y for reason to adopt. To my mind,
therefore, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that, looking to this
undoubted pre-eminence of the scientific methods as ways to truth, whether
or not there is a God, the question as to his existence is both more
morally and more reverently contemplated if we regard it purely as a
problem for methodical analysis to solve, than if we regard it in any other
light. Or, stating the case in other words, I believe that in whatever
degree we intentionally abstain from using in this case what we _know_ to
be the most trustworthy methods of inquiry in other cases, in that degree
are we either unworthily closing our eyes to a dreaded truth, or we are
guilty of the worst among human sins--"Depart from us, for we desire not
the knowledge of thy ways." If it is said that, supposing man to be in a
state of probation, faith, and not reason, must be the instrument of his
trial, I am ready to admit the validity of the remark; but I must also ask
it to be remembered, that unless faith has _some_ basis of reason whereon
to rest, it differs in nothing from superstition; and hence that it is
still our duty to investigate the _rational_ standing of the question
before us by the _scientific_ methods alone. And I may here observe
parenthetically, that the same reasoning applies to all investigations
concerning the reality of a supposed revelation. With such investigations,
however, the present essay has nothing to do, although, I may remark that
if there is any evidence of a Divine Mind discernible in the structure of a
professing revelation, such evidence, in whatever degree present, would be
of the best possible kind for substantiating the hypothesis of Theism.

Such being, then, what I conceive the only reasonable, as well as the most
truly moral, way of regarding the question to be discussed in the following
pages, even if the conclusions yielded by this discussion were more
negative than they are, I should deem it culpable cowardice in me _for this
reason_ to publish anonymously. For even if an inquiry of the present kind
could ever result in a final demonstration of Atheism, there might be much
for its author to regret, but nothing for him to be ashamed of; and, by
parity of reasoning, in whatever degree the result of such an inquiry is
seen to have a tendency to negative the theistic theory, the author should
not be ashamed candidly to acknowledge his conviction as to the degree of
such tendency, p