[1] See _A Full Answer to a late View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion, in a Dialogue between a Rational Christian and his Friend_. London, 1777. The orthodox writer deals severely with some lines of Christian apologetics which have since had vogue. [2] The somewhat awkward term 'naturalistic,' which is sometimes useful, is hereinafter used in relation to the sense above given for 'naturalism.' Sec. 2. THE PRACTICAL POSITION The usages being so, most of us who can answer to the term 'rationalist' may reasonably let its general force be decided for us by the stream of tendency in ordinary speech; and, recognising the existence of other applications, one may usefully seek to give a philosophic account of what its adoption seems to involve. That is to say, the present treatise does not undertake to present, much less to justify, all the views which have ever been described as 'rationalistic,' but merely to present current rationalism in the broad sense indicated, as on the one hand an outcome of tendencies seen at work in the earlier movements so named, and on the other hand as apparently committing its representatives to a certain body or class of conclusions. For there is this capital element in common for all the stirrings known by the name of rationalism, that they stand for 'private judgment' as against mere tradition or mere authority. Early 'rationalists' might indeed seek to put a quasi-rational form upon tradition, and to give reasons for recognising authority. But in their day and degree they had their active part in the evolution of the critical faculty, inasmuch as they outwent the line of mere acquiescence; and views which to-day form part of uncritically accepted creeds were once products of innovating (however fallacious) reasoning. There is no _saltum mortale_ in the evolution of thought. The very opponents of the rationalist often claim to be more rational than he, and must at least use his methods up to a certain point. This is done even by the quasi-skeptical school, of whom some claim to subordinate reason to some species of insight which they either omit to discriminate intelligibly from the process of judgment, or do not admit to need its sanction. 'Rationalism,' then, is to be understood relatively. To be significant to-day, accordingly, it should stand first and last for the habit and tendency to challenge the doctrines which claim 'religious' or sacrosanct authority--to seek by reflection a defensible theory of things rather than accept enrolment under traditional creeds which demand allegiance on supernaturalist grounds.