man who has it has `Hanwell’ written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus.”  And to all this my friend the publisher made this very deep and effective reply, “Well, if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe?” After a long pause I replied, “I will go home and write a book in answer to that question.”  This is the book that I have written in answer to it.

But I think this book may well start where our argument started—­ in the neighbourhood of the mad-house.  Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact.  The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity.  They began with the fact of sin—­a fact as practical as potatoes.  Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing.  But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt.  Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.  Some followers of the Reverend R.J.Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams.  But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street.  The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument.  If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions.  He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do.  The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.

In this remarkable situation it is plainly not now possible (with any hope of a universal appeal) to start, as our fathers did, with the fact of sin.  This very fact which was to them (and is to me) as plain as a pikestaff, is the very fact that has been specially diluted or denied.  But though moderns deny the existence of sin, I do not think that they have yet denied the existence of a lunatic asylum.  We all agree still that there is a collapse of the intellect as unmistakable as a falling house.  Men deny hell, but not, as yet, Hanwell.  For the purpose of our primary argument the one may very well stand where the other stood.  I mean that as all thoughts and theories were once judged by whether they tended to make a man lose his soul, so for our present purpose all modern thoughts and theories may be judged by whether they tend to make a man lose his wits.