Part I
Mr.
Kingsley's Method of Disputation
I
cannot be sorry to have forced Mr. Kingsley to bring out in fulness
his charges against me. It is far better that he should discharge
his
thoughts upon me in my lifetime, than after I am dead. Under the
circumstances I am happy in having the opportunity of reading the
worst that can be said of me by a writer who has taken pains with
his
work and is well satisfied with it. I account it a gain to be
surveyed from without by one who hates the principles which are
nearest to my heart, has no personal knowledge of me to set right
his
misconceptions of my doctrine, and who has some motive or other to
be
as severe with me as he can possibly be.
And
first of all, I beg to compliment him on the motto in his
title-page;
it is felicitous. A motto should contain, as in a nutshell, the
contents, or the character, or the drift, or the
animus
of the
writing to which it is prefixed. The words which he has taken from
me
are so apposite as to be almost prophetical. There cannot be a
better
illustration than he thereby affords of the aphorism which I
intended
them to convey. I said that it is not more than an hyperbolical
expression to say that in certain cases a lie is the nearest
approach
to truth. Mr. Kingsley's pamphlet is emphatically one of such cases
as are contemplated in that proposition. I really believe, that his
view of me is about as near an approach to the truth about my
writings and doings, as he is capable of taking. He has done his
worst towards me; but he has also done his best. So far well; but,
while I impute to him no malice, I unfeignedly think, on the other
hand, that, in his invective against me, he as faithfully fulfils
the
other half of the proposition also.
This
is not a mere sharp retort upon Mr. Kingsley, as will be seen, when
I
come to consider directly the subject to which the words of his
motto
relate. I have enlarged on that subject in various passages of my
publications; I have said that minds in different states and
circumstances cannot understand one another, and that in all cases
they must be instructed according to their capacity, and, if not
taught step by step, they learn only so much the less; that
children
do not apprehend the thoughts of grown people, nor savages the
instincts of civilization, nor blind men the perceptions of sight,
nor pagans the doctrines of Christianity, nor men the experiences
of
Angels. In the same way, there are people of matter-of-fact,
prosaic
minds, who cannot take in the fancies of poets; and others of
shallow, inaccurate minds, who cannot take in the ideas of
philosophical inquirers. In a lecture of mine I have illustrated
this
phenomenon by the supposed instance of a foreigner, who, after
reading a commentary on the principles of English Law, does not get
nearer to a real apprehension of them than to be led to accuse
Englishmen of considering that the queen is impeccable and
infallible, and that the Parliament is omnipotent. Mr. Kingsley has
read me from beginning to end in the fashion in which the
hypothetical Russian read Blackstone; not, I repeat, from malice,
but
because of his intellectual build. He appears to be so constituted
as
to have no notion of what goes on in minds very different from his
own, and moreover to be stone-blind to his ignorance. A modest man
or
a philosopher would have scrupled to treat with scorn and scoffing,
as Mr. Kingsley does in my own instance, principles and
convictions,
even if he did not acquiesce in them himself, which had been held
so
widely and for so long—the beliefs and devotions and customs which
have been the religious life of millions upon millions of
Christians
for nearly twenty centuries—for this in fact is the task on which
he is spending his pains. Had he been a man of large or cautious
mind, he would not have taken it for granted that cultivation must
lead every one to see things precisely as he sees them himself. But
the narrow-minded are the more prejudiced by very reason of their
narrowness. The apostle bids us "in malice be children, but in
understanding be men." I am glad to recognise in Mr. Kingsley an
illustration of the first half of this precept; but I should not be
honest, if I ascribed to him any sort of fulfilment of the
second.
