Apologia pro Vita Sua | Page 9

in doubt and fear, as
much as any honest man can be, concerning every word Dr. Newman
may write. How can I tell that I shall not be the dupe of some cunning
equivocation, of one of the three kinds laid down as permissible by the
blessed Alfonso da Liguori and his pupils, even when confirmed by an
oath, because 'then we do not deceive our neighbour, but allow him to
deceive himself?' ... It is admissible, therefore, to use words and
sentences which have a double signification, and leave the hapless
hearer to take which of them he may choose. What proof have I, then,
that by 'mean it? I never said it!' Dr. Newman does not signify, I did not
say it, but I did mean it?"--Pp. 44, 45.
Now these insinuations and questions shall be answered in their proper
places; here I will but say that I scorn and detest lying, and quibbling,
and double-tongued practice, and slyness, and cunning, and smoothness,

and cant, and pretence, quite as much as any Protestants hate them; and
I pray to be kept from the snare of them. But all this is just now by the
bye; my present subject is Mr. Kingsley; what I insist upon here, now
that I am bringing this portion of my discussion to a close, is this
unmanly attempt of his, in his concluding pages, to cut the ground from
under my feet;--to poison by anticipation the public mind against me,
John Henry Newman, and to infuse into the imaginations of my readers,
suspicion and mistrust of everything that I may say in reply to him.
This I call poisoning the wells.
"I am henceforth in doubt and fear," he says, "as much as any honest
man can be, concerning every word Dr. Newman may write. How can I
tell that I shall not be the dupe of some cunning equivocation? ... What
proof have I, that by 'mean it? I never said it!' Dr. Newman does not
signify, 'I did not say it, but I did mean it'?"
Well, I can only say, that, if his taunt is to take effect, I am but wasting
my time in saying a word in answer to his foul calumnies; and this is
precisely what he knows and intends to be its fruit. I can hardly get
myself to protest against a method of controversy so base and cruel,
lest in doing so, I should be violating my self-respect and
self-possession; but most base and most cruel it is. We all know how
our imagination runs away with us, how suddenly and at what a
pace;--the saying, "Caesar's wife should not be suspected," is an
instance of what I mean. The habitual prejudice, the humour of the
moment, is the turning-point which leads us to read a defence in a good
sense or a bad. We interpret it by our antecedent impressions. The very
same sentiments, according as our jealousy is or is not awake, or our
aversion stimulated, are tokens of truth or of dissimulation and pretence.
There is a story of a sane person being by mistake shut up in the wards
of a lunatic asylum, and that, when he pleaded his cause to some
strangers visiting the establishment, the only remark he elicited in
answer was, "How naturally he talks! you would think he was in his
senses." Controversies should be decided by the reason; is it legitimate
warfare to appeal to the misgivings of the public mind and to its
dislikings? Anyhow, if Mr. Kingsley is able thus to practise upon my
readers, the more I succeed, the less will be my success. If I am natural,

he will tell them, "Ars est celare artem;" if I am convincing, he will
suggest that I am an able logician; if I show warmth, I am acting the
indignant innocent; if I am calm, I am thereby detected as a smooth
hypocrite; if I clear up difficulties, I am too plausible and perfect to be
true. The more triumphant are my statements, the more certain will be
my defeat.
So will it be if Mr. Kingsley succeeds in his manoeuvre; but I do not
for an instant believe that he will. Whatever judgment my readers may
eventually form of me from these pages, I am confident that they will
believe me in what I shall say in the course of them. I have no
misgiving it all, that they will be ungenerous or harsh with a man who
has been so long before the eyes of the world; who has so many to
speak of him from personal knowledge; whose natural impulse it has
ever been to speak out; who has ever spoken too much rather than too
little; who would have saved himself many a