To say that we have nothing to do with philosophy ends in our having to do with a bad philosophy. In that case we have a philosophy with which we operate without having investigated it, instead of having one with which we operate because we have investigated it. The philosophy of which we are aware we have. The philosophy of which we are not aware has us. No doubt, we may have religion without philosophy, but we cannot formulate it even in the rudest way to ourselves, we cannot communicate it in any way whatsoever to others, except in the terms of a philosophy. In the general sense in which every man has a philosophy, this is merely the deposit of the regnant notions of the time. It may be amended or superseded, and our theology with it. Yet while it lasts it is our one possible vehicle of expression. It is the interpreter and the critique of what we have experienced. It is not open to a man to retreat within himself and say, I am a Christian, I feel thus, I think so, these thoughts are the content of Christianity. The consequence of that position is that we make the religious experience to be no part of the normal human experience. If we contend that the being a Christian is the great human experience, that the religious life is the true human life, we must pursue the opposite course. We must make the religious life coherent with all the other phases and elements of life. If we would contend that religious thought is the truest and deepest thought, we must begin at this very point. We must make it conform absolutely to the laws of all other thought. To contend for its isolation, as an area by itself and a process subject only to its own laws, is to court the judgment of men, that in its zeal to be Christian it has ceased to be thought. Our most profitable mode of procedure would seem to be this. We shall seek to follow, as we may, those few main movements of thought marking the nineteenth century which have immediate bearing upon our theme. We shall try to register the effect which these movements have had upon religious conceptions. It will not be possible at any point to do more than to select typical examples. Perhaps the true method is that we should go back to the beginnings of each one of these movements. We should mark the emergence of a few great ideas. It is the emergence of an idea which is dramatically interesting. It is the moment of emergence in which that which is characteristic appears. Our subject is far too complicated to permit that the ramifications of these influences should be followed in detail. Modifications, subtractions, additions, the reader must make for himself.