It never withered, because it never shot up.

Thus when he applied his acute mind to a religious problem, he contemplated it with the coolness and impartiality of a geometer or chess player, his intellect operated _in vacuo_ so to speak, untrammelled by any bias of sentiment or early training.

He had no profound associations to tear out of his heart.

He merely altered the premisses of a syllogism.

When Catholicism was presented to him in a logical form, it met with no inward bar and repugnance.