nded, and whether the real state of the popular mind is a vivid
interest in the war between scientific theories and traditional beliefs,
or may more fitly be described as a languid amusement in outworn
problems. Fitzjames, at any rate, who always rejoiced, like Cromwell's
pikemen, when he heard the approach of battle, thought, as his letters
show, that the forces were gathering on both sides and that a deadly
struggle was approaching. The hostility between the antagonists was as
keen as it had been in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though
covered for the present by decent pretences of mutual toleration. He
contributed during this period a paper upon Newman's 'Grammar of Assent'
to 'Fraser's Magazine'; and he wrote several articles, partly the
product of the Metaphysical Society, in the 'Contemporary Review' and
the 'Nineteenth Century,' both under the editorship of Mr. Knowles.

I shall speak of them so far as they illustrate what was, I think, his
definite state of mind upon the matters involved. His chief encounters
were with Cardinal Manning ('Contemporary Review,' March and May 1874),
and with W. G. Ward ('Contemporary Review,' December 1874), and with Mr.
Gladstone ('Nineteenth Century,' April 1877). The controversy with Mr.
Gladstone turned upon certain points raised in Sir G. C. Lewis's book
upon 'Authority in Matters of Opinion.' The combatants were so polite,
and their ultimate difference, which was serious enough, was so mixed up
with discussions of Lewis's meaning, that a consideration of the
argument would be superfluous. The articles directed against Manning, to
which his antagonist replied in succeeding numbers of the Review, were
of more interest. The essence of Fitzjames's argument was a revival of
his old challenge to Newman. He took occasion of a pamphlet by Manning
to ask once more the very pertinent question: You claim to represent an
infallible and supernatural authority which has indefeasible rights to
my allegiance; upon what grounds, then, is your claim based? To
establish it, you have first to prove that we have such a knowledge of
God as will enable us to draw special inferences as to particular
institutions; next, that Christ was an incarnation of that God; then,
that Christ founded a particular institution; and, finally, that the
institution was identical with the Catholic Church. The argument covers
a very wide ground; and I think that Fitzjames never wrote with more
concentrated vi