I have risked to be tedious, because I find that when I speak concisely, I am enormously misapprehended.

I close this topic by observing, that, the great animosity with which my very mild intimations against the popular view have been met from numerous quarters, show me that Christians do not allow this subject to be calmly debated, end have not come to their own conclusion as the result of a calm debate.

And this is amply corroborated by my own consciousness of the past I never dared, nor could have dared, to criticize coolly and simply the pretensions of Jesus to be an absolute model of morality, until I had been delivered from the weight of authority and miracle, oppressing my critical powers.
III.

I have been asserting, that he who believes Jesus to be mere man, ought at once to believe his moral excellence finite and comparable to that of other men; and, that our judgment to this effect cannot be reasonably overborne by the "universal consent" of Christendom .-- Thus far we are dealing _a priori_, which here fully satisfies me: in such an argument I need no _a posteriori_ evidence to arrive at my own conclusion.

Nevertheless, I am met by taunts and clamour, which are not meant to be indecent, but which to my feeling are such.