542 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xif 9 



example, are not inconsistent, so far as I know, with any 

 form of theology. 



After much consideration, I thought that I might be 

 most useful to you, if I attempted to give you some vision 

 of this Extrachristian world, as it appears to a person who 

 lives a good deal in it ; and if I tried to show you by 

 what methods the dwellers therein try to distinguish 

 truth from falsehood, in regard to some of the deepest 

 and most difficult problems that beset humanity, "in 

 order to be clear about their actions, and to walk sure- 

 footedly in this life," as Descartes says. 



It struck me that if the execution of my project came 

 anywhere near the conception of it, you would become 

 aware that the philosophers and the men of science are 

 not exactly what they are sometimes represented to you 

 to be ; and that their methods and paths do not lead so 

 perpendicularly downwards as you are occasionally told 

 they do. And I must admit, also, that a particular and 

 personal motive weighed with me, — namely, the desire to 

 show that a certain discourse, which brought a great 

 storm about my head some time ago, contained nothing 

 but the ultimate development of the views of the father 

 of modern philosophy. I do not know if I have been 

 quite wise in allowing this last motive to weigh with me. 

 They say that the most dangerous thing one can do in a 

 thunderstorm is to shelter oneself under a great tree, and 

 the history of Descartes' life shows how narrowly he 

 escaped being riven by the lightnings, which were more 

 destructive in his time than in ours. 



Descartes lived and died a good Catholic, and prided 

 himself upon having demonstrated the existence of God 

 and of the soul of man. As a reward for his exertions, 

 his old friends the Jesuits put his works upon the 

 " Index," and called him an Atheist ; while the Pro- 

 testant divines of Holland declared him to be both a 



