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 LIBRARY 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Receded.-. .-M&*ttJ 188? 
 
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 Accessions No..\3^^./^/. S/ie/f No. 
 

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HISTOKIC ASPECTS 
 
 OF THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT CONCERNING THE 
 
 BEING AND ATTEIBUTES OF GOD 
 
HISTOKIC ASPECTS 
 
 OF THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT CONCERNING THE 
 
 BEING AND ATTKIBUTES OF GOD 
 
 BEING FOUE LECTURES 
 
 DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH IN NOVEMBER 1884 ON 
 THE HONYMAN-GILLESPIE FOUNDATION 
 
 WITH APPENDICES AND A POSTSCRIPT 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN GIBSON CAZENOVE, D.D. 
 u 
 
 SUB-DEAN AND CHANCELLOR OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. MARY, 
 EDINBURGH 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Hontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1886 
 
-&J- 
 CL3 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 PKEFACE 
 
 FIFTY-THREE years ago, that is to say in A.D. 
 1833, a Scottish gentleman, Mr. William Hony- 
 man Gillespie, published a work on the d priori 
 argument for the Being and Attributes of God 
 a work of which some account will be found in 
 the following pages. 
 
 The widow of this" gentleman, w T ho died in 
 A.D. 1875, being anxious to promote what her 
 husband had so much at heart the sacred cause 
 of Belief against Unbelief is desirous of insti- 
 tuting a Lectureship connected with his name, 
 as a means of good, and as a fitting tribute to 
 his memory. The Foundress of the Lectureship 
 hopes to endow it in such wise as that a course 
 of four or six Lectures may be delivered at in- 
 tervals of four or five years. The Lectures are 
 to treat of such themes as the Being and Attri- 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 butes of God; the Divinity of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ ; the truth of Christ's Religion ; or other 
 cognate subjects, on which there is, in the main, 
 an agreement among the vast majority of those 
 'who profess and call themselves Christians.' 
 The tenure of the Lectureship is to be undenomi- 
 national. 
 
 Those with whom the Foundress took counsel 
 agreed in thinking it desirable, that the first 
 course should have some immediate relation to 
 that particular phase of Apologetics in which 
 Mr. Gillespie took so deep an interest. 
 
 I need not detain the reader with any account 
 of the circumstances which have induced me, 
 with much diffidence, to occupy the unsought- 
 for position of the First Lecturer on this found- 
 ation. The objects at which I have aimed 
 are explained in the Lectures themselves. 
 But I should like here to add one or two other 
 considerations. 
 
 I am not without hope that the limitation 
 and narrowness of the range of these Lectures 
 may to some readers prove rather an advantage 
 than the reverse. It is possible that the outlines 
 of at least one portion of an abstruse question 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 may thus be more easily grasped, and that the 
 study of more exhaustive treatises (such as, for 
 example, those of Professor Flint on Theism and 
 anti-Theistic theories) may be facilitated. It is 
 also, I trust, conceivable that the quotations 
 given in the Lectures, the Mottoes, and the 
 Appendices may be found to present a body of 
 information, such as is not elsewhere readily 
 accessible within the same compass, and which 
 may prove both helpful and suggestive. 
 
 My very special thanks are due, in the first 
 place, to the Foundress for the great kindness 
 and liberality displayed throughout our inter- 
 course. Secondly, to the Kev. William Adam- 
 son, D.D., Minister of the Evangelical Union, 
 who not only encouraged me in this undertaking 
 (to which he had previously contributed a very 
 able and useful pamphlet), but who generously 
 relieved me from all trouble connected with the 
 arrangements for the delivery of the Lectures. 
 Thirdly, to the Eev. Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D., 
 Professor of Theology in the University of Edin- 
 burgh. Besides my indebtedness to his volume 
 on Theism (which may have influenced me un- 
 consciously, even where I believe my conclusions 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 to be independent of it), I owe gratitude to Dr. 
 Flint for kind encouragement and suggestions in 
 the way of study, and for my introduction to the 
 work of M. Bouchitte. One other friend of long 
 standing must not be passed by. The Kev. 
 David Greig, M.A. of Aberdeen, and Eector of 
 Addington in Buckinghamshire, is possessed of 
 a large share of that metaphysical acumen for 
 which his native land is celebrated. He has 
 supplied me with much in the way of instruction 
 and of suggestion, especially as regards the 
 Fourth Lecture. But Mr. Greig must not be 
 held responsible for any of my statements or 
 arguments, with some of which he may, I fear, 
 be found to disagree. 
 
 Despite these aids I claim to have made an 
 independent study of all the leading authorities 
 on the subject of these Lectures, with most of 
 whom I possess an acquaintance of many years' 
 standing. 
 
 The Lectures are now published in the 
 form in which they were originally composed. 
 In delivery, however, illustrations, particularly 
 of the shorter Lectures, were freely supplied from 
 passages which are now relegated to the Appen- 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 dix. An epitome of the volume was also given 
 in two Lectures delivered in Glasgow in January 
 1885. 
 
 I am very conscious of the value of the kind 
 patronage bestowed not only by an audience 
 both larger and more attentive than I ventured 
 to anticipate, but specially also by those gentle- 
 men who on successive nights very generously 
 accompanied me to the platform. That body in- 
 cluded, I believe, representatives from among 
 those engaged in the Ministry of all the leading 
 Christian communions in this city Presby- 
 terian, Episcopalian, and Eoman Catholic. To 
 each and all of them I beg to return my cordial 
 thanks. 
 
 J. G. CAZENOVE. 
 
 EDINBURGH, 6th March 1886. 
 
 NOTE. As it is just possible that a perusal of this volume 
 may be attempted by some readers unversed in mental science, 
 it may be well for their sakes to give a brief explanation of the 
 terms a priori and a posteriori, as applied to the process of 
 reasoning. 
 
 These words were suggested by the Aristotelian philosophy, 
 and were originally applied as follows. 
 
 When we reason from cause to effect, we are said to argue 
 a priori. Thus, for example, a farmer casting his glance upon 
 
Preface. 
 
 a piece of rich soil, which is about to be tilled, argues d priori 
 that the crop will be a good and abundant one. 
 
 But when we reason backward from effect to cause, our 
 argument is d posteriori. If our farmer sees in August a 
 splendid crop of wheat in a given field, he infers d posteriori 
 that the soil of that field is rich. 
 
 In later times, under the influence of Hume and Kant, the 
 range of these terms has been enlarged, and we commonly call 
 all elements of knowledge d priori if they are antecedent to 
 experience, and d posteriori when they are based upon experience. 
 
 Thus we know d priori the truth of the axiom, that ' the 
 whole is greater than its part ; ' but men have learnt d posteriori 
 that bread is wholesome, and hemlock poisonous. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
' The proper, peculiar, and deepest theme of universal and human 
 history, to which all others are subordinate, is the conflict of belief 
 and unbelief. . . . All those epochs ... in which unbelief be it 
 under whatsoever form it will maintains a direful supremacy, and 
 even if it should shine for a moment with a tinsel brilliancy, vanish 
 before posterity, because no one willingly torments himself with a 
 knowledge of the unfruitful.' Goethe, West-Ostlicher Divan. 
 
 ' An undogmatic creed is as senseless as a statue without shape or 
 a picture without colour.' Leslie Stephen, Freethinking and Plain- 
 speaking, p. 124. 
 
 'The central truth round "which all the rest group themselves is 
 the conviction uttered in each eager credo, and implied in every cry 
 from the heart's distress, that there is an eternal God, in whom we 
 live, and who can hear us when we speak to Him ; from whom, further, 
 we learn of His boundless knowledge, of His years which shall not fail, 
 and of our own blessedness as to be found only in Him. From this 
 root there has grown up a complete philosophy of life, at once theoreti- 
 cal and practical.' Ellen Watson (Life by Anna Buckland), p. 164. 
 
LECTUEE I. 
 
 IT will not be denied that there have been mul- 
 titudes of men and women Jewish, Christian, 
 Mohammedan, and others who have believed in 
 a real Theism. By a real Theism I mean the 
 acceptance of the doctrine that there exists a 
 supreme, sole, infinite Being, who has created 
 and preserved all things, and without whose 
 permission nothing has ever existed or can exist; 
 a Being perfect in wisdom, in goodness, and in 
 power, except in so far as His power is limited 
 by His goodness, or by any laws which He has 
 imposed upon Himself or impressed upon the 
 Universe ; a Being who is a pure Spirit without 
 body, parts, or passions ; a Being who has existed 
 eternally in the past, who exists now, and who 
 will exist eternally in the future. 
 
 But those who disbelieve in such a creed, 
 
4 Belief and Experience of Life. [LECT. 
 
 who either hesitate concerning it, or who actually 
 oppose it, may ask of the believers the pro- 
 foundly important questions, 'Why do you 
 thus believe? What is the ground of your 
 belief? 7 
 
 To this inquiry the following seem to be the 
 leading answers. ' I received this doctrine from 
 loved parents and teachers. To them it was 
 " the life's life of their being ; " and it affected 
 their conduct and their whole relations to all 
 around them. I have given it a trial, often it 
 must be granted a feeble, unworthy, inconsistent 
 one. Nevertheless it has not broken down under 
 the strain of this life's sorrows and difficulties, 
 or of my own miserably imperfect practice. On 
 the contrary, it has made life endurable, and has 
 been the source and mainspring of any benefits 
 which I have been able to confer upon my fellow- 
 creatures/ 
 
 One who speaks in this strain may possibly 
 be quite unable to set forth the ground of his or 
 her convictions in a strictly argumentative form. 
 It must be owned, I think, that the class of whom 
 such a Theist is a representative has been in the 
 past, and will always remain in the future, by far 
 
Belief and Implicit Reason. 
 
 the largest. The well-known but true story of 
 the judge who recommended a colonial official to 
 give his decisions, but not to publish his reasons 
 for them, is applicable to many subjects besides 
 that of law. Comparatively few persons are 
 sufficiently well skilled in the process of analysing 
 the grounds of their convictions to be able to 
 attempt the task satisfactorily. They have good 
 reasons, but those reasons are implicit ones, and 
 the endeavour to be explicit proves a failure. 
 Wordsworth, in one of his earliest poems, has 
 illustrated the danger of demanding from chil- 
 dren their reasons for the judgments which they 
 form; 1 and on deep and difficult subjects many 
 of us must always remain children. 
 
 An example of the kind of argument which 
 must always influence a large number, even of 
 thoughtful persons, is given us in a work which 
 has appeared since I undertook the delivery of 
 these lectures. A lady of high culture and of 
 earnest thoughtfulness became acquainted with 
 the late Dr. Strauss. For some seven years 
 her mind was deeply affected by his teaching, 
 
 1 Anecdote for Fathers, showing how the practice of lying 
 may be taught (vol. i. poem x. in the edition of 1841). 
 
6 Belief and Doubt under Sorrow. [LECT. 
 
 and she tells us that she 'had to wrestle 
 heart and soul with theoretical doubts.' At 
 length these doubts were resolved. By what 
 process of reasoning was this result brought 
 about ? 
 
 By a process which, if we attempt to put it 
 into mood and figure, may seem to have but 
 little power. Her infant son fell out of a 
 window and was killed. The mother sought 
 for consolation in the various systems of philo- 
 sophy which had been brought before her. 
 The amount of support which she found in 
 them shall be stated in her own words. ' The 
 whole edifice of philosophical conclusions which 
 I had built up for myself, I find to have no 
 foundation whatever ^nothing of it is left it 
 has crumbled away like dust. What should we 
 be, what would become of us, if we had no 
 faith if we did not believe that there is a 
 God who rules the world and each single one 
 of us?' 
 
 But to whatever degree convictions of this 
 nature may be practically trustworthy for the 
 individual, of course we cannot ask other minds 
 to receive as true, conclusions, however sacred, 
 
i.] Belief influenced by Example. 7 
 
 brought about by an experience like that of the 
 lamented Princess Alice. The same must be 
 said of many a similar basis of belief. There is, 
 for example, the impress made by the consistent 
 life of believers around us. Chaucer concludes 
 the eulogy of his model parson with the emphatic 
 lines : 
 
 ' And Christes law, and His apostles twelf, 
 He preached, but first He followed it Himself.' 
 
 If, on the one hand, as has been asserted, the 
 faults and shortcomings of believers have wrought 
 more injury to the cause of belief than whole 
 volumes of argument ; so, on the other, a single 
 consistent life may effect more in the way of 
 persuasion than the most able and elaborate 
 ratiocination. Such at least will be the case with 
 many minds. 
 
 Nevertheless man possesses the great gift of 
 reason, and no cause ought to shrink from 
 courting investigation carried on by means of 
 such a power. We may indeed ask ourselves, 
 and ask those around us, to keep careful and 
 sleepless watch, lest conscious or unconscious 
 prejudice should disturb the process, which we 
 take to be reasonable ; but we must not on any 
 
8 Belief and the Claims of Reason. ELECT. 
 
 account, to borrow a phrase from Bishop Butler, 
 allow ourselves to ' vilify reason.' Belief in 
 Theism, like every other belief, must be tried at 
 this tribunal, if it is to stand. It was no 
 despiser of the claims of faith who issued to 
 believers the command ' to be ready always to 
 give an answer to every man that asketh you a 
 reason of the hope that is in you with meekness 
 and fear/ 
 
 And what is true in this respect of advocates 
 of Theism holds true of supporters of every other 
 reply to questions concerning the supernatural. 
 Thus, for example, the Epicurean of old ought to 
 have asked himself whether, while admitting in 
 words the existence of superior powers but 
 denying their interest in human affairs, he was 
 not practically though unavowedly teaching 
 atheism. Those who proclaim in our own day 
 what Mr. Goldwin Smith has called ' the figment 
 of a scientific God/ should look to themselves 
 lest they through unconscious prejudice be apply- 
 ing principles derived from other departments of 
 knowledge into one in which they will not hold 
 good. The same must be said too of the Pantheist, 
 who identifies creation with a Creator, and the 
 
i.] Position of Atheism and Agnosticism. 9 
 
 Polytheist, who believes in ' gods many and lords 
 many.' 
 
 But most eminently is it true concerning the 
 teachers of Atheism and Agnosticism. Not only 
 may they be called upon to listen to the warn- 
 ing of an Apostle concerning those who did not 
 like to retain God in their knowledge, but they 
 come before the public standing at a disadvan- 
 tage. They have yet to show that any great 
 nation has found it possible for any lengthened 
 period to live upon Atheism. They have yet to 
 show that the dread of Atheism, as something 
 inconsistent with settled government, felt by so 
 many statesmen in Athens, in Kome, nay, even 
 in the Paris of the Eevolution of 1789, is wholly 
 devoid of any sufficient basis or excuse. Many 
 religions can point to achievements in the domains 
 of science, of art, of literature, of legislation, of 
 philanthropy, and of general civilization. Theism, 
 particularly Christian Theism, can certainly do 
 this. The nations which profess it are, in the 
 language even of Gibbon, ' the most distinguished 
 portion of human kind in arts and learning as 
 well as in arms.' l Avowed Atheists can not yet 
 
 1 Decline and Fall, chap. xv. (ad into.) 
 
io Theism in Science and Art. [LECT. 
 
 point to a long and brilliant bead-roll in many 
 of these departments of thought and action. It 
 is, of course, possible that some few men of 
 eminence have not had the courage of their 
 opinions, and have secretly disbelieved in Theism. 
 But such men seldom influence posterity. Nor 
 must it be forgotten that several of these in- 
 herited their share of the intellectual wealth of 
 believing ages, and were often nurtured in an 
 atmosphere of belief. Even physical science, 
 which is so often cited as an example to the 
 contrary, has received more aid from the camp 
 of belief both in the Middle Ages and in 
 modern times than is generally admitted. Art 
 architectural can point to the Temple of Jerusa- 
 lem, to the medieval cathedrals, abbeys, town- 
 halls, and castles, and to the glories of the 
 Alhambra, as associated with the idea of Theism. 
 Art pictorial, similarly blended, may challenge 
 the universe for any rival list of great names 
 and triumphs. In music, again, the bell and the 
 organ are creations of Theistic religion, mainly, 
 it would seem, of its Christian form. Many 
 literatures have made such faith at least their 
 starting-point. Hebrew literature (for the Bible 
 
i.] In Letters, Law, and Philanthropy. 1 1 
 
 is literature, however much more it may also be) 
 is one illustration. It is highly probable the 
 earliest Hindoo writings were, though less dis- 
 tinctly, of similar character. Anglo-Saxon litera- 
 ture begins with the poetry of a sacred bard, the 
 lowly Csedmon, and the first great and enduring 
 work of modern letters is the Divina Commedia 
 of Dante. The Mosaic code of law, of which 
 even sceptics have spoken highly, was inter- 
 twined with the nation's creed. And the grand 
 creation of Eoman law, though in great measure 
 a product of Stoic philosophers, was so far from 
 being anti-Theistic, that Christian emperors, 
 witness Theodosius, found little difficulty in 
 accepting its main outlines, and the student who 
 opens the Institutes of Justinian is at once con- 
 fronted by the words, 'In Nomine Domini 
 Nostri Jesu Christi.' On the philanthropy of at 
 least one form of Theism, the Christian, it is 
 almost needless to dwell, unless it may be per- 
 mitted to call attention to the generous confes- 
 sion of a bystander, Mr. Lecky, to the effect that 
 Christianity has suffered from the fact that so 
 much of its charity is private and hidden, while 
 the fierce conflicts connected with it are but too 
 
1 2 Arguments mainly outward or inward. [LECT. 
 
 patent to every eye. Nevertheless its mansions 
 of charity are also visible. Some of you may 
 have heard of a stranger in a large town being 
 allowed to address an assembly of Agnostics, and 
 telling them of the inspection which he had 
 made with the help of a guide. Here was an 
 infirmary undenominational, but avowedly Chris- 
 tian. In another quarter stood some almshouses, 
 and a dispensary, for impoverished Jews. This 
 hospital was Wesleyan, another Koman Catholic. 
 Anglicans and Presbyterians had their peniten- 
 tiaries and other homes of refuge. But on ask- 
 ing for the similar solaces of human misery built 
 by Atheists and Agnostics, he was informed 
 that as yet such institutions were utterly un- 
 known. 
 
