wrote on the _Vestiges_ while under that influence (1854).

The other was his controversy in 1885-6 with Mr. Gladstone, over the
account of the creation in Genesis. But, at least, this was a reply
to Mr. Gladstone's attack upon M. Réville and his applications of
scientific methods to the problem.

Nevertheless, in this and the similar controversies on Biblical
subjects, his chief aim was not simply to confute his adversary. To
demolish once more the legend of the Flood, or the literal truth of
the Creation myth, in which a multitude of scholars and critics and
educated people generally had ceased to believe, was not an otiose
slaying of the slain. It made people think of the wider questions
involved. To riddle the story of the Gadarene swine was to make a
breach in the whole demonology of the New Testament and its claims to
superior knowledge of the spiritual world.

It may be noted in passing that, however hard he hit in these
controversies, he never descended to anything which would merely wound
and offend cherished convictions. His own feelings forbade ribaldry,
and abuse disgusted him, on whichever side employed. He declined to
admit that rightful freedom of discussion is attacked when a man is
prevented from coarsely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest
beliefs. And this apart from the question of bad policy, inasmuch
as abuse stultifies argument. But if prosecutions for blasphemy
are permitted, it would be but just to penalize some of the
anti-scientific blasphemers for their coarse and unmannerly attacks on
opinions worthy of all respect.

For the rest, as he humorously remarks, when he began in early days to