haply he might feel after Him and find Him,' and not a position of
settled orthodoxy. Even the Notes contain in fact many things which
could not come from a settled believer. This being so it is natural that
I should say a word as to the way in which I have understood my function
as an editor. I have decided the question of publishing each Note solely
by the consideration whether or no it was sufficiently finished to be
intelligible. I have rigidly excluded any question of my own agreement
or disagreement with it. In the case of one Note in particular, I doubt
whether I should have published it, had it not been that my decided
disagreement with its contents made me fear that I might be prejudiced
in withholding it.

The Notes, with the papers which precede them, will, I think, be better
understood if I give some preliminary account of their antecedents, that
is of Romanes' previous publications on the subject of religion.

In 1873 an essay of George Romanes gained the Burney Prize at Cambridge,
the subject being _Christian Prayer considered in relation to the belief
that the Almighty governs the world by general laws_. This was published
in 1874, with an appendix on _The Physical Efficacy of Prayer_. In this
essay, written when he was twenty-five years old, Romanes shows the
characteristic qualities of his mind and style already developed. The
sympathy with the scientific point of view is there, as might be
expected perhaps in a Cambridge 'Scholar in Natural Science': the
logical acumen and love of exact distinctions is there: there too the
natural piety and spiritual appreciation of the nature of Christian
prayer--a piety and appreciation which later intellectual habits of
thought could never eradicate. The essay, as judged by the standard of
prize compositions, is of remarkable ability, and strictly proceeds
within the limits of the thesis. On the one side, for the purpose of the