 But it is time for me to return to my more 
 immediate subject. When believers in Theism 
 endeavour to act upon the advice to seek for 
 reasons of their hope, they must, I conceive, 
 search for their arguments by the course of 
 looking mainly outward, or mainly inward. I 
 use the word mainly advisedly, because the pro- 
 gress of inquiry will, if I am not mistaken, im- 
 press upon us a conviction that it is extremely 
 
i.] A posteriori argument wide spread. 13 
 
 difficult, if not absolutely impossible, entirely to 
 separate the one line of thought from the other. 
 
 Undoubtedly the argument from effect to 
 cause (or, as logicians call it, the a posteriori 
 argument) is the most obvious, and has been the 
 most widely spread. It seems to have the sanc- 
 tion of an Apostle. 1 It is the argument by 
 which (as Xenophon tells us) Socrates confronted 
 the atheistic tenets of the little Aristodemus. 
 It reappears in the treatise of Cicero De Naturd 
 Deorum. It has been elaborated (some say 
 borrowed) by Paley in his famous book on 
 Natural Theology ; and it seems, if we can trust 
 the reports of travellers, to occur even to the 
 untutored mind of the savage. With the specious 
 counter -arguments by which this mode of 
 reasoning has been met, I am not here specially 
 concerned. Dr. Mozley, among his many great 
 services to the cause of belief, has discussed this 
 subject with his usual clearness and ability ; and 
 to his remarks on the argument from design, 2 
 I may for the present be content to refer my 
 
 1 Romans i. 19-31. 
 
 2 Essays, Historical and Theological, vol. ii., ' Essay on Argu- 
 ment from Design.' 
 
1 4 Supporters of a priori A rgument. [LECT. 
 
 hearers. But it is possible to draw up a list of 
 writers who have made use, either partially or 
 exclusively, of another line of reasoning. Their 
 arguments have followed an <JL priori course. If, 
 in making such a list, we may include all the 
 thinkers who have indirectly lent support to this 
 process, the catalogue of its adherents will be 
 found remarkable, not only as regards number, but 
 also in point of weight and eminence. But, for 
 the moment, it may suffice to say that, up to the 
 date of the present century, three names have in 
 this connexion been specially prominent. These 
 names are those of Anselm, Descartes, and Clarke. 
 
 It is proposed, in these lectures, to deal mainly 
 with the contributions to the subject made by 
 these eminent men, and then to consider the 
 additions furnished by the comparatively recent 
 work of Mr. Gillespie, and some other thinkers 
 of our own day. 
 
 This task may be regarded as an ambitious or 
 as a humble one. Perhaps it is both. It is 
 ambitious, in so far as it ventures on an estimate 
 of the real value of each contribution, and it is 
 not without much diffidence that I undertake 
 this part of my task. It is humble, in that it 
 
i.] Possible use of these Lectures. 15 
 
 does not pretend to strike out any new line of its 
 own. But there are times when it proves very 
 useful to take stock, as it were, of what has been 
 done. If I can succeed in giving an account 
 which, without pretending to be exhaustive, yet 
 on some features of the case goes more into 
 detail than most of our English treatises on the 
 subject, I shall not be without hope that these 
 lectures may be found beneficial to those who 
 may feel called upon to attempt any subsequent 
 investigations upon the same all - important 
 theme. To this end I shall not hesitate to call 
 attention to any portions of the argument which 
 seem to need further elaboration at the hands of 
 competent students. 
 
 Need I say that writing as a believer who, in 
 some measure, attempts to give account of the 
 grounds of his own belief, I earnestly pray that 
 no detriment to the cause of truth may be 
 wrought through my own weakness or short- 
 comings ; that whatever is said may be accepted, 
 so far, and so far only, as is agreeable to the will 
 of Him concerning whom I speak, and that He 
 may bless this attempt, how r ever unworthy, alike 
 to him who speaks and to those who hear or read. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
8e irepl O.VTWV ev n (dya <rot firjvvwv OVK &v TTOTC tpaveirjv 
 \fsevdris, TO TOi6vSe. ov <rv [Ji6vos ovde ol ffol 0Xoi Trpwroi KO! irpGiTOV TavTrjv 
 8ba.v irepl 6eQ>v 0"%ere, ylyvovTai de del TrXeious ^ eXdrrous TavTrjv TTJV 
 vbaov If^ovTes' r6de roLvvv trot Trapayeyov&s a^rwv TroXXotcri <ppdoi/j.' &v rb 
 IMI$va. ir&iroTe \afi6vTO. K vov ra^Tijv TT\V d6%av Trepl Oe&v, ws OVK eicrt, 
 StareX^crat 7r/j6s yijpas fj.elva.vTa. ev ra^Ty rf) Stavoiyo'ei.' Plato, Laws, book 
 x. p. 888. ! 
 
 ' The root of the matter appears to me : A want of sympathy with 
 the great body of those who are now endeavouring to guide and help 
 onward their fellow-men. And in what is this alienation grounded ? 
 It is, as I believe, simply in the difference on that point viz. the 
 clear, deep, habitual recognition of a one Living Personal God, essen- 
 tially good, wise, true, and holy, the Author of all that exists. ... In 
 his [Teufelsdroch's] state of mind, as there is no true sympathy with 
 others, just as little is there any true peace for ourselves.' John Stirling 
 on Carlyle's Sartor Eesartus (Life by Carlyle, part II. chap. ii.). 
 
 1 This passage, though seemingly polytheistic in tone, is cited on account of 
 the remarkable testimony thus given by Plato to the fact that his observation con- 
 vinced him that, in his own age and country, lifelong persistence in atheism was 
 very rare. I offer the following translation : 
 
 ' In the first place, I am confident that I shall not be convicted of falsehood, if 
 I indicate to you on these matters one point of great importance. It is to this 
 effect. Neither you nor your friends are the first persons who have held this 
 opinion about the gods, but there always exist men, in number more or less, who 
 are afflicted with this malady. I then, who have held intercourse with many of 
 them, can tell you that no man who in youth had taken up the opinion of the non- 
 existence of the gods, ever continued to old age his perseverance in this notion.' 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 LECTUEE II. 
 
 IN this lecture I propose to examine the contri- 
 butions to the a priori argument made by St. 
 Anselm. But it may be pardonable to indulge 
 in one brief digression concerning some assump- 
 tions on my part which I have not yet noticed, 
 but which are, I trust, legitimate. Any lecturer 
 on such a theme must, almost inevitably, assume 
 the importance of religion. Even if he does not 
 recognize its claims to instruct us concerning a 
 life to come, he can hardly fail to acknowledge 
 that it has been, and is, a most important factor 
 in the history of the human race. In speaking 
 thus, it is by no means necessary to confine our 
 thoughts to Judaism or Christianity. Let us 
 take some country which we may look at apart 
 from the influence of these religions. Look, for 
 example, at Hindostan. In the annals of that 
 land, so far as they are known to us, there is a 
 
2O Religion must include three Elements. [LECT. 
 
 Vedic period, there is a Brahmanic period, there 
 is a Mohammedan conquest. Even to this day, 
 the main subject thought upon, by those of its 
 inhabitants who think at all, is religion. Some- 
 what similar remarks might be made respecting 
 the history of any country, which has made a 
 great and lasting impress upon humanity at 
 large. Now I further venture to assume, as 
 correct in the main, the views of those who 
 assert that a religion must contain three prin- 
 cipal elements. It involves some idea con- 
 cerning a being or beings above us ; some ideas 
 concerning human nature with its varied hopes 
 and fears, faculties and aims ; and lastly, some 
 idea concerning the connexion between these 
 two. So closely are these three elements blended 
 that any definite opinion concerning the one is 
 generally found to affect the other two. Never- 
 theless, at different periods, one or other of these 
 elements has been forced into much greater pro- 
 minence than the others. Thus, to take a single 
 example, the English Deists of the reign of Queen 
 Anne dwelt specially on the question whether 
 there had or had not been any of that special 
 intercourse, commonly called revelation, between 
 
ii.] Attacks made on one or other Element. 21 
 
 the Creator and the creature. Consequently the 
 great opponent of their system, Bishop Butler, 
 hardly found it needful to dwell on the arguments 
 which might be sought to prove the existence of 
 an almighty framer of the Universe, for thus 
 much was conceded by his adversaries. He was 
 only concerned with the question whether this 
 Creator had or had not made a revelation of Him- 
 self to mankind ; and in the opinion of some 
 thinkers, who have not been Theists, let it 
 suffice to name John Stuart Mill and his father, 
 he was quite triumphant on the field on which 
 the contest was carried on. 
 
 In our own day, however, the controversy 
 seems to turn less upon the question of revela- 
 tion than upon the previous inquiry, whether 
 there is or is not in any true sense a Creator at 
 all. This consideration inspires me with a hope 
 that the subject of these lectures, though it is 
 one of all time, may be thought to have some 
 special fitness for the age in which our lot is 
 cast. 
 
 It is high time to speak of Anselm. On the 
 details of his life and career it is impossible for 
 me to dwell. It must be sufficient to remind 
 
22 St. Anselm : His Career. [LECT. 
 
 my hearers that Anselm was born at Aosta, in 
 Piedmont, in A.D. 1033, some thirty-three years 
 before the Norman Conquest. Like so many 
 great men I may mention St. Augustine and 
 St. Chrysostom he owed much to the training 
 and to the example of his pious mother Ermen- 
 berga. Somewhat against the wishes of his 
 father (who, however, subsequently changed his 
 views), Anselm resolved to choose the monastic 
 life, and, after three years' wandering in France 
 and Burgundy, took the habit and vows of a 
 Benedictine of the convent of Bee, in Normandy. 
 He was then twenty-seven years of age. Lan- 
 franc, who had been the Prior of this house, first 
 moved to Cannes, and was subsequently made 
 Archbishop of Canterbury by William the Con- 
 queror. Anselm succeeded Lanfranc in both of 
 these stations, being made Prior, and subse- 
 quently Abbot of Bee ; and, in the reign of 
 William Kufus, Archbishop of Canterbury. It 
 is no part of my subject to discuss the contests 
 of Anselm with William the Second and his suc- 
 cessor, Henry the First. I am here concerned 
 with the career of Anselm as a thinker rather 
 than as a man of action. It were easy to cite 
 
ii.] Anselms Merits as a Thinker. 23 
 
 testimonies of distinguished men of this century 
 on behalf of the merits of St. Anselm as a 
 thinker, as, for example, Mohler, De Eemusat, 
 Dean Church, and others ; but I will here con- 
 tent myself with the brief description given by 
 Dr. Thomson, the present Archbishop of York, 
 which I the rather choose because the writer will 
 not be suspected of any undue predilection for 
 the medieval church. Archbishop Thomson's 
 words are as follows : ' Perhaps no writer in 
 the whole history of the Church has brought to 
 the study of the philosophy of religion a keener 
 intellect chastened by a faith more humble. " I 
 do not seek, Lord," says he, "to penetrate 
 Thy depths ; I by no means think my intellect 
 equal to them ; but I long to understand in some 
 degree Thy truth, which my heart believes and 
 loves. For I do not seek to understand that I 
 may believe ; but I believe that I may under- 
 stand." And this noble aspiration was no mere 
 phase of rhetoric. In the two ideas which he 
 has contributed to the stock of Christian truth, 
 namely, a proof more elaborate than had been 
 attempted before, for the existence of God from 
 the thought of God in the soul, and the proof 
 
24 Anselm s i Monologium' [LECT- 
 
 from reason of the necessity and worth of Christ's 
 redemption, we may witness that rare union of 
 faith and philosophic acumen in which neither 
 of them dwarfs nor destroys the other.' 
 
 With the treatise of Anselm on the Incarna- 
 tion (the CUT Deus homo) we are not concerned, 
 however great may be its interest and value in 
 its own place. The contributions of Anselm to 
 the a priori argument for the being of God con- 
 sist of, firstly, a book of meditations of the sort 
 for which Augustine had invented the name 
 Soliloquy, but which Anselm preferred to call 
 by a title derived from the Greek, Monologium. 
 To this he added a shorter treatise which he 
 called an Address (i.e. an Address to God), or 
 Proslogium. Thirdly, we have a reply made by 
 Anselm to the comments of a hostile critic, a 
 monk named Gaunilo. The bulk of the whole 
 of these writings is by no means great. In the 
 folio edition of the Benedictines the whole three 
 tractates, including the critique of Gaunilo, only 
 occupy some forty pages. 
 
 The Monologium consists of seventy -nine 
 short chapters, but of these considerably more 
 than half must be excluded from our present 
 
ii.] Epitome of this Treatise. 25 
 
 survey. The whole of the latter portion is de- 
 rived, not from the teaching of men's natural 
 reason and conscience, but from that of Holy 
 Scripture. No doubt the assertion, made by 
 Butler and others, that Scripture contains a re- 
 publication of natural religion is one of much 
 importance and interest, but it does not properly 
 form part of my present subject, and I therefore 
 confine myself mainly to a brief account of the 
 first twenty-eight chapters of the Monologium. 
 
 Anselm writes, at the request of friends with 
 whom he has often discussed the matter in con- 
 versation : ' If his reasonings seem to lack ex- 
 ternal authority, let them be at least accepted as 
 valid until they are refuted. All men desire to 
 enjoy only what seems to them to be good ; but 
 good things are varied and innumerable. Still, 
 do we not understand in all these varied goods 
 some one quality, though its degree in this or 
 that thing may be very unequal. A horse is 
 good by reason of his strength, or again by reason 
 of his swiftness. A robber is bad by reason of 
 his possession of the very same qualities. But 
 these qualities in the horse were useful, in the 
 robber simply noxious. And not only things 
 
26 Epitome continued. [LECT. 
 
 useful, but also those which are honourable and 
 beautiful are always recognized. Do we not 
 from the consideration of the various kinds of 
 good rise to the contemplation of something from 
 which their goodness flows ? That good alone 
 can be supremely good, having nothing superior 
 or even equal to itself; and as supremely good, 
 so also supremely great ; not necessarily great 
 physically, but in a nobler sense, as when we 
 speak of the greatness of wisdom. Ordinary 
 goods around us arise out of other things that 
 are good, but this supreme good must be good 
 in itself, and prior to all these. We do not hesi- 
 tate to recognise degrees of good. The horse is 
 better than a piece of wood, and the man better 
 than the horse ; but from the contemplation of 
 these we rise to the conception of a goodness 
 which is not subordinate to anything. Good of 
 this kind cannot be imagined to exist in several 
 equal natures. There must surely be one nature, 
 or substance, or essence, which is in itself good 
 and great, and through which alone anything 
 else can become truly good or great. 
 
 The universe cannot have arisen out of itself. 
 All men admit that from nothing nothing 
 
ii.] Epitome continued. 27 
 
 springs. It may indeed have existed in thought 
 before it was realized in fact, somewhat as words 
 which we speak have previously existed in our 
 minds. But, if the universe did not spring from 
 nothing, it must have come from this highest 
 excellence of a Divine artificer, who is unlike 
 human workmen in this, that he produces both 
 substance and form. We have already spoken 
 of this highest good as including in itself every 
 form of excellence. We must not say he has 
 justice, but he is justice. He is indeed the 
 Supreme of essence, life, reason, health, justice, 
 wisdom, truth, goodness, the Supreme of size, 
 beauty, immortality, unchangeableness, blessed- 
 ness, power, unity in a word, the highest form 
 of Life and Being. 
 
 Such a supreme excellence must be without 
 beginning, for, if it had a beginning, it would 
 derive it from something else, and that some- 
 thing would be so far its superior. Consequently 
 it would not be the highest excellence. And as 
 it is without beginning, so, too, without end. It 
 could only come to an end against its own will 
 or with its own will. But to come to an end 
 against its will would betoken a lack of power, 
 
28 Epitome concluded. [LECT. 
 
 and in each case, not being omnipotent, it would 
 not be the highest good. To come to an end 
 with its own will would imply a want of good- 
 ness, as it would involve the ruin of all goodness, 
 which is, in truth, dependent on itself. But 
 then it would not be the supreme goodness ; for 
 that cannot possibly will the cessation of all 
 goodness. 
 
 The same reasoning which shows that nothing 
 like it can have been before it in the past, must 
 convince us that nothing else like it can be in 
 the future, for that future goodness would be an 
 usurper on the rights of the supreme good. It 
 is not limited by space or time, for in truth it 
 constitutes both space and time. We may speak 
 of it as an everlasting Now. Its existence is 
 simple, absolute, and perfect. It does not admit 
 of division or of solution. 
 
 Such is, I trust, a fair paraphrase of the 
 leading arguments in the first part of the 
 Monologium. I have drawn it directly and 
 independently from the work itself. Similar 
 epitomes have been given by others, as, e.g. by 
 M. Bouchitte, De Remusat, and Kostlin. With- 
 
ii.] Anselms 'Proslogium' 29 
 
 out pausing for the moment to criticize the 
 argument, I pass on to the consideration of 
 the author's Proslogium. This is a much shorter 
 production. Anselm hoped that it would be 
 found less difficult than the former one. He 
 places himself in the attitude of a person con- 
 templating the Being and Nature of God, and 
 seeking to understand what he believes, in fact 
 he gave it for a second title c Faith seeking 
 Understanding ' (Fides qucerens intellectum). 
 With some repetition it contains some additions 
 to his former arguments. The second and two 
 following chapters involve what has been called 
 the ontological proof of Theism, and are specially 
 Anselm's own. Thus, in chapter iii., he medi- 
 tates on the extreme difficulty of conceiving the 
 non-existence of God. Once allow that there 
 exists something than which a greater cannot 
 be conceived, the claim to imagine something 
 better would erect the creature above this 
 highest excellence, and make it the judge of its 
 creator. The fool who says in his heart 'there 
 is no God/ may succeed in a mere verbal denial, 
 but this is very different from a disproof of the 
 reality. 
 
3O Distinction between Ansehris Treatises, [n. 
 
