ut; and I read nothing else; I mean I read nothing
else on any other note of philosophy. The penny dreadfuls which I also
read were indeed in a healthy and heroic tradition of Christianity; but
I did not know this at the time. I never read a line of Christian
apologetics. I read as little as I can of them now. It was Huxley and
Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology.
They sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our grandmothers
were quite right when they said that Tom Paine and the free-thinkers
unsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. The
rationalist made me question whether reason was of any use whatever; and
when I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (for
the first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I laid down
the last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic lectures the dreadful thought
broke across my mind, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." I
was in a desperate way.

This odd effect of the great agnostics in arousing doubts deeper than
their own might be illustrated in many ways. I take only one. As I read
and re-read all the non-Christian or anti-Christian accounts of the
faith, from Huxley to Bradlaugh, a slow and awful impression grew
gradually but graphically upon my mind--the impression that Christianity
must be a most extraordinary thing. For not only (as I understood) had
Christianity the most flaming vices, but it had apparently a mystical
talent for combining vices which seemed inconsistent with each other. It
was attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons. No sooner
had one rationalist demonstrated that it was too far to the east than
another demonstrated with equal clearness that it was much too far to
the west. No sooner had my indignation died down at its angular and
aggressive squareness than I was called up again to notice and condemn
its enervating and sensual roundness. In case any reader has not come
across the thing I mean, I will give such instances as I remember at
random of this self-contradiction in the sceptical attack. I give four
or five of them; there are fifty more.

Thus, for instance, I was much moved by the eloquent attack on
Christianity as a thing of inhuman gloom; for I thought (and still
think) sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. Insincere pessimism is a
social accomplishment, rather agreeable than otherwise; and fortunately
nearly all pessimism is insincere. But i