To those who already find themselves fully nourished on the older forms of truth, I do not commend these pages. They will find them superfluous. Nor is there any reason why they should mingle with light which is already clear the distorting rays of a foreign expression. But to those who are feeling their way to a Christian life, haunted now by a sense of instability in the foundation of their faith, now brought to bay by specific doubt at one point raising, as all doubt does, the question for the whole, I would hold up a light which has often been kind to me. There is a sense of solidity about a Law of Nature which belongs to nothing else in the world. Here, at last, amid all that is shifting, is one thing sure; one thing outside ourselves, unbiased, unprejudiced, uninfluenced by like or dislike, by doubt or fear; one thing that holds on its way to me eternally, incorruptible, and undefiled. This more than anything else, makes one eager to see the Reign of Law traced in the Spiritual Sphere. And should this seem to some to offer only a surer, but not a higher Faith; should the better ordering of the Spiritual World appear to satisfy the intellect at the sacrifice of reverence, simplicity, or love; especially should it seem to substitute a Reign of Law and a Lawgiver for a Kingdom of Grace and a Personal God, I will say, with Browning,-- "I spoke as I saw. I report, as a man may of God's work--_all's love, yet all's Law_. Now I lay down the judgeship He lent me. Each faculty tasked, To perceive Him, has gained an abyss where a dewdrop was asked." FOOTNOTES: [1] Aurora Leigh. [2] "Meditationes Sacræ," x. ANALYSIS OF INTRODUCTION. [For the sake of the general reader who may desire to pass at once to the practical applications, the following outline of the Introduction--devoted rather to general principles--is here presented.] PART I. NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL SPHERE. 1. The growth of the Idea of Law. 2. Its gradual extension throughout every department of Knowledge. 3. Except one. Religion hitherto the Great Exception. Why so? 4. Previous attempts to trace analogies between the Natural and Spiritual spheres. These have been limited to analogies between _Phenomena_; and are useful mainly as illustrations. Analogies of _Law_ would also have a Scientific value. 5. Wherein that value would consist. (1) The Scientific demand of the age would be met; (2) Greater clearness would be introduced into Religion practically; (3) Theology, instead of resting on Authority, would rest equally on Nature. PART II. THE LAW OF CONTINUITY. _A priori_ argument for Natural Law in the spiritual world. 1. The Law Discovered. 2. " Defined. 3. " Applied. 4. The objection answered that the _material_ of the Natural and Spiritual worlds being different they must be under different Laws.