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This week's Final Word comes from a bishop with no faith in reality:

"For after all, what deserves the first place in our studies, is the consideration of God, and our duty; which to promote, as it was the main drift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless and ineffectual, if by what I have said I cannot inspire my readers with a pious sense of the presence of God: and having shewn the falseness or vanity of those barren speculations; which make the chief employment of learned men, the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary truths of the Gospel, which to know and to practise is the highest perfection of human nature."

Entries should be submitted to Final Word, The THES, Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1 9XY, faxed to 0171-782 3300 or emailed to theschat@thes.co.uk. The winner receives a Pounds 20 book token and the closing date is October 15. The winner of last week's competition, who correctly identified Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity, is Mrs J. Bussey, of Hardwicke, Gloucestershire.