ting the Dissenters was
cruel, says De Foe, 'I answer, 'tis cruelty to kill a snake or a toad
in cold blood, but the poison of their nature makes it a charity to our
neighbours to destroy those creatures, not for any personal injury
received, but for prevention.... Serpents, toads, and vipers, &c., are
noxious to the body, and poison the sensitive life: these poison the
soul, corrupt our posterity, ensnare our children, destroy the vital of
our happiness, our future felicity, and contaminate the whole mass.' And
he concludes: 'Alas, the Church of England! What with Popery on the one
hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified between
two thieves! _Now let us crucify the thieves!_ Let her foundations be
established upon the destruction of her enemies: the doors of mercy
being always open to the returning part of the deluded people; let the
obstinate be ruled with a rod of iron!' It gives a pleasant impression
of the spirit of the times, to remember that this could be taken for a
genuine utterance of orthodoxy; that De Foe was imprisoned and
pilloried, and had to write a serious protestation that it was only a
joke, and that he meant to expose the nonjuring party by putting their
secret wishes into plain English. ''Tis hard,' he says, 'that this
should not be perceived by all the town; that not one man can see it,
either Churchman or Dissenter.' It certainly was very hard; but a
perusal of the whole pamphlet may make it a degree more intelligible.
Ironical writing of this kind is in substance a _reductio ad absurdum_.
It is a way of saying the logical result of your opinions is such or
such a monstrous error. So long as the appearance of logic is preserved,
the error cannot be stated too strongly. The attempt to soften the
absurdity so as to take in an antagonist is injurious artistically, if
it may be practically useful. An ironical intention which is quite
concealed might as well not exist. And thus the unscrupulous use of the
same weapon by Swift is now far more telling than De Foe's comparatively
guarded application of it. The artifice, however, is most skilfully
carried out for the end which De Foe had in view. The 'Shortest Way'
begins with a comparative gravity to throw us off our guard; the author
is not afraid of imitating a little of the dulness of his supposed
antagonists, and repeats with all imaginable seriousness the very taunts
which a High Church bigot would in fact have used. It was not a