ther, prescinding from Divine governance and from an intelligent
purpose running through nature, the adaptability of a belief to the
higher needs of mankind can be considered in any way to prove its truth.
So far we have only shown that such a conclusion results from a clearer
insight into the theistic conception. Can we show that it springs,
co-ordinately with theism, from some conception prior to both?

II.

If what is usually understood by "theism" be once granted as a
foundation, it is easy to raise thereon a superstructure of further
religious beliefs by means of the argument drawn from their adaptability
to the higher needs of mankind. However individuals may fail, yet it
must be allowed that on the whole the human mind progresses, or tends to
progress, from a less to a more perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller
understanding of its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind of
life by which that end is to be reached,--that is, if once we admit that
man is a self-interpreting creature, and the work of an intelligent
Creator. So far however as the Christian creed exceeds man's natural
exigencies and aspirations, it plainly cannot be subjected to this
criterion; and so far as it includes (while it transcends) the highest
form of "natural religion," the argument from adaptability holds of it
only if we suppose Christianity to be a natural product of the human
mind, thus destroying its claim to be from without and from above. But
if from other reasons we know Christianity to be a God-made and not a
man-made religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already
proved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified by its
adaptability to the demands of our higher nature. In a word, this
particular argument holds strictly only for man's own guesses at
religious truth,--for "natural" religions; but for Christianity, only so
far as we deny it to be supernatural as to its content and mode of
origination.

But so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to
support or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for
apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated,
we must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from
finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in God, or in
future retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any
way as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper
mental basis than t