T.H. Huxley.
If you are at home any day next week I will look in for a chat.
[The controversy was completed by a third article, "Agnosticism and Christianity," in the June number of the "Nineteenth Century". There was a humorous aspect of this article which tickled his fancy immensely, for he drove home his previous arguments by means of an authority whom his adversaries could not neglect, though he was the last man they could have expected to see brought up against them in this connection—Cardinal Newman. There is no better evidence for ancient than for modern miracles, he says in effect; let us therefore accept the teachings of the Church which maintains a continuous tradition on the subject. But there is a very different conclusion to be drawn from the same premises; all may be regarded as equally doubtful, and so he writes on May 30 to Sir J. Hooker:—]
By the way, I want you to enjoy my wind-up with Wace in this month's "Nineteenth" in the reading as much as I have in the writing. It's as full of malice [I.e. in the French sense of the word.] as an egg is full of meat, and my satisfaction in making Newman my accomplice has been unutterable. That man is the slipperiest sophist I have ever met with. Kingsley was entirely right about him.
Now for peace and quietness till after the next Church Congress!
[Three other letters to Mr. Knowles refer to this article.]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 4, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I am at the end of my London tether, and we go to Eastbourne (3
Jevington Gardens again) on Monday.
I have been working hard to finish my paper, and shall send it to you before I go.