author must forthwith confess that while on the one hand he desires to trouble nobody with fruitless and blank negations, and while his aim is therefore on the whole a positive aim, yet on the other hand, as he has no present connection with any visible religious body, and no sort of desire for any such connection, he cannot be expected to write an apology for a popular creed. This confession is made frankly, but not for the sake of provoking a quarrel, and with all due reverence for the faith of other men. If the fox who had lost his tail was foolish to be proud of his loss, he would have been yet more foolish to hide it by wearing a false tail, stolen mayhap from a dead fox. The full application of the moral of the fable to the present case is moreover willingly accepted. Not as the fox invited his friends to imitate his loss, would the present writer aim to make other men lose their faiths. Rather is it his aim not to arouse fruitless quarrels, but to come to some peaceful understanding with his fellows touching the ultimate meaning and value and foundation of this noteworthy custom, so widely prevalent among us, the custom of having a religion. If the author ends by stating for his own part a religious doctrine, it will yet be seen upon reading the same that a man could hold that and much more too; so that what is here said is rather proposed as a basis
