We are not repelled much by his eagerness to refute and
maltreat his opponent. That was not alien from the usages of the time,
and Warburton at least had no right to complain of such a style of
controversy. But there is no width and elevation of view. The writer
does not carry the discussion up to a higher level, and dominate his
adversary from a superior standpoint. Controversy is always ephemeral
and vulgar, unless it can rise to the discussion and establishment of
facts and principles valuable for themselves, independently of the
particular point at issue. It is this quality which has made the
master-works of Chillingworth and Bentley supereminent. The particular
point for which the writers contended is settled or forgotten. But in
moving up to that point they touched--such was their large discourse
of reason--on topics of perennial interest, did such justice, though
only in passing, to certain other truths, that they are gratefully
remembered ever after. Thus Bentley's dissertation on Phalaris is
read, not for the main thesis--proof of the spuriousness of the
letters--but for the profound knowledge and admirable logic with which
subsidiary positions are maintained on the way to it.
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