 The chief distinction between the argument 
 of the Monologium and the Proslogium lies in 
 this, that in the former and longer treatise 
 Anselm dwells in a sort of inductive way on 
 the idea of perfection, and from many forms of 
 goodness infers, with Augustine, that there is 
 a supreme goodness ; while in the shorter one 
 he argues immediately that our very power of 
 conceiving such a substratum to all being is of 
 itself a proof that it must exist. 
 
 When we speak of this Being as omnipotent, 
 we imply limits to this extent, that He cannot 
 do what is contrary to His own nature, or to the 
 nature of laws which He has imposed upon 
 Himself or upon the things created. Let us now 
 proceed to the consideration of the force of 
 Anselm's argument, of the objections raised to it 
 from the days of Gaunilo to those of Kant, and 
 the question how far it is original, and what 
 must be its subsequent fortune. 
 
LECTUEE II. (Continued). 
 
 IT is by no means uncommon to discover that 
 elaborate arguments are based, though not al- 
 ways consciously, upon some one underlying 
 principle. If the truth of this principle be 
 admitted, then, although the correctness of 
 details may be questioned, the general argument 
 will most probably be accepted as valid. Simi- 
 larly the negation of this underlying principle 
 will prove fatal to the main bulk of the super- 
 structure reared upon it, whatever may be 
 thought of the value of some minor considera- 
 tions. A third course is, however, possible. 
 We may be willing to admit that the principle 
 is applicable to some subjects, but not to others ; 
 and the further question will then arise, is or is 
 not the matter in hand one of those subjects? 
 Our decision on this last point will, of course, 
 rule the acceptance or non-acceptance of the 
 
32 Value of Anselm s Principle. [LECT. 
 
 main argument which has been brought be- 
 fore us. 
 
 Now the underlying principle in the case of 
 Anselm's argument has been asserted to be this, 
 that the very fact of men's power of forming a 
 certain conception proves the existence of the 
 thing conceived. This principle has been at- 
 tacked by men of great name, by Hobbes, by 
 Huet, and by Gassendi, in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and at a later period by Kant. On the other 
 side, it may be said that both Hegel and Victor 
 Cousin go a long way in the direction of accept- 
 ance of the principle, and defend the argument 
 of Anselm. Another writer, M. Bouchitte, the 
 author of a valuable monograph on the subject, 
 declares that Anselm never intended to lay down 
 this principle broadly, as if it were one generally 
 applicable, but that he supposed it to hold good 
 only in the exceptional case of the supreme and 
 sovereign Being. 
 
 At this point I would venture to suggest a 
 consideration less sweeping than that of M. 
 Bouchitte. I do not claim for it any originality, 
 but I fancy that it. has not been so distinctly 
 applied as it may be to the problem now before 
 
ii.] Proposed modification of that principle. 33 
 
 us. The principle to which I refer is this, that 
 the fact of our having a conception of a com- 
 pound subject, especially a material subject, is of 
 no force as an argument in favour of its exist- 
 ence. Thus, for example, we can form a con- 
 ception of an unicorn; but here, though the 
 aggregate may be utterly unreal, its two elements, 
 the horse and the horn, are realities. An anato- 
 mist may tell me that the compound creature 
 would be a monster. Still we know that it can 
 be imagined, or else unicorns would never have 
 been chosen as the supporters of the royal arms 
 in Scotland. 
 
 But now proceed to a case which is not of a 
 compound nor material nature. Take our idea 
 of the soul. I believe that those are right who 
 say that the mere fact of our possessing this idea 
 is a strong argument on behalf of its truth. We 
 cannot have combined it, as in the case of the 
 unicorn, out of pre-existing notions, and in truth 
 there is a marked limit in this direction to the 
 power of the human imagination. Can we, for 
 example, conceive an absolutely new colour 
 which is in no wise combined of those already 
 known to us ? I should be prepared then to 
 
34 Anselm not always sufficiently explicit. [LECT. 
 
 accept the underlying principle of Anselm's 
 argument, and to press it beyond the limits 
 assigned to it by M. Bouchitte. 
 
 It may, however, be true that on certain 
 details Anselm is only partially successful, or 
 that he has failed to meet a difficulty, which did 
 not occur to his mind as a possible one. 
 
 For example, Anselm does not seem to me to 
 have stated with all the distinctness of which it 
 was capable, the validity of our passage from a 
 conviction that a self - existent substance exists, 
 to the further conviction that this substance is 
 endowed with Personality. Indeed at moments, 
 and especially in one chapter of the Proslogium, 
 he employs language which verges upon that 
 representation of God, as the Spirit of the 
 Universe, which confuses the Creator and the 
 creature, and which is commonly known as Pan- 
 theism. Not for one moment do I suppose that 
 Anselm intended to be pantheistic. He would 
 probably, if he could be questioned, maintain, as 
 Mr. Martineau and others of our own day have 
 done, that law implies a law-giver, and that 
 many of the attributes named in his argument 
 can only be conceived in the concrete in con- 
 
ii. J Objections of his opponent, Gaunilo. 35 
 
 nexion with a personal Being. The force of 
 what is called the ontological argument must be 
 referred to again in a later lecture, but I must 
 here take up the objection of Gaunilo, and then 
 pass on to another point of considerable interest, 
 to the question, namely, how far the argument 
 of Anselm is on his part an original one. 
 
 What has been said to a great extent anti- 
 cipates the objection of the monk, Gaunilo, to 
 the Proslogium, and also Anselm's reply. 
 
 The comment of Gaunilo (which occupies less 
 than a page and a half in folio) contains at its 
 close a few lines of high eulogy of the Pros- 
 logium. l It is/ says Anselm's assailant, ' elo- 
 quent, useful, and fragrant, deserving of all 
 respect and praise.' But it needs, Gaunilo 
 thinks, a strengthening in one point of its 
 argument, that it may be rendered more com- 
 plete. Gaunilo reasons somewhat as follows : 
 ' You, Anselm, maintain, in the first place, tha,t 
 some nature can be conceived than which there 
 can be nothing greater ; and, secondly, that such 
 a nature must exist, not merely in thought, but 
 in fact, for that if this were not so it would not 
 be the greatest of all natures, since that which 
 
36 Gaunilo s objections. Anselm s reply. [LECT. 
 
 exists, both in thought and in fact, must be 
 greater than that which exists in thought only.' 
 ' This reasoning does not convince me, Gaunilo. 
 I deny that my power of conceiving, the best 
 and greatest of all things, proves its existence. 
 Take an illustration. There is a legend con- 
 cerning a wondrous island, which, from the 
 difficulty of discovering it, is by some thought 
 to be lost. This island, the legend says, far 
 surpasses all known islands in size, and in its 
 abundance of riches and delights of every kind, 
 though it may now have no possessor or inhabit- 
 ant. Now, if any man told me that the mere 
 conception of such an island indubitably proves 
 its existence, I should be reduced to suppose him 
 to be in joke, or else that one of us must be led 
 into the greatest folly ; I, if I granted his case, 
 he, if he really thought that he had proved it.' 
 Whatever objections may be made to Anselm's 
 reasoning, this of his adversary, Gaunilo, is fairly, 
 and I must think (with Professor Flint) triumph- 
 antly met by Anselm. His reply is in sub- 
 stance as follows, and is not devoid of a touch of 
 humour, ' I, Anselm, only meant my reasoning 
 to apply to natures having neither beginning 
 
ir.] Anselms two main principles. 37 
 
 nor end, nor conjunction of parts. Just let any 
 man show me an island than which I cannot 
 conceive a greater nor a better. Let us suppose 
 it, if you please, to be this lost one. Of that 
 lost island I will make a present to him, by him 
 to be lost no more.' 
 
 In a word, the idea of Anselm may be almost 
 summed in the word Perfection. Such terms, 
 it has been truly said, as im-perfect, dis- ordered, 
 un-just, power -less, almost seem to imply an ab- 
 solute standard. How can we pronounce any 
 thing or person to be im-perfect or un-just, un- 
 less we have a real idea of some meaning attached 
 to the words perfect and just ? And this standard, 
 by which we measure all defects, are we prepared 
 to affirm that it alone is a non- entity ? This at 
 least is the main argument of the Monologium. 
 In the Proslogium he discards this sort of quasi- 
 inductive process by which the abstraction good- 
 ness is culled from all things which possess it. 
 His appeal in the later composition lies rather to 
 the fact that the idea of God is latent in every 
 man, and that even the fool who denies God's exist- 
 ence unconsciously admits the idea of which he 
 
38 Is Anselms argument original? [LECT. 
 
 takes upon him to deny the objective reality. My 
 own opinion is that this argument does possess 
 real weight, and I should be prepared to concede 
 to it, a little more than is granted by Professor 
 Flint. But I leave this to consideration of my 
 hearers, and go on to the question how far the 
 argument of Anselm is an original one. He 
 himself distinctly states that it is not. He 
 claims not merely to have advanced nothing 
 inconsistent with the writings of the Fathers, 
 but to have derived much from one who is 
 generally recognized as the greatest teacher of 
 the Western Church, St. Augustine. Perhaps 
 Anselm, in his modesty, has hardly done himself 
 justice. He is certainly the first Christian doctor 
 who has given us a direct and formal treatise on 
 the subject of the a priori argument for the being 
 and attributes of God. But just as a sentence 
 from the pen of Origen suggested the general 
 plan of Bishop Butler's Analogy, so undoubtedly 
 there are passages scattered through the works of 
 Augustine, and notably one page in the eighth 
 book of the De Trinitate, which may well have 
 suggested to others, and especially to Anselm, 
 the germ of the argument which he has de- 
 
ii.] Quotation from St. Augustine. 39 
 
 veloped. It seems only fair to Augustine to cite 
 some of the leading sentences * Lo ! thou 
 mayest indulge another view of the matter. 
 Assuredly, thou lovest nothing but what is good, 
 for good is the earth in the loftiness of its 
 mountains, and the proportion of its hills, and 
 the level of its plains ; and good is an estate, 
 pleasant and fertile ; good a house, arranged with 
 due parts, and ample, and bright; good are 
 animals with their lively forms ; good the air 
 that is pleasant and healthful ; good the food 
 that is sweet, and that tends to health ; good 
 the health that knows not pain or weariness ; 
 good the face of man with its even dimensions, 
 and cheerful glance, and rich colouring ; good 
 the friend in the sweetness of sympathy and 
 trustfulness of love with friend ; good the just 
 man ; good is wealth, for it may be easily made 
 serviceable ; good the sky, with its sun, and 
 moon, and stars ; good the angels with their holy 
 obedience ; good the address that pleasantly 
 teaches and fittingly warns the hearer ; and good 
 the poem that is harmonious in its measure, and 
 weighty in its sentiments. 
 
 'But why go on with endless instances? 
 
40 Quotation from St. Augustine. [LECT. 
 
 Good is this, and good is that. Abstract this 
 and that, and gaze if thou canst upon the ab- 
 solute good. Thou shalt thus gaze upon God, 
 who is good, not in one good point and another, 
 but the good of all good. For neither in all 
 these good things, whether those which I have 
 named, or any other objects of perception or 
 thought, could we say by a just judgment that 
 one was better than another, unless there were 
 impressed upon us the notion of the absolute 
 good, as a standard by which we approve any- 
 thing, and prefer one thing to another. In this 
 wise is God to be loved, not as this or that good, 
 but as the absolute good, for the good of the soul 
 must be sought, not one over which in its judg- 
 ment it may flutter, but a good to which in its 
 love it may cling, and what is this but God? 
 not a good soul, or a good angel, or a good 
 heaven, but the good of good. . . . For change- 
 ful good could in nowise exist, but for the exist- 
 ence of the good that knows no change. This and 
 that good of which thou hearest may be regarded 
 as things not good, if thou couldest, apart from 
 them which are only good by their participation in 
 good, perceive that actual good by participation 
 
ii.] How far anticipated by Plato. 41 
 
 in which they become good ; in the very hearing 
 of this or that good, thou understandest the 
 notion of good absolute ; and if, when they 
 are abstracted, thou canst perceive the good 
 absolute, thou shalt have perceived God. And 
 if thou shalt cling to it with love, straight- 
 way shalt thou be rendered blessed. . . . This 
 is truth, and simply good, for it is nothing 
 else than good absolute and therefore the highest 
 good.' 
 
 The arrangement, the illustrations, and logical 
 details in Anselm's succinct treatise are all his 
 own, but such a passage as that just quoted must 
 enable us to understand what Anselm meant, 
 when in a general way he expressed his acknow- 
 ledgments to Augustine. 
 
 But the question arises whether we must not 
 go farther back still. Augustine always speaks 
 with respect of Platonists and the Platonic philo- 
 sophy. That the d priori argument may 
 in some sense be traced back to Plato has been 
 asserted by many able and learned thinkers. In 
 the main I conceive the assertion to be correct, 
 but we must carefully consider how much is in- 
 volved in it. 
 
42 Possibility of unconscious suggestion. [LECT. 
 
 It may be thought that we are bound to 
 hold both the satisfactory character of the Theism 
 taught by Plato, and a conscious identification 
 on his part of an ideal good with a personal 
 creator. But such a view is not necessarily 
 incumbent on those who assert that Plato sug- 
 gested the argument developed by St. Anselm ; 
 for many a thinker may suggest more than he 
 himself sees, and may only have supplied certain 
 elements of thought which it was left to others 
 to combine. 
 
 Let us pause again for a moment to consider 
 the leading replies which may be made to the ques- 
 tion, Does God exist ? There is the answer, ' He 
 does not exist.' That is the speech of the Atheist. 
 There is the answer, c I do not know/ That is 
 the answer of the Agnostics, concerning whom an 
 Atheistic writer, Buchner, and the Positivist, Mr. 
 Harrison, have just been speaking so contemptu- 
 ously. There is the answer, ' There are gods 
 many and lords many/ the creed of the Poly- 
 theist, which of course is not a real Theism, for 
 no such being is God, not being almighty. 
 Pallas, in Homer, may divinely aid Ulysses and 
 Diomed in their theft of the horses of Ehesus ; 
 
ii.] Replies to query, ' Does God exist ? ' 43 
 
 but Apollo, though too late to save them, in so 
 far thwarts Pallas as to retain the chariot. The 
 JEolus of Virgil is lord of the winds, but he is 
 roughly rated by Neptune for having allowed 
 them to create a storm at sea. Manichseism, 
 which makes two contending powers, instead of 
 many, of course involves another denial of real 
 Theism. The same must be said concerning 
 those in our own day, who seem inclined to 
 believe in a kind of supreme being who is not, 
 however, perfectly powerful or perfectly wise or 
 good. Such a being, however wondrous, is not, 
 in any true sense, God. 
 
 The nobler spirits of western heathenism often 
 fluctuated between Polytheism and Pantheism. 
 The gods who were like men had a charm for the 
 human heart, but alas ! their likeness was sup- 
 posed to include resemblance to man in his 
 vices as well as his virtues. The deity of 
 Pantheism was cold, abstract, and such as one 
 could not worship, but it did possess the merit of 
 seeming to be unsoiled by earthly passion. 
 
 The amount of veiled Theism which, never- 
 theless, abode in western heathendom, and from 
 time to time asserted itself, was nevertheless by 
 
44 Latent Theism in Greece and Rome. [LEOT. 
 
 no means inconsiderable. It comes out in unex- 
 pected quarters. Not only does it often seem to 
 be implied in grave authors such as Herodotus 
 or Pindar, and in the noble hymn of the Stoic 
 Cleanthes, but even Horace can conceive it, and 
 Ovid, amidst all his sad laxity of tone, speaks 
 with a distinctness concerning the Creator and 
 the universe which, in such a man and in such an 
 age, is truly surprising. The famous remark of 
 Tertullian in his Apologia is both striking and 
 true. He declares that the very heathen when 
 in real distress were accustomed to cry out not 
 ' May Jupiter save me ! May Apollo save me !' 
 but ' God save me ! ' and he adds, ' testimony 
 of the soul by nature Christian !' (0 testimonium 
 animce naturaliter Christiance) . 
 
 For which of these varied theories are we to 
 claim the support of Plato ? A large number of 
 Platonic students, including men of great name, 
 would answer unhesitatingly that Plato was a 
 believer in the true God, and the exponent of 
 a real Theism. There are, however, those in 
 our own day who seem inclined to maintain 
 that Plato does not get beyond that doc- 
 trine of a spirit of the universe so largely 
 
ii.] Risk of misinterpreting Plato. 45 
 
 taught in India and in the West, which we call 
 Pantheism. 
 
 Undoubtedly, in the case of an author whom 
 we love, we are all tempted to put what seems to 
 us the very best construction upon his language, 
 to see what we wish to see, and to read into his 
 words something more than he himself intended. 
 The temptation is all the greater if the style of 
 our author be at times highly poetic, and con- 
 sequently susceptible of some variety of interpre- 
 tation. Those who deny to Plato the position of 
 a teacher of real Theism would probably be pre- 
 pared to insinuate that the interpretation of their 
 opponents was the result of Christian prejudices. 
 It must not, however, in this connexion be for- 
 gotten that there does exist in some quarters 
 such a thing as un- Christian and even anti- 
 Christian prejudice. Willingly admitting, on 
 my own part, the need of reconsideration of the 
 nature of Platonic theism before dogmatically 
 claiming for him an espousal of the cause of 
 belief in its reality, I pass on for the present to 
 positions which I conceive to be beyond dispute. 
 
 It will surely be admitted on all hands that 
 Plato did distinctly teach the existence of an 
 
46 But he proclaims an Ideal Good. [LECT. 
 
 ideal good. Not only are his expressions on this 
 point clear and unmistakable, but we have also 
 the fact that his pupil, Aristotle, devotes a well- 
 known chapter in the first book of his Ethics to 
 an attempt at refutation of the Platonic doctrine 
 that the attainment of this chief good was the 
 true end and aim of man's existence. Many of 
 us may think the Aristotelian objections some- 
 what captious ; but, whether this be the case or 
 not, they testify to the fact that Plato had thus 
 taught, and that supporters and opponents alike 
 understood his general meaning. 
 
 It may suffice to give here a literal version of 
 a few of the expressions used by Plato on this 
 subject in the sixth book of his great work, the 
 Republic. 
 
