In reading these I can hardly conceive any one not being possessed with a profound regret that the author was not allowed to complete his work. And it is only fair to ask every reader of the following pages to remember that he is reading, in the main, incomplete notes and not finished work. This will account for a great deal that may seem sketchy and unsatisfactory in the treatment of different points, and also for repetitions and traces of inconsistency. But I can hardly think any one can read these notes to the end without agreeing with me that if I had withheld them from publication, the world would have lost the witness of a mind, both able and profoundly sincere, feeling after God and finding Him. C.G. FOOTNOTES: [31] See below p. 142, and note. I find also the following note of a date subsequent to 1889. 'It is a fact that pessimism is illogical, simply because we are inadequate judges of the world, and pessimism would therefore be opposed to agnosticism. We may know that there is something out of joint between the world and ourselves; but we cannot know how far this is the fault of the world or of ourselves.' [32] _Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society_ (Williams & Norgate), vol. i. no. 3, pp. 72, 73. [33] I ought also to mention that Romanes on the Sunday before his death expressed to me verbally his entire agreement with the argument of Professor Knight's _Aspects of Theism_ (Macmillan, 1893); in which on this subject see pp. 184-186, 'A larger good is evolved through the winnowing process by which physical nature casts its weaker products aside,' &c. NOTES FOR A WORK ON A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. BY METAPHYSICUS. _Proposed Mottoes_. 'I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by this purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by this alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons, one class who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another class who have no understanding of them and to whom they will naturally be as idle tales. 'And you had better decide at once with which of the two you are arguing; or, perhaps, you will say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time not grudging to either any benefit which they may derive.'--PLATO. 'If we would reprove with success, and show another his mistake, we must see from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is generally true: and, admitting this truth, show him the side on which it is false.'--PASCAL. Sec. 1. INTRODUCTORY.