“I say with an unfaltering conscience, that no controvertist ever more honestly and sincerely sought to give his opponent’s views, than I did Mr. Newman’s, after the most diligent study of his rather obscure books; and that whether I have succeeded or not in giving what he thought, I have certainly given what he expressed.  It is quite true that I supposed Mr. Newman intended to “divorce” faith and intellect; and what else on earth could I suppose, in common even with those who were most leniently disposed towards him, from such sentiments as these?  ALL THE GROUNDS OF BELIEF PROPOSED TO THE MERE UNDERSTANDING HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH FAITH AT ALL.  THE PROCESSES OF THOUGHT HAVE NOTHING TO QUICKEN THE CONSCIENCE OR AFFECT THE SOUL. How then can the state of the soul be tested by the conclusion to which the intellect is led? I was compelled, I say, to take these passages as everybody else took them, to mean what they obviously express.”

Here he so isolates three assertions of mine from their context, as to suggest for each of them a false meaning, and make it difficult for the reader who has not my book at hand to discover the delusion.  The first is taken from a discussion of the arguments concerning the soul’s immortality ("Soul,” p. 223, 2nd edition), on which I wrote thus, p. 219:—­that to judge of the accuracy of a metaphysical argument concerning mind and matter, requires not a pure conscience and a loving soul, but a clear and calm head; that if the doctrine of immortality be of high religious importance, we cannot believe it to rest on such a basis, that those in whom the religious faculties are most developed may be more liable to err concerning it than those who have no religious faculty in action at all.  On the contrary, concerning truths which are really spiritual it is an obvious axiom,[10] that “he who is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man.”  After this I proceeded to allude to the history of the doctrine among the Hebrews, and quoted some texts of the Psalms, the argument of which, I urged, is utterly inappreciable to the pure logician, “because it is spiritually discerned.”  I continued as follows:—­

“This is as it should be.  Can a mathematician understand physiology, or a physiologist questions of law?  A true love of God in the soul itself, an insight into Him depending on that love, and a hope rising out of that insight, are prerequisite for contemplating this spiritual doctrine, which is a spontaneous impression of the gazing soul, powerful (perhaps) in proportion to its faith; whereas all the grounds of belief proposed to the mere understanding have nothing to do with faith at all.”