selecting a few leading instances to
illustrate the natural history of doubt; but the most likely mode for
exhausting the subject, as well as for presenting it in a manner which
would fall in with the historic tastes of the age, seemed to be, to treat
it by means of a critical history, presenting the antidote by a running
criticism; and to ask, frankly and fully, what have been the grounds on
which Christianity has been doubted; and what have been those on which the
faith of Christians in their hour of peril has reposed; and then finally
to gather up the lessons which the history itself teaches.

The inquiry has been analogous to the study of the history of a disease;
and scientific rigour required that it should be conducted with a similar
spirit of fairness towards those that manifest its symptoms. As the
physiologist, who wishes to learn the laws of a disease, watches patiently
the symptoms in the subject of it, not reproaching the sufferer, even if
the malady be self-caused; so in moral diagnosis, the student of mental
and religious error must carry out his inquiries in the spirit of cold
analysis, if he would arrive at the real character of the intricate facts
which he studies. The candour of our examination has not been prompted by
any spirit of indifference to truth, nor by sympathy with error; but
partly by the demands of historical accuracy, partly by deep pity for
those who are the subject of spiritual doubts, even when the doubts are of
their own fault.

This view of the inquiry, as an analysis of the intellectual causes of
doubt, will also explain one or two peculiarities in it, which, if left
unnoticed, might leave an impression of its inutility.

It will be seen, for example, that in the investigation of the natural
history of doubt, and in the explanation of the antecedent metaphysical or
critical questions which have produced it, we have indicated the schools
of thought which have created it, but have abstained from insisting on the
inherent necessity of the relation which subsists between the metaphysical
tests of truth and the religious conclusions discussed. The reason is,
that it seemed unfit to assume a side eagerly in the metaphysical
controversy; and therefore, while showing that the use of certain grounds
of belief and methods of inquiry has produced, both as a matter of history
and logic, certain species of doubt or disbelief; we have not attempted to
condemn the particular metaphysical theorie