You do well, therefore, to avoid argument in all points that require previous preparation and study. A general slashing style, without condescending to particulars, is undoubtedly your forte, and I cannot sufficiently admire your dexterity in avoiding a direct reply. You have got hold of a capital phrase in answer to everything that can be advanced against you. No matter how clearly your opponent may have stated his case, no matter how distinct his logic, or how incontrovertible his facts, you come down upon him with your pet cry of "exploded fallacies," and extinguish him at once and for ever. Very righteously you eschew the trouble of pointing out where, when, and by whom, the said obnoxious fallacy was exploded. It is perfectly possible--nay, in nine cases out of ten, absolutely certain, that you never in your life heard that particular view stated before, and that you do not comprehend it when stated; still, you continue to occupy the vantage ground, and pooh-pooh it down as calmly as though it were one of the Manchester unfulfilled prophecies. This is a pleasant way of getting out of a dilemma; and the best of it is, that by generalisation you may contrive to apply your epithet to every fact, however notorious, which has been brought forward by your antagonist. For instance, an indignant farmer writes you a letter enclosing a balance-sheet of his operations for the last year, which shows that, instead of making any profit, he is out of pocket some ninety or a hundred pounds; and he argues, quite fairly, that if grain is to continue at its present rate, in consequence of importations from abroad, he will be a ruined man before the expiry of his lease, and his labourers thrown out of employment. Six months ago, your answer would have been hopeful, courteous, and encouraging. You would have assured him that the present depression was merely temporary, and that in the course of a short time wheat must be at sixty shillings. You are wiser now. You are perfectly aware that any considerable rise in the value of agricultural produce, under the operation of the present law, is a pure impossibility; and you resort to no such assurance. Three months later you would have told him to go to the devil or the antipodes, whichever he pleased, and not bother the public with his wicked and insensate clamour. But you are also tolerably aware, by this time, that the public does not exactly approve of a wholesale system of expatriation, however admirable it may appear in your eyes; and that you have exposed yourself, by recommending it, to certain reflections, which are not very creditable to your character either as a philanthropist or a Christian. Nor can you much mend the matter by insisting upon another pet phrase of yours, which did good service so long as it was new. You cannot always aver that we are in "a transition state" of society. In the first place, the expression, when you analyse it, has no meaning. In the second place, granting that