these Lectures takes a definite line in the controversy, and one not
adopted professionally, but with cordial assent and heartfelt conviction,
he has nevertheless considered that it is due to the cause of scientific
truth to intermingle his own opinions as little as possible with the facts
of the history. A history without inferences is ethically and religiously
worthless: it is a chronicle, not a philosophical narrative. But a history
distorted to suit the inferences is not only worthless, but harmful. It is
for the reader to judge how far the author has succeeded in the result:
but his aim has been not to allow his opinions to warp his view of the
facts. History ought to be written with the same spirit of cold analysis
which belongs to science. Caricature must not be substituted for portrait,
nor vituperation for description.(17)

Such a mode of treatment in the present instance was the more possible,
from the circumstance that the writer, when studying the subject for his
private information, without any design to write upon it, had endeavoured
to bring his own principles and views perpetually to the test; and to
reconsider them candidly by the light of the new suggestions which were
brought before him. Instead of approaching the inquiry with a spirit of
hostility, he had investigated it as a student, not as a partisan. It may
perhaps be permitted him without egotism to explain the causes which led
him to the study. He had taken holy orders, cordially and heartily
believing the truths taught by the church of which he is privileged to be
an humble minister. Before doing so, he had read thoughtfully the great
works of evidences of the last century, and knew directly or indirectly
the character of the deist doubts against which they were directed. His
own faith was one of the head as well as the heart; founded on the study
of the evidences, as well as on the religious training of early years. But
he perceived in the English church earnest men who held a different view;
and, on becoming acquainted with contemporary theology, he found the
theological literature of a whole people, the Germans, constructed on
another basis; a literature which was acknowledged to be so full of
learning, that contemporary English writers of theology not only
perpetually referred to it, but largely borrowed their materials from
German sources. He wished therefore fully to understand the character of
these new forms of doubt, and the causes which