chsafed to us. An honest and brave mind will accept
manfully this condition of things, and not seek for infallibility
where it can find none. It will adopt as its motto that noble
saying of Bishop Butler--noble, because so unflinchingly true,
though opposed to a sentimental optimism--'Probability is the very
guide of life.'

With probabilities we have to deal, in the intellectual sphere.
But, when once this is thoroughly and honestly recognised, even a
comparatively small balance of probability comes to have as much
moral weight as the most loudly vaunted certainty. And meantime,
apart from and beneath the strife of tongues, there is the still
small voice which whispers to a man and bids him, in no
superstitious sense but with the gravity and humility which befits
a Christian, to 'work out his own salvation with fear and
trembling.'

[ENDNOTES]

[2:1] With regard to the references in vol. i. p. 259, n. 1, I
had already observed, before the appearance of the preface to the
sixth edition, that they were really intended to apply to the
first part of the sentence annotated rather than the second.
Still, as there is only one reference out of nine that really
supports the proposition in immediate connection with which the
references are made, the reader would be very apt to carry away a
mistaken impression. The same must be said of the set of
references defended on p. xl. sqq. of the new preface. The
expressions used do not accurately represent the state of the
facts. It is not careful writing, and I am afraid it must be said
that the prejudice of the author has determined the side which the
expression leans. But how difficult is it to make words express
all the due shades and qualifications of meaning--how difficult
especially for a mind that seems to be naturally distinguished by
force rather than by exactness and delicacy of observation! We
have all 'les defauts de nos qualites.'

[10:1] Much harm has been done by rashly pressing human metaphors and
analogies; such as, that Revelation is a _message_ from God and
therefore must be infallible, &c. This is just the sort of argument
that the Deists used in the last century, insisting that a revelation,
properly so called, _must_ be presented with conclusive proofs, _must_
be universal, _must_ be complete, and drawing the conclusion that
Christianity is not such a revelation. This kind of reasoning has
received its sentence once for all from Bishop Butler. We h