The Professor of the Breakfast Table PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
This book is one of those which, if it lives for a number of decades,
and if it requires any Preface at all, wants a new one every ten
years. The first Preface to a book is apt to be explanatory, perhaps
apologetic, in the expectation of attacks from various quarters. If
the book is in some points in advance of public opinion, it is
natural that the writer should try to smooth the way to the reception
of his more or less aggressive ideas. He wishes to convince, not to
offend,--to obtain a hearing for his thought, not to stir up angry
opposition in those who do not accept it. There is commonly an
anxious look about a first Preface. The author thinks he shall be
misapprehended about this or that matter, that his well-meant
expressions will probably be invidiously interpreted by those whom he
looks upon as prejudiced critics, and if he deals with living
questions that he will be attacked as a destructive by the
conservatives and reproached for his timidity by the noisier
radicals. The first Preface, therefore, is likely to be the weakest
part of a work containing the thoughts of an honest writer.
After a time the writer has cooled down from his excitement,--has got
over his apprehensions, is pleased to find that his book is still
read, and that he must write a new Preface. He comes smiling to his
task. How many things have explained themselves in the ten or twenty
or thirty years since he came before his untried public in those
almost plaintive paragraphs in which he introduced himself to his
readers,--for the Preface writer, no matter how fierce a combatant he
may prove, comes on to the stage with his shield on his right arm and
his sword in his left hand.
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table came out in the "Atlantic
Monthly" and introduced itself without any formal Preface. A quarter
of a century later the Preface of 1882, which the reader has just had
laid before him, was written. There is no mark of worry, I think, in
that. Old opponents had come up and shaken hands with the author
they had attacked or denounced. Newspapers which had warned their
subscribers against him were glad to get him as a contributor to
their columns. A great change had come over the community with
reference to their beliefs. Christian believers were united as never
before in the feeling that, after all, their common object was to
elevate the moral and religious standard of humanity. But within the
special compartments of the great Christian fold the marks of
division have pronounced themselves in the most unmistakable manner.
As an example we may take the lines of cleavage which have shown
themselves in the two great churches, the Congregational and the
Presbyterian, and the very distinct fissure which is manifest in the
transplanted Anglican church of this country. Recent circumstances
have brought out the fact of the great change in the dogmatic
communities which has been going on silently but surely. The
licensing of a missionary, the transfer of a Professor from one
department to another, the election of a Bishop,--each of these
movements furnishes evidence that there is no such thing as an air-
tight reservoir of doctrinal finalities.
The folding-doors are wide open to every Protestant to enter all the
privileged precincts and private apartments of the various exclusive
religious organizations. We may demand the credentials of every
creed and catechise all the catechisms. So we may discuss the
gravest questions unblamed over our morning coffee-cups or our
evening tea-cups. There is no rest for the Protestant until he gives
up his legendary anthropology and all its dogmatic dependencies.
It is only incidentally, however, that the Professor at the
Breakfast-Table handles matters which are the subjects of religious
controversy. The reader who is sensitive about having his fixed
beliefs dealt with as if they were open to question had better skip
the pages which look as if they would disturb his complacency.
"Faith" is the most precious of possessions, and it dislikes being
meddled with. It means, of course, self-trust,--that is, a belief in
the value of our, own opinion of a doctrine, of a church, of a
religion, of a Being, a belief quite independent of any evidence that
we can bring to convince a jury of our fellow beings. Its roots are
thus inextricably entangled with those of self-love and bleed as
mandrakes were said to, when pulled up as weeds. Some persons may
even at this late day take offence at a few opinions expressed in the
following pages, but most of these passages will be read without loss
of temper by those who disagree with them, and by-and-by they may be
found too timid and conservative for intelligent readers, if they are
still read by any.
