It has been my privilege to read all the essays in this volume. I 

 hope the critics and the public will endorse my opinion that 

 they reach a high standard of excellence, and deal in a masterly 

 manner with questions of the greatest interest and importance. 

 The instructions of the editor were that the essays should be solid, 

 but not too technical for the general reader. These conditions 

 have, I think, been observed admirably. 



It was also stipulated that the essays should not be directly 

 apologetic in tendency. The book is neither a defence of 

 Christianity nor a criticism of it. Its object is to make clear what 

 the present state of the relations between religion and science 

 actually is. This restriction also has been observed, but the 

 writers have quite rightly not contented themselves with a colour- 

 less presentation. The book, after all, has a practical object, that 

 of indicating possible terms of peace, or a modus vivendi, between 

 religion and science. The writers are not all agreed as to how this 

 is to be brought about ; but the differences between them are, in 

 my opinion, less remarkable than their general harmony. After 

 reading the whole volume, one is inclined to feel confident that a 

 reconciliation is much nearer than it seemed to be fifty years ago. 



My task in summing up the work of the essayists — it is not a 

 debate, for the contributors have not seen each other's work — is 

 very difficult. There are some subjects dealt with in the book 

 with which I have only a superficial acquaintance ; and there are 

 others which I should myself have treated somewhat differently. 

 I have thought myself bound not to depart from the rules laid down 

 for the essayists, and in particular not to turn all their arguments 

 into an apology for the Christian faith. A certain degree of 

 neutrality is, I think, imposed upon me by the task which I have 

 accepted, of attempting to sum up and bring together the contribu- 

 tions of the different writers. And yet I have felt that a mere 

 resume is not what is desired from me. There may be one or two 

 gaps which I should try to fill. The position of one writer may 

 satisfy me better than that of another. If, on reading the whole 



