If it should be thought strange that one thinking so meanly of 'Essays and Reviews' should have produced a yet larger volume in reply to them, it must suffice to point out that the refutation of a fallacy is almost of necessity the ampler writing.--Or again, if it be remarked that by far the largest part of what I have written is directed against the hundred pages of Professor Jowett, the explanation is still obvious. For not only does that concluding Essay of his bring to a terribly practical issue the speculative doubts and difficulties which had been started by all his predecessors; (namely, doubts as to (1) the relation in which the Bible stands to Man;--(2) the nature of Prophecy;--(3) the reality of Miracles;--(4) the worth of Creeds and formularies;--(5) the authenticity of Genesis;--(6) the basis on which Revelation is by the Church of England supposed to rest;)--by proposing that we should henceforth regard the Bible as a book _no otherwise inspired than Sophocles and Plato_:--not only does Professor Jowett's essay discharge this fatal office; but his style is somewhat peculiar; and what he says, cannot always be effectually disposed of by a few words. Let me explain. There is a certain form of fallacy of statement in which this Gentleman's writings abound, which calls aloud for notice and signal reprobation. He has a marvellous aptitude, (one would fain hope through some intellectual infirmity,) of connecting together in the same sentence two or three clauses; one or two of which shall be true as Heaven, while the other is false as Hell. The reply to such a sentence is impossible, without many words,--far more than Mr. Jowett's sentences commonly deserve.--Sometimes he strings together several heads of thought; of which enumeration the kindest thing which can be said is that it betrays an utter want of intellectual perspective. To unravel even a part of this tangled web so as to expose its argumentative worthlessness, soon fills a page.... But there is another kind of fallacy which the same gentleman wields with immense effect, and in the use of which he is a great master; which, because it was absolutely impossible to handle it fitly in the proper place, shall be briefly adverted to, here. I proceed to describe it not without indignation; for I am profoundly struck by the intellectual perversity, not to say the moral obliquity, which has so entirely made this vile instrument its own.