This book, perhaps, would be
unjustifiable if it were likely to become a text-book for school-girls
in remote country parsonages. But it is not very probable that it will
penetrate to such quarters; nor do I flatter myself that I have brought
forward a single argument which is not already familiar to educated men.
Whatever force there may be in its pages is only the force of an appeal
to people who already agree in my conclusions to state their agreement
in plain terms; and, having said this much, I will answer the questions
suggested as distinctly as I am able.
To the first question, why trouble the last moments of a dying creed, my
reply would be in brief that I do not desire to quench the lingering
vitality of the dying so much as to lay the phantoms of the dead. I
believe that one of the greatest dangers of the present day is the
general atmosphere of insincerity in such matters, which is fast
producing a scepticism not as to any or all theologies, but as to the
very existence of intellectual good faith. Destroy credit, and you ruin
commerce; destroy all faith in religious honesty and you ruin something
of infinitely more importance than commerce; ideas should surely be
preserved as carefully as cotton from the poisonous influence of a
varnish intended to fit them for public consumption.
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