The moral order of the world in ancient and modern thought

Front matter

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THE GIFT OF

Preface

Our theme is still the Providential Order. The new title, however, is used not merely to make a nominal distinction between the two courses of Lectures, but because there is a real, though slight, difference in meaning which makes the title the more appropriate to this course. A Providential Order implies a God who provides. One who speaks of a Providence is a Theist, who believes in a God caring for, and governing, all. The Moral Order, on the other hand, is impersonal, and one may use the phrase and believe in the thing it denotes, who is no Theist, no believer in a living personal God in the ordinary theistic sense of the words. Buddha, the theme of our first Lecture, is an instance.

Of course this historical survey is not exhaustive. It is, however, fairly representative, and brings the whole subject, by samples, sufficiently under view to vi THE MORAL ORDER OF THE WORLD

answer the question, What have the wisest thought on the great theme of the Moral Order of the universe in its reality and essential nature ?

Publication of these Lectures has been delayed for a twelvemonth by the state of my health.

A. B. BRUCE. • Glasgow, April 1899.