PREFATORY NOTE TO SEVENTH EDITION. IN revising this edition, I have made few changes. Among the works which have recently appeared on Natural Theology, two may be specially recommended to the attention of students-Dr Martineau's Study of Religion' (2 vols., 1888), and Professor Max Müller's Gifford Lectures, 'Natural Religion' (1889). The former is a work of rare excellence and beauty, and unequalled, perhaps, in its treatment of the moral difficulties in the way of acceptance of the theistic inferencethe chief obstacles to theistic belief. I have reviewed it in 'Mind,' No. LII. The latter is rich in most valuable instruction, communicated with singular attractiveness. Some criticisms on positions in 'Theism' may, perhaps, be due to want of explicitness of statement on my part,-a defect which I may be able to remedy in a forthcoming volume on Agnosticism. In an article on Theism in the Encyclopædia Britannica,' I have treated the subject historically, and would therefore refer to it as supplementary to the present volume. JOHNSTONE LODGE, CRAIGMILLAR PARK, EDINBURGH, 23d September 1889. CONTENTS. II. GENERAL IDEA OF RELIGION COMPARISON OF POLYTHEISM AND PANTHEISM WITH THEISM- 169 210 233 264 302 XIII. MATHEMATICS AND THE DESIGN ARGUMENT, XIV. ASTRONOMY AND THE DESIGN ARGUMENT, |