rap by scrap,' all the distinctive
doctrines of Christianity. Belief, it is true, must be ultimately
logical to stand. It must have an inner cohesion and inter-
dependence. It must start from a fixed principle. This has been,
and still is, the besetting weakness of the theology of mediation.
It is apt to form itself merely by stripping off what seem to be
excrescences from the outside, and not by radically reconstructing
itself, on a firmly established basis, from within. The difficulty
in such a process is to draw the line. There is a delusive
appearance of roundness and completeness in the creeds of those
who either accept everything or deny everything: though, even
here, there is, I think we may say, always, some little loophole
left of belief or of denial, which will inevitably expand until it
splits and destroys the whole structure. But the moment we begin
to meet both parties half way, there comes in that crucial
question: Why do you accept just so much and no more? Why do you
deny just so much and no more? [Endnote 354:1]

It must, in candour, be confessed that the synthetic formula for the
middle party in opinion has not yet been found. Other parties have
their formulae, but none that will really bear examination. _Quod
semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_, would do excellently if there
was any belief that had been held 'always, everywhere, and by all,' if
no discoveries had been made as to the facts, and if there had been no
advance in the methods of knowledge. The ultimate universality and the
absolute uniformity of physical antecedents has a plausible appearance
until it is seen that logically carried out it reduces men to machines,
annihilates responsibility, and involves conclusions on the assumption
of the truth of which society could not hold together for a single day.
If we abandon these Macedonian methods for unloosing the Gordian knot
of things and keep to the slow and laborious way of gradual induction,
then I think it will be clear that all opinions must be held on the
most provisional tenure. A vast number of problems will need to be
worked out before any can be said to be established with a pretence to
finality. And the course which the inductive process is taking supplies
one of the chief 'grounds of hope' to those who wish to hold that
middle position of which I have been speaking. The extreme theories
which from time to time have been advanced have not been able to hold
their ground. No doubt