convinced that ridicule is the test of truth, I firmly believe that it is often an excellent instrument for confuting error; and he who wishes to see this point conclusively argued may consult the eleventh of the Provincial Letters. That shield is broad enough to cover writers who can say that they have written with Pascal's honesty, though they can make little pretensions to Pascal's genius. I am well contented to rest my defence against the charge in question on the words of a justly distinguished dignitary of the Church of England, contained in a letter to myself: 'I believe some few honest, and very many dishonest readers, feeling the arguments are unanswerable, resort to a deprecation of the alleged tone of levity with which the subject (as they say, I say, as the absurdities introduced) is treated. I have been accustomed to answer, "If you blame the laughers, how much more those who have made the doctrines of religion so utterly ridiculous."' As for certain asperities of expression which may seem to glance too strongly at individuals, and into which the haste of composition may have betrayed me, I have endeavoured, in the present republication, to cancel or soften many of them. To employ the language prefixed to the recent republication of one of the following Essays-that on Reason and Faith—‘I am more than content to efface any expression which Charity declares to be superfluous to Truth, and Truth declares may be sacrificed to Charity.' I may also say, with truth, of my antagonists in these Essays as in that, 'that they are in every case personally strangers to me, and that, as far as I know myself, I am not conscious of feeling towards them a particle of the odium theologicum. Towards themselves I have no worse wish - and I can wish nothing better for myself or for any man- than that they may seek and find the TRUTH.' I can also with a safe conscience affirm that I have uniformly endeavoured to do justice to the views of those whose opinions I have controverted; to cite them fairly; to represent their sentiments accurately; to attach no inference and to give no interpretation to their words, which in my very conscience I did not believe that they fairly warranted. Neither can I accuse myself of having spared any toil to attain a just conception of their meaning. If I have erred in these respects, I have erred involuntarily; and even for that, I would express unfeigned regret. In one word, I will be bold to say that my 'zeal,' though it may not have been always 'wise,' has been at least always 'honest.' It will perhaps be said, and certainly may be said with truth, that mankind are so much in the habit of making their opinions part of themselves, that they are apt to feel as much aggrieved when these are attacked as when themselves are vilified. It is so; but it is impossible for a conscientious controvertist to make that too diffusive sensibility the rule of his conduct. Of what he believes pernicious error, he cannot but speak as he believes of it, and must take his chance of giving displeasure to some, and perhaps to many, by so doing. But for the very same reason he will be little disposed to object that those who deem his opinions pernicious error, use a similar liberty in speaking of them; and if angry at their so doing, will be most unreasonably angry. We are justly commanded to love our neighbours as ourselves;' but not to love their 'errors' as well as we love them. The spurious charity which, with mincing speech, affects to treat all opinions with latitudinarian indulgence, and chatters its vague nonsense about their being equally innocent, is only one degree less hateful than the bigotry which converts hostility to erroneous opinions into a pretext for personal malignity, and substitutes for the tactics of honourable controversy the savage cruelties of the tomahawk and scalping knife. To justify some of the expressions applied to certain quondam leaders of the Oxford Tractarian School, it must be recollected what was the position of those gentlemen at the time I wrote. That it was an utterly false one, has been practically acknowledged by themselves. They have afforded a signal confutation of the opinions they then held, by surrendering their position in the English Church; a position, however, which they then seemed obstinately bent on defending by modes which appeared to me an insult to all Christian morality. Their ultimate adoption of the only honourable alternative is a confession that in their own estimate their position at that time was an utterly untenable one. Much as all Protestants must lament their conversion or perversion, whichever they or their opponents may choose to call it, few will refuse to admit that their present position, with such opinions as theirs, is the only consistent one. The too frequent issue of the opinions of the Oxford Tractarian School, will form a sufficient justification of the strong views I expressed respecting their tendencies, at a time when few apprehensions were entertained of such ominous results. The First Volume is occupied with far other and, to my own mere tastes, more pleasant themes. It consists principally of a series of sketches of great minds in the style, half biographical, half critical, of which so many admirable specimens have adorned the literature of the present age. Indeed, this sort of demonstrations (if I may use the expression) in mental anatomy, have been a favourite study in all ages. Unless my hand be pronounced unskilful, and my scalpel hopelessly blunt, I intend, if life and health be granted, to add to the critiques on Pascal, Luther, Leibnitz, and Plato, others on Descartes, Malebranche, Hobbes, Berkeley, and Locke. Any farther remarks which it may be necessary to make, will be more properly attached to the Essays themselves. |