1879 THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH 91 



The following letter is interesting, as it shows the 

 beginning of that long and painful reaction against 

 scepticism which was to last so many years. There 

 is a curious anticipation of a passage in ' Thoughts on 

 Religion.' 



To Mrs. Bivrdon Sanderson, 



18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park : Nov. 26. 



Dear Mrs. Sanderson, — Many thanks for your kind 

 and warm congratulations. ... I am glad you wrote 

 a ' sermonising ' letter, because it gives me the oppor- 

 tunity of saying that I fully agree with all the opinions 

 which you express, and, further, that I have already 

 found love to modify logic, or perhaps I should rather 

 say, to vivify logic. ... In the course of my previous 

 speculations I have kept much too rigidly to the lines 

 of intellect as distinguished from feeling. Indeed, I 

 always did so on principle, supposing that reason was 

 the only instrument which was to be accredited with 

 any authority in the matter, and that the dictates 

 of feeling should be met with a firm front of oppo- 

 sition. ... In this fundamental supposition I was 

 wrong, seeing that, on the supposition of Christianity 

 being true, it must be considered as an appeal to the 

 Avhole of human nature, and not to reason alone. I 

 have often met this argument in various forms before, 

 but never before seen its rational justification. I can- 

 didly do not believe that love has had any influence 

 in blinding my logic, but rather that love has shed 

 upon my logic a new light. I see now that Faraday 

 was rationally justified in his view, and some day 

 I intend to write a treatise supplementary to my 

 ' Theism ' in order to show clearly how this is so. 



