Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net _Thoughts on Religion_ BY THE LATE GEORGE JOHN ROMANES M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. EDITED BY CHARLES GORE, D.D. BISHOP OF WORCESTER Twelfth Impression LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON AND BOMBAY 1904 CONTENTS PAGE EDITOR'S PREFACE 5 PART I. THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. ESSAY I 37 ESSAY II 56 PART II. NOTES FOR A WORK ON A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR 91 Sec. 1. INTRODUCTORY 98 Sec. 2. DEFINITION OF TERMS AND PURPOSE OF THIS TREATISE 104 Sec. 3. CAUSALITY 116 Sec. 4. FAITH 131 Sec. 5. FAITH IN CHRISTIANITY 154 CONCLUDING NOTE BY THE EDITOR 184 PUBLISHER'S NOTE The present edition of Romanes' _Thoughts on Religion_ is issued in response to a request which has been made with some frequency of late for very cheap reprints of standard religious and theological works. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, _January, 1904._ EDITOR'S PREFACE The late Mr. George John Romanes--the author within the last few years of _Darwin and After Darwin_, and of the _Examination of Weismannism_--occupied a distinguished place in contemporary biology. But his mind was also continuously and increasingly active on the problems of metaphysics and theology. And at his death in the early summer of this year (1894), he left among his papers some notes, made mostly in the previous winter, for a work which he was intending to write on the fundamental questions of religion. He had desired that these notes should be given to me and that I should do with them as I thought best. His literary executors accordingly handed them over to me, in company with some unpublished essays, two of which form the first part of the present volume. After reading the notes myself, and obtaining the judgement of others in whom I feel confidence upon them, I have no hesitation either in publishing by far the greater part of them, or in publishing them with the author's name in spite of the fact that the book as originally projected was to have been anonymous. From the few words which George Romanes said to me on the subject, I have no doubt that he realized that the notes if published after his death must be published with his name.