 ' You have often heard/ he writes, f that the 
 idea of the good is the highest of all knowledge, 
 by the use of which indeed things just, and other 
 things of the kind, become useful and beneficial ' 
 (p. 505). ' It is that which every soul pursues, 
 and on account of which it does everything, per- 
 ceiving by a kind of divination that such does 
 exist, and yet hesitating because unable to gain 
 a competent grasp of its nature, or an abiding 
 
ii.] Does Plato identify this Good with God? 47 
 
 proof concerning it, such as he may attain to on 
 other matters/ Presently Plato speaks of the 
 many beautiful and good things in the world, 
 but of the existence of something beyond them, 
 namely, ' an absolute beauty and absolute good/ 
 which, in fact, gives to knowledge and to truth, 
 and to all good things, the good which they 
 possess, being their very source and cause. This 
 idea of the good, while the source of the being 
 and essence of things good, is represented by 
 Plato as in dignity and power something beyond 
 and exceeding all substance. 
 
 There have not been wanting great scholars, 
 who have considered that the pages, of which 
 these are only brief specimens, are in their ful- 
 ness and beauty inapplicable to anything short 
 of God Himself; and that Plato intended his 
 readers to think thus. I must own that I feel 
 compelled, with Stallbaum, to regard this posi- 
 tion as one not absolutely proven. 
 
 But if, as so many believe, we have in the 
 Timceus and elsewhere language which distinctly 
 asserts the being of the true God, may we not 
 hold, not only that Plato (as Stallbaum and 
 others think) regarded the ideal good and the 
 
48 The germ of the argument is Platonic. [LECT. 
 
 personal Father and source of all things as in- 
 separably connected, but that probably if ap- 
 pealed to by an Augustine or an Anselm, he 
 might have been found willing to admit that 
 their identification of the two things, the ideal 
 good and the personal God, was neither an un- 
 reasonable nor an unlawful inference from the 
 data which he had given. In any case, it is 
 surely safe to suppose that the Platonic doctrine, 
 even if unintentionally on the part of its author, 
 does contain the germ, to say the least, of what 
 in after ages was to be known of one main form 
 of the a priori argument for the being and attri- 
 butes of God. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 E 
 
' There is an intelligent author of nature and natural governor of 
 the world. For as there is no presumption against this prior to the 
 proof of it, so it has often been proved with accumulated evidence from 
 this argument of analogy and final causes, from abstract reasonings, 
 from the most ancient tradition and testimony, and from the general 
 consent of mankind.' Bishop Butler, Analogy of Religion (Intro- 
 duction). 
 
 ' Agnosticism is for the present the rival and antagonist of Positivism 
 outside the orthodox fold. I say for the present, because by the nature 
 of the case Agnosticism is a mere raft or jury-mast for shipwrecked 
 believers, a halting - place, a temporary passage from one belief to 
 another belief. The idea that the deepest issues of life and of thought 
 can be permanently referred to any negation that cultivated beings 
 can feel proud of, summing up their religious belief in the formula 
 that they " know nothing ; " this is too absurd to endure. Agnosticism 
 is a milder form of the Yoltairean hatred of religion that was current 
 in the last century ; but it is quite as passing a phase. For the 
 moment it is the fashion of the emancipated Christian to save all 
 trouble by professing himself an Agnostic. But he is more or less 
 ashamed of it. He knows it is a subterfuge. It is no real answer. 
 It is only an excuse for refusing to answer a troublesome question. 
 The Agnostic knows that he will have to give a better answer some 
 day ; he finds earnest men clamouring for an answer. He is getting 
 uneasy that they will not take " Don't know " for an answer. And in 
 the meantime he staves off questions by making his own ignorance 
 his own ignorance ! the foundation of a creed. Frederic Harrison 
 (The Positivist). 
 
LECTUEE III. 
 
 IF the argument, a priori, on behalf of the being 
 of God has been suggested by Plato, re-stated 
 by Augustine, and elaborated by Anselm, it 
 surely presents some claim to be a part of the 
 intellectual furniture of what has been some- 
 times called the great inspired mind of the world. 
 At this point, however, two questions of some 
 interest arise. The first is, Can we trace any 
 external link of connexion, besides that of 
 Augustine, between the Platonic and the An- 
 selmian argument ? The second is, What was 
 the fortune of Anselm's tractates on this theme 
 during the centuries which immediately suc- 
 ceeded him ? To the first question it does not 
 seem to me easy to reply with any great con- 
 fidence. The one writer whose name has been 
 suggested (especially by French critics) is that 
 of Scotus Erigena. It has been suggested, firstly, 
 
52 Links between Anselm and Plato. [LECT. 
 
 that what remains of his writings does contain 
 hints of the Platonic argument; and, secondly, 
 that Anselm may have borrowed these hints, but 
 have been unwilling to acknowledge the obliga- 
 tion on account of the bad reputation of Scotus 
 Erigena on the ground of orthodoxy. I cannot 
 say that our present evidence seems to me by 
 any means sufficient to establish this view, 
 though it is not absolutely impossible ; since in 
 all ages many great and good men have held it 
 lawful to be reticent concerning the source of 
 some true and brilliant suggestion, if they have 
 thought that mention of the work whence it was 
 derived would either spread the knowledge of 
 what might do mischief, or else prejudice hearers 
 and readers against an argument which in itself 
 was sound and valuable. I should rather be 
 disposed to suspect that many Platonic ideas 
 became the property of the western intellect 
 without their origin being suspected. It is 
 curious to observe, in passing, that the story of 
 the lost island, to which Gaunilo refers, occupies 
 considerable space in the Timceus and the 
 Critias of Plato. 
 
 The next point to be considered is, as has 
 
in.] No visible impress for centuries. 53 
 
 been observed, how far the lines of argument 
 adopted by Anselm made an impression on the 
 mind of Christendom. Of course it may happen 
 that succeeding ages are greatly occupied with 
 problems of a different nature ; and to some ex- 
 tent this probably came to pass as regards the 
 case before us. The ages of the Crusades (so far 
 as they were ages of thought as distinct from 
 action) did not bring before the mind the 
 problem of the being of God, for on that article 
 of the creed the champions of the Cross and the 
 Crescent were, theoretically at least, at one. 
 Nor does it, I believe, find any place in the 
 intellectual, or rather spiritual, duel between 
 Abelard and St. Bernard in the first half of the 
 twelfth century. But in the thirteenth century 
 we naturally turn to the representative Christian 
 thinker of his time, the famous schoolman, St. 
 Thomas Aquinas. Did Aquinas (whose attempt 
 at completing a Sum of Theology of course in- 
 cluded the consideration of the proof of Theism) 
 make use or not of the contributions furnished 
 by St. Anselm ? 
 
 Writers whose learning 'and ability give 
 them a claim to our respect, seem to answer this 
 
54 Aquinas indebtedness doubtful. [LECT. 
 
 question rather differently. It has been said 
 that Aquinas was with Anselm thus far, in that 
 the very nature of knowledge seemed to him to 
 show ' that knowledge was in man only through 
 the dependence of the human intelligence on an 
 underived and perfect intelligence/ Others, 
 however, point out that at the very commence- 
 ment of the Summa Aquinas appears to distrust, 
 if not absolutely to reject the a priori argument. 
 His language may at moments look as if he were 
 making a special reference to the argument of 
 Anselm, though in that case he may not have 
 attended sufficiently to the distinctions already 
 cited from Anselm in his reply to Gaunilo. But 
 on the whole I am inclined to think that so far 
 as Aquinas does employ the Anselmian argument, 
 he does so all but unconsciously, and without any 
 distinct sense of indebtedness to his predecessor. 
 The researches of a French writer, M. Jourdain, 
 have pointed out a minor schoolman, Peter Auriol, 
 as the one who has best appreciated the argument 
 of Anselm; but, speaking in a rough and general 
 way, it must, I think, be conceded that so far as 
 regards anything like a widespread and acknow- 
 ledged impression on theology, the lines of 
 
in.] Descartes: his wondrous Versatility. 55 
 
 thought traced by Anselm lay comparatively 
 faint and unnoticed from the time of his decease 
 in the twelfth century until the early portion of 
 the sixteenth century. At that period, as is well 
 known, the argument reappears in connexion 
 with the name of a man of wonderful energy and 
 versatility. Soldier, courtier, mathematician, 
 metaphysician, theologian Kene Descartes, in 
 his own clear and trenchant style, again placed 
 the Anselmian argument before the thinkers of 
 Europe. With his feats of arms or his successes 
 at courts we are not here concerned. Of his 
 contribution to mathematics it must be enough 
 to say that his discovery of the application of 
 algebra to geometry in expressing by ordinates 
 the nature of curves, is admitted by mathemati- 
 cians to have been thoroughly original, and to 
 exist as a treasure for all time. The questions 
 connected with his metaphysical philosophy, and 
 its effect on his own age and succeeding ages, 
 may almost be said to possess a literature of 
 their own. 
 
 We must here, however, confine ourselves to 
 the immediate subject before us. Descartes, in 
 his Meditations, devotes two out of the six to 
 
56 His arguments Anselmian. [LECT. 
 
 questions which concern the proof of the being of 
 God. It is remarkable that they not only follow 
 the lines marked out by Anselm, but that so far 
 as Descartes' two meditations differ from each 
 other, they differ in the same way as do the 
 Monologium and the Proslogium of his prede- 
 cessor the medieval archbishop. In the Mono- 
 logium Anselm starts, as Augustine had done, 
 with a reference to the many imperfect goods 
 around us, and proceeds from them to the idea 
 of the sovereign good. It must be admitted that 
 in this argument there is some infusion of an a 
 posteriori element, inasmuch as our knowledge 
 of these imperfect goods is derived from experi- 
 ence. Anselm (as has been pointed out) was at 
 least partially conscious of this, and he sought in 
 the Proslogium to adopt a simpler process, which 
 should be of a more purely d priori character. 
 He argued from the very fact that ' the fool who 
 saith in his heart there is no God/ did, in his 
 very denial, recognize the idea of God; and, as 
 we have seen, he argued from the existence of 
 the idea to the existence of the reality. It is 
 singular to find Descartes nearly six centuries 
 later adopting the twofold form of argument. 
 
in.] His claim to Originality. 57 
 
 It may perhaps be thought by some that the 
 language of Descartes is clearer, simpler, and 
 more free from digressions than that of the 
 famous prelate who preceded him. Descartes 
 does indeed try to make one more contribution 
 to the argument, but it does not seem to be a 
 happy one. He argues in his first meditation 
 that it is not likely that the Being who has 
 given us our means of investigation should have 
 bestowed upon us gifts which are untrustworthy. 
 But surely those are right, who urge that this 
 consideration, however important in itself, is 
 entirely out of place where it appears ; for it 
 assumes that existence of this very Being, the 
 point which his opponents were supposed to 
 deny. 
 
 To turn to the charge of plagiarism. There 
 may be those who would be inclined to apply 
 to Descartes the remark made by Johnson con- 
 cerning Dryden, ' His known wealth was so 
 great that he could borrow without impeachment 
 of his credit/ No one questions the originality 
 of Descartes in respect of many of his splendid 
 discoveries in algebra and optics, and most 
 would probably agree with Hallam in thinking 
 
58 May have borrowed unconsciously. [LECT. 
 
 that his metaphysical system, taken as a whole, 
 is truly original. Sometimes science, especially 
 mathematical and physical science, has reached a 
 point at which it is highly probable that the 
 next step will be taken, simultaneously and 
 independently, by thinkers and investigators 
 whose minds are employed upon these themes. 
 This may, in some respects, have happened to 
 Descartes. Nevertheless he is not free from the 
 suspicion of having borrowed from predecessors 
 and contemporaries without acknowledgment. 
 Leibnitz has made a long list of charges of this 
 kind. We must confine ourselves to the par- 
 ticular matter in hand ; and here it does seem 
 probable that, perhaps without deliberate and 
 conscious adoption of the thoughts of Anselm, 
 Descartes may have gained from his Jesuit in- 
 structors at the college of La Fleche at least a 
 general idea of the line of thought which he 
 subsequently pursued in his Meditations. 
 
 But whether or not Descartes was justified in 
 his somewhat boastful assumption of perfect 
 originality, it must be owned that the celebrity 
 of his name and the excellence of his style, both 
 in Latin and in French, combined with the 
 
in.] Popularizer of the Argument. 59 
 
 general spread of culture and education, tended 
 to make far more widely known, than had 
 hitherto been the case, the claims of the d priori 
 argument for the being and attributes of God. 
 From the date of the publication of the Medita- 
 tions of Descartes, a long list of authors are 
 found to have taken up the subject. Let it 
 suffice to name Leibnitz himself, Cudworth (as 
 representing the Cambridge Platonists), the Deist 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and the Jewish 
 philosopher Mendelssohn. These, with many 
 other writers, may have modified either the 
 arguments or the way of setting them, but it is 
 the Cartesian statement of the case with which 
 they are mainly concerned. It must be added, 
 as a fresh tribute to the effect produced by 
 Descartes, that it is with him especially that 
 Kant has done battle in his attempt to disprove 
 the d priori argument. 
 
 Early, however, in the eighteenth century we 
 meet with an English divine whose mode of 
 treatment of the question, though resting on the 
 same basis, seems to be fairly his own. Samuel 
 Clarke delivered his course of Boyle lectures in 
 1704. It is remarkable, that while on the part 
 
60 Dr. Samuel Clarke. [LECT. 
 
 of Anselm and of Descartes we do not know of 
 any special thinkers against whom their reason- 
 ings were directed, it is otherwise with the case 
 of Clarke. He specially names, at the outset of 
 his work, Hobbes, and that one other powerful 
 thinker who seems to me to have done more to 
 sap the love of the living God in human hearts 
 in the western world than any one man, 
 the famous renegade from Judaism, Benedict 
 Spinoza. 
 
 The line adopted by Clarke affords a fresh 
 illustration .of the great difficulty of constructing 
 a purely d priori argument. Clarke begins with 
 the idea of cause ; and no doubt reasons to a 
 great extent from experience that is to say, a 
 posteriori, in the structure which he upraises. 
 The result is that some eminent thinkers have 
 seemed disposed to contest the claims made for 
 Clarke to a place in that list of reasoners, which 
 includes the names of Anselm and Descartes. It 
 is with real diffidence that I venture to take the 
 opposite side in this matter, but I would call 
 attention to the comments of the late Dr. Mozley 
 (whom Sir James Paget, no mean judge, considers 
 perhaps the most scientific of all recent theo- 
 
in.] His argument from Causation. 61 
 
 logians), in his essay on The Principle of 
 Causation. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that it may be possible, 
 with Dr. Mozley's help, to state at least one 
 phase of the argument of Clarke in a way which 
 may fairly vindicate his claim to a place among 
 those reasonings on this subject which are in the 
 main a priori. 
 
 For to begin with, let us look for a moment 
 at the idea of cause. It surely is one which the 
 human mind discovers chiefly by looking inward, 
 although events around may illustrate and bring 
 out its significance. Kant is, I think, with me 
 in asserting cause to be one of those simple and 
 primary ideas, which are incapable of definition. 
 It may arise from prejudice, but I can hardly 
 think it worth while to take the trouble of 
 attempting to refute that school of thinkers, 
 who would resolve the idea of cause into that of 
 mere uniform sequence. As has been well and 
 often asked, does any sane person regard day as 
 the cause of night because night always follows 
 day ? or again, if the rattle in the throat which 
 so commonly precedes death were to become 
 universal, instead of being merely general, would 
 
62 Mozleys restatement of this argument. [LECT. 
 
 physicians gravely maintain that this symptom 
 was the cause of decease ? 
 
 Well, then, to adopt Dr. Mozley's way of 
 putting the case, there must be a primary 
 cause of all changes in phenomena, or else we 
 must give up the notion of cause in the strict 
 sense of the word altogether, and pronounce 
 one of the fundamental ideas of the human 
 mind to be nothing else but a delusion. No 
 doubt we often, in practice, stop short of the 
 ultimate analysis, because we have reached a 
 point which is quite sufficient for our present 
 purpose. But it will be found that our investi- 
 gation commonly assumes two principles which 
 in scholastic Latin may be stated thus the one 
 is, causa causes, causa causati ; the other, causa 
 ultima, sola vera causa. An illustration may 
 make my meaning clearer. 
 
 Looking out of window we see a dog pick up 
 a piece of meat. Immediately afterwards it falls 
 into convulsions and dies. We naturally rush 
 to the conclusion that the meat had been 
 poisoned, and if chemical analysis confirms our 
 suspicions, we say in common parlance that the 
 poison was the cause of the animal's death. A 
 
in.] Last cause the only real cause. 63 
 
 friend, however, tells us that he saw a boy, whom 
 he can identify, throw the meat out of a neigh- 
 bouring window. "We now speak of this boy as 
 the cause of the dog's death, and may be inclined to 
 help the owner in his desire to inflict punishment 
 of some sort on the offender. But the boy, on 
 being examined, convinces us that he was in- 
 nocent. An elder person put the meat into his 
 unsuspecting hands, and told him to throw it 
 to the dog. We discover who this person was, 
 and for the purpose in hand our analysis is 
 complete. The intermediate steps are now re- 
 garded merely as so many links. The cause of 
 the cause (to state in English the maxims before 
 mentioned) is the cause of the result (or thing 
 caused) and the last cause is the sole true cause. 
 This criminal senior person is regarded in our 
 judgment as the sole true cause, unless he can 
 succeed in convincing us that the responsibility 
 can be shifted farther back. 
 
 I submit to my hearers or readers that this 
 reasoning does contain, to say the least, a large 
 proportion of the a priori element, and that it 
 has not been answered. It should be added as 
 among the merits of Clarke's work that it dwells 
 
64 Subjects of concluding Lecture. [LECT. 
 
 in more detail, than those of his predecessors, on 
 the attributes of God, which may be deduced 
 from this kind of reasoning. On Clarke's argu- 
 ments derived from space and time I do not 
 propose to dwell, because they do not seem to 
 have been equally successful. In my conclud- 
 ing lecture I propose to give an account of the 
 work of Mr. Gillespie ; to call attention to other 
 reasonings which, if I am not mistaken, are 
 substantially in accordance with the principles 
 involved in the a priori argument, to ask 
 whether disputants on other lines of thought 
 can really dispense entirely with a priori data, 
 and to suggest, I hope with all due modesty, 
 some features of the case which appear to require 
 in our day a further discussion or elucidation. 
 
