Phrenology, also, has drawn maps of the mental faculties, so that even the senses have been trained to aid in metaphysics. The pulpit, the press and public lecturers now, when they refer to the _intellect_, the _susceptibilities_, the _will_, _the moral powers_, and use other metaphysical terms, are understood by all. In short, the human mind has developed in all directions, until it is impossible any longer to conceal absurdities under cover of hard names and metaphysical abstrusities, especially when the practical concerns of this life, as well as the life to come, are equally involved. Meantime, the most vigorous and acute minds in the various opposing sects and theological schools, have been exhibiting, in magazines and newspapers, the difficulties and absurdities each finds in the creed and teaching of all who differ, while it is the laymen who read and pay for these periodicals. In these, and many other ways, the discussions which once were confined to metaphysicians and theologians, have come before the people, and the Augustinian system has been more and more clearly exhibited as contrary to the moral sense and common sense of mankind. A few years since, Dr. Edward Beecher published the _Conflict of Ages_, in which, with a calm and Christian spirit and in a popular form, was set forth the difficulties consequent on the Augustinian system, which for ages have agitated all Christendom. In this work, it is shown that there are “principles of honor and right” which all theologians agree in maintaining that God must and does regard and obey; that these principles are violated by God on the supposition that he has brought mankind into being in this world with a depraved nature; and finally, that all theories as yet invented by theologians to relieve the Creator from such an imputation are failures, except the theory, which is there presented, of _a pre‐existent state_, according to which, mankind were created with perfect natures, which they ruined by sinning, and came into this life to be restored to their former perfect state. Much that appears in the early portion of this work is from this source. Still more has been gained from that work in the clear manner in which it is there proved, that the Bible does not teach that the sin of Adam had any effect on “the nature” of the human race, and that the interpretation given to the passage in Romans v., which is the chief one claimed as teaching this doctrine, not only has been interpreted wrong, but is contrary to the rendering of the whole Christian world from the apostles to Augustine. In other words, the _Conflict of Ages_ came before _the people_ with the claim, that the Augustinian theory of a depraved nature consequent on the sin of Adam, as taught by all theologians of the great Catholic and Protestant sects, is contrary to the moral sense of mankind and entirely unsupported by the Bible.