a certain stage of
development_ [italics], it was utterly unintelligible to me. 'Will any
one believe (says my critic) that he deliberately omits the
substance of the definition, and gives in its stead a parenthetical
qualification, which might be left out of the original without injury
either to the grammatical structure or to the general meaning of
the sentence in which it occurs? Was anything ever more amusing? A
parenthetical clause which might be left out of the original without
injury to the grammatical structure or to the general meaning! _Might_
be left out? Ay, to be sure it might, and not only 'without injury,'
but with benefit; just as the dead fly which makes the ointment of the
apothecary to stink might be left out of _that_ without injury. But
it was _not_ left out; and it is precisely because it was there, and
diffused so remarkable an odour over the whole, that I characterized
the definition as I did--and most justly. Accessible to all men in
a certain stage of development! When and how _accessible_? What
_species_ of development, I beseech you, is meant? And what is the
_stage_ of it? The very thing, which, as I say, and as everybody of
common sense must see, renders the definition utterly vague, is the
very clause in question."

Such is his _entire_ notice of the topic. From any other writer I
should indeed have been amazed at such treatment. I had made the
very inoffensive profession of agreeing with the current doctrine of
Christians concerning spiritual influence. As I was not starting any
new theory, but accepting what is notorious, nothing more than an
indication was needed. I gave, what I should not call definition, but
description of it. My critic conceals that I have avowed agreement
with Christians; refers to it as a theory of my own; complains that
it is obscure; pretends to quote my definition, and leaves out all
the cardinal words of it, which I have above printed in italics. My
defender, in the "Prospective Review," exposes these mal-practices;
points out that my opponent is omitting the main words, while
complaining of deficiency; that I profess to agree with Christians in
general; and _that I evidently agree with my critic in particular_.
The critic undertakes to reply to this, and the reader has before him
the whole defence. The man who, as it were, puts his hand on his
heart to avow that he anxiously sets before his readers, if not what
I _mean_, yet certainly what I have _expressed_,