If what is usually understood by "theism" be once granted as a foundation, it is easy to raise thereon a superstructure of further religious beliefs by means of the argument drawn from their adaptability to the higher needs of mankind. However individuals may fail, yet it must be allowed that on the whole the human mind progresses, or tends to progress, from a less to a more perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller understanding of its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind of life by which that end is to be reached,--that is, if once we admit that man is a self-interpreting creature, and the work of an intelligent Creator. So far however as the Christian creed exceeds man's natural exigencies and aspirations, it plainly cannot be subjected to this criterion; and so far as it includes (while it transcends) the highest form of "natural religion," the argument from adaptability holds of it only if we suppose Christianity to be a natural product of the human mind, thus destroying its claim to be from without and from above. But if from other reasons we know Christianity to be a God-made and not a man-made religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already proved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified by its adaptability to the demands of our higher nature. In a word, this particular argument holds strictly only for man's own guesses at religious truth,--for "natural" religions; but for Christianity, only so far as we deny it to be supernatural as to its content and mode of origination. But so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to support or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in God, or in future retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any way as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper mental basis than theism; whether it can be rested on anything which in the order of our thought is prior to theism so as to support or at least to confirm theism itself. Our present endeavour is to show that though this argument rests more easily and securely on theism, yet it need not rest upon it; but springs, co-ordinately with theism, from _any_ conception of the world that saves us from mental and moral chaos. Hence it confirms theism and is confirmed by theism; but each is strictly independent of the other and rests on a conception prior to both; they diverge from one and the same root and then intertwine and support one another.