Excerpt from Authority and Conscience: A Free Debate on the Tendency of Dogmatic Theology, and on the Characteristics of Faith Few persons, I fear, will be predisposed to welcome With favour a book of controversial dialogues by an unknown writer. Dialogue, especially when it is used for purely dialectical purposes, is felt to be almost consecrated ground - associated, as it must ever be in the minds of cultivated men, with the profound speculations of the Academy, and with numberless winning graces of style and manner. It is proverbially dangerous for any but a magician to presume to touch a magician's wand; and I should not, perhaps, have ventured to face so great a risk, if I had not been fortified by the consciousness, that I am merely a bona fide reporter, not a composer, of dialogues. I did not choose my costume, it was chosen for me. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.