PREFACE. XV 



not wish to repel the reader by plunging him early into 

 a protracted controversy. I gave him in essence and in 

 outline quite as much as he could well digest in the first 

 fifty pages, and I transferred to the end of the book 

 the fuller development of the argument for the special 

 benefit of the metaphysical reader who may want, 

 and perhaps expect it. These two chapters of Book iii. 

 might almost be omitted by the general reader, but not 

 the remainder, which contains two of the most important 

 and, it is hoped, suggestive chapters of the whole work 

 those, namely, on the developed conception of Gk>d, and 

 on the conciliation of the new and old theories of morals. 



The book has been considered sceptical in spirit 

 by some,* and undoubtedly in some respects it is. But 

 there is a healthy as well as a hurtful scepticism, a scep- 

 ticism that allows a faith and hope to live alongside it 

 as well as a different sort, and it is chiefly this healthy 

 species that the reader will find. Moreover, it is possible 

 that the coming generations will have to take their 

 spiritual shelter under just such a scepticism. But at any 

 rate, the rigidly orthodox and the , votaries of varying 

 dogma should remember that, in our days, scepticism 

 may serve religion well, when perhaps their own over- 

 confident arguments may fail to convince. At the present 

 time it is chiefly a wholesome scepticism standing on the 

 despised reason and on the canons of inductive logic 

 which keeps the advanced and atheistic wing of the 

 scientific dogmatists at bay. 



In other respects the book does not favour scepticism. 

 * See The Church Quarterly Review, July, 1882. 



b 



