argument shares, and perhaps even exaggerates, the controversial
infelicity of this unfortunate series. Mr Arnold deals in it at some
length with the comments of two foreign critics, M. Challemel-Lacour
and Signor de Gubernatis, on _Literature and Dogma_, bringing out
(what surely could have been no news to any but very ill-educated
Englishmen) the fact of their surprise, not at his taking the Bible
with so little seriousness, but at his taking it with any seriousness
at all. And he seems never even to dream of the obvious retort:
"Certainly. These men are at any rate 'thorough'; they are not
dilettante dalliers between two opinions. They have got far beyond
your half-way house and have arrived at their destination. We have no
desire to arrive at the destination, and therefore, if you will excuse
us, we decline to visit the half-way house." It is less surprising
that he did not see the force of the objections of another critic, M.
Maurice Vernes, to the equally illogical and unhistorical plan of
arbitrarily selecting this utterance as that of "Jesus," and another,
given by the same authority, as not that of "Jesus." A man, who was
sensible of this paralogism, could never take Mr Arnold's views on
Church and Religion at all.

But when we leave the Preface, even such faint liveliness as this
deserts us. The text contains four (or five, the second being divided
into two parts) essays, lectures, or papers, _A Psychological
Parallel_, _Bishop Butler and the Zeit-Geist_, The Church of England_,
and _A Last Word on the Burials Bill_. All had appeared in
_Macmillan's Magazine_ or the _Contemporary Review_ during
1876, while _Bishop Butler_ had been delivered as two lectures at
Edinburgh, and _The Church of England_ as an address to the
London Clergy at Sion College, during the spring of that year.