the case, this is
not wonderful. Mystified and bewildered, we
turn to the columns of the Times for counsel,
and we find it. Here is a letter from an eminent
engineer, clear, lucid, evidently right, which
explains the whole thing. Thank you, Mr.
Piston, C.E., we understand it all. Do we?
In the next number of the Times is a letter
from another eminent engineer, also clear, also
lucid, also evidently right, and taking quite
another view of the matter. Every day a new
letter from a new authority contradicts all that
has gone before, until at last, when every view
of the case has been finally proved outrageous,
the discussion is given up, simply because some
other accident or offence has turned up in the
mean time, and space is wanted for the same
number of contradictions about that.

I dare say there are people who carry this
"spirit of inquiry" into their own private affairs
and act on it, or rather abstain from acting on
it, habitually.

Great crimes, the guilt or innocence of
convicted murderers, the desirableness of certain
metropolitan improvements, the existence of
will-o'-the-wisps, and many more small and great
matters, are discussed after this fashion. Every
man has his say. Every writer contradicts the
previous writer. Every man's facts are right
for a day, and are proved to be wrong as
soon as next morning's light dawns and next
morning's paper comes out. What a state we
got into about those accursed approaches to the
Great Exhibition of '62, what discussions, and
statements of opinion, what facts, what
contradictions decorated that controversy! What
did we do? Nothing; and the road was blocked
up and impassable, as was predicted. So somebody
was right, at any rate.

As to the railway-accident discussions, they
would be—if it were not for the serious issue at
stake—simply farcical. When the horrible
details of some specially dreadful disaster have
been given, comes invariably the announcement
that "a most rigid inquiry will take place as to
the cause of the accident." Such an inquiry does
take place, but what of it? Are any regulations
made to prevent the recurrence of such
accidents? Not in the least. Everything goes on
as before, and by-and-by something worse takes
place. Need such things be? Do accidents
happen to royal trains?

The great criminal enigma which most men are
now labouring to solve, is one which has elicited
as many contradictory statements as any that
has come up of late years, and has developed this
peculiar temper of the times with especial force.
Between penal servitude on the one side, and
transportation on the other, we have remained
with suspended judgment, like Garrick between
tragedy and comedy, or a certain useful
domestic animal between two bundles of hay. The
objections to both of these two ways out of the
difficulty have been so obvious, have been
represented to us so clearly, and seem so
inseparable, that we are perfectly unable to make up
our minds. I believe the reason of all this to be a
very simple one. We are getting to look for
perfection while living in an imperfect world.
We cannot make up our minds to accept a defect.
I believe that in every human work, and every
human system, there must exist, not one, but
two or three very serious defects, and I
believe that in the accepting of those defects openly
and courageously, lies the secret of attaining as
much success as is here attainable. It is better
to stand pledged to a system which has the
greatest good in it, and the greatest defects,
than to try by a succession of compromises to
hammer out an arrangement which may perhaps
have none of those marked disfigurements, but
which has no marked advantages either, and is
weak and faulty everywhere. The advantages
of a system are like the beauties of a character:
inseparable from its defects. If we for ever
looking and never leaping philosophers had the
creation of human characters, we should have
no geniuses, no men of marked virtues qualified
by serious faults. We should shrink, in making
up our man, from gifting him with noble
qualities implying the presence of dangerous
qualities too; and we should clip and prune him
into a pattern succeeding a little here, and
failing a little there, and showing himself in
no respect worth the trouble he cost.

Mucli after this timorous fashion we tried to
compose a system for treating our convicts.
Society was not to be shocked and made miserable
by violent punishments, on the one hand. On
the other, it could not bear the thought that a
fellow-creature was to be given up as a hopeless