SEP 1 1 1911 GE PREFACE THE main objects of this volume are threefold. Firstly, to vindicate for religious Faith its true dignity as a normal and healthy part of human nature. Next, to insist that Faith demands the actual reality of its objects, and can never be content with a God who is only an ideal. Lastly, to show in detail how most of the errors and defects in religious belief have been due to a tendency to arrest the development of Faith prematurely, by annexing it to some one faculty to the exclusion of others, or by resting on given authority. The true goal is an unified experience which will make authority no longer external. This scheme has compelled me to state, far too briefly and dogmatically, my grounds of disagreement with certain religious opinions which are widely held, such as the infallibility of the living voice of the Church,' and the finality of the appeal to Holy Scripture, and also with those religious philosophies which make religion exclusively an affair of the will, or the intellect, or the æsthetic sense. My criticisms of these various theories are all intended to show the errors which result from a premature synthesis. Faith claims the whole man, and all that God's grace can make of him. If any part of ourselves is left outside our religion, our theory of Faith is sure to be partly vitiated by the omission; and conversely, an inadequate theory of Faith is likely to be reflected in one-sided or distorted practice. When we try to analyse the contents of Faith, after claiming for it this very comprehensive range, we must |