LECTUKE IV. 
 
' What we worship is the one God, who hath formed out of nothing 
 this entire mass with all its furniture of elements, bodies, spirits, by 
 the word of His command, by the plan of His arrangement, by the 
 virtue of His power, for the adornment of His majesty ; and hence the 
 Greeks have bestowed upon the universe the name of /coo>ios, Order. 
 He is invisible though He can be perceived ; incomprehensible, though 
 made manifest through His grace ; beyond our powers of appreciation, 
 though His worth is felt even by our mortal capacities of sense ; and 
 therefore is He true and mighty. . . . But that which is boundless is 
 thoroughly known to itself alone. And thus the very power of His 
 greatness renders Him to men an object at once known and unknown. 
 And this is the capital fault of men who are unwilling to recognize 
 Him whom yet they cannot possibly ignore.' Tertullian, Apology, 
 (cap. xvii.). 
 
 ' When asked by the governors who was the God of Christians ? he 
 said, "If thou art worthy thou shalt know." Potheinus, Martyr at 
 Lyons in A.D. 180 (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. i.). 
 
 ' Only love for the living God, and longing to be approved by Him 
 is the scientific, as it is the Christian basis of morality ; and science 
 will never find a firmer basis, nor life a surer. ' Lotze (cited by Cook, 
 Monday Lectures in Boston, 1884). 
 
 1 My life will show the world what it shows me, that there is a lov- 
 ing God who arranges everything for the best.' Autobiography of 
 Hans Christian Andersen. 
 
LECTUEE IV. 
 
 BY the commencement of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury the aspect of the a priori argument for 
 the being and attributes of God had, I think, 
 assumed a position of this kind. The labours of 
 Anselm, Descartes, and Clarke had brought about 
 a recognition of the importance of this mode of 
 argument. Other distinguished men, if they had 
 not made any great additions to the reasonings 
 on its behalf, had at least stated the case in their 
 own way, and had increased both the knowledge 
 of the process and the respect paid to it; 
 especially where they were able to attract 
 audiences which might not have been so willing 
 to lend an ear to the authors already mentioned. 
 An illustration of my meaning may be afforded 
 by the mere mention of the name of the Jewish 
 philosopher Mendelssohn, the grandfather of the 
 celebrated musician. As a Jew he may probably 
 
68 Kant on the usual lines of Argument. [LECT. 
 
 have interested many who would have paid less 
 attention to works written by Christians. 
 
 This position remained for some time materi- 
 ally unaltered, and it is not difficult to mention 
 authors such as the French advocate M. 
 Nicolas, Mr. W. Anchor Thompson, and Prin- 
 cipal Tulloch among ourselves who have given 
 a certain amount of prominence to the a priori 
 method in their able contributions to the philo- 
 sophy of this fundamental doctrine. But in the 
 meantime an acknowledgment, hardly less im- 
 portant in its way, had been bestowed upon it by 
 the famous philosopher of Konigsberg, Emanuel 
 Kant. Kant, while seemingly recognizing a sort 
 of moral conviction of the being of God, yet 
 attempted to refute in his Critique of Pure 
 Reason the usual lines of argument. Still, he 
 felt it as necessary to bestow his attention on 
 the a priori as on the d posteriori argument, 
 thereby showing that he considered each to have 
 won its place in the literature of the subject. 
 "With Kant's reasonings against the argument 
 from design I am not here immediately con- 
 cerned, though I might again repeat my refer- 
 ence to the essay by the late Dr. Mozley. Of 
 
UK17SRSITT 
 
 Kant's criticism on the a priori method I have 
 already spoken, and need only here repeat that, 
 for my own part, I do not see why we may not 
 accept the reply of M. Victor Cousin ; provided 
 that we limit that reply to those cases where an 
 idea in the human mind (as, for instance, that of 
 the soul) is not of a material character, nor of a 
 kind that can be separated into parts. 
 
 In asserting that no great addition to the 
 nature and the force of the a priori argument 
 had been made, with the exception of the replies 
 to Kant, I speak under correction. It might 
 imply a more exhaustive survey of theological 
 literature of the subject than I can pretend to 
 have made, to be able to speak with absolute 
 confidence. I am here stating the results of a 
 general impression, and if it can be shown to be 
 erroneous, I hope that I shall be found most glad 
 and willing to correct it. 
 
 But, in the year 1833, a small volume ex- 
 clusively devoted to this subject was published 
 by a Scottish gentleman, Mr. William Honyman 
 Gillespie of Torbanehill. 
 
 This work will probably be acknowledged, 
 even by those who dissent from its reasonings, 
 
70 Eulogists of Mr. Gillespie s work. [LECT. 
 
 and who impugn either its conclusions, or at 
 least the modes of reaching them, to have 
 awakened fresh interest in the subject. The 
 merits of Mr. Gillespie's work were freely recog- 
 nized by the press, and it received warm eulogy 
 from Lord Brougham, and from others of much 
 higher authority in such questions, as -Professor 
 Macdougal, Principal Tulloch, and Sir William 
 Hamilton. Let me first briefly state the general 
 line struck out by Mr. Gillespie, and then men- 
 tion what seem the most formidable objections 
 to that line ; adding, however, certain considera- 
 tions which prevent me from regarding them as 
 in any wise fatal to the argument. I take up 
 the sixth edition of the work, published in 1872, 
 and offer the following epitome of its contents. 
 
 We have seen that Plato and Augustine 
 started from the recognition of many sorts of 
 goodness, whence we may arrive at the idea of 
 the one Perfect Good. Anselm, and after him 
 Descartes, elaborated this process of reasoning, 
 attempting also some modifications and additions. 
 In Clarke's system, though he may have failed to 
 express it clearly, the starting-point seems to be 
 the idea of Cause, which leads us upward to one 
 
iv.] Starts from ideas of Space and Time. 71 
 
 sole Great Cause. Mr. Gillespie takes a different 
 starting-point. He begins with those great sub- 
 jects of Space and Time, and, naturally assuming 
 that we all recognize their importance, he argues 
 for the Infinity of Space, or, as he prefers to call 
 it, Infinity of Extension, not only as something 
 existent, but as something necessarily existing. 
 He next proceeds to argue that this Infinity of 
 Extension is necessarily indivisible, and, in some 
 sense necessarily immovable. From these posi- 
 tions he goes onward to the assertion of the 
 necessary existence of a Being of infinity of 
 extension ; a Being possessed of unity and sim- 
 plicity. The material universe being finite in 
 extension cannot satisfy these conditions, and 
 the Being who does satisfy them must neces- 
 sarily be but one. The author then proceeds to 
 treat the subject of Time in a way very similar 
 to that in which he has treated the subject of 
 Extension. He thus arrives at the conclusion 
 that there is a Being of infinity of duration, and 
 that there can be but one such. 
 
 The next step taken is to show the identity 
 of the Being who possesses infinity of extension 
 with the Being possessing infinity of duration. 
 
72 The author on the Divine Attributes. [LECT. 
 
 From the Being of God, established on these 
 grounds, our author passes on to the con- 
 sideration of the Divine attributes. His main 
 divisions of these are into the Intellectual, the 
 Moral, the Compound, and the Transcendant 
 attributes. This portion of the work almost 
 inevitably involves reflections concerning God, 
 not only as He is in Himself, but as He is in 
 relation to His creatures. Hence arise some 
 attempts to adjust the connexion between 
 morality and happiness, immorality and misery. 
 The reasonings of this portion of the work 
 contain some conclusions which, it seems to me, 
 might be doubted, or even rejected, without pre- 
 judice to the main positions of Mr. Gillespie's 
 treatise. They take us, however, from a region 
 of purely intellectual and (some would say) cold 
 propositions, into one where the author may 
 exhibit, and certainly does exhibit, an extremely 
 high tone of moral and religious feeling. The 
 author dwells with great force, in a - way cal- 
 culated to impress us with awe and reverence, 
 not only on the holiness and justice and the 
 purity of God, but also on the terrible nature of 
 sin in the creature, more especially of the sins of 
 
iv.] The Divine glory. 73 
 
 rebellion and of impurity. Although the earlier 
 portion of his argument rests on grounds of pure 
 natural reason, in the latter part the author 
 occasionally borrows the ideas and even the 
 language of Eevelation, though more by the way 
 of illustration than of actual argument. Among 
 the other Divine attributes which have been 
 passed over or only glanced at in our brief 
 epitome, ought to be mentioned those of perfect 
 wisdom, perfect beauty, and perfect blessedness, 
 in the highest sense of the word. Further, it is 
 justly argued that from the entire attributes in 
 their conjunction, there results an excellency or 
 glory, far greater than can be expressed by the 
 mere sum of the parts, because each one of the 
 excellencies increases the action of all the others. 
 This point is finely illustrated, and the natural 
 conclusions respecting the proper attitude of the 
 creature toward such a Being, the feelings of 
 awe, dependence, trust, gratitude, and childlike 
 love are most forcibly though briefly inculcated. 
 I ought perhaps to mention in passing, that, 
 although I have here given an epitome of the 
 sixth edition of this work, the other editions, 
 though substantially identical in point of argu- 
 
74 High motives of all these Reasoners. [LECT. 
 
 ment, yet contain important matter in the way 
 of explanation of some of the author's positions, 
 and of examination and reviews of the argu- 
 ments of other writers, conjoined with replies 
 to attacks upon his own work. Most especially 
 is this the case in the fourth issue out of the 
 ten which were published, the one marked as 
 the Eussel edition. 
 
 The reasoners of whom I have chiefly spoken, 
 - Anselm, Descartes, Clarke, Gillespie are no 
 longer with us. They were all doubtless 
 prompted by the highest of human motives a 
 sincere desire for the glory of Him concerning 
 whom they wrote, and for the best and highest 
 welfare of their fellow-men. If, as common 
 possessors of what Christians believe to be a 
 fallen nature, these writers allowed any earthly 
 alloy, such as the joy of a contest, or eagerness 
 for victory on human grounds, ever to be blended, 
 however unconsciously, with the promptings of 
 a nobler self, all this has, we hope, entirely 
 passed away. In the peace which we thoroughly 
 trust they now inherit, they can desire nothing 
 more than that their labours may continue to 
 prove effective, so far, and so far only, as they 
 
iv.] Some reservations of the Lecturer. 75 
 
 subserve the cause of truth. No criticism upon 
 their productions can affect them, unless indeed 
 they could suppose it to be injurious to the 
 sacred cause which they upheld. And even 
 here, it may be, that their keener vision might 
 be permitted to discern that mistaken criticism 
 would probably be, in God's good providence, 
 overruled to good ; just as (to use a favourite 
 idea of St. Augustine) the uprising of heresy 
 has often ultimately led to a clearer perception 
 and a fuller manifestation of true doctrine. 
 
 I have thought it very possible that the 
 position which I occupied might tempt me, in 
 the preparation of these lectures, to become a 
 champion at all hazards of every position and 
 inference contained in Mr. Gillespie's acute and 
 able volumes. Let me say then that I should 
 not like, without fuller consideration, to commit 
 myself to all the positions contained in Mr. 
 Gillespie's critiques of previous authors, and that 
 there is one of the later inferences, rather outside 
 the main argument, which I feel myself unable 
 to accept. But after having tried to obtain, 
 from opponents of Mr. Gillespie's leading posi- 
 tions, the utmost that can be said against him, 
 
76 Reply to objections. [LECT. 
 
 the assaults leave me under the impression that 
 they are unsuccessful. 
 
 For example, it has been said that the argu- 
 ment from space and time to a Being of infinite 
 expansion and duration fails, when regarded from 
 a Kantian point of view. Kant, as I am justly 
 reminded, regards space and time as mere forms 
 of sensibility, and as having no objective exist- 
 ence at all. Undoubtedly, from this point of 
 view, Mr. Gillespie's argument falls to the 
 ground. 
 
 But I am compelled to ask whether there is 
 any real prospect of the victory on this subject 
 falling to the philosophy of Kant. Fully ad- 
 mitting the great service rendered to us by 
 Kant in many ways, and specially in his cor- 
 rection of the doctrine of Locke concerning the 
 relation of knowledge to the human mind, we 
 may still, with, I believe, the vast majority of 
 thinkers, refuse to entertain his theory of the 
 non- objectivity of space and time. Far from 
 having taken up an anti-Kantian view for the 
 sake of defending Mr. Gillespie, I may venture 
 to remark that, forty years ago, I was taught to 
 distrust Kant on this subject by a tutor who 
 
iv.i Objections based on Kant and Leibnitz. 77 
 
 was an eminent logician, and who has only been 
 prevented by ill-health from obtaining a wide- 
 spread reputation. This writer, in an Essay on 
 Logical Method, published in 1848, has referred 
 to ' those who admit Kant's very questionable 
 view of time and space.' If the future impress 
 of Mr. Gillespie's arguments can only be dis- 
 annulled by the thorough acceptance of the 
 doctrine of Kant, that impress will not, I believe, 
 run any great risk of being effaced. 
 
 The view of space and time taken by 
 Leibnitz may perhaps to some seem to be more 
 plausible than that of Kant. Leibnitz regarded 
 space and time as subsequent to substance, and 
 generated by it. But may it not be said that 
 if space and time are always and necessarily 
 generated by substance, they may fairly be 
 reckoned as properties of substance ? And, in 
 that case, should we not have the right to fall 
 back upon a position, which is fortified by 
 the high authority of Bishop Butler ? Butler's 
 words are as follows : ' Did it plainly appear 
 that Space and Duration were Properties of a 
 Substance, we should have an easy way with 
 Atheists; for it would at once prove demon- 
 
78 Biitler favourable to Gillespie. [LECT. 
 
 strably an Eternal, Necessary, Self -existent Being ; 
 that there is but One such ; and that he is need- 
 ful in order to the existence of all other things.' 
 
 I am quite aware that Leibnitz would not 
 admit the validity of Butler's reasoning. He 
 maintained that not only were space and time 
 subsequent to substance, but that they are 
 merely the relations in which substances stand 
 to each other, and, consequently, in themselves 
 non-existent. With Bishop Butler I fail to see 
 the necessary sequence of the positions thus 
 set forth. Mr. Gillespie would probably have 
 been well content to put against Leibnitz, 
 great as he is, the support afforded by the 
 words of Butler, which indeed he has quoted 
 in his work. 
 
 A third and fourth assault are perhaps even 
 subtler still. The first of these is the raising 
 of the question whether, if we allow Mr. 
 Gillespie's view of space and time as infinite 
 entities, we have a right to apply to them the 
 category of substance, and deduce from them 
 the existence of a Being of infinite expansion 
 and duration. Here, again, I venture to think 
 that Bishop Butler comes to our aid. In a 
 
iv.] Probably also Sir Isaac Newton. 79 
 
 passage of the Analogy we find him saying. 
 'Abstract notions can do nothing. Indeed we 
 ascribe to God a necessary existence, uncaused 
 by any agent. For we find within ourselves 
 the idea of infinity, i.e. immensity and eternity, 
 impossible even in imagination, to be removed 
 out of being. We seem to discern intuitively, 
 that there must be, and cannot but be, some- 
 what external to ourselves, answering this idea 
 or the archetype of it. And from hence (for 
 this abstract, as much as any other, implies a 
 concrete), we conclude that there is, and cannot 
 but be, an infinite and immense eternal Being 
 existing, prior to all design contributing to 
 His existence, and exclusive of it.' Analogy 
 of Religion, part i. chap. vi. 
 
 It is further urged that if this last objection 
 holds good, which I, for one, am not prepared 
 to grant, another difficulty might be found to 
 arise out of it. It is said that many, perhaps a 
 majority, of metaphysicians and theologians hold 
 that if space and time are infinite entities they 
 would limit God himself, and so prove incon- 
 sistent with Theism. But here Mr. Gillespie 
 might well, I think, have fallen back on the 
 
8o Character of argument not annulled. [LEO*. 
 
 magnificent language employed by Sir Isaac 
 Newton in the well-known passage towards the 
 close of the Principia, where he speaks of God 
 Almighty. " He is eternal and infinite, almighty 
 and omniscient, that is to say, He endures from 
 eternity unto eternity, and is present from 
 infinity unto infinity. . . . He is not eternity 
 and infinity, but eternal and infinite : He is 
 not duration and space, but he endures and is 
 present. He endures evermore, and is present 
 everywhere, and by existing evermore and every- 
 where, He constitutes duration and space." 
 
 Can it be illegitimate to argue from these 
 infinite entities to the existence of the Being, 
 who makes them what they are ? 
 
 But it may be urged that this defence of Mr. 
 Gillespie's process of reasoning inflicts a blow 
 upon its a priori character. If, it may be said, 
 he has reasoned back from space and time to 
 Him who has made them what they are, the 
 argument is no longer a strictly a priori one. 
 I have already admitted that it is difficult to 
 avoid some importation of the lessons of experi- 
 ence, even into arguments intended to be of a 
 wholly a priori character. But it surely may 
 
iv.] Space and Time being Primary Ideas. 8 1 
 
 be fairly maintain eel that, in arguing from space 
 and time, we do look inward far more than 
 outward. It is not a case of the quasi-inductive 
 reasoning suggested by Plato and Augustine 
 and adopted by Anselm, from the material 
 things around us, but from prior and funda- 
 mental ideas, which are the condition of what 
 is learnt from experience. If it be said that to 
 speak thus implies a recurrence to the Kantian 
 view of space and time, I should reply that I 
 am entirely prepared to accept Kant's theory 
 up to the point for which I have used it, and 
 that I only resist it when Kant, not content 
 with speaking of space and duration as funda- 
 mental ideas which are not simply derived from 
 experience, goes on to insist on their being 
 mere forms of sensibility, and being devoid of 
 objective existence. 
 
