We cannot afford year after year to be distracted with the tentative scepticism of essayists and reviewers.  In a healthy condition of public opinion such a book as Bishop Colenso’s would have passed unnoticed, or rather would never have been written, for the difficulties with which it deals would have been long ago met and disposed of.  When questions rose in the early and middle ages of the Church, they were decided by councils of the wisest:  those best able to judge met together, and compared their thoughts, and conclusions were arrived at which individuals could accept and act upon.  At the beginning of the English Reformation, when Protestant doctrine was struggling for reception, and the old belief was merging in the new, the country was deliberately held in formal suspense.  Protestants and Catholics were set to preach on alternate Sundays in the same pulpit; the subject was discussed freely in the ears of the people, and at last, when all had been said on both sides, Convocation and Parliament embodied the result in formulas.  Councils will no longer answer the purpose; the clergy have no longer a superiority of intellect or cultivation; and a conference of prelates from all parts of Christendom, or even from all departments of the English Church, would not present an edifying spectacle.  Parliament may no longer meddle with opinions unless it be to untie the chains which it forged three centuries ago.  But better than Councils, better than sermons, better than Parliament, is that free discussion through a free press which is the best instrument for the discovery of truth, and the most effectual means for preserving it.

We shall be told, perhaps, that we are beating the air, that the press is free, and that all men may and do write what they please.  It is not so.  Discussion is not free so long as the clergy who take any side but one are liable to be prosecuted and deprived of their means of living; it is not free so long as the expression of doubt is considered as a sin by public opinion and as a crime by the law.  So far are we from free discussion that the world is not yet agreed that a free discussion is desirable; and till it be so agreed, the substantial intellect of the country will not throw itself into the question.  The battle will continue to be fought by outsiders, who suffice to disturb a repose which they cannot restore; and that collective voice of the national understanding, which alone can give back to us a peaceful and assured conviction, will not be heard. ____

SPINOZA

Benedicti de Spinoza Tractatus de Deo et Homine ejusque Felicitate Lineamenta Alque Annotationes ad Traclatum Theologico Politicum.  Edidit et illustravit EDWARDUS Boehmer.  Halae ad Salam.  J. F. Lippert. 1852.