ments of it which are dealt with
by the special Sciences. What you want to know, I take it, is--what
rational enquiry, pushed as far as it will go, has to say about those
ultimate problems of which the great historical Religions likewise
profess to offer solutions. The nature and scope of Philosophy is best
understood by examples: and therefore I hope you will excuse me if
without further preface I plunge _in medias res_. I shall endeavour to
presuppose no previous acquaintance with technical Philosophy, and I
will ask those who have already made some serious study of Philosophy
kindly to remember that I am trying to make myself intelligible to
those who have not. I shall {3} not advance anything which I should
not be prepared to defend even before an audience of metaphysical
experts. But I cannot undertake in so short a course of lectures to
meet all the objections which will, I know, be arising in the minds of
any metaphysically trained hearers who may honour me with their
presence, many of which may probably occur to persons not so trained.
And I further trust the Metaphysicians among you will forgive me if, in
order to be intelligible to all, I sometimes speak with a little less
than the _akribeia_ at which I might feel bound to aim if I were
reading a paper before an avowedly philosophical Society.
Reservations, qualifications, and elaborate distinctions must be
omitted, if I am to succeed in saying anything clearly in the course of
six lectures.

Moreover, I would remark that, though I do not believe that an
intention to edify is any excuse for slipshod thought or intellectual
dishonesty, I am speaking now mainly from the point of view of those
who are enquiring into metaphysical truth for the guidance of their own
religious and practical life, rather than from the point of view of
pure speculation. I do not, for my own part, believe in any solution
of the religious problem which evades the ultimate problems of all
thought. The Philosophy of Religion is for me not so much a special
and sharply distinguished branch or department of {4} Philosophy as a
particular aspect of Philosophy in general. But many questions which
may be of much importance from the point of view of a complete theory
of the Universe can be entirely, or almost entirely, put on one side
when the question is, 'What may I reasonably believe about those
ultimate questions which have a direct and immediate bearing upon my
religious and moral