PREFACE.

THE subject of this book is, I think, sufficiently indicated by its title. But it may be well that I should here briefly set down the main outlines of my argument, since, for a reason which I shall presently give, I have preferred not to present it in the form of a systematic treatise.

First, then, I ask my readers to look in the face the issue of that great intellectual movement in the European world which is usually termed Modern Thought: a vague term, indeed, although, I suppose, we all know well enough what is meant by it. An essentially negative movement it is—its ultimate message to mankind the philosophy of Schopenhauer and his school: and to an examination of that philosophy my First Chapter is devoted. But the view of life put before us by the Pessimists is, after all, to a large

α

31X685

extent true, nor is it easy to see what answer can be given to their argument save that supplied by religious faith. Is religious faith, then, any longer possible? or has Modern Thought een so fatal to it as is commonly asserted?

I proceed in my Second Chapter to consider how that question has been answered, for himself, by a thinker, for sixty years contemporary with Schopenhauer, and certainly not inferior to the prophet of Pessimisin in keenness, subtilty, or breadth, of intellect, while far superior to him in those ethical qualities which are no less necessary than intellectual, to the seeker after truth in any department higher than that of physical science. As the founder of a religious movement, the philosophical basis of which was indirectly derived from Kant, John Henry Newman's spiritual history is peculiarly worthy of attention in view of the great question which Modern Thought so imperiously raises. To that history, and to the phase of religion which is so inseparably con

1 See pp. 59-61.

nected with it, and which is best studied in the person and action of its originator and leader, . I have given my Second Chapter. Cardinal Newman, like Schopenhauer, has looked in the face "the heart-piercing, reason-bewildering mystery of life: the result being to bring him, not to Atheistic Nihilism, but to the acceptance of the most dogmatic form of Christianity. Using informal inference as his method, and following conscience as the great internal teacher of religious truth, he finds himself able to believe in God, and in a God who has revealed Himself in facie Jesu Christi, and to submit to the claim of that Ancient Religion, which, as the Spiritual Kingdom set up by Christ, requires the allegiance of mankind.

But Jesus Christ came into the world late in its history. And His is but one form of Ancient Religion. What of the others? In my Third Chapter I answer that question. First I pass in review the great non-Christian systems of the world, and then I indicate their position in respect of Christianity.

And now I come to the root of the matterthe question of supersensible existence.

After all, have we sufficient warrant for asserting the being of God and the soul? In my Fourth Chapter I examine the arguments for and against belief in Deity, and especially that form of it which is of most practical importance, the form in which it is presented by Christianity, and, to be precise, by the very version of Christianity to which Modern Thought is supposed to be most fatal: the creed of the Catholic Church. In the Fifth Chapter I deal with the subject of immortality, and inquire whether the existence of an immaterial principle within ourselves, surviving the death of the body, is, as a brilliant and popular writer assures us, "a vapid figment," or whether all science, and not merely physical, does not testify, if rightly interrogated, to the incorporeal nature, the independent action, the distinct personality, and the indestructibleness of the soul.