great argument,
there to construct
another and irrefragable proof:
thus rendering Philosophy
subservient to Faith,
and finding in outward and visible things
the type and evidence
of those within the veil.

In his lectures on Butler, Arnold set out to prove that the Philosophy
was as unsound as the Faith to which it was subservient; and that it
could not hold its own against Atheism or Agnosticism, but only against
a system which conceded a Personal Governor of the Universe. This is the
argument against the Deists which he puts into Butler's mouth: "You all
concede a Supreme Personal First Cause, the almighty and intelligent
Governor of the Universe; this, you and I both agree, is the system and
order of nature. But you are offended at certain things in
revelation.... Well, I will show you that in your and my admitted system
of nature there are just as many difficulties as in the system of
revelation." And on this, says Arnold, he does show it, "and by
adversaries such as his, who grant what the Deist or Socinian grants, he
never has been answered, he never will be answered. The spear of
Butler's reasoning will even follow and transfix the Duke of
Somerset,[53] who finds so much to condemn in the Bible, but 'retires
into one unassailable fortress--faith in God.'"[54] Butler's method,
then, is allowed to be potent enough to crush all such half-believers as
still clung to the idea of a Personal God and Intelligent Ruler; but it
had no force or cogency against such as, following Arnold, attenuated
the idea of God into a Stream of Tendency. This theme he elaborated with
great ingenuity and characteristic dogmatism in his _Bishop Butler and
the Zeitgeist_; and, inasmuch as no task can be more distasteful than to
attack the teaching of a man whose genius and character one recognizes
among the formative influences of one's life, I will leave the upshot
of this ill-starred endeavour to be summarized by Butler's great
champion, Mr. Gladstone--

"Various objections have been taken from various quarters to this point
and that in the argument of Butler; but Mr. Arnold's criticisms, as a
whole, remain wholly isolated and unsupported. It is impossible to
acquit him of the charge of a carelessness implying levity, and of an
ungovernable bias towards finding fault.... Mr. Arnold himself will
probably suffer more from his own censures than the great Christian
philosopher who is the object of the