THE decline of dogma and assured belief was accompanied by a curious development in thought which may be described as the cult of “irrationalism.” This was less a creed than a very general attitude of mind. The scepticism of the nineteenth century, which led to strong anti-orthodox faiths, was replaced by a failure of intellectual vitality which was content to be at once sceptical and credulous. Instinct was glorified at the expense of the reason. The phrase of the Church father, which was Newman’s favourite quotation, had become a watchword even for serious minds: “Non in dialectica placuit Deo salvum facere populum suum.”*

In religion, in politics, in social science there was everywhere found a tendency to exalt emotion and to appeal to the heart rather than the head. That a scheme was logically indefensible was no bar to its acceptance, and the attempt to think out a policy to its conclusions was branded as the mark of a pedantic and illiberal mind. When creeds were thus in solution, and there were few boundaries left fixed, the way was opened to those vague and potent eruptions of the human spirit which, like the inroads of the Barbarians on the Roman Empire, make a sharp breach with the past, and destroy what they could not have created.