Page:What We Want.djvu/16

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xii
PREFACE

adopted, that process which they have here described. No apologetic which fails to take account of both can be really fruitful in our day. An apologetic is not needed for those who believe already. It is by its very nature intended for those who do not believe. The traditional apologetic is a superfluous demonstration of the positions involved in the antecedent belief. The true apologetic is the demonstration that the belief is the necessary outcome of positions which seem to be quite independent of it—positions which are given immediately in the profoundest experience of life and sincere reflection upon it.

It is the same apologetic preoccupation which determines the attitude of the authors towards metaphysics. They do not deny the need of a metaphysic, the craving of the human mind to conceive