I
wish I could speak as favourably either of his drift or of his
method
of arguing, as I can of his convictions. As to his drift, I think
its
ultimate point is an attack upon the Catholic Religion. It is I
indeed, whom he is immediately insulting—still, he views me only as
a representative, and on the whole a fair one, of a class or caste
of
men, to whom, conscious as I am of my own integrity, I ascribe an
excellence superior to mine. He desires to impress upon the public
mind the conviction that I am a crafty, scheming man, simply
untrustworthy; that, in becoming a Catholic, I have just found my
right place; that I do but justify and am properly interpreted by
the
common English notion of Roman casuists and confessors; that I was
secretly a Catholic when I was openly professing to be a clergyman
of
the Established Church; that so far from bringing, by means of my
conversion, when at length it openly took place, any strength to
the
Catholic cause, I am really a burden to it—an additional evidence
of the fact, that to be a pure, german, genuine Catholic, a man
must
be either a knave or a fool.
These
last words bring me to Mr. Kingsley's method of disputation, which
I
must criticise with much severity;—in his drift he does but follow
the ordinary beat of controversy, but in his mode of arguing he is
actually dishonest.
He
says that I am either a knave or a fool, and (as we shall see by
and
by) he is not quite sure which, probably both. He tells his readers
that on one occasion he said that he had fears I should "end in
one or other of two misfortunes." "He would either,"
he continues, "destroy his own sense of honesty,
i.e.
conscious
truthfulness—and become a dishonest person; or he would destroy his
common sense,
i.e.
unconscious truthfulness, and become the slave and puppet seemingly
of his own logic, really of his own fancy.... I thought for years
past that he had become the former; I now see that he has become
the
latter." (p. 20). Again, "When I read these outrages upon
common sense, what wonder if I said to myself, 'This man cannot
believe what he is saying?'" (p. 26). Such has been Mr.
Kingsley's state of mind till lately, but now he considers that I
am
possessed with a spirit of "almost boundless silliness," of
"simple credulity, the child of scepticism," of "absurdity"
(p. 41), of a "self-deception which has become a sort of frantic
honesty" (p. 26). And as to his fundamental reason for this
change, he tells us, he really does not know what it is (p. 44).
However, let the reason be what it will, its upshot is intelligible
enough. He is enabled at once, by this professed change of judgment
about me, to put forward one of these alternatives, yet to keep the
other in reserve;—and this he actually does. He need not commit
himself to a definite accusation against me, such as requires
definite proof and admits of definite refutation; for he has two
strings to his bow;—when he is thrown off his balance on the one
leg, he can recover himself by the use of the other. If I
demonstrate
that I am not a knave, he may exclaim, "Oh, but you are a fool!"
and when I demonstrate that I am not a fool, he may turn round and
retort, "Well, then, you are a knave." I have no objection
to reply to his arguments in behalf of either alternative, but I
should have been better pleased to have been allowed to take them
one
at a time.
But
I have not yet done full justice to the method of disputation,
which
Mr. Kingsley thinks it right to adopt. Observe this first:—He means
by a man who is "silly" not a man who is to be pitied, but
a man who is to be
abhorred
. He means
a man who is not simply weak and incapable, but a moral leper; a
man
who, if not a knave, has everything bad about him except knavery;
nay, rather, has together with every other worst vice, a spice of
knavery to boot.
His
simpleton is one who has become such, in judgment for his having
once
been a knave.
His
simpleton is not a born fool, but a self-made idiot, one who has
drugged and abused himself into a shameless depravity; one, who,
without any misgiving or remorse, is guilty of drivelling
superstition, of reckless violation of sacred things, of fanatical
excesses, of passionate inanities, of unmanly audacious tyranny
over
the weak, meriting the wrath of fathers and brothers. This is that
milder judgment, which he seems to pride himself upon as so much
charity; and, as he expresses it, he "does not know" why.
This is what he really meant in his letter to me of January 14,
when
he withdrew his charge of my being dishonest. He said, "The
tone
of your
letters, even more than their language, makes me feel,
to my very deep pleasure
,"—what?
that you have gambled away your reason, that you are an
intellectual
sot, that you are a fool in a frenzy. And in his pamphlet, he gives
us this explanation why he did not say this to my face, viz. that
he
had been told that I was "in weak health," and was "averse
to controversy," (pp. 6 and 8). He "felt some regret for
having disturbed me."
