Apologia pro Vita Sua | Page 3

hates the principles which are nearest to my heart, has no personal
knowledge of me to set right his misconceptions of my doctrine, and
who has some motive or other to be as severe with me as he can
possibly be.
And first of all, I beg to compliment him on the motto in his title-page;
it is felicitous. A motto should contain, as in a nutshell, the contents, or
the character, or the drift, or the animus of the writing to which it is
prefixed. The words which he has taken from me are so apposite as to
be almost prophetical. There cannot be a better illustration than he
thereby affords of the aphorism which I intended them to convey. I said
that it is not more than an hyperbolical expression to say that in certain
cases a lie is the nearest approach to truth. Mr. Kingsley's pamphlet is
emphatically one of such cases as are contemplated in that proposition.
I really believe, that his view of me is about as near an approach to the
truth about my writings and doings, as he is capable of taking. He has
done his worst towards me; but he has also done his best. So far well;
but, while I impute to him no malice, I unfeignedly think, on the other
hand, that, in his invective against me, he as faithfully fulfils the other

half of the proposition also.
This is not a mere sharp retort upon Mr. Kingsley, as will be seen,
when I come to consider directly the subject to which the words of his
motto relate. I have enlarged on that subject in various passages of my
publications; I have said that minds in different states and
circumstances cannot understand one another, and that in all cases they
must be instructed according to their capacity, and, if not taught step by
step, they learn only so much the less; that children do not apprehend
the thoughts of grown people, nor savages the instincts of civilization,
nor blind men the perceptions of sight, nor pagans the doctrines of
Christianity, nor men the experiences of Angels. In the same way, there
are people of matter-of-fact, prosaic minds, who cannot take in the
fancies of poets; and others of shallow, inaccurate minds, who cannot
take in the ideas of philosophical inquirers. In a lecture of mine I have
illustrated this phenomenon by the supposed instance of a foreigner,
who, after reading a commentary on the principles of English Law,
does not get nearer to a real apprehension of them than to be led to
accuse Englishmen of considering that the queen is impeccable and
infallible, and that the Parliament is omnipotent. Mr. Kingsley has read
me from beginning to end in the fashion in which the hypothetical
Russian read Blackstone; not, I repeat, from malice, but because of his
intellectual build. He appears to be so constituted as to have no notion
of what goes on in minds very different from his own, and moreover to
be stone-blind to his ignorance. A modest man or a philosopher would
have scrupled to treat with scorn and scoffing, as Mr. Kingsley does in
my own instance, principles and convictions, even if he did not
acquiesce in them himself, which had been held so widely and for so
long--the beliefs and devotions and customs which have been the
religious life of millions upon millions of Christians for nearly twenty
centuries--for this in fact is the task on which he is spending his pains.
Had he been a man of large or cautious mind, he would not have taken
it for granted that cultivation must lead every one to see things
precisely as he sees them himself. But the narrow-minded are the more
prejudiced by very reason of their narrowness. The apostle bids us "in
malice be children, but in understanding be men." I am glad to
recognise in Mr. Kingsley an illustration of the first half of this precept;

but I should not be honest, if I ascribed to him any sort of fulfilment of
the second.
I wish I could speak as favourably either of his drift or of his method of
arguing, as I can of his convictions. As to his drift, I think its ultimate
point is an attack upon the Catholic Religion. It is I indeed, whom he is
immediately insulting--still, he views me only as a representative, and
on the whole a fair one, of a class or caste of men, to whom, conscious
as I am of my own integrity, I ascribe an excellence superior to mine.
He desires to impress upon the public mind the conviction that I am a
crafty, scheming man, simply untrustworthy; that, in becoming a
Catholic, I have just found my right place; that I