The MS. concerning Colenso duly arrived.
I note your remarks on the merits of Colenso. I do not write to tell you that I differ from you, but to tell you why I differ.
I think that you do not make the proper distinction between a person who invents or introduces a tool, and the person who uses it.
The most resolute antigravitationist that ever lived might yet acknowledge his debt to Newton for the Method of Prime and Ultimate Ratios and the Principles of Fluxions by which Newton sought to establish gravitation.
So let it be with Colenso. He has given me a power of tracing out truth to a certain extent which I never could have obtained without him. And for this I am very grateful.
As to the further employment of this power, you know that he and I use it to totally different purposes. But not the less do I say that I owe to him a new intellectual power.
I quite agree with you, that the sudden disruption of the old traditional view seems to have unhinged his mind, and to have sent him too far on the other side. I would not give a pin for his judgment.
Nevertheless, I wish he would go over the three remaining books of the
Tetrateuch.
I know something of Myers, but I should not have thought him likely to produce anything sound on such things as the Hebrew Scriptures. I never saw his "Thoughts."
I am, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
G.B. AIRY.