ABSTRACT
Essays and Reviews was a collection of essays by seven authors, who wrote quite independently of each other and were responsible for their respective essays only, but shared a common belief in the necessity of free inquiry in religious matters. The book owes its origin to some conversation between Mr Jowett and myself, as far back as eight or nine years ago, on the great amount of reticence in every class of society in regard to religious views—the melancholy unwillingness of people to state honestly their opinions in points of doctrine. The Christian Church can only tend those who are committed to its care, to the verge of that abyss which parts this world from the world unseen. So wholly extinct is scientific theology in the Church of England that the English public could not recognize such a thing as a neutral and philosophic enquiry into the causes of the form of thought existing at any period.
