xxii Encouragement for this Age. 



ought not to be dismayed by any prospect of dis- 

 establishment and disendowment ; and the shock 

 given to religious convictions in our time by the 

 doctrine of Evolution, cannot be greater than that 

 caused by the astronomical discoveries which proved 

 the earth not to be the centre of the universe. 

 Virgil's words may be truly spoken to us, 



passi graviora ! dabit Deus his quoque finem. 



In the year 1873 I published through Macmillan 

 and Co. a book entitled The Scientific Bases of Faith, 

 with the purpose of showing that the new ideas 

 of the nature and origin of things, including the 

 entire doctrine of Evolution, constitute a better basis 

 for Theistic and Christian faith than the old l : and 

 some chapters were added on the special and charac- 

 teristic doctrines of Christianity. The edition is now 

 exhausted, and the publishers do not encourage me 

 to venture a second. But during the twenty years 

 which have passed since that book was published, 

 much has been thought, said, and written, on the 

 subjects whereof it treats ; and the purpose of the 



1 The Spectator, in reviewing The Scientific Bases of Faith, 

 said that the title is somewhat inappropriate, because the work 

 is only a scientific examination of the bases of faith, and I really 

 base faith not on science but on instinct. This last remark is 

 quite true ; see the concluding chapter of the present work, 

 especially pp. 222-225, and 233-235. But the title of my former 

 work is meant to express the truth, that although Faith tran- 

 scends Nature and Science, yet it has its bases in that Nature 

 which can be scientifically understood. 



