there ever has been or can be a
special miraculous revelation of God to man through channels different
from those through which all other human knowledge is derived, is a
question which does not concern us in these lectures; indeed it is
expressly excluded from their scope by the will of the founder, who
directed the lecturers to treat the subject "as a strictly natural
science," "without reference to or reliance upon any supposed special
exceptional or so-called miraculous revelation." Accordingly, in
compliance with these directions, I dismiss at the outset the question
of a revelation, and shall limit myself strictly to natural theology in
the sense in which I have defined it.

[Sidenote: Theology and religion, how related to each other.]

I have called natural theology a reasoned knowledge of a God or gods to
distinguish it from that simple and comparatively, though I believe
never absolutely, unreasoning faith in God which suffices for the
practice of religion. For theology is at once more and less than
religion: if on the one hand it includes a more complete acquaintance
with the grounds of religious belief than is essential to religion, on
the other hand it excludes the observance of those practical duties
which are indispensable to any religion worthy of the name. In short,
whereas theology is purely theoretical, religion is both theoretical and
practical, though the theoretical part of it need not be so highly
developed as in theology. But while the subject of the lectures is,
strictly speaking, natural theology rather than natural religion, I
think it would be not only difficult but undesirable to confine our
attention to the purely theological or theoretical part of natural
religion: in all religions, and not least in the undeveloped savage
religions with which we shall deal, theory and practice fuse with and
interact on each other too closely to be forcibly disjoined and handled
apart. Hence throughout the lectures I shall not scruple to refer
constantly to religious practice as well as to religious theory, without
feeling that thereby I am transgressing the proper limits of my subject.

[Sidenote: The term God defined.]

As theology is not only by definition but by etymology a reasoned
knowledge or theory of a God or gods, it becomes desirable, before we
proceed further, to define the sense in which I understand and shall
employ the word God. That sense is neither novel nor abstruse; it is
simply the se