The lectures were not delivered in the order in which they are here presented to the reader. The convenience of the active as well as distinguished men who consented to act as lecturers, had naturally to be consulted; adjustments had to be made, and interchanges of days of lecturing acceded to, so as to secure the continuous delivery of the lectures on the days specified. In this collective edition, however, the proper order is restored, and may now be briefly explained, as some criticisms have been passed on the subjects of the lectures, which would certainly have been modified if the whole series had been delivered in the order originally designed. The first three lectures were designed to be preparatory and prelusive. They were directed against the three systems which are now more especially, in different ways, coming into collision with Christianity--Materialism and its theories, Pantheism, and Positivism. It was judged by those who sketched out the plan of the lectures, that until these subjects were shortly dealt with, and until the objections against Christianity, founded upon them or derived from them, were briefly noticed, the evidences for Christianity could hardly be expected to have a fair hearing. The internal arguments in favour of the leading truths of the Christian religion could scarcely be fairly estimated if there were to be antecedent objections of a grave and general character left wholly unnoticed and unanswered. Hence the three opening lectures: The first of these breaks ground by the consideration of some leading materialistic opinions, and especially by an exposition of the argument from design. It thus prepares the reader more fully to accept the deep truth so well and succinctly stated by Bishop Martensen,[167] that the "world has not merely a cosmogonic but also a creational origin," and that the mysterious problem of creation and life can "never be solved in a merely natural way, but demands a supernatural solution, that is, a solution through a _creative teleology_."