No one who ever has delivered the Cole Lectures will fail to associate
them, in his grateful memory, with the hospitable fellowship of the
elect at Vanderbilt University. My first expression of thanks is due
to the many professors and students there, lately strangers and now
friends, who, after the burdensome preparation of these lectures, made
their delivery a happy and rewarding experience for the lecturer. I am
hoping now that even though prepared for spoken address the lectures
may be serviceable to others who will read instead of hear them. At
any rate, it seemed best to publish them without change in
form--addresses intended for public delivery and bearing, I doubt not,
many marks of the spoken style.
I have tried to make a sally into a field of inquiry where, within the
next few years, an increasing company of investigators is sure to go.
The idea of progress was abroad in the world long before men became
conscious of it; and men became conscious of it in its practical
effects long before they stopped to study its transforming consequences
in their philosophy and their religion. No longer, however, can we
avoid the intellectual issue which is involved in our new outlook upon
a dynamic, mobile, progressive world. Hardly a better description
could be given of the intellectual advance which has marked the last
century than that which Renan wrote years ago: "the substitution of the
category of _becoming_ for _being_, of the conception of relativity for
that of the absolute, of movement for immobility." [1] Underneath all
other problems which the Christian Gospel faces is the task of choosing
what her attitude shall be toward this new and powerful force, the idea
of progress, which in every realm is remaking man's thinking.
I have endeavoured in detail to indicate my indebtedness to the many
books by whose light I have been helped to see my way. In addition I
wish to express especial thanks to my friend and colleague, Professor
Eugene W. Lyman, who read the entire manuscript to my great profit;
and, as well, to my secretary, Miss Margaret Renton, whose efficient
service has been an invaluable help.