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.