felt in the prophet's own age or society, this might be paralleled
from the inspiration of genius in other departments, and could not of
itself be regarded as establishing the _ab extra_ character of the
revelation.

Plainly, then, so far as a religion claims to be from outside, its
adaptability to our religious and moral instincts may confirm but cannot
establish its Divine origin, which, given theism, is equivalent to its
truth. For to show that it is from outside, is to show that it is from
God.

It is only therefore with regard to man-made interpretations of our
spiritual instincts, to the natural inspirations of religious genius, to
the intuitions and even the reasoned inferences of the conscientious and
clean-hearted, that the argument from adaptability can have any
independent value. It is now no longer as one who argues from a
comparison of lock and key to their common authorship; but rather we
have a self-conscious lock, pining to be opened, and from a more or less
imperfect self-knowledge dreaming of some sort of key and arguing that
in the measure that its dream is based on true self-knowledge there must
be a reality corresponding to it--a valid argument enough, supposing the
locksmith to act on the usual lines and not to be indulging in a freak.

Such, in substance, is the argument from adaptability founded on the
assumption of theism and applied to the criticism or establishment of
further religious beliefs. It is indeed somewhat stronger when we
remember that the self-consciousness, with which we fictitiously endowed
the lock, plays chief part in the very design and structure of man; that
his self-knowledge, his moral and religious instincts, his desire and
power of interpreting them, are all from the Author of his nature.

Of this difference Tennyson takes note in applying the argument from
adaptability to the immortality of the soul:

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust;
Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die,
And Thou hast made him, Thou art just.

But so far as the argument presupposes theism it cannot be made to
support or even confirm theism. If, then, we want to make the argument
absolutely universal with regard to religious beliefs--theism included
and not presupposed--and so to make it available for apologetic purposes
in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must inquire
whether any basis can be found for it in non-theistic philosophy;
whe