Manicheans, Ancient and Modern

Extract

Under the title, The Inquisition, Mr. Hoffman Nickerson has written a book which has very little direct bearing on the Inquisition itself: it does something much more useful than a direct treatise could do : it describes the formation of the temper of mind that brought the Inquisition into being. Add to this that the book has a preface by Mr. Hilaire Belloc, and you have a sufficiently good understanding of its tone and spirit. Indeed, it is almost uncanny to notice the many sympathies of idea, of style, and of phrase between the writer of the preface and the writer of the book. We feel convinced that it would be easy to quote passages from the book, so choice, so determined, so much in the grand manner as to deceive even devoted followers of Mr. Belloc into thinking him the author of what are only the charming creations of Mr. Nickerson.

Furthermore, you must know that Mr. Nickerson is an American. You think at once of the immense tomes of Henry C. Lea on the iniquities of the Inquisition and you wonder what there can be in so grim and venerable a tribunal to attract the attention of Americans. What has attracted Mr. Lea in the subject we can guess, but we are not left to guesswork to discover why Mr. Nickerson has devoted himself unremittingly to this particular task.