With the argument of this Chapter there arises a very important question, which the reader is entreated to put to himself more than once, and bestow upon it from time to time a pause of serious thought. In a negative form the question runs thus: Since the difficulties supposed to bar the _first_ march of Natural Theology are in no wise peculiar to it, but attach themselves equally to a multitude of our daily grounds of thinking and acting, must we not, _if_, on account of such difficulties, we deny Natural Theism, also deny those persuasions of ordinary life? How else can we maintain our critical consistency? Let no man henceforward be confident that there exists an outward world of either men or things--let him not carelessly suppose that he has even an individual mind to speak of as his own--let all that concerns _other_ness--all that concerns _self_ness be relegated along with the Divine Being to the region of the Unknown and the Unknowable. But we may imagine that, instead of denying these truths of common life, many men will be hardy enough to affirm them. If so, in accepting these they clearly accept a great deal more. To be consistent they must accept also the reasonable beliefs and first principles upon which reposes Theism. The question thus put is therefore a dilemma or choice between two alternatives. And there may seem to remain no great doubt as to which alternative most practical reasoners will accept. This kind of dilemma will recur at many several steps of our inquiry, but having been illustrated in one instance at considerable length, its examination on other occasions may be safely left to the intelligence of the thoughtful reader. The _four_ following chapters argue for the truth of Theism on four several and independent grounds. These arguments are purely constructive; and each is so far apart from the other three as to stand or fall upon its own merits. But, when each of these four arguments has been separately examined, if admitted either wholly or in a modified shape, their consilient and conjoint effect must be taken into consideration[j]. To minimize impediments in the way of true knowledge; and to rise into clearness;--_these_ should be the hopes and aims of us all. Life is full of foiled endeavours; but let us onward now with the hopeful! ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER I. A.--THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE AND OTHERS ON MODERN SCEPTICISM. _Extract from Mr. Gladstone's Address delivered at the Liverpool Collegiate Institution, December 21st, 1872._ "It is not now only the Christian Church, or only the Holy Scripture, or only Christianity, which is attacked. The disposition is boldly proclaimed to deal alike with root and branch, and to snap utterly the ties which, under the still venerable name of Religion, unite man with the unseen world, and lighten the struggles and the woes of life by the hope of a better land.