[Footnote 21:  There is a set of most acute and searching criticisms on this matter in Mr. Leslie Stephen’s Essays on Free-Thinking and Plain-Speaking (Longmans, 1873).  The last essay in the volume, An Apology for Plain-Speaking, is a decisive and remarkable exposition of the treacherous playing with words, which underlies even the most vigorous efforts to make the phrases and formula of the old creed hold the reality of new faith.]

[Footnote 22:  Upon this sentence the following criticism has been made:—­’Surely both of these so-called contradictions are deliberately affirmed by the vast majority of all thinkers upon the subject.  What orthodox asserter of the omnipresence of a “Creator with intelligible attributes” ever maintained that these attributes could be “grasped by men"?’—­The orthodox asserter, no doubt, says that he does not maintain that the divine attributes can be grasped by men; but his habitual treatment of them as intelligible, and as the subjects of propositions made in languages that is designed to be intelligible, shows that his first reservation is merely nominal, as it is certainly inconsistent with his general position.  Religious people who warn you most solemnly that man who is a worm and the son of a worm cannot possibly compass in his puny understanding the attributes of the Divine Being, will yet—­as an eminent divine not in holy orders has truly said—­tell you all about him, as if he were the man who lives in the next street.]

[Footnote 23:  That able man, the late J.E.  Cairnes, suggested the following objection to this paragraph.  When two persons marry, there is a reasonable expectation, almost amounting to an understanding, that they will both of them adhere to their religion, just as both of them tacitly agree to follow the ways of the world in the host of minor social matters.  If, therefore, either of them turns to some other creed, the person so turning has, so to speak, broken the contract.  The utmost he or she can contend for is forbearance.  If a woman embraces catholicism, she may seek tolerance, but she has no right to exact conformity.  If the man becomes an unbeliever, he in like manner breaks the bargain, and may be justly asked not to flaunt his misdemeanour.

My answer to this would turn upon the absolute inexpediency of such silent bargains being assumed by public opinion.  In the present state of opinion, where the whole air is alive with the spirit of change, nobody who takes his life or her life seriously, could allow an assumption which means reduction of one of the most important parts of character, the love of truth, to a nullity.]