vi PREFACE 



preparation of those who have ceased to be content with the 

 old, and find no satisfaction in half measures. I have wished, 

 and I still wish, to disturb no man's peace of mind, no man's 

 beliefs ; but only to point out to those in whom they are 

 already shattered, the direction in which, in my conviction, 

 firmer ground lies. " l 



So wrote one of the protagonists of the New 

 Reformation and a well-abused man if ever 

 there was one a score of years since, in the re- 

 markable book in which he discusses the negative 

 and the positive results of the rigorous application 

 of scientific method to the investigation of the 

 higher problems of human life. 



Recent experience leads me to imagine that 

 there may be a good many countrymen of my 

 own, even at this time, to whom it may be profit- 

 able to read, mark and inwardly digest, the 

 weighty words of the author of that " Leben Jesu," 

 which, half a century ago, stirred the religious 

 world so seriously that it has never settled down 

 again quite on the old foundations ; indeed, some 

 think it never will. I have a personal interest in 

 the carrying out of the recommendation I venture 

 to make. It may enable many worthy persons, in 

 whose estimation I should really be glad to stand 

 higher than I do, to become aware of the possibility 

 that my motives in writing the essays, contained 

 in this and the preceding volume, were not exactly 

 those that they ascribe to me. 



1 D. F. Strauss, Der aUe und der neue Glaube (1872), pp. 9 10. 



