398 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1869. scheme of joint worship in which the party were agreed npon 

 everything except accurate definition of what they were agreed 

 about. 



I have your two tracts one of J. J. T., and the c anniversary ' 

 of 1869. If there be any more I should like to know of them. 

 For I am interested in the attempt, which, hopeless as it seems 

 to me to the extent proposed, may yet originate a sect in which 

 people may pray together without each man being fettered to 

 his neighbours. 



But there must be some little definiteness of statement. I 

 tried hard to get from J. J. T. whether his Christianity had a 

 supernatural element. His final information ' was that he 

 thought it most likely the apostles had a supernatural element 

 which we do not understand. 



I intend to keep watch on the attempt to couple super- 

 naturalists and anti-supernaturalists, for that is what is aimed 

 at. When I get something definite about its indefiniteness, I 

 intend to write about it. 



Dubius sed non improbus. This is what Sheffield said of his 

 own religion, and the scholars (Dean Stanley included) make 

 him ' sceptical, but not wicked/ 



Improbus means one who declares against the proof one to 

 whom there cannot be proof. As when Pliny says that Hipparchus 

 counted the stars rem Deo improbam a thing unproved by the 

 gods ; and Virgil, Labor omnia vincit, improbus toil yet unproved, 

 or untried, conquers all things. 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



To Sedley Taylor, Esq. 



6 Merton Road, December 26, 1869. 



MY DEAR SEDLEY, Many thanks for your pamphlet, 1 which 

 I shall join on to some of Martineau's, &c., in one notice. I 

 think you will produce some effect on people who begin to have 

 a cranny through which the light comes. I saw Jas. Martinean 

 a day or two ago, and he tells me that his organisation is con- 

 templating the circulation of your pamphlet in aid of their view. 

 I wish their view were a little less of a dissolving view when 



1 On Clerical Subscription. (Macmillan, 1869.) Mr. De Morgan 

 believed that this pamphlet hastened the disruption of the Free 

 Christian Union. 



