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,