arger questions by more cataclysmic
methods are obvious. For, in the first place, all composite things must
have a system, or arrangement of parts, so that some parts shall depend
upon and be grouped round others, as in the articulation of a skeleton
and the arrangement of muscles, nerves, tendons, etc., which are
attached to it. To meddle with the skeleton is like taking up the
street, or the flooring of one's house; it so upsets our arrangements
that we put it off till whatever else is found wanted, or whatever else
seems likely to be wanted for a long time hence, can be done at the same
time. Another advantage is in the rest which is given to the attention
during the long hollows, so to speak, of the waves between the periods
of resettlement. Passion and prejudice have time to calm down, and when
attention is next directed to the same question, it is a refreshed and
invigorated attention-an attention, moreover, which may be given
with the help of new lights derived from other quarters that were not
luminous when the question was last considered. Thirdly, it is more
easy and safer to make such alterations as experience has proved to be
necessary than to forecast what is going to be wanted. Reformers are
like paymasters, of whom there are only two bad kinds, those who pay too
soon, and those who do not pay at all.

CHAPTER II. COMMON GROUND

I HAVE now, perhaps, sufficiently proved my sympathy with the reluctance
felt by many to tolerate discussion upon such a subject as the existence
and nature of God. I trust that I may have made the reader feel that he
need fear no sarcasm or levity in my treatment of the subject which I
have chosen. I will, therefore, proceed to sketch out a plan of what I
hope to establish, and this in no doubtful or unnatural sense, but by
attaching the same meanings to words as those which we usually attach to
them, and with the same certainty, precision, and clearness as anything
else is established which is commonly called known.

As to what God is, beyond the fact that he is the Spirit and the
Life which creates, governs, and upholds all living things, I can say
nothing. I cannot pretend that I can show more than others have done
in what Spirit and the Life consists, which governs living things and
animates them. I cannot show the connection between consciousness and
the will, and the organ, much less can I tear away the veil from the
face of God, so as to show wherein will and consciou