1869 THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY 455 



The method of the Society was for the paper to 

 be printed and circulated among the members before 

 the meeting, so that their main criticisms were ready 

 in advance. The discussions took place after a 

 dinner at which many of the members would appear ; 

 and if the more formal debates were not more 

 effectual than predicted by J. S. Mill, the informal 

 discussions, almost conversations, at smaller meetings, 

 and the free course of talk at the dinner-table, did 

 something to realise the primary objects of the Society. 

 The personal rapprochement took place, but not 

 philosophic compromise or conversion. Whether or 

 not the tone adopted after this period by the clerical 

 party at large was affected by the better understand- 

 ing on the part of their representatives in the 

 Metaphysical Society of the true aims of their 

 opponents and the honest and substantial difficulties 

 which stood in the way of reunion, it is true that the 

 violent denunciations of the sixties decreased in 

 number and intensity; the right to free expression 

 of reasoned opinion on serious fact was tacitly 

 acknowledged; and, being less attacked, Huxley 

 himself began to be regarded in the light of a teacher 

 rather than an iconoclast. The question began to 

 be not whether such opinions are wicked, but whether 

 from the point of view of scientific method they are 

 irrefragably true. 



The net philosophical result of the Society's work 

 was to distinguish the essential and the unessential 

 differences between the opposite parties; the latter 