But
I pass on from these multiform imputations, and confine myself to
this one consideration, viz. that he has made any fresh imputation
upon me at all. He gave up the charge of knavery; well and good:
but
where was the logical necessity of his bringing another? I am
sitting
at home without a thought of Mr. Kingsley; he wantonly breaks in
upon
me with the charge that I had "
informed
"
the world "that Truth for its own sake
need not
and on the
whole
ought not to
be
a virtue with
the Roman clergy." When challenged on the point he cannot bring
a fragment of evidence in proof of his assertion, and he is
convicted
of false witness by the voice of the world. Well, I should have
thought that he had now nothing whatever more to do. "Vain man!"
he seems to make answer, "what simplicity in you to think so! If
you have not broken one commandment, let us see whether we cannot
convict you of the breach of another. If you are not a swindler or
forger, you are guilty of arson or burglary. By hook or by crook
you
shall not escape. Are
you
to suffer or
I
? What does it
matter to you who are going off the stage, to receive a slight
additional daub upon a character so deeply stained already? But
think
of me, the immaculate lover of Truth, so observant (as I have told
you p. 8) of '
hault
courage
and strict
honour,'—and (
aside
)—'and
not as this publican'—do you think I can let you go scot free
instead of myself? No;
noblesse oblige
. Go
to the shades, old man, and boast that Achilles sent you
thither."
But
I have not even yet done with Mr. Kingsley's method of disputation.
Observe secondly:—when a man is said to be a knave or a fool, it is
commonly meant that he is
either
the one
or
the other; and
that,—either in the sense that the hypothesis of his being a fool
is too absurd to be entertained; or, again, as a sort of
contemptuous
acquittal of one, who after all has not wit enough to be wicked.
But
this is not at all what Mr. Kingsley proposes to himself in the
antithesis which he suggests to his readers. Though he speaks of me
as an utter dotard and fanatic, yet all along, from the beginning
of
his pamphlet to the end, he insinuates, he proves from my writings,
and at length in his last pages he openly pronounces, that after
all
he was right at first, in thinking me a conscious liar and
deceiver.
Now
I wish to dwell on this point. It cannot be doubted, I say, that,
in
spite of his professing to consider me as a dotard and driveller,
on
the ground of his having given up the notion of my being a knave,
yet
it is the very staple of his pamphlet that a knave after all I must
be. By insinuation, or by implication, or by question, or by irony,
or by sneer, or by parable, he enforces again and again a
conclusion
which he does not categorically enunciate.
For
instance (1) P. 14. "I know that men
used to suspect Dr. Newman
,
I have been inclined to do so myself, of writing a whole sermon ...
for the sake of one single passing hint, one phrase, one epithet,
one
little barbed arrow which ... he delivered unheeded, as with his
finger tip, to the very heart of an initiated hearer,
never to be withdrawn again
."
(2)
P. 15. "How
was
I to know that the preacher, who had the reputation of being the
most
acute
man of his
generation, and of having a specially intimate acquaintance with
the
weaknesses of the human heart, was utterly blind to the broad
meaning
and the plain practical result of a sermon like this, delivered
before fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung upon his every
word? That he did not
foresee
that they
would think that they obeyed him,
by becoming affected, artificial, sly, shifty, ready for
concealments
and equivocations
?"
(3)
P. 17. "No one
would have
suspected him to be a dishonest man, if he had not perversely
chosen
to assume a style
which (as he himself confesses) the world always associates with
dishonesty."
(4)
Pp. 29, 30. "
If
he will indulge in subtle paradoxes, in rhetorical exaggerations;
if,
whenever he touches on the question of truth and honesty
,
he will take a perverse pleasure in saying something shocking to
plain English notions, he
must take the consequences of his own eccentricities
."
(5)
P. 34. "At which most of my readers will be inclined to cry:
'Let Dr. Newman alone, after that.... He had a human reason once,
no
doubt: but he has gambled it away.' ... True: so true, etc."
