XXviii PREFACE. 



too deeply convinced of the efficacy of all 

 sincere belief, and of the moral aridity 

 which follows the loss of it, to have any 

 thing in me. of the negative propagandist. 

 In fact, I have very little sympathy with the 

 class of Freethinkers, and 1 have lost all 

 interest in merely anti-religious polemics" 



From the life, of this highly-gifted lady, 

 published in 1883, under the title of 

 George Eliot: A Critical Study of her 

 Life, Writings and Philosophy, by Gr. 

 W. Cooke, I should imagine a very happy 

 change must have come over her towards 

 the close of her career, relative to the 

 principles of the Freethinkers, very dif- 

 ferent from those she must have enter- 

 tained in early life, when Assistant Editor 

 of the Westminster Review ; as the differ- 

 ences between the principles of the Free- 

 thinking school and the ordinary view of 

 the great body of professing Christians on 

 the doctrine of " Evolution " and other 

 cognate subjects, may be summarily ex- 

 pressed as follows : 



1. With regard to the Origin of Man 



