PREFATORY NOTE.

I HAD intended to enlarge this volume so as to embrace a special discussion of the Augustinian and subsequent developments of the Doctrine of Sin in the thought of the Church. I wished also to treat of the bearing on this doctrine of certain modern theories, from the Optimism of Leibnitz to the Pessimism of Schopenhauer and Hartmann. But the consideration of these later aspects of the subject must be deferred. It was deemed desirable that the present Lectures should appear without delay, and as much as possible in the form in which they were delivered. The volume answers to its title with sufficient distinctness; and although nothing new can be said on such via subject, the method of treatment may be found to have for readers something of the same interest that it had for the numerous hearers who attended the delivery of the Lectures.

June 1, 1876.