(6)
P. 34. He continues: "I should never have written these pages,
save because it was my duty to show the world, if not Dr. Newman,
how
the mistake (!) of his
not caring
for
truth
arose
."
(7)
P. 37. "And this is the man, who when accused of countenancing
falsehood, puts on first a tone of
plaintive
(!) and
startled innocence, and then one of smug self-satisfaction—as who
should ask, 'What have I said? What have I done? Why am I on my
trial?'"
(8)
P. 40. "What Dr. Newman teaches is clear at last, and
I see now how deeply I have wronged him
.
So far from thinking truth for its own sake to be no virtue,
he considers it a virtue so lofty as to be unattainable by man
."
(9)
P. 43. "There is no use in wasting words on this 'economical'
statement of Dr. Newman's. I shall only say that there are people
in
the world whom it is very difficult to
help
. As soon as
they are got out of one scrape, they walk straight into
another."
(10)
P. 43. "Dr. Newman has shown 'wisdom' enough of that
serpentine
type
which is his professed ideal.... Yes, Dr. Newman is a very
economical
person."
(11)
P. 44. "Dr. Newman
tries
, by
cunning sleight-of-hand logic
,
to prove that I did not believe the accusation when I made
it."
(12)
P. 45. "These are hard words. If Dr. Newman shall complain of
them, I can only remind him of the fate which befel the stork
caught
among the cranes,
even though
the
stork had
not
done all he could to make himself like a crane,
as Dr. Newman has
,
by 'economising' on the very title-page of his pamphlet."
These
last words bring us to another and far worse instance of these
slanderous assaults upon me, but its place is in a subsequent
page.
Now
it may be asked of me, "Well, why should not Mr. Kingsley take a
course such as this? It was his original assertion that Dr. Newman
was a professed liar, and a patron of lies; he spoke somewhat at
random, granted; but now he has got up his references and he is
proving, not perhaps the very thing which he said at first, but
something very like it, and to say the least quite as bad. He is
now
only aiming to justify morally his original assertion; why is he
not
at liberty to do so?"
Why
should he
not
now insinuate that I am a liar and a knave! he had of course a
perfect right to make such a charge, if he chose; he might have
said,
"I was virtually right, and here is the proof of it," but
this he has not done, but on the contrary has professed that he no
longer draws from my works, as he did before, the inference of my
dishonesty. He says distinctly, p. 26, "When I read these
outrages upon common sense, what wonder if I said to myself, 'This
man cannot believe what he is saying?'
I believe I was wrong
."
And in p. 31, "I said, This man has no real care for truth.
Truth for its own sake is no virtue in his eyes, and he teaches
that
it need not be.
I do
not say that now
."
And in p. 41, "I do not call this conscious dishonesty; the man
who wrote that sermon
was already past the possibility
of such a sin."
Why
should he
not
!
because it is on the ground of my not being a knave that he calls
me
a fool; adding to the words just quoted, "[My readers] have
fallen perhaps into the prevailing superstition that cleverness is
synonymous with wisdom. They cannot believe that (as is too
certain)
great literary and even barristerial ability may co-exist with
almost
boundless silliness."
Why
should he
not
!
because he has taken credit to himself for that high feeling of
honour which refuses to withdraw a concession which once has been
made; though (wonderful to say!), at the very time that he is
recording this magnanimous resolution, he lets it out of the bag
that
his relinquishment of it is only a profession and a pretence; for
he
says, p. 8: "I have accepted Dr. Newman's denial that [the
Sermon] means what I thought it did; and
heaven forbid
"
(oh!) "that I should withdraw my word once given,
at whatever disadvantage to myself
."
