to any assumption of dignity--surely a feeling the opposite to
self-conceit; whilst, if I am not true, simple, and sincere, I am worse
than I hope I am, and all my friends are deceived in their kind judgment
of me.

But let this book speak for itself; I trust it is honest, charitable,
and rationally religious. If I have (and I show it through all my
writings) a shrinking from priestcraft of every denomination, that
feeling I take to be due to some ancient heredity ingrained, or, more
truly, inburnt into my nature from sundry pre-Lutheran confessors and
martyrs of old, from whom I claim to be descended, and by whose spirit I
am imbued. Not but that I profess myself broad, and wide, and liberal
enough for all manner of allowances to others, and so far as any narrow
prejudices may be imagined of my idiosyncrasy, I must allow myself to be
changeable and uncertain--though hitherto having steered through life a
fairly straight course--and that sometimes I can even doubt as to my
politics, whether they should be defined Whig or Tory; as to my
religion, whether it is most truly chargeable by the epithet high or
low; as to my likings, whether I best prefer solitude or society; as to
literature, whether gaieties or gravities please me most. In fact, I
recognise good in everything, though sometimes hidden by evil, right (by
intention, at least) in sundry doctrines and opinions otherwise to my
judgment wrong, and I am willing to believe the kindliest of my
opponents who appear to be honest and earnest. This is a very fair creed
for a citizen of the world, whose motto is Terence's famous avowal,
"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."