was false in so far as it fostered
ugliness, and it had fostered ugliness. It was therefore not a little true and
not a little false; on the whole one might go farther and fare worse; the wisest
course would be to live with it and make the best and not the worst of it. The
writer urged that we become persecutors as a matter of course as soon as we
begin to feel very strongly upon any subject; we ought not therefore to do this;
we ought not to feel very strongly even upon that institution which was dearer
to the writer than any other - the Church of England; we should be churchmen,
but somewhat lukewarm churchmen, inasmuch as those who care very much about
either religion or irreligion are seldom observed to be very well bred or
agreeable people. The church herself should approach as nearly to that of
Laodicoea as was compatible with her continuing to be a church at all, and each
individual member should only be hot in striving to be as lukewarm as possible.
    The book rang with the courage alike of conviction and of an entire absence
of conviction; it appeared to be the work of men who had a rule-of-thumb way of
steering between subservism on the one hand and credulity on the other; who cut
Gordian knots as a matter of course when it suited their convenience; who shrank
from no conclusion in theory, nor from any want of logic in practice so long as
they were illogical of malice prepense, and for what they held to be sufficient
reason. The conclusions were conservative, quietistic, comforting. The arguments
by which they were reached were taken from the most advanced writers of the day.
All that these people contended for was granted them, but the fruits of victory
were for the most part handed over to those already in possession.
    Perhaps the passage which attracted most attention in the book was one from
the essay on the various marriage systems of the world. It ran -
    »If people require us to construct,« exclaimed the writer,
 
        »we set good breeding as the cornerstone of our edifice. We would have
        it ever-present consciously or unconsciously in the minds of all as the
        central faith in which they should live and move and have their being -
        as the touchstone of all things whereby they may be known as good or
        evil according as they make for good breeding or against it.
            That a man should have been bred well and breed others well; that
        his figure, head, hands, feet, voice, manner and clothes should carry
        conviction upon this point, so that no one can look at him