Disadvantage! but nothing can be advantageous to him which
is
untrue
; therefore
in proclaiming that the concession of my honesty is a disadvantage
to
him, he thereby implies unequivocally that there is some
probability
still, that I am
dis
honest. He goes
on, "I am informed by those from whose judgment on such points
there is no appeal, that '
en
hault courage
,' and
strict honour, I am also
precluded
, by the
terms
of my
explanation, from using any other of Dr. Newman's past writings to
prove my assertion." And then, "I have declared Dr. Newman
to have been an honest man up to the 1st of February, 1864; it was,
as I shall show, only Dr. Newman's fault that I ever thought him to
be anything else. It depends entirely on Dr. Newman whether he
shall
sustain
the
reputation which he has so recently acquired," (by diploma of
course from Mr. Kingsley.) "If I give him thereby a fresh
advantage in this argument, he is
most welcome
to it.
He needs, it seems to me,
as many advantages as possible
."
What
a princely mind! How loyal to his rash promise, how delicate
towards
the subject of it, how conscientious in his interpretation of it! I
have no thought of irreverence towards a Scripture Saint, who was
actuated by a very different spirit from Mr. Kingsley's, but
somehow
since I read his pamphlet words have been running in my head, which
I
find in the Douay version thus; "Thou hast also with thee Semei
the son of Gera, who cursed me with a grievous curse when I went to
the camp, but I swore to him, saying, I will not kill thee with the
sword. Do not thou hold him guiltless. But thou art a wise man and
knowest what to do with him, and thou shalt bring down his grey
hairs
with blood to hell."
Now
I ask, Why could not Mr. Kingsley be open? If he intended still to
arraign me on the charge of lying, why could he not say so as a
man?
Why must he insinuate, question, imply, and use sneering and irony,
as if longing to touch a forbidden fruit, which still he was afraid
would burn his fingers, if he did so? Why must he "palter in a
double sense," and blow hot and cold in one breath? He first
said he considered me a patron of lying; well, he changed his
opinion; and as to the logical ground of this change, he said that,
if any one asked him what it was, he could only answer that
he really did not know
.
Why could not he change back again, and say he did not know why? He
had quite a right to do so; and then his conduct would have been so
far straightforward and unexceptionable. But no;—in the very act of
professing to believe in my sincerity, he takes care to show the
world that it is a profession and nothing more. That very
proceeding
which at p. 15 he lays to my charge (whereas I detest it), of
avowing
one thing and thinking another, that proceeding he here exemplifies
himself; and yet, while indulging in practices as offensive as
this,
he ventures to speak of his sensitive admiration of "hault
courage and strict honour!" "I forgive you, Sir Knight,"
says the heroine in the Romance, "I forgive you as a Christian."
"That means," said Wamba, "that she does not forgive
him at all." Mr. Kingsley's word of honour is about as valuable
as in the jester's opinion was the Christian charity of Rowena. But
here we are brought to a further specimen of Mr. Kingsley's method
of
disputation, and having duly exhibited it, I shall have done with
him.
It
is his last, and he has intentionally reserved it for his last. Let
it be recollected that he professed to absolve me from his original
charge of dishonesty up to February 1. And further, he implies
that,
at the time when he was writing
,
I had not
yet
involved myself in any fresh acts suggestive of that sin. He says
that I have had a great
escape
of
conviction, that he hopes I shall take warning, and act more
cautiously. "It depends entirely," he says, "on
Dr. Newman, whether
he shall
sustain
the reputation which he has so recently acquired" (p. 8). Thus,
in Mr. Kingsley's judgment, I was
then
, when he wrote
these words,
still
innocent of dishonesty, for a man cannot sustain what he actually
has
not got;
only he
could not be sure of my future
.