 Here I conclude this imperfect survey of 
 some of the arguments of some of the leading 
 advocates for the cogency of the a priori mode 
 of proof. I do not doubt but that an exhaustive 
 account ought to enter into the nature of the 
 contributions made by some other distinguished 
 
 G 
 
82 Objects of this Historic Survey. [LECT. 
 
 men, whose names I must mention presently. 
 Such an attempt, however, would require a 
 longer course of lectures than the present, and 
 it may be doubted whether the gain in value 
 would be proportionate to the increase in bulk. 
 
 But the object of any historic survey must 
 be, I imagine, the showing forth, if possible, 
 what has been done, the suggesting of some- 
 thing that has been overlooked, and which 
 remains to be supplied; and, lastly, the limit- 
 ation of the range of the discussion involved in 
 the indication of what can not be achieved by 
 this process. 
 
 It is not to be denied that there have existed, 
 and do exist, some very sincere Theists, who 
 regard the a priori argument as either deficient, 
 or, at any rate, as one that does not powerfully 
 affect their own minds. Now, if any speak on 
 this wise, ' The argument does not come home 
 to me ; I prefer the a posteriori line of reason- 
 ing, or even to rest on convictions which I 
 cannot pretend to set forth in any logical form,' 
 I am not, at present, going to argue against this 
 class of thinkers ; but if they say or imply that 
 there is nothing at all in the d priori line of 
 
iv.] Eminent Sanction of this Reasoning. 83 
 
 reasoning, I must say they appear to me to take 
 a somewhat bold, perhaps I may even say, 
 a slightly presumptuous view of the matter. 
 For, surely, it is something like presumption to 
 say that there is nothing whatever in a line of 
 thought which has been suggested by a Plato 
 and an Augustine, elaborated by an Anselm and 
 a Descartes ; which has received more or less 
 sanction from such men as Cudworth, Male- 
 branche, Bossuet and Fenelon ; as Cousin, 
 Saisset, and Jules Simon ; as Thompson and 
 Principal Tulloch among ourselves, to say 
 nothing of hints from the Stoic philosopher 
 Cleanthes, and from Boethius. The guarded 
 conclusions of the exhaustive studies of Professor 
 Flint at any rate admit thus much, ' It may be 
 that the d priori arguments are faulty as logical 
 evolutions of the truth of the Divine existence 
 from ultimate and necessary conceptions, and 
 yet that they concur in manifesting that if God 
 be not, the human mind is of its very nature 
 self-contradictory; that God can only be dis- 
 believed in at the cost of reducing the whole 
 world of thought to a chaos.' 
 
 And here, perhaps, I ought to say one word 
 
84 Moral certitude of Belief. [LECT. 
 
 on an underlying question, much mooted in our 
 day. It is admitted by nearly all reasonable 
 men that there do exist truths in the sphere of 
 mathematics, and of metaphysics, which no one 
 can deny without manifest absurdity. Is the 
 being of God to be regarded as a truth of the 
 same nature ? I suppose it to be possible, 
 (though Leibnitz, and perhaps Mr. Gillespie, are 
 here against me) that we must answer this grave 
 and solemn question in the negative. But I do 
 not conceive that this admission is tantamount 
 to an acknowledgment that reasoning has no 
 place in the establishment of the great truths 
 of religion, and of this one, the most funda- 
 mental of all. High authorities in the realm of 
 physical science have, of late years, made large 
 admissions respecting the number of truths 
 which they are obliged to assume ; truths, which 
 yet cannot be ranked among the principles which 
 admit of absolute demonstration ; truths there- 
 fore which can be denied without palpable 
 absurdity. 
 
 To return, however, to my more immediate 
 subject. I have a few suggestions to offer in 
 connexion with it. There are thinkers of our 
 
iv.] Mr. Martineau on this Siibject. 85 
 
 day who, in contemplating the arguments for 
 the being of God, are inclined to dwell largely, 
 not to say exclusively, on the inferences 
 deducible from conscience and the moral nature 
 of man. This line of reasoning has commended 
 itself to thinkers in very different theological 
 camps. It was espoused, though perhaps with 
 indifferent success, by Kant ; it was a favourite 
 one with Chalmers, and has also been employed 
 by Erskine of Linlathen. It has been stated 
 with remarkable force and clearness by Mr. 
 Martineau, and has been powerfully urged by a 
 Koman Catholic essayist, the late Dr. Ward, who 
 was fond of illustrating and confirming his 
 reasonings on this head by extracts both from 
 the earlier and the later writings of Cardinal 
 Newman. I doubt whether it is possible to state 
 it more briefly and forcibly than Mr. Martineau 
 has done in his Studies of Christianity. 
 
 'No ethical conceptions are possible at all, 
 except as floating shreds of unattached thought, 
 without a religious background; and the sense 
 of responsibility, the agony of shame, the inner 
 reverence for justice, first find their meaning 
 and vindication in a Supreme Holiness that 
 
86 Essentially an a priori Argument. [LECT. 
 
 rules the world. Nor can any one be penetrated 
 with the distinction between right and wrong 
 without recognizing it as valid for all free 
 beings, and incapable of local or arbitrary 
 change. His feeling insists on its permanent 
 recognition and omnipresent sway ; and this 
 unity in the moral law carries him to the unity 
 of the Divine Legislator. Theism is thus the in- 
 dispensable postulate of conscience ; its objective 
 counterpart and justification, without which its 
 inspirations would be illusions, and its veracities 
 themselves a lie.' 
 
 Most thoroughly, for my own part, do I 
 acknowledge, and that with much gratitude, 
 the force of this reasoning ; but I should like 
 to ask whether it must not be allowed to 
 contain, to say the least, a strong infusion of 
 the d priori element. It is surely not from 
 mere experience, not by an extensive induction, 
 but by looking inward, that we find those 
 moral principles and laws of conscience which 
 have been so much dwelt upon by the eminent 
 men whom I have named. But if this be the 
 case, is not the moral basis another form of the 
 a priori argument ? It dwells, it is true, upon 
 
iv.] Difficulty of exc hiding either Element. 87 
 
 a different phase of the matter from that of the 
 reasoners described by me, and one which, to 
 many minds, may prove more attractive, and, 
 consequently, seem even more cogent than the 
 argument derived from our general notions of 
 what is good, or from the idea of cause, or from 
 our ideas of duration and space. But if the 
 process of drawing inferences from it be similar 
 in nature, those who adopt it ought to be grate- 
 ful to the authors, who have helped to impress 
 upon us the value of a priori reasoning in this 
 matter. 
 
 But I have a further step to take. I have 
 already twice admitted, and that ungrudgingly, 
 the difficulty which we, who are so largely 
 creatures of experience, find in keeping out of 
 our calculations the intrusion of a posteriori 
 elements of thought. Let me, however, ask 
 whether it has not been generally overlooked 
 that it is at least equally difficult for those who 
 adopt the argument from design to exclude all 
 d> priori elements from their field of reasoning. 
 For example, when we are told that Theism 
 assumes causality, I must again ask and Kant 
 at least w r ould be with me here whether the 
 
88 Range of Natural Religion. [LECT. 
 
 very idea of cause is not d priori. And further, 
 as a highly-gifted friend points out to me, the 
 d posteriori argument ' concludes from intelli- 
 gence in nature to an intelligent Author or 
 Being. It thus imports the idea of " Being," 
 and is thereby connected with the ontological 
 argument/ which is confessedly an d priori one. 
 This is a point of view, which I would fain 
 earnestly recommend to the careful consideration 
 of all thinkers, who desire to prosecute still 
 further researches into the arguments available 
 for the being and attributes of God. 
 
 Another point which is sometimes, I think, 
 in danger of being neglected, is the following. 
 The great majority of those who believe in the 
 cogency of at least some of the arguments for 
 the being of God would be ready to admit that 
 reasonings equally valid can be adduced for the 
 existence of the soul as something distinct from 
 the body, and also even on behalf of its im- 
 mortality and its anticipation of future judg- 
 ment. Might it not be well that essays on 
 natural religion should include reasonings on 
 these topics as well as on the Creator ? For 
 they surely form the complement of natural 
 
iv.] Problem concerning 'Necessary T 
 
 religion, and might perhaps not only present it 
 in a more attractive form, but likewise in one 
 more likely to be well balanced and to be free 
 from a certain one-sidedness, which the narrow- 
 ing of the field of observation may occasionally 
 induce. 
 
 Let me also express a hope that critics may 
 be found to take in hand another deeply inter- 
 esting problem of an a priori character : I mean 
 the relation of what are often called ' necessary 
 truths ' to the Being of Him Who is emphatic- 
 ally the Truth as well as the Light and the 
 Life. 1 
 
 We have reason to be very grateful to all 
 who have added to true knowledge on a theme 
 than which none can be more important to our 
 race. True ideas concerning God must lie at 
 the foundation of all religion ; on this point we 
 may gladly accept the words of John Stuart 
 Mill, ' It is now acknowledged by nearly all 
 the ablest writers on the subject that natural 
 religion is the necessary basis of revealed, and 
 that the proofs of Christianity pre-suppose the 
 
 1 See Appendix B. 
 
90 Deficiencies of Natural Religion. [LECT. 
 
 being and moral attributes of God/ But it 
 seems impossible to deny the assertion so often 
 made, namely, that natural religion, however 
 firmly grasped by some eminent individuals in 
 varied ages and countries, has not succeeded in 
 maintaining its ground with the many. It 
 appears to need some other aid over and above 
 the appeal to right reason, and such aid 
 Christians believe to have come, directly or 
 indirectly, from revelation. 
 
 Grant the acceptance of a real Theism on 
 grounds of pure reason, and you are still con- 
 fronted with three questions concerning which 
 natural religion is almost silent, or returns very 
 hesitating answers. There is the existence of 
 evil, the value of prayer, the possibility of the 
 forgiveness of sin. Of the first of these problems 
 revelation, it is true, does not offer any solution; 
 but it does, at least, give hints and suggestions 
 of a consoling and practical character. It points 
 to the many proofs afforded by history, both 
 sacred and profane, of the way in which virtues 
 witness patience, long-suffering, forgiveness, 
 and others emerge from trials, and allow even 
 past evil to be overruled to good. It speaks of 
 
iv.] Its hesitation concerning Prayer. 91 
 
 God Himself, not standing aloof from the great 
 mystery of pain, but condescending to share its 
 worst forms sin alone excepted as regards the 
 suffering both of body and of soul. And it 
 seems to sanction reason in doubting whether 
 the Creator could test the real allegiance of in- 
 telligent creatures, except by allowing them this 
 dread gift of the freedom of choice between good 
 and evil. 
 
 The heathen, as we know from many touching 
 passages of their writings, and by the widely- 
 spread practice of offering sacrifice to Beings 
 above them, did hope that prayer might be 
 heard and that sin might be pardoned. But 
 Theism, standing alone, from the days of Plato 
 to those of Rousseau, and even of Jules Simon 
 and Mr. Greg, speaks most hesitatingly, to say 
 the least, both concerning the value of prayer 
 and the possibility of pardon, and at times seems 
 to deny them both. How different on these 
 heads is the ringing clearness of Eevelation : 
 ' thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall 
 all flesh come ' (Ps. Ixv. ) ; and how gladly did 
 the Hebrew praise his God as One that could 
 and would forgive sin : ' Who is a God like unto 
 
92 Advantages of Revealed Religion. [LECT. 
 
 thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by 
 the transgression of the remnant of his heritage ? 
 he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he 
 delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he 
 will have compassion upon us ; he will subdue 
 our iniquities ; and thou wilt cast all their 
 sins into the depths of the sea' (Micah vii. 
 18, 19). 
 
 I do not enter upon the subject of the way 
 in which a further revelation has enlarged our 
 knowledge concerning the grounds and means 
 of forgiveness. But if any are inclined to think 
 that mere Theism has an advantage over re- 
 vealed religion in that it is free from mystery 
 and difficulty, I would recommend to them a 
 glance at the concluding pages of Bishop Wat- 
 son's answer to Tom Paine, at the admissions on 
 this head of John Stuart Mill, and at the reply 
 to the Religion Naturelle of M. Jules Simon in 
 the essays of the present Due de Broglie. The 
 last-named writer adds a reflection which may 
 well engage our attention. He observes that up 
 to a certain date in the world's history the pre- 
 servation of Theism had been confined to com- 
 paratively a small portion of the globe. But an 
 
iv.] Discontent of Atheists. 93 
 
 event takes place, ' Unto us a Child is born/ 
 and in a few years the republication of natural 
 religion is found to be spreading over the face 
 of the civilized world, and has from that time, 
 despite occasional eclipses, never been thoroughly 
 darkened, or for any long period overthrown. 
 At the present moment many votaries of physi- 
 cal science, while declining to admit a real and 
 vital Theism (such as that professed by Jews, 
 Christians, and the earlier Mohammedans), seem 
 inclined to acknowledge the presence of a mys- 
 terious Something, which lies behind the forces 
 of the universe. An avowed and outspoken 
 atheist, Buchner, tells them that this is of no 
 avail. He declares that such admissions are sure 
 to leave an opening for renewed belief in the 
 Being of God ; and, terrible as his language is, 
 I cannot say that it seems to me either unintelli- 
 gible or even surprising. A person who has 
 thoroughly accepted the account of this mys- 
 terious power, as taught by Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 might, it is to be hoped, be led onward to the 
 plain and emphatic language which so many 
 sages and devout minds have employed for long 
 generations. 
 
94 Lull in the assaults on Theism. [LECT. 
 
 Some time must perhaps elapse before we can 
 see the results of such admissions, and of the 
 able works in favour of Theism, which have been 
 recently set forth in so many different quarters. 
 It is by no means impossible that, in the course 
 of a few years, there may be a change concerning 
 the points at issue in that battle which Goethe 
 declared to be ( the proper, peculiar, and deepest 
 theme of universal and human history, to which 
 all others are subordinate the conflict of belief 
 and unbelief.' Should this prove to be the case, 
 there will ensue for a season, possibly not a 
 short season, a certain amount of neglect, not 
 only of the works of atheistic writers, from 
 Lucretius down to La Mettrie and Buchner, but 
 also of those written by the apologists for Theism, 
 whether from the d priori or a posteriori point 
 of view. But, as has already been seen, from 
 time to time the great question, than which none 
 can be more vital for humanity, namely, that 
 which concerns the Being of God, will inevitably 
 recur. New forms of attack will be invented by 
 the restless fertility of the human mind, and 
 possibly new lines of defence may have to be 
 constructed by the champions of belief. But 
 
IV. 
 
 Conclusion. 95 
 
 they will surely do well and wisely if they try 
 to make themselves acquainted with what has 
 been done, and with what has been left undone, 
 by thinkers of past generations, from the days of 
 Plato to those of the age in which their own lot 
 is cast. If these lectures may be permitted to 
 suggest but a hint on either of these important 
 topics to those who may feel called upon to take 
 part in a contest so solemn and weighty, they 
 will have achieved all which the author can 
 venture to hope for, and have attained the main 
 end which he aimed at and desired to secure. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 As there are differences of opinion concerning the precise 
 meaning to be attached to the phrase of ' a real Theism,' 
 it seems right that the author, even at the risk of some 
 repetition, should indicate more clearly and fully than he 
 has done in the body of the lectures the sense which he 
 attaches to these words. 
 
 The point may be elucidated (1) by a few references to 
 schools of thought, or authors who do not seem to have 
 attained to a true Theism ; and (2) by a few specimens 
 from authors who do appear to have thoroughly grasped, 
 so far as human understanding can, what is implied in the 
 word God. 
 
 (1) Those cannot be accepted as real Theists who have 
 spoken of matter as something eternal and, consequently, 
 coeval with the Deity. For one of the first attributes of 
 God is almightiness. Now, if there is anything which has 
 existed co-eternally with Him, it has existed without His 
 leave, and, therefore, He is not almighty. This error runs 
 through a large portion of ancient philosophy. Indeed, the 
 difficulty would be to make any tolerable list of classic 
 thinkers who could be pronounced entirely free from it. 
 It renders God not a true creator, but one who has ' merely 
 fabricated the world, as men build houses of pre-existent 
 
i oo Appendix. 
 
 materials/ and is repugnant to the notion of the Divine 
 all-sufficiency. 1 Dr. Mill, from whom I partially cite these 
 last words, pronounces it to be the doctrine of almost all the 
 later Theists among the Greeks, who were not Christians, 
 of all the Indian theistical schools (except the Vedantic), 
 particularly the Nyaya, and those of the Sankhya, that are 
 not Atheists. 
 
 Equally must one deny the title of true Theism to the 
 seductive and widely-spread error known as Pantheism. 
 Pantheism makes God a mere soul of the universe and 
 identical with it. It has, no doubt, had a great charm for 
 many devout minds brought up in an atmosphere of Poly- 
 theism ; because they found in Pantheism a sort of refuge 
 from the grosser elements of popular belief. Further, like 
 most errors, Pantheism at some points verges on the truth ; 
 for it is true that in Him who made us ' we live and move 
 and have our being;' it is true that in union with the 
 Creator lies the highest bliss of the creature. But the true 
 faith is, that the creature can never become of one substance 
 with the Creator. By its vague and dreamy theology Pan- 
 theism has destroyed the historic sense in the land where 
 it reigns most supreme namely, Hindostan. Spinoza, its 
 high priest in modern Europe, was also, according to Bun- 
 sen, ' deficient in the historic sense.' Many of the ancients 
 it may suffice to name Virgil have seemingly used Pan- 
 theistic language in a religious spirit; and the same is 
 probably true concerning several Eastern poets and sages. 
 But the identification of all human spirits with the great 
 Creator-Spirit, thereby making all human action an act of 
 the Deity, overthrows (as the Hindoos confess) the eternal 
 distinction between right and wrong; it obliterates the 
 very idea of submission to a personal, independent Lord ; 
 1 Dr. Mill's Analysis of Pearson on the Creed. 
 
Appendix. i o i 
 
 and perhaps Spinoza, who of all moderns has done most to 
 popularize Pantheism in the West, has (as I have said) 
 done more than any one man to sap in the European mind 
 all true foundation for the love of God. 
 
