THE “ADVOCATUS DIABOLUS.”
It is possible to raise objections (and not necessarily foolish objections) to almost any thesis, and the thesis is not hurt thereby. The Vatican wisely employs an advocatus diabolus, whose paradoxical function is to establish the sanctity of a candidate for canonisation by alleging all of what is not saintly that he can rake up in the candidate’s career. Your correspondent has acted as advocatus diabolus to “Made in Germany.” He has said what there is to be said for the other side, and my book, I respectfully submit, is uninjured. Unfortunately in this case it is the case of the advocatus diabolus only with which most of his readers are acquainted—a circumstance calculated to obscure their judgment. To them I would say: Read my book; you can buy it for half-a-crown, or you can get it for nothing out of the Free Library. This is not a puff of my own wares; it is a necessity of the case. Until you have read the book you cannot form an opinion on the worth of the attack. The small space allotted to me for criticism of my critic is obviously quite insufficient to prove a case which was with difficulty compressed into 174 octavo pages; neither, apart from consideration of space, would you thank me for copying out matter already published elsewhere. You will therefore kindly bear in mind that the ensuing remarks are not a complete statement of my position, but only some supplementary criticisms prompted by the attack.