Newmanianism/II.The Criticism of the Spectator

Hitherto, howewer, among many criticisms from the press, the Editor of the Spectator has been unique in accusing me of "unfairness"; and I trust -having regard to the good fame of British journalism- that he will remain unique in having accused me of insincerity. The latter accusation has indeed been withdrawn, but in so grudging a spirit as to make the recantation almost worse than the original offense: "We suppose we had no right to say" -here, as elsewhere, the italics are mine, -"that we did not believe him to be quite sincere in denying that Newman was guilty of conscious insincerity, and we withdraw the statement". (Spectator, 25th April, 1891).

The accusation of "unfairness" are not withdrawn. But their insignificance may be estimated from a single specimen. The Editor accused me of ignoring the fact that "at the time these Essays were published" (meaning Newman's two Essays on miracles) there was not "any of the ground" wich exists now for attributing cures to "faith-healing". In my reply I showed first, that in the expression italicized above he had confused together (and this, not once, but trice) two quite distinct Essays, of wich one was published by Newman as a Protestant, and the other about sixteen or seventeen years afterwards when he was on the verge of Romanism: I then showed that, even in the earlier Essay, Newman definitely recognized some so-called miraculous cures "as possible effects of an excited imagination;" I added that a fortiori, with the growth of science, sixteen or seventeen years afterwards, there would be still more of that "ground" of which the very existence had been denied by my censor, and I invited him to reconsider his charge of "unfairness". But it remains unwithdrawn. That being the case, it seems well to place upon record this instance of the degree to which a critic of some repute may be biassed by what he has himself described as "five-and-twenty years' study of Newman".

I could not sincerely call Newman dishonest or deliberately insincere. It would appear, to me at all events, a gross psychological blunder-intellectually, as well as morally, offensive. That subtlety and tortuosity of mind which induced James Mozley to call Laud "great but twisty", is still more decidedly and justly to be distinguished from conscious insincerity in a nature like Newman's, which in many departments of thought evinced a singular simplicity and a hatred of things hollow and conventional. But still, the instincts of a theological rhetorician, striving for the truths which he supposes necessary for eternal salvation, do occasionally lead him to omit, pervert, distort, suppress, in a manner so extraordinary that any geologist, or astronomer, or philologist, or commentator (upon anything except the Bible) guilty of such desecrations of truth would receive the severest reprobation. Hence it is not always easy, while execrating the system, to speak mildly about an eminent man who is but one of many victims to it. One or two softening modifications I have already inserted in the "Corrigenda" of this edition, and, if an opportunity should present itself, I would gladly incorporate them hereafter in the text, together with any other corrections that may be shown to be demanded by justice.