nterpreted by Paley and the evidence writers. For that argument, as has
been seen, Fitzjames had still a considerable respect. But no one had
insisted more energetically upon its practical insufficiency, at any
rate, than Newman. He had declared man's reason to be so corrupt, that
one who becomes a Protestant is on a slope which will inevitably lead
through Socinianism to Atheism. To prove his claims, therefore, to a
Protestant by appealing to such grounds as the testimony of the gospels,
was obviously impossible. That evidence, taken by itself, especially as
a sound utilitarian lawyer would take it, was, on his own showing,
practically insufficient to prove the truth of the alleged facts, and,
much more, to base upon them the claim of the infallible Church. It is
precisely the insufficiency of this view that gives force to the demand
for a supernatural authority.

How, then, was Newman to answer an inquirer? Obviously, on his own
ground, he must appeal to the _a priori_ arguments afforded by the
instinctive desire of men for an authoritative body, and to the
satisfaction of their conscience by the dogmas revealed through its
agency. Then the question occurs: Is this a logical argument, or an
appeal from argument to feeling? Is it not, as Fitzjames thinks, a
roundabout way of saying, 'I believe in this system because it suits my
tastes and feelings, and because I consider truth unattainable'? If so,
persuasion is substituted for reasoning: and the force of persuasion
depends upon the constitution of the person to be persuaded. Now the
arguments, if they be called arguments, which Newman could address to
Fitzjames upon this topic were obviously inapplicable. The dogmas, says
Newman, are congenial to the conscience. The conscience demands an
avenging Deity, and therefore a doctrine of sacrifice. But such an
appeal fails if, in point of fact, a man's conscience rises against the
dogma. This was Fitzjames's position. 'Large parts of the (Catholic)
theology,' he says in a letter, 'are not only silly, but, I think, cruel
and immoral to the last degree. I think the doctrine of eternal
damnation so wicked and so cruel that I would as soon teach my children
to lie and steal as to believe in it.' This was to express one of his
strongest convictions. In a review of Theodore Parker's works,[85]
written shortly before, he had to deal with an advocate of that
'intuitional' theory which he always repudiated. But Parker at least
appeal