metaphysical faith which concerned his heart and conscience.  His native prejudices were almost as strong, and much the same, as those of his wife; but with the vagueness of emotional logic natural to his constitution, he satisfied himself that, by conceding a few inessential points, he left himself at liberty to follow the scientific movements of the day without damage to his religious convictions.  The tolerant smile so frequently on his countenance was directed as often in the one quarter as in the other.  Now it signified a gentle reproof of those men of science who, like Professor Walsh, ‘went too far’, whose zeal for knowledge led them ’to forget the source of all true enlightenment’; now it expressed a forbearing sympathy with such as erred in the opposite direction, who were ’too literal in their interpretation of the sacred volume’.  Amiable as the smile was, it betrayed weakness, and at moments Martin became unpleasantly conscious of indisposition to examine his own mind on certain points.  His life, indeed, was one of debate postponed.  As the realm of science extended, as his intercourse with men who frankly avowed their ‘infidelity’ grew more frequent, he ever and again said to himself that, one of these days, he must sit down and ‘have it out’ in a solemn self-searching.  But for the most part he got on very well amid his inconsistencies.  Religious faith has rarely any connection with reasoning.  Martin believed because he believed, and avoided the impact of disagreeable arguments because he wished to do so.

The bent of his mind was anything but polemical; he cared not to spend time even over those authors whose attacks on the outposts of science, or whose elaborate reconcilements of old and new, might have afforded him some support.  On the other hand, he altogether lacked that breadth of intellect which seeks to comprehend all the results of speculation, to discern their tendency, to derive from them a consistent theory of the nature of things.  Though a man be well versed in a science such as palaeontology it does not follow that he will view it in its philosophical relations.  Martin had kept himself informed of all the facts appertaining to his study which the age brought forth, but without developing the new modes of mental life requisite for the recognition of all that such facts involved.  The theories of evolution he did not venture openly to resist, but his acceptance of them was so half-hearted that practically he made no use of their teaching.  He was no man of science, but an idler among the wonders which science uses for her own purposes.

He regarded with surprise and anxiety the tendencies early manifested in his son Buckland.  Could he have had his way the lad would have grown up with an impossible combination of qualities, blending the enthusiasm of modern research with a spirit of expansive teleology.  Whilst Buckland was still of boyish years, the father treated with bantering good-humour such outbreaks of irreverence as came immediately under his notice, weakly abstaining from any attempt at direct argument or influence.  But, at a later time, there took place serious and painful discussions, and only when the young man had rubbed off his edges in the world’s highways could Martin forget that stage of most unwelcome conflict.