he writer's labour
will be amply recompensed.

ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES.

Lecture I.

_On the subject, method, and purpose of the course of Lectures._

The subject stated to be the struggle of the human mind against the
Christian revelation, in whole or in part. (p. 1.) Explanation of the
points which form the occasion of the conflict. (pp. 1-3.)

The mode of treatment, being that of a critical history, includes (p. 3)
the discovery of (1) the facts, (2) the causes, and (3) the moral.

The main part of this first lecture is occupied in explaining the second
of these divisions.

Importance, if the investigation were to be fully conducted, of carrying
out a comparative study of religions and of the attitude of the mind in
reference to all doctrine that rests on authority. (pp. 4-6.)

The idea of causes implies,

I. The law of the operation of the causes.

II. The enumeration of the causes which act according to this assumed law.

The empirical law, or formula descriptive of the action of reason on
religion, is explained to be one form of the principle of progress by
antagonism, the conservation or discovery of truth by means of inquiry and
controversy; a merciful Providence leaving men responsible for their
errors, but ultimately overruling evil for good. (p. 7.)

This great fact illustrated in the four Crises of the Christian faith in
Europe, viz. In the struggle

(1) With heathen philosophy, about A.D. 160-360. (p. 8.)

(2) With sceptical tendencies in Scholasticism, in the middle ages
(1100-1400). (p. 8.)

(3) With literature, at the Renaissance, in Italy (1400-1625). (p. 9.)

(4) With modern philosophy in three forms (p. 11): viz. English Deism in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (p. 11); French Infidelity in the
eighteenth century; German Rationalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth.

Proposal to study the natural as well as literary history of these forms
of doubt.--The investigation separated from inquiries into heresy as
distinct from scepticism. (p. 13.)

The causes, seen to act according to the law just described, which make
free thought develope into unbelief, stated to be twofold. (p. 13.)

1. Emotional causes.--Necessity for showing the relation of the
intellectual causes to the emotional, both per se, and because the idea of
a history of thought, together with the comparative rarity of the process
here undertaken, implies the restriction of the attention mainly t