Before closing, I must say a few words regarding another of my critics, who is, however, of a very different order. My system of criticism is naturally uncongenial to Mr. Matthew Arnold, but while he says so with characteristic vigour, he likewise speaks of this work with equally characteristic generosity, and I cordially thank him. I could only be classed by mistake amongst the "objectors" to "Literature and Dogma," and however different may be the procedure in "Supernatural Religion," there is fundamental agreement between the two works, and the one may be considered the complement of the other. Some one must do the "pounding," if religion is to be a matter of belief and not of mere shifty opinion. We really address two distinct classes of readers. The reader who "has read _and accepted_" Mr. Matthew Arnold's "half dozen lines about the composition of the Gospels," and his "half dozen pages about miracles," may in one sense be "just in the same position as when he has read "the whole of this work,(1) but
I have written for those who do not accept them, and who,--as I think rightly,--distrust the conclusions merely forced upon them by ordinary "reflection and experience," and in such important matters demand evidence of a much more tangible kind. I would put it to Mr. Arnold whether, in seeming to depreciate any attempt to systematize and carry to logical conclusions the whole argument regarding the reality of Miracles and Divine Revelation, he does not do himself injustice, and enunciate a dangerous doctrine. No doubt his own clear insight and wide culture have enabled him to discern truth more surely, and with less apparent effort, than most of those whom he addresses, but in encouraging, as he thus practically does, the adoption by others of religious views with very little trouble or thought, which have certainly cost himself years of training and study, he both cheapens his own intellectual labour, and advocates a superficiality which already has too many attractions. Whether he address readers whose belief is already established, or those who are ready to accept it second hand from himself, it seems to me that no work should be unwelcome which supplies evidence of the results, which it has suited his own immediate purpose merely to assume.