fication.' I imagined, as ordinary readers would
imagine, that these words involved a charge of conscious dishonesty. I
am content to believe now that they were intended to impute to him an
unconscious bias.

In our author's observations on my criticism of his general argument,
there is one point which seems to call for observation. Of all my
remarks, the one sentence which I should least have expected to incur
his displeasure, is the following:--

Obviously, if the author has established his conclusions in the
first part, the second and third are altogether superfluous
[138:2].

I fancied that, in saying this, I was only translating his own opinion
into other words. I imagined that he himself wished the second and third
parts to be regarded as a work of supererogation. Was I altogether
without ground for this belief? I turn to the concluding paragraph of
the first part, and I find these words:--

Those who have formed any adequate conception of the amount of
testimony which would be requisite in order to establish the
reality of occurrences in violation of the order of nature, which
is based upon universal and invariable experience, must recognize
that, _even if the earliest asserted origin of our four Gospels
could be established upon the most irrefragable grounds_, the
testimony of the writers--men of like ignorance with their
contemporaries, men of like passions with ourselves--_would be
utterly incompetent to prove the reality of miracles_ [139:1].

What does this mean, except that even though it should be necessary to
concede every point against which the author is contending in the second
and third parts, still the belief in the Gospel miracles is irrational?
Is the language which I have used at all stronger than our author's own
on this point? But I am glad to have elicited from him an expression of
opinion that the question is not foreclosed by the arguments in the
first part [139:2].

For some expressions in his concluding paragraph I sincerely thank the
author, though I find it difficult to reconcile them with either the
tone or the substance of the preceding reply. I trust that I have
already relieved him from the apprehension that I should confine myself
to 'desultory efforts.' I had hoped that some of the topics in my first
article might have been laid aside for ever, but his reply has compelled
me to revert to them. He does me no more than