Excerpt from Hebrew Theism: The Common Basis of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedism
A Second Edition of this Work makes me anxious to improve it as I best can; for it is hardly probable that I can live to a Third Edition. The improvement which I most seek, is the avoiding to build upon anything unsolid, or to overstate the certainty of any probable doctrine. I have added the seven sections, entitled, The Doubter, Historical Warnings, Freedom from Error, Happiness, Utilitarianism, Murder, Food and Drink. I have re-written and transposed the section on Free Will, and have now entitled it Praise and Blame. In the Third Book I have omitted one section, because the topic was too wide and difficult, and I had treated it partially. Throughout I have made small corrections, with occasional slight omission or addition.
The form and the style of this Book has not been adopted through affectation, or any love of novelty, but from the pressure of my problem itself. No one who has not essayed it, can know its difficulty. To expound the basis of religion much consecutive argument is wanted, and some metaphysics and logic; which is to be made intelligible and acceptable to a wholly unscientific public. A periodical style, with pronouns of reference (which, it) often recurring, and complex grammar, is notoriously ill-suited to the elements of Geometry. To make consecutive reasoning clear, the sentences must be very simple, the pronouns must be economized, and nouns reiterated; and we know that all pleasure of style vanishes in Euclid. Like the Roman Lucretius in commending his philosophy to an unphilosophic public, I found no way of avoiding flatness and dryness, when I had made the sentences simple enough, but by a tinge of poetry; and to make poetical diction natural, something of poetical rhythm is essential.
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