APOLOGY FOE THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 203 



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

 really potent factor, we may expect utterances as hetero- 

 geneous 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, cour- 

 teous or vulgar, mild or ferocious, as the case may be. 

 Pure abuse, however, as serving no good end, I have, 

 wherever possible, deliberately avoided reading, wishing, 

 indeed, to keep, not only hatred, malice, and unchar- 

 itableness, 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-sided- 

 ness 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. Longman I have retracted opinions 

 uttered at Belfast. A Roman Catholic writer is specially 

 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. 

 4 It is too late now to seek to hide from the eyes of 

 mankind one foul blot, one ghastly deformity. Pro- 

 fessor 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 production ; 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 

 own Church for the sanctification of the soul. I tried, 



43 



