APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 203 



fessing a common creed, while, if human nature be the 

 really potent factor, we may expect utterances as hete- 

 rogeneous as the characters of men. As a matter of 

 fact we have the latter; suggesting to my mind that the 

 common religion, professed and defended by these 

 different people, is merely the accidental conduit 

 through which they pour their own tempers, lofty or 

 low, courteous or vulgar, mild or ferocious, as the 

 case may he. Pure abuse, however, as serving no good 

 end, I have, wherever possible, deliberately avoided 

 reading, wishing, indeed, to keep, not only hatred, 

 malice, and uncharitableness, but even every trace of 

 irritation, far away from my side of a discussion which 

 demands not only good-temper, but largeness, clearness, 

 and many-sidedness of mind, if it is to guide us to even 

 provisional solutions. 



It has been stated, with many variations of note 

 and comment, that in the Address as subsequently pub- 

 lished by Messrs. Longmans I have retracted opinions 

 uttered at Belfast. A Roman Catholic writer is spe- 

 cially strong upon this point. Startled by the deep 

 chorus of dissent which my ' dazzling fallacies ' have 

 evoked, I am now trying to retreat. This he will by no 

 means tolerate. ' It is too late now to eeek to hide 

 from the eyes of mankind one foul blot, one ghastly 

 deformity. Professor Tyndall has himself told us how 

 and where this Address of his was composed. It was 

 written among the glaciers and the solitudes of the 

 Swiss mountains. It was no hasty, hurried, crude pro- 

 duction; its every sentence bore marks of thought and 

 care/ 



My critic intends to be severe: he is simply just. 

 In the ' solitudes ' to which he refers I worked with 

 deliberation, endeavouring even to purify my intel- 

 lect by disciplines similar to those enjoined by his 

 43 



