is unworthy of consideration. It is remarkable that, although
he charged the jury twice in my case, Sir James Stephen does not
regard his views as worth a mention.

Lord Coleridge says the law of blasphemy "is undoubtedly a disagreeable
law," and in my opinion he lets humanity get the better of his legal
judgment. He lays it down that "if the decencies of controversy are
observed, even the fundamentals of religion may be attacked without
a person being guilty of blasphemous libel."

Now such a decision can only be a stepping-stone to the abolition
of the law. Who can define "the decencies of controversy?" Everyone
has his own criterion in such matters, which is usually unconscious
and fluctuating. What shocks one man pleases another. Does not
the proverb say that one man's meat is another man's poison?
Lord Coleridge reduces Blasphemy to a matter of taste, and
_de gustibus non est disputandum_. According to this view, the
prosecution has simply to put any heretical work into the hands
of a jury, and say, "Gentlemen, do you like that? If you do, the
prisoner is innocent; if you do not, you must find him guilty."
Such a law puts a rope round the neck of every writer who soars
above commonplace, or has any gift of wit or humor. It hands over
the discussion of all important topics to pedants and blockheads,
and bans the _argumentum ad absurdum_ which has been employed by
all the great satirists from Aristophanes to Voltaire.

When Bishop South was reproached by an Episcopal brother for being
witty in the pulpit, he replied, "My dear brother in the Lord,
do you mean to say that if God had given you any wit you wouldn't
have used it?" Let Bishop South stand for the "blasphemer,"