Apologia Pro Vita Sua

“The Apologia was written against a man, Kingsley, who had made an accusation which would not have galled in any other surrounding as it did in those surroundings. He had accused Newman of falsehood and insincerity. A Catholic from almost anywhere else in Europe than from Oxford would have laughed aloud at accusations of insincerity from the peculiar atmosphere of the English Church. Not so Newman. Newman well understood the penetrative power of that accusation in England. He knew to the quick the impact against which he must defend himself. We know what the reaction was. It produced the great, the strongly founded book, standing stronger after so many years, which the reader has here before him. Almost for the first time Newman compelled his generation to the use of exact reason. Almost for the first time in the long controversies whereof his audience had heard but confused affirmations, he threw the enemy upon the defensive; and since the time when he so acted the effect of his counter attack has spread over wider and wider circles. And here it is that I must conclude with the universal effect of the book. Of the Anglican Church Europe knows little and cares less, and will know still less and care still less as its dissolution proceeds. Of Oxford, European civilization as a whole takes no account, regarding it today for what in the main it is, a playground for rich young men, and certainly not the same kind of thing, nor even the tolerated equal of Paris or Leipzig or any other of the great universities of our time. Yet over all Europe the effect of the Apologia continues increasing even beyond that of the noble Grammar of Assent. Such is the power of three things combined, interest in reality, an ardor to defend reality, use of the reason for the defense of reality. The appetite, the task, the weapon, the three between them are most worthy of a man”. — Hilaire Belloc