CONTROVERSIALIST, AND LITERARY MAGAZINE: ESTABLISHED FOR THE IMPARTIAL AND DELIBERATE DISCUSSION OF IMPORTANT QUESTIONS IN RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, POLITICS, SOCIAL ECONOMY, ETC., AND AS A MAGAZINE OF SELF-CULTURE. "MAGNA EST VERITAS, ET PRÆVALEBIT." "Those who have not thoroughly examined to the bottom all their own tenets, must confess they are unfit to prescribe to others, and are unreasonable in imposing that as truth on other men's belief which they themselves have not searched into, nor weighed the arguments of probability on which they should receive or reject it."-Locke. VOLUME III.—NEW SERIES. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY HOULSTON AND WRIGHT, 65, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1857. THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIVA) 191021 ASTON NO LAND TILDEN FORSATIONS 1500. LONDON J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS, Bartholomew Close. PREFACE. Ir "opinions are," as Edmund Burke asserts, "of infinite consequence," they ought neither to be hastily assented to, nor be adopted without deliberation. Truth is of no party; and those, therefore, who would secure it must look above and beyond the boundary line of any sect, religious, political, or professional. It is a duty devolved upon us by the command to "love our neighbour," to suppose that his beliefs, like ours, have not been arrived at without thought or examination, but that he has what appears to him "good reason " for his faith. The charities of life are too frequently violated by a neglect of this duty, and hence there has risen up a need of the age, viz., a Magazine in which the beliefs of men and their reasons for holding them should be so stated, as to irrite noib, but inform many. During more than seven years this Serial has been presented to the public as an "impartial arena for the contests of mind," and the amount, if not the extent, of the favour with which it has been received has hitherto more than fully justified the anticipations of its founders. In the present Volume several topics of great interest have been debated. The talent displayed by the several contributors seems to have risen with the importance of the subjects, and hence, we believe, most satisfactory articles have been placed on the record." The Editors view with some complacency the 66 |