From the INTRODUCTION.
The following essays of Father George Tyrrell are drawn, for the most part, from notebooks and unpublished material. It was his habit, as has been mentioned elsewhere, to keep what he called a Journal of spiritual and philosophical jottings ? day by day he thus noted down any thoughts that occurred to him; and the result was, sometimes a series of detached reflections, such as we find in Nova et Vetera, or Oil and Wine, sometimes a consecutive work, such as Lex Credendi, which was, to a great extent, drawn from such jottings.
The Journal, of which a large. portion is first published in these pages was written during the course of the year 1904, while its. author was yet a member of the Society of Jesus but the collection contains also a good deal of matter drawn from a later, and less elaborated. notebook, written during the year 1906, in the months succeeding his rupture with the Society, and particularly during the period of his wanderings in France.
The Journal of 1904 is undoubtedly the incomplete scheme of a definite work; perhaps one of the most important works that its author ever planned.
Part of it had even been typed and arranged, and various titles had been under consideration; of which the one that seems to have been finally preferred was that given to the first chapter of this volume, namely The Doctrinal Authority of Conscience. It was all designed in the attempt at reaching a fundamental philosophy of belief; yet, as it was still in the making, the material was not rigorously co-ordinated, and any stray thoughts that presented themselves were put down as they came, regardless of their exact relation to the whole.
The readers of these essays will probably have some acquaintance with the life of their author, and will know how the religious crisis of the day forced him to deal with immediate and pressing problems, which diverted him temporarily from tasks that could be abandoned and resumed. Not that the works brought forth in those years of stress were without relation to the deepest problems of faith; but they had necessarily a more direct bearing on difficulties of the day than a work planned in leisure and tranquillity. Furiherm.orft; the Journal also provided material for the works of the moment, and was exploited for that purpose; large portions, for instance, being used, as I have said, in the com- position of Lex Credendi.
Hence it could not be said that the work was in any sense ready for publication as a systematic whole, and it seemed, therefore, better to arrange it in fresh order, so that place might be found for everything worth preserving. It was also desirable to take advantage of the occasion to publish anything of interest from the later, unconsecutive Journal of 1906; and a new scheme lent itself to this purpose....