Could not be sure! Why at this very time he had already noted down
valid proofs, as he thought them, that I
had
already
forfeited the character which he contemptuously accorded to me. He
had cautiously said "
up
to
February 1st,"
in order
to reserve
the title-page and last three pages of my pamphlet, which were not
published till February 12th, and out of these four pages, which he
had
not
whitewashed, he had
already
forged
charges against me of dishonesty at the very time that he implied
that as yet there was nothing against me. When he gave me that
plenary condonation, as it seemed to be, he had already done his
best
that I should never enjoy it. He knew well at p. 8, what he meant
to
say at pp. 44 and 45. At best indeed I was only out upon ticket of
leave; but that ticket was a pretence; he had made it forfeit when
he
gave it. But he did not say so at once, first, because between p. 8
and p. 44 he meant to talk a great deal about my idiotcy and my
frenzy, which would have been simply out of place, had he proved me
too soon to be a knave again; and next, because he meant to exhaust
all those insinuations about my knavery in the past, which "strict
honour" did not permit him to countenance, in order thereby to
give colour and force to his direct charges of knavery in the
present, which "strict honour"
did
permit him to
handsel. So in the fifth act he gave a start, and found to his
horror
that, in my miserable four pages, I had committed the "enormity"
of an "economy," which in matter of fact he had got by
heart before he began the play. Nay, he suddenly found two, three,
and (for what he knew) as many as four profligate economies in that
title-page and those Reflections, and he uses the language of
distress and perplexity at this appalling discovery.
Now
why this
coup de
théâtre
? The
reason soon breaks on us. Up to February 1, he could not
categorically arraign me for lying, and therefore could not involve
me (as was so necessary for his case), in the popular abhorrence
which is felt for the casuists of Rome: but, as soon as ever he
could
openly and directly pronounce (saving his "hault courage and
strict honour") that I am guilty of three or four new economies,
then at once I am made to bear, not only my own sins, but the sins
of
other people also, and, though I have been condoned the knavery of
my
antecedents, I am guilty of the knavery of a whole priesthood
instead. So the hour of doom for Semei is come, and the wise man
knows what to do with him;—he is down upon me with the odious names
of "St. Alfonso da Liguori," and "Scavini" and
"Neyraguet," and "the Romish moralists," and
their "compeers and pupils," and I am at once merged and
whirled away in the gulph of notorious quibblers, and hypocrites,
and
rogues.
But
we have not even yet got at the real object of the stroke, thus
reserved for his
finale
. I really
feel sad for what I am obliged now to say. I am in warfare with
him,
but I wish him no ill;—it is very difficult to get up resentment
towards persons whom one has never seen. It is easy enough to be
irritated with friends or foes,
vis-à-vis
; but,
though I am writing with all my heart against what he has said of
me,
I am not conscious of personal unkindness towards himself. I think
it
necessary to write as I am writing, for my own sake, and for the
sake
of the Catholic priesthood; but I wish to impute nothing worse to
Kingsley than that he has been furiously carried away by his
feelings. But what shall I say of the upshot of all this talk of my
economies and equivocations and the like? What is the
precise
work
which it is
directed to effect? I am at war with him; but there is such a thing
as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may
fairly be done, and things which may not be done. I say it with
shame
and with stern sorrow;—he has attempted a great transgression; he
has attempted (as I may call it) to
poison the wells
. I
will quote him and explain what I mean.
"Dr.
Newman tries, by cunning sleight-of-hand logic, to prove that I did
not believe the accusation when I made it. Therein he is mistaken.
I
did believe it, and I believed also his indignant denial. But when
he
goes on to ask with sneers, why I should believe his denial, if I
did
not consider him trustworthy in the first instance? I can only
answer, I really do not know. There is a
great deal
to be
said for
that
view,
now that
Dr. Newman has become (one must needs suppose)
suddenly
and
since
the 1st of
February, 1864, a convert to the
economic
views of
St. Alfonso da Liguori and his compeers. I am
henceforth
in doubt
and
fear
,
as much as any honest man can be,
concerning every word
Dr. Newman may write.
How can I tell that I shall not be the dupe of some cunning
equivocation
, of
one of the three kinds laid down as permissible by the blessed
Alfonso da Liguori and his pupils, even when confirmed by an oath,
because 'then we do not deceive our neighbour, but allow him to
deceive himself?' ... It is admissible, therefore, to use words and
sentences which have a double signification, and leave the hapless
hearer to take which of them he may choose.
What proof have I, then, that by 'mean it? I never said it!' Dr.
