eration. I know enough of human
nature to understand that it is very possible for an _angry_ man--and
_chagrin and irritation are too legibly written on every page of this
article_--to be betrayed into gross injustice."

The reader will see from this the difficulty of _my_ position in this
controversy. Mr. Martineau, while defending himself, deprecated
the profanity of my other opponent, and the atheistic nature of
his arguments. He spoke as a bystander, and with the advantage of a
judicial position, and it is called "wanton and outrageous." A second
writer goes into detail, and exposes some of the garbling arts which
have been used against me; it is imputed[4] to ill temper, and is
insinuated to be from a spirit of personal revenge. How much less can
_I_ defend myself, and that, against untruthfulness, without incurring
such imputation! My opponent speaks to a public who will not read my
replies. He picks out what he pleases of my words, and takes care to
divest them of their justification. I have (as was to be expected) met
with much treatment from the religious press which I know cannot be
justified; but all is slight, compared to that of which I complain
from this writer. I will presently give a few detailed instances to
illustrate this. While my charge against my assailant is essentially
moral, and I cannot make any parade of charity, he can speak
patronizingly of me now and then, and makes his main attacks on my
_logic_ and _metaphysics_. He says, that in writing his first book,
he knew no characteristics of me, except that I was "a gentleman,
a scholar, and _a very indifferent metaphysician_" At the risk of
encountering yet more of banter and insult, I shall here quote what
the third "Prospective Reviewer" says on this topic. (Vol. x. p.
208):--

"Our readers will be able to judge how well qualified the author is
to sneer at Mr. Newman's metaphysics, which are far more accurate
than his own, or to ridicule his logic. The tone of contempt which he
habitually assumes preposterously reverses the relative intellectual
_status_, so far as sound systematic thought is concerned, of the two
men."

I do not quote this as testimony to myself but as testimony that
others, as well as I, feel the _contemptuous tone_ assumed by my
adversary in precisely that subject on which modesty is called for. On
metaphysics there is hitherto an unreconciled diversity among men who
have spent their lives in the study; and a large part