 I do not dwell upon Manichseism, because the idea of 
 two contending principles which are believed to be equal, or 
 nearly equal, in power is inconsistent with the true divinity 
 of either. It may have a certain plausibility for the un- 
 aided intellect; indeed otherwise it could hardly have 
 entangled for eight years so powerful and gifted a mind 
 as that of St. Augustine. Paulicianism, in the sixth cen- 
 tury of the Christian era, was essentially a revival of the 
 system of Manes, and there seems little doubt but that the 
 Albigenses, like many of the ancient Gnostics, were more 
 or less infected with the same error. 
 
 Within our own century it was thought by the elder 
 Mill (as his son, J. S. Mill, informs us) to possess consider- 
 able attraction, and he wondered that it had not been 
 revived. But it would surely be a waste of time to pro- 
 long any argumentative discussion in order to prove, what 
 few would seriously deny, that Manichgeism is essentially 
 opposed to real Theism. If (a point which has been dis- 
 puted) the Zendavesta really teaches this doctrine, it must 
 share the same condemnation. 'The Paulicians,' says 
 Gibbon, 'dared to violate the unity of God, the first 
 article of natural and revealed religion.' 1 
 
 It is possible that a nearer approximation to truth may 
 underlie that teaching of the ancient Egyptians to which 
 some modern authorities 2 have given the name of Heno- 
 theism. In this system each thing worshipped sun or 
 
 1 Decline and Fall (chap. liv.). 
 
 2 E.g. Mr. Le Page Renouf, in his interesting and valuable ' Hibbert 
 Lectures. ' 
 
i O2 Appendix. 
 
 moon, cloud or tree is regarded for the moment as the 
 one representative of Deity. But it is obvious that such 
 teaching would have a fatal facility of lapsing into idol- 
 atry, even if, on the part of its first teachers, it was not 
 intended to be idolatrous. 
 
 All systems and teachings which fall short of the recog- 
 nition of one great, sole Personal Being, to whom men 
 must bow in reverent submission, must be pronounced to 
 need the essentials of a real Theism. But how far the 
 holders and teachers of such doctrines are blameworthy is, 
 in each individual case, beyond the perception of merely 
 human insight. Christians, of course, believe that there 
 has been, and may be, error on this vital theme, for which 
 its supporters and propagators are terribly responsible. 
 For an apostle has declared that the heathen ought to have 
 recognized the eternal power and Godhead of the Creator 
 by the things that are made, and that a declension from 
 such knowledge, when possessed, was inexcusable, because 
 resulting from ingratitude and folly, and leading them on 
 by a just punishment to the vilest moral corruption. Many 
 Christian teachers have inferred from the famous passage 
 in which St. Paul treats this problem that, although ignor- 
 ance of revealed truth may be quite excusable, yet that 
 ignorance of natural religion and, above all, of the Being 
 of God must always be without excuse. But when we con- 
 sider the surroundings, or (as some would call it) the environ- 
 ment of many of our fellow -creatures, whether in lands 
 where the most debased forms of heathenism have long 
 been dominant, or in the crowds of great cities, even in 
 countries nominally Christian, it seems more just, as well 
 as more charitable, to suppose that there may be an ignor- 
 ance of even the elementary truths of religion which may 
 have excuses, to be admitted, we trust, as such by Hini 
 
Appendix. 103 
 
 whom they have not known. Nor can it be held impossible 
 that some persons may be practically classed with these, 
 who, moving in circles unlike either of those just described, 
 have been deliberately brought up by parents in unbelief 
 even concerning the Being of God. 1 
 
 The list of those who seem to have unintentionally 
 erred, or to have used language not meant to mislead, is 
 probably very large. Allusion has already been made to 
 the religious temper of Virgil. Among modern authors 
 one might point to Pope, who in his Essay on Man em- 
 ploys pantheistic language, but probably from mere shallow- 
 ness or ignorance. It can hardly be denied that the far 
 grander mind of Wordsworth did display, in all its earlier 
 effusions, something of a pantheistic tinge. He rose out 
 of this in his later years, but, as by that time his poetic 
 fervour had abated, it rather unfortunately happens that 
 some of his finest poetry is, in this respect, the least satis- 
 factory. It is not, however, likely to work any harm to 
 minds not predisposed to error, and the poet's language is 
 nearly always patient of a good interpretation. Still, it 
 may lend some countenance to those who are disposed to 
 exult in anything that looks like a divorce between genius 
 and faith. 
 
 A more recent work on Natural Eeligion by the author 
 of Ecce Homo lies open, it must be feared, to similar 
 strictures. The author himself may not only hold the 
 main truths taught by Natural Eeligion, but may also 
 
 1 Since the above was written I find Mr. Wilfrid Ward declaring 
 that his father, the late Dr. Ward, had arrived at the conclusion that 
 there might be invincible ignorance of the Being of God. One of the 
 most learned of the Scottish Episcopalian clergy, the late Rev. George 
 Forbes of Burntisland, impressed on me this conviction several years 
 ago. Mr. W. Ward's remarks may be found in a note appended to 
 his father's essays on The Philosophy of Theism (London, 1884). 
 
iO4 Appendix. 
 
 be quite sincere in claiming to be a Christian. But he 
 seems prepared to concede to the votaries of physical 
 science, and perhaps to those of art, the validity of a creed 
 which neither Jew, nor Mohammedan, nor Christian, can be 
 prepared to accept. It is not true honesty nor true charity 
 to keep silence on a matter so vital and essential ; not true 
 honesty, for it is claiming as virtual allies those who really 
 occupy a different camp ; not true charity, for it is leaving 
 others to suppose they may be in the possession of solemn 
 and life-penetrating verities, of which we really fear that 
 they are devoid. To say all this is, however it may be 
 trusted, not incompatible with thorough belief in the 
 excellence of the intentions of the author of the volume to 
 which we refer. 1 
 
 That Agnosticism cannot be recognized as compatible 
 with true Theism is a position which seems hardly to 
 require proof. Of course there is a sense of the word 
 which would only express the mental attitude of all Theists 
 towards Him whom they worship. For such would grant 
 most fully that their grasp of the ideas involved in the very 
 meaning of the word God, must, in this life, be feeble and 
 clouded ; nay must, even in the world to come, be bounded 
 by the limitations of the creature. 2 In the most compre- 
 hensive sense of the term, God alone can know Himself ; 
 but Theists do claim sufficient knowledge of God to be 
 
 1 These remarks are fully corroborated by Principal Tulloch in his 
 Modern Theories in Philosophy and Religion, and by Mr. Mallock in 
 his Atheism and the Value of Life. Their criticisms were unknown 
 to me when I wrote the above comments. 
 
 2 The recognition of this aspect of the case by Christian teachers, 
 including several of the early Fathers, has been well and clearly set 
 forth by the Rev. Canon Curteis in an article in the Nineteenth Century 
 for June 1884. It is also fully recognized in the able and temperate 
 article on the proofs for the Being of God, by Dr. Standenmaier, in the 
 Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Drs. Wetzer and "Welte. 
 
Appendix. 1 05 
 
 able to serve Him in ways well-pleasing to His majesty, 
 ways expressive of their awe, reverence, submission, and 
 trustful love. Compared with the ignorance expressed by 
 Agnostics, in the modern sense of the term, the Theists' 
 acquaintance with God may be really called knowledge, 
 and in addressing heathen idolaters they can honestly 
 employ the language of the Apostle, and say: 'Whom 
 therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.' 
 
 What to Christian minds seems sad and distressing in 
 the position of the ordinary Agnostic of our time is this. 
 Christians believe, as in truth did many of the heathen, 
 that all men must one day stand at a bar of judgment. It 
 is surely a solemn thought, that any creature should have 
 so spent its earthly life as to render itself liable to some 
 sentence of the following import. ' Day by day, in matters 
 of your earthly life, you acted earnestly and intelligently 
 upon evidence, which you knew to be far from complete 
 and demonstrative. In education, in the choice of a pro- 
 fession, in business, in art, and even in the pursuit of 
 physical science, indeed in almost every department of 
 thought and action, you were compelled to make assump- 
 tions which you could not at the moment verify. But the 
 evidence for My existence, for My power, and My love, you 
 rejected as insufficient, while all the time you were accepting 
 far less cogent proof for the verity of the thoughts and 
 words and deeds to which your inclinations led you. You 
 have not served Me, nor submitted yourself to Me ; of the 
 justice of the verdict now to be passed upon you your own 
 heart and conscience and intellect must now be in itself a 
 fitting judge.' 
 
 (2) Having thus far stated negatively what can not be 
 accepted as a true Theism, it may be well to give some 
 
io6 Appendix. 
 
 specimens of what may be regarded as the expression of a 
 real belief in God. 
 
 Such belief seems often to have remained, half-uncon- 
 sciously, in minds where falsehood and superstition have 
 grievously overlaid it, though not in such wise as entirely 
 to destroy it. Hence the famous comment of Tertullian, 
 to which I have made reference in these Lectures. The 
 result is, that in heathen writings one sometimes misses the 
 explicit expression of belief in Theism, on the part of 
 authors in whom one might have hoped to find it, and 
 who, possibly, did in reality hold it while in other cases it 
 seems to emerge, as it were in their better moments, from 
 the heart of writers who would generally be considered, 
 and with too much truth, as thoroughly imbued with senti- 
 ments degrading to all right ideas concerning the Godhead, 
 sentiments carelessly epicurean, brutalizing, or avowedly 
 anti-theistic. 
 
 Thus, for example, even the careless and pleasure-loving 
 Horace can at moments rise into a region of elevated 
 thought, as when he sings the praises of the great Parent 
 who rules things human and divine, earth and sea, and the 
 world with its varied seasons, from Whom nothing greater 
 than Himself has its origin ; Who has nothing like to or 
 even second to Himself, though Pallas [is not this the 
 Divine wisdom 3] has justly claimed the honours nearest 
 to Him (Ode xii. in bk. i., lin. 13-28). Not less strange 
 is it to discover at the commencement of a long poem, 
 replete with lowering tales concerning the gods, I mean 
 the metamorphoses of Ovid, a clear conception of a god, 
 considered as a creator, bringing into order the rude mass 
 of chaos, and at last (when sun and moon, earth and sea, 
 cold and heat, and the animal creation in water, earth, and 
 air had received their fitting place) creating something 
 
Appendix. 107 
 
 which was lacking, a being holier than all these, with more 
 capacity for lofty thought, and able to exercise lordship 
 and dominion over all around him (lib. i. lin. 5-88). 
 Cicero, though anticipating Paley, as I have observed, in 
 the argument from a Clock (De Naturd Deorum, lib. ii. cap. 
 38, 97), and inclined to hope an immortality of bliss for 
 great souls, is rightly, I think, regarded by Dollinger as a 
 half-sceptical eclectic. 
 
 In Greek literature the Homeric poems at moments 
 seem to assign to Jove a supremacy which verges on Mono- 
 theism, but which (a too common case), after all, makes 
 fate superior to the Divine Will. Similar language might 
 perhaps be used concerning the really devout and reverent 
 teaching of ^Eschylus. The case of Pindar is, I think, 
 doubtful. Herodotus appears to believe in a providence, 
 and l the Divine ' is with him a common expression. He 
 assigns to it personal attributes ; but, unfortunately, a lead- 
 ing one is not merely a propensity to punish guilt, but an 
 intense jealousy of human prosperity, even though its 
 possessor may have been innocent in character. Sophocles 
 is reverent, but seldom, if ever, seems to escape from Poly- 
 theism. Aristotle, though claimed as theistic by many 
 able writers (as, for instance, by the late Father Gratry) is, 
 in my judgment, pantheistic. Plato, in his higher moments, 
 as in the pages of the Timceus, I should have unhesitatingly 
 claimed as capable of enunciating a real Theism. This 
 decision has, however, been lately challenged by a dis- 
 tinguished Cambridge student of Plato, Mr. Archer-Hind, 
 and I consequently feel it to be a duty to reconsider the 
 question. The Greek Stoics, as a rule, were pantheistic, as 
 indeed had been for the most part the earlier schools, as 
 the Ionian and Eleatic. One must, however, except from 
 the general judgment on the Stoics the noble name of 
 
io8 Appendix. 
 
 Cleanthes. This philosopher has not only left us an 
 augmentative statement for the being of a God, but has 
 addressed to Him a brief but splendid hymn, unexceptionable 
 in tone, and full of reverence and beauty. He is probably 
 one from whom St. Paul quoted the words (also employed 
 by the Sicilian Aratus), 'For we also are His offspring.' 
 * Tov jap Kal 7ez/09 ecrjjiev.' 
 
 Another great name intervenes between Plato and 
 Cleanthes which I have hesitated to introduce, because 
 here also one cannot speak with confidence. I refer to 
 Demosthenes. In one of the grandest passages of what 
 must ever remain among the finest, perhaps actually the 
 finest, of all orations, Demosthenes seems to me to mention 
 Jove separately from the other supreme powers (as a 
 Christian might speak of God and His Saints), and then to 
 pass on and introduce 'the God' in such wise that Ter- 
 tullian might have claimed him as a witness. I the rather 
 call attention to the passage, because I have never seen it 
 noticed in this connexion. Possibly I am seeing what I 
 wish to see. But the reader shall judge. The orator is 
 arguing in a lofty strain that, even if Athens had known 
 to a certainty that Philip of Macedon would triumph, she 
 could not looking back to her past history or to future 
 ages have tamely submitted and surrendered her liberties. 
 ' But since he [^Eschines] insists so strongly on the subject 
 of results, I wish also to say something on this head, even 
 though it may sound like a paradox. And this I entreat, 
 by Jove and the gods, let no man simply marvel at it as 
 an extravagance of speech on my part, but let him meditate 
 upon it in a favourable temper of mind. Even if the future 
 had been beforehand clearly manifest to all men, and all 
 men had possessed this foreknowledge, and if you, 
 ^Eschines, had foretold, and if you had uttered your testi- 
 
Appendix. 
 
 mony aloud with shout and cry (you who, in fact, never 
 uttered one syllable of remonstrance), not even under such 
 circumstances could this state of Athens have by any possi- 
 bility have stood aloof from interference if she retained any 
 regard for her glory, for her ancestors, or for the ages yet 
 to come. As matters stand, Athens seems to have suffered 
 failure in policy an event which is common to humanity 
 when such is the will of God; but in the other case, first 
 claiming to be leader of the rest of the Greeks and then 
 abnegating her position, she would have incurred the guilt 
 of having betrayed all her brethren in the hands of Philip.' 1 
 Then follows the famous page in which the orator recalls 
 the ancient glories of his country in her resistance to 
 Persia, including the adjuration of those who risked all at 
 Marathon and Platsea, at Salamis and Artemisium, to all 
 of whom the state awarded the same honours of burial 
 without reference to their special success or victory. * For 
 so much as lay within the task of brave men, this they all 
 of them accomplished, but they attained that amount of 
 good or ill fortune which the Deity assigned to each.' 2 It 
 must be added that, in common with Socrates (as appears 
 
 1 As I have translated the accessories of the point at issue some- 
 what freely, it seems right to subjoin the original : 
 
 'ETreiS-fj 5 7roXi)s rois ffv^e^KOffiv ZyKeirai, f3ov\ofj.al n Kal irapddo^ov 
 eiiretv. Kcti /AOV Trpbs Atos /ecu deuv, fj^dels rrjv u7rep/3o\V davfj^da-rj, dXXa 
 ^ier' evvoias, o X^yw, dewp-qcrdrw. E yap ?jv airacri irp6drj\a rot, fj^XXovra 
 yevfoeffdai, Kal irpoydecrav airavTes, Kal <rv irpo6\eyes, AiVx^, KC " Sie/j.ap- 
 rvpov /3oo)j' Kal KCKpayus (6s ovd' e^Otyfa) ovd' OI/TOJS 'airoffTaTtov TTJ iroXei 
 TOIJTUV ?jv, eiVep T) 56??j, ?} Trpoyovuv f) TOV /^XXovros at'tDvos et^e \oyov. 
 NO? fj.fr y airorvx^v 5o/ce? rdov irpay/j-dTuv, 5 iracn K.OLVOV eVrtv avOpwirots, 
 orav rip Gey ravra doKrj ' rare 5' d^toOaa Trpoecrrdvai T&V a\\coi>, elr 
 aTTocrracra TOVTOV, $iXi7T7ry irpodeSuK&ai Trd^ras av <rx V alrLav. De 
 Corona, 154 (ed. Barker). 
 
 2 "0 fJ.ei> yap fy wdpuv ayad&v epyov, aira<n irtirpaKrai, ry ru%?? 5e, 
 ty 6 8aifj.wv airtvetfjLev e/cdcrrois, ra^T-g Ac^x/j^j/rai. De Corona, 160. 
 Thermopylae, which was a defeat, would have been still more to the 
 
1 1 o Appendix. 
 
 from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, iv. 4), with Sophocles, 
 with Aristotle, with Cicero (as cited by Lactantius), Demos- 
 thenes strongly asserts * the existence of ' the work of the 
 law written in men's hearts.' Speaking, in this same ora- 
 tion ( 317), of principles which 'even Nature herself has 
 laid down in her unwritten laws and in the moral consti- 
 tutions of men,' the great orator has, either consciously or 
 unconsciously, acted upon the excellent advice given to 
 speakers by Plato in his Phwdrus, that they should try to 
 be in sympathy with their auditors, but, at the same time, 
 endeavour to speak what is acceptable to the heavenly 
 powers (pp. 273, 274). [Lest the chronological statements 
 should seem too vague, it may be well to remind the reader 
 that Plato was born B.c. 429, Demosthenes about B.c. 382 
 (or 385), and Cleanthes about B.C. 300.] 
 
 Passing from Greece and Eome to other bodies of men, 
 also outside the pale of Judaism and Christianity, it must 
 be repeated that the earlier Mohammedans were unques- 
 tionably Theists; nor is it easy to see how one who accepts 
 the Koran as a divine revelation can be anything else. 
 To open the Koran almost at random constantly brings us 
 across passages like the following : ' God ! there is no God 
 but He, the living, the self-subsisting ; neither slumber nor 
 sleep seizeth Him ; who is he that can intercede with Him 
 but through His own good pleasure*?' (chap, ii.) 2 
 
 point, but Demosthenes could hardly perhaps in such a connexion 
 venture to refer to one of the glories of Sparta. 
 
