PREFACE

THIS book, like its predecessor, Problems of Conduct, represents a course of lectures given for several years to undergraduates of Wesleyan University. It is hoped that these lectures in printed form will be useful, not only for other college classes, but for the general reading public that is interested in the great and vital problems of religion. Their aim is to give a rapid survey of the field, such that the man who is confused by the chaos of opinions on these matters, and himself but little able to judge between conflicting statements, may here get his bearings and see his way to stable belief and energetic action. In so limited a space it will not be possible to attempt an adequate presentation of the arguments for each view advanced or a rebuttal of the infinitely numerous and shifting arguments by which the various current doctrines seek to justify themselves. All that can be done is to offer the results of the best scholarly work in the wide field covered, and thereby to present a general perspective of those truths, some old and some but recently acquired, which bear practically on our religion.

The carefully chosen lists of readings appended to each chapter, together with the more specific references in the footnotes, will serve - for those who are interested enough to pursue any topic further as a check upon the author's conclusions and an initiation into the further aspects of the several problems. Practically all of this selected literature is in English, and is readable, as well as worth reading. The hopelessly antiquated literature is not cited, except occasionally, where it seems necessary for the sake of fair

ness in presenting both sides of a long controverted matter. The literature that indulges in rhetoric rather than in solid argument is also omitted, and all that range of books once useful but now stranded by the onrushing tides of criticism. Such names as Edwards, Emmons, Hodge, on the one hand, and Strauss, Renan, Ingersoll, on the other, are absent; but whatever of their thought survives in contemporary discussion will be found represented in the more recent works referred to. The ideal of justice to all legitimate opinions has been kept in mind, but has not precluded the attempt to present as clearly as possible whatever conclusions seem to the author warranted by our present-day knowledge.

There are two fires between which the critical writer on religion stands. On the one side, his historical investigations and scientific attitude inevitably seem cold and unfriendly to him whose personal belief is, necessarily, treated as one of many forms of possible religious belief, springing originally, as all have, out of superstition and error, and developed largely through the forces of prejudice and emotion. From the other side come the murmurs of those who, standing outside of these beliefs, and feeling no pull of longing or loyalty toward them, feel an impatience at so much concern with what appears to them a mere conglomerate of preposterous and visionary ideas. In the introductory chapter that follows, I have essayed to defend what, fortunately, for most readers will now in these more tolerant times need no defense, an attitude toward religion that is both warm, sympathetic, reverent — and critical, openeyed, resolute to follow the truth wherever it lead.

Parts of this book, in manuscript, have been read by Dr. Percy W. Long, of Harvard University, Professor Clayton R. Bowen, of the Meadville Theological School, President Albert Parker Fitch, of Andover Theological Seminary,

Professor J. W. Hewitt, of Wesleyan University, Professor C. B. Hedrick and W. P. Ladd, of the Berkeley Divinity School, and Professor D. C. Macintosh, of the Yale School of Religion. In an earlier form it was read, with sympathetic and illuminating comment, by that leader and inspirer of us all, William James. To all of these I render grateful acknowledgment; and to two others whose written and spoken words have been of the utmost service to me - Professor George Santayana, formerly of Harvard University, and Professor Dickinson S. Miller, of the General Theological School, New York. To none of these, however, must any responsibility be attributed for the opinions which I here

espouse.

My thanks are due to the editors of the American Journal of Theology, the Biblical World, the Monist, and the International Journal of Ethics for permission to reprint various sentences and portions of chapters which have appeared as a part of earlier essays in these periodicals.

DURANT DRAKE.