Newman does not signify
,
I did not say it, but I did mean it?"—Pp. 44, 45.
Now
these insinuations and questions shall be answered in their proper
places; here I will but say that I scorn and detest lying, and
quibbling, and double-tongued practice, and slyness, and cunning,
and
smoothness, and cant, and pretence, quite as much as any
Protestants
hate them; and I pray to be kept from the snare of them. But all
this
is just now by the bye; my present subject is Mr. Kingsley; what I
insist upon here, now that I am bringing this portion of my
discussion to a close, is this unmanly attempt of his, in his
concluding pages, to cut the ground from under my feet;—to poison
by anticipation the public mind against me, John Henry Newman, and
to
infuse into the imaginations of my readers, suspicion and mistrust
of
everything that I may say in reply to him. This I call
poisoning the wells
.
"I
am henceforth in
doubt and fear
,"
he says, "as much as any
honest
man can be,
concerning every word
Dr. Newman may write.
How can I tell that I shall not be the dupe of some cunning
equivocation?
...
What proof have I, that by 'mean it? I never said it!' Dr. Newman
does not signify, 'I did not say it, but I did mean it'?"
Well,
I can only say, that, if his taunt is to take effect, I am but
wasting my time in saying a word in answer to his foul calumnies;
and
this is precisely what he knows and intends to be its fruit. I can
hardly get myself to protest against a method of controversy so
base
and cruel, lest in doing so, I should be violating my self-respect
and self-possession; but most base and most cruel it is. We all
know
how our imagination runs away with us, how suddenly and at what a
pace;—the saying, "Caesar's wife should not be suspected,"
is an instance of what I mean. The habitual prejudice, the humour
of
the moment, is the turning-point which leads us to read a defence
in
a good sense or a bad. We interpret it by our antecedent
impressions.
The very same sentiments, according as our jealousy is or is not
awake, or our aversion stimulated, are tokens of truth or of
dissimulation and pretence. There is a story of a sane person being
by mistake shut up in the wards of a lunatic asylum, and that, when
he pleaded his cause to some strangers visiting the establishment,
the only remark he elicited in answer was, "How naturally he
talks! you would think he was in his senses." Controversies
should be decided by the reason; is it legitimate warfare to appeal
to the misgivings of the public mind and to its dislikings? Anyhow,
if Mr. Kingsley is able thus to practise upon my readers, the more
I
succeed, the less will be my success. If I am natural, he will tell
them, "Ars est celare artem;" if I am convincing, he will
suggest that I am an able logician; if I show warmth, I am acting
the
indignant innocent; if I am calm, I am thereby detected as a smooth
hypocrite; if I clear up difficulties, I am too plausible and
perfect
to be true. The more triumphant are my statements, the more certain
will be my defeat.
So
will it be if Mr. Kingsley succeeds in his manœuvre; but I do not
for an instant believe that he will. Whatever judgment my readers
may
eventually form of me from these pages, I am confident that they
will
believe me in what I shall say in the course of them. I have no
misgiving it all, that they will be ungenerous or harsh with a man
who has been so long before the eyes of the world; who has so many
to
speak of him from personal knowledge; whose natural impulse it has
ever been to speak out; who has ever spoken too much rather than
too
little; who would have saved himself many a scrape, if he had been
wise enough to hold his tongue; who has ever been fair to the
doctrines and arguments of his opponents; who has never slurred
over
facts and reasonings which told against himself; who has never
given
his name or authority to proofs which he thought unsound, or to
testimony which he did not think at least plausible; who has never
shrunk from confessing a fault when he felt that he had committed
one; who has ever consulted for others more than for himself; who
has
given up much that he loved and prized and could have retained, but
that he loved honesty better than name, and truth better than dear
friends.
And
now I am in a train of thought higher and more serene than any
which
slanders can disturb. Away with you, Mr. Kingsley, and fly into
space. Your name shall occur again as little as I can help, in the
course of these pages. I shall henceforth occupy myself not with
you,
but with your charges.