It will be observed that I have cautiously used the word
"appears" in referring to what seems to me to be absence of any
real answer to my criticisms in Mr. Gladstone's reply. For I
must honestly confess that, notwithstanding long and painful
strivings after clear insight, I am still uncertain whether Mr.
Gladstone's "Defence" means that the great "plea for a
revelation from God" is to be left to perish in the dialectic
desert; or whether it is to be withdrawn under the protection of
such skirmishers as are available for covering retreat.

In particular, the remarkable disquisition which covers pages 11
to 14 of Mr. Gladstone's last contribution has greatly exercised
my mind. Socrates is reported to have said of the works of
Heraclitus that he who attempted to comprehend them should be a
"Delian swimmer," but that, for his part, what he could
understand was so good that he was disposed to believe in the
excellence of that which he found unintelligible.
In endeavouring to make myself master of Mr. Gladstone's meaning
in these pages, I have often been overcome by a feeling
analogous to that of Socrates, but not quite the same.
That which I do understand has appeared to me so very much the
reverse of good, that I have sometimes permitted myself to doubt
the value of that which I do not understand.

In this part of Mr. Gladstone's reply, in fact, I find nothing
of which the bearing upon my arguments is clear to me, except
that which relates to the question whether reptiles, so far as
they are represented by tortoises and the great majority of
lizards and snakes, which are land animals, are creeping things