In the first series of lectures, published as The Living Stream, Hardy aimed to show the ways in which religious experience fits into the background of ‘our knowledge of the evolution of life.’ (p. 9) This volume, the companion to the first, aims to construct a ‘natural theology on more scientific foundation that hitherto.’ (p. 10) However, confessing his relative ignorance of theology Hardy does not attempt to put forward any judgements on the relative merits of various doctrines but rather more fundamental issues.