 1 I allude to the beautiful speech of Antigone (450-57), which is 
 cited with approval by Aristotle in his Rhetoric. For reminding me 
 of Demosthenes and Socrates I have to thank Mr. J. A. Beets in his 
 excellent Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (4th ed., p. 77), 
 London, 1883. 
 
 2 It is not necessary here to enter into the question how far the 
 Theism of Mohammed is an original or a derived doctrine. Although 
 the Arab teacher may have had scarcely any direct acquaintance with 
 
Appendix. \ 1 1 
 
 But the creed of Islam, like most other creeds, has been 
 much modified by the habits and traditions of some of the 
 races who profess to have adopted it. Thus, in Persia the 
 poets known as Sufis embody a mystic teaching which is 
 deeply tinged with Pantheism. This tone, however, is so 
 thoroughly alien from the spirit of the earlier Moslem 
 teachers that one of their theologians, by name Gazali, 
 declared that it was more pleasing in the sight of God to 
 slay one of these pantheizing mystics than to give life to 
 ten men. 1 
 
 At this point it seems right to observe that as, on the 
 one hand, there will always be those who do not act up to 
 the teaching and spirit of a true creed, or who even, in 
 Pauline language, 'hold the truth in unrighteousness;' so 
 also, on the other hand, there have been, and still are, both 
 individuals and bodies of men who are better than their 
 creed, and of whom one feels inclined to think more hope- 
 fully than of many whose knowledge is clearer and nearer 
 to the truth. Thus, for example, the elder Pliny, who, in 
 his Natural History, speaks scoffingly of things divine and 
 the idea of a life to come, yet, in his devotion to duty and 
 his ardour for scientific truth, might put to shame many 
 believers in holier things. Pliny certainly met his death 
 as a martyr to science and a martyr to philanthropy ; and 
 one cannot but trust that one who died for his fellow-men 
 may have had his soul irradiated with some better light in 
 
 the Bible, there can be little doubt but that he was largely imbued 
 with its teaching, especially that of the Old Testament, though it may 
 have been at second-hand. Mohler, who has fully recognized the 
 thorough sincerity and devotion of the Koran, yet insists most strongly 
 on the derivation of its essential purport from the Old and New Testa- 
 ments. 
 
 1 Pococke, Specimen Histories Arabum. Cited in Dollinger's essay, 
 Muhammed's Religion. Ratisbou, 1838. 
 
1 1 2 Appendix. 
 
 his closing hours. Thus too, again, in Hindostan one might 
 expect to find the Mohammedan population in a more hope- 
 ful condition than the Hindoos. But impartial observers 
 who have visited India or have lived in it, generally seem 
 to speak more favourably and hopefully of the Hindoos 
 than of the Moslem in that land ; though it remains true 
 that in certain countries Mohammedans (e.g. the Malays) 
 do act as missionaries to idolaters, and thereby exhibit an 
 amount of spiritual life which is not displayed by Buddhists 
 or Brahmins. 
 
 The eager interest in religion displayed in Hindostan is 
 well brought out in the striking tale A City of Sunshine, \>y 
 Mr. Allardyce; 1 and some of the more favourable aspects of 
 Hindoo religion have been set forth by Professor Monier 
 Williams, by the Eev. K. M. Banerjea, by Mrs. Speir, by 
 the late Mr. J. B. Morris, and the Eev. Eowland Williams ; 
 and (as regards Buddhism) by Bishop Milman and others. 
 Nevertheless, the history of this home of Pantheism seems 
 clearly to bring out the following drawbacks to such a 
 creed. In the first place, it appears to destroy the historic 
 sense. Even cultivated Hindoos are ignorant of history ; 
 and it is impossible to settle the date of any single work in 
 Sanskrit. It does not satisfy the needs of the many : they 
 fall back upon a gross form of idolatry, insomuch as that 
 while the central soul of the universe is represented as 
 untainted by evil, those incarnations of the Supreme Being 
 which have appeared on earth are not supposed to be subject 
 to the moral law. A convert from Brahmanism to Christ- 
 ianity, now member of an Anglican brotherhood, the Eev. 
 Father Goreh, has commented with just sadness and severity 
 on a Brahmanic prayer in which the god Indra is invoked 
 
 1 I have to thank Mr. Allardyce for the loan of a book by Mr. 
 Banerjea, which I had not previously seen. 
 
Appendix. 113 
 
 by the title c adulterous lover of Ahallya ' as an endearing 
 appellation. Mr. Ward, a Baptist missionary, has used 
 even stronger language than that of Father Goreh, declaring 
 that in writing his account of Hindooism he was often 
 obliged to stop short, as it was impossible to pollute his 
 pages with such filthiness as he had seen in Hindoo books 
 and had heard from Hindoo priests. I do not like to 
 quit this subject without citing a portion of the criticism 
 of the actual state of Hindostan by one who had spent there 
 some of the best years of his life, and who did not approach 
 the subject with what many might think the bias of a 
 missionary, but with the eye of a politician and a man of 
 letters. 
 
 1 As this superstition [the Hindoo popular religion] is of 
 all superstitions the most inelegant, so it is of all super- 
 stitions the most immoral. Emblems of vice are objects of 
 public worship. Acts of vice are acts of public worship. 
 The courtesans are as much a part of the establishment of 
 the temple, as much ministers of the god, as the priests. 
 Crimes against life, crimes against property, are not per- 
 mitted but enjoined by this odious theology. But for our 
 interference human victims would still be offered to the 
 Ganges, and the widow would still be laid on the pile with 
 the corpse of her husband, and burned alive by her own 
 children.' l And again, ' the conversion of the whole people 
 to the worst form that Christianity ever wore in the darkest 
 ages would be a most happy event. It is not necessary 
 that a man should be a Christian to wish for the propaga- 
 tion of Christianity in India. It is sufficient that he should 
 be an European not much below the ordinary European 
 level of good sense and humanity. In no part of the world 
 
 1 Speeches of the Rt. Hon. T. B. Macaulay (London, Longmans, 
 1854), pp. 274, 275. 
 
 I 
 
H4 Appendix. 
 
 is heathenism more cruel, more licentious, more fruitful of 
 absurd rites and pernicious laws.' 1 
 
 If in Hindostan the Mohammedans are inferior to the 
 Hindoos, it must be remembered that competent judges 
 inform us that Mohammedanism differs greatly in different 
 lands, and that India may not be in the present day one of 
 its best specimens. 
 
 I now come to the theistic teaching of those who, accord- 
 ing to Christian belief, have written under the influence of 
 Divine inspiration. On descriptions of what is implied in 
 the teaching of the Old Testament concerning God I do 
 not dwell for the moment, as I shall presently have occasion 
 to cite two summaries of this nature. It must here be 
 enough to say that the Jewish nation, whether in its own 
 small realm of Palestine, or in foreign homes, as Babylon 
 and Alexandria, and, in short, in all lands whither its sons 
 have been scattered, has proclaimed Theism with a clear- 
 ness, a persistency, and a defiance of persecution, which can 
 scarcely be said, unless it be in these latter days, ever to 
 have faltered. Even if there be truth in the charge that 
 large numbers of them did, especially in Spain, pretend to 
 be Christians, while remaining Jews at heart, such conduct, 
 however sad and hypocritical, would of course in no wise 
 involve the forfeiture of their Theism. Where even bril- 
 liant thinkers of their race, such as Spinoza, have virtually 
 or openly denied Theism, the synagogue has at once broken 
 with such. It is easy for men who have no earnest faith 
 to sneer at the forms of excommunication adopted in such 
 a case as that of Spinoza ; but without any wish to defend 
 uncharitableness, it must be remembered that earnest men 
 cannot but feel strongly concerning any tenet which they 
 
 1 ' Essays ' from the Edinburgh Review. By T. B. Macaulay. 
 Essay on Gladstone's Church and State (Longmans, 1854). 
 
Appendix. 115 
 
 conscientiously regard as the ' life's life of their being,' and 
 that they might really hope that their language of horror 
 would shock and startle an erring brother, and by arresting 
 his downward course prove itself in the end to have been 
 an utterance of true charity. 
 
 Direct quotations from Holy Scripture are here presumed 
 to be unnecessary. It is almost needless to add that the 
 writings of men nurtured upon these are replete with 
 effective and eloquent passages concerning the being and 
 attributes of God ; I propose to quote a few which have 
 struck me by their terseness, by their fulness, or by their 
 pathos ; though my small selection may probably betray, 
 on my part, much ignorance or want of judgment. The 
 following passage from the Philosophumena, ascribed to 
 Hippolytus, embodies a clear statement of the relation of 
 the Creator to His works. 
 
 ' The one God, the first and only One, Maker and Lord 
 of all things, had nothing coeval with Himself ; no bound- 
 less chaos, no measureless waste of waters or extent of 
 barren land, no dense atmosphere, no glowing fire, no subtle 
 breeze, nor blue vault of the mighty skies ; but He endured 
 alone by Himself, and by His will He caused to exist things 
 heretofore non-existent, save only that He willed to make 
 them as one endowed with full experience of results : for 
 to Him belongeth foreknowledge also.' 1 
 
 1 As this treatise is not very accessible it may be well to subjoin 
 the original. 
 
 6e6s efs, 6 Trpwros Kal /j.6vos, Kal aTrdvTWv TroiTjrrjs Kal /ctfpios, fftyxpovov 
 &r%ej> ovdtv, of> x ao5 aireipov, oi>x vdup a^rprjTov t) yty ffTeppav, oi>xl 
 apa trvKvbv, ov Trvp 6epfji.6v, ov Trvev/J-a \eirTOv, OVK ovpavov /j.eyd\ov Kvavtav 
 6po(j)-f]v' dXV ?)V e?s ^6^0? eaurw, 6's 0eX-?7<7as eiroirja-e rb. 8vra OVK 6vra 
 
 yap aur^ Kal irpbyvwvis. S. Hippolyte Episc. et Mart., Refutations 
 omnium ffceresium librorum decem quce supersunt. (Ed. Duncker et 
 Schneidewin, Gottingse, 1859), lib. x. cap. 32. 
 
1 1 6 Appendix. 
 
 It is almost needless to say that the works of St. 
 Augustine are replete with passages of much beauty and 
 eloquence on this lofty theme. It may suffice to select a 
 brief specimen from his Confessions, which has somewhere, 
 I think, been translated by Bishop Jeremy Taylor : ' What 
 then art Thou, O my God 1 For what do I ask except for 
 Thee, Lord God? For who is Lord beside the Lord? 
 Or who is God beside our God? most high, most 
 excellent, most powerful, most almighty, most merciful, 
 and most just, most hidden and most present, fairest and 
 strongest, stable and incomprehensible, changeless yet 
 changing all things; never new, never old; making all 
 things new, yet leading into decrepitude the proud, though 
 they know it not ; ever in action, ever at rest ; gathering 
 together, yet not in want ; bearing, filling, and protecting ; 
 creating, nourishing, and completing; seeking, though nothing 
 is lacking to Thee. Thou lovest, yet art devoid of passion ; 
 Thou art jealous, and yet art undisturbed ; Thou repentest, 
 and yet dost not sorrow ; Thou art angry, and yet remainest 
 calm ; Thou dost change Thy works, yet dost not change 
 Thy plan ; Thou dost recover that which Thou findest, and 
 yet hast never lost ; never art Thou needy, and yet Thou 
 rejoicest in gains ; never art Thou avaricious, and yet Thou 
 requirest interest. Free-will offerings are made to Thee 
 that thou mayest owe, and yet who hath anything that is 
 not thine < \ Thou payest debts which yet are owed to no 
 man ; Thou givest dues, yet without losing anything. And 
 what have I said, O my God, my life, my holy charm? 
 Or what indeed does any man say when he speaks of Thee ? 
 And woe to those who are silent concerning Thee, since 
 even those who speak are dumb.' (Confessions, book i. 
 cap. iv.) 
 
 It might be possible to cull many noble sentiments from 
 
Appendix. 1 1 7 
 
 hymns and books of meditations of the Middle Ages ; though 
 some authors of that epoch have perhaps written more 
 beautifully on the Incarnation and on Eedemption than on 
 the immediate subject before us. Anselni is, perhaps, one 
 of many to whom this remark is applicable, and possibly 
 also Thomas a Kempis, the reputed author of the Imitatw 
 Christi. In selecting a grand passage from Dante I have, 
 as on so many other points, been anticipated by Professor 
 Flint, but I do not like to omit it. 
 
 Dante (like Anselm in the latter part of the Monologium) 
 has perhaps too much dwelt on the revelation of God as 
 given to Christians to be cited as giving a description of 
 what is involved in Theism considered by itself. But I 
 venture to quote some portion of the earlier passages in the 
 Pamdiso (xix. 40-45, 52-63), though I must leave my readers 
 to look out for themselves the wondrous vision of the Holy 
 Trinity and the Incarnate Lord, with which the poem 
 concludes : 
 
 < He 
 
 Who turn'd His compass on the world's extreme, 
 And in that space so variously hath wrought, 
 Both openly and in secret ; in such wise 
 Could not through all the universe display 
 Impression of His glory, that the Word 
 Of His omniscience should not still remain 
 In infinite excess.' 
 
 That is, as Gary (whose rendering is here given) rightly 
 interprets, ' the divine nature still remained incomprehen- 
 sible.' The poet then refers to the fault of the rebel angels, 
 who would not wait for further light, but fell through 
 pride ; and proceeds : 
 
 * Whence needs each lesser nature is but scant 
 Receptacle unto that Good, which knows 
 No limit, measured by Itself alone. 
 
1 1 8 Appendix. 
 
 Therefore your sight, of the omnipresent Mind 
 
 A single beam, its origin must own 
 
 Surpassing far its utmost potency. 
 
 The ken your world is gifted with, descends 
 
 In the everlasting Justice as low down, 
 
 As eye doth in the sea ; which, though it mark 
 
 The bottom from the shore, in the wide main 
 
 Discerns it not ; and nevertheless it is 
 
 But hidden through its deepness.' l 
 
 Father Gratry, one of the few learned clergy of the 
 modern French Church, will also be found to furnish much 
 that bears upon the present work in his two small volumes 
 entitled La Connaissance de Dieu, where may be seen short 
 extracts from Malebranche, Fe"nelon, Bossuet, and others. 
 From Sir Isaac Newton I have already quoted a part of 
 the grand passage near the close of the third book of his 
 
 1 ' Colui che volse il sesto 
 Allo stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso 
 Distinse tanto occulto e manifesto, 
 Non poteo suo valor si fare impresso 
 In tutto 1'universo, che il sup verbo 
 Non rimanesse in infinito eccesso. 
 
 E quinci appar ch' ogiii minor natura 
 
 E corto recettacolo a quel bene 
 
 Che non ha fine, e se in se misura. 
 Dunque nostra veduta, che conviene 
 
 Essere alcun de' raggi della mente 
 
 Di che tutte le cose son ripiene, 
 Non puo di sua natura esser possente 
 
 Tanto, che suo principio non discerna 
 
 Molto di la, da quel ch' egli e, parvente. 
 Pero nella giustizia sempiterna 
 
 La vista che riceve il vostro inondo, 
 
 Come occhio per lo mare, entro s' interna ; 
 Che benche dalla proda veggia il fondo, 
 
 In pelago nol vede, e nondimeno 
 
 Egli e, ma cela lui 1'esser profondo. ' 
 
Appendix. 1 1 9 
 
 Principia a passage which has won the just admiration of 
 foreigners, such as M. Nicolas, as well as of British theo- 
 logians. 
 
 Among authors of this century three have, I conceive, 
 been eminently successful in setting forth the cycle of the 
 leading ideas comprised in our utterance of the word God. 
 Two of these, it is true, are only engaged in setting forth 
 a summary of the Hebrew teaching on the subject, but they 
 seem to have effected this task with much precision and 
 completeness. I refer to Strauss, the author of the Leben 
 Jesu, who thought it right to describe a doctrine, which he 
 was endeavouring to overthrow. Here his effort to be fair 
 has, as I have implied, been in the main successful. The 
 second writer of whom I am thinking is the lamented 
 Arthur Hallam, known to most only as the subject of the 
 Laureate's In Memoriam, but deserving, I must maintain, of a 
 fuller recognition than he has yet received on the ground 
 of his own merits. The third writer, whose description is 
 of a more general character, is Cardinal Newman, in his 
 Discourses on University Education. As it is highly probable 
 that my readers may not have these works at hand, it may 
 be well to cite them here. 
 
 The following extract from the Life of Christ by Strauss 
 seems important, from its clear presentation of the wide 
 difference between the Theism taught in the pages of Holy 
 Scripture and the feeble grasp of what is implied in Theism 
 displayed by many, who either lack the courage or the per- 
 ception requisite for the admission that their creed is 
 limited and illogical, even if it be not in reality that of 
 Agnosticism or of dogmatic Atheism : 
 
 ' In the ancient world (that is, in the East) the religious 
 tendency was so preponderating, and the knowledge of 
 nature so limited, that the law of connexion between 
 
1 20 Appendix. 
 
 earthly finite beings was very loosely regarded. At every 
 link there was a disposition to spring into the infinite, and 
 to see God as the immediate cause of every change in 
 nature or the human mind. In this mental condition the 
 Biblical history was written. Not that God is here repre- 
 sented as doing all and everything Himself a notion 
 which, from the manifold evidence of the fundamental 
 connexion between finite things, would be impossible to 
 any reasonable mind but there prevails in the Biblical 
 writers a ready disposition to derive all things, down to 
 the minutest details, as soon as they appear particularly 
 important, immediately from God. He it is who gives the 
 rain and the sunshine ; He sends the east wind and the storm ; 
 He dispenses war, famine, and pestilence ; He hardens hearts 
 and softens them, suggests thoughts and resolutions. And this 
 is particularly the case with regard to His chosen instru- 
 ments and beloved people. In the history of the Israelites 
 we find traces of His immediate agency at every step. 
 Through Moses, Elias, Jesus, He performs things which 
 never would have happened in the ordinary course of 
 nature. 
 
 'Our modern world, on the contrary, after many cen- 
 turies of tedious research, has attained a conviction that all 
 things are linked together by a chain of causes and effects 
 which suffers no interruption. It is true that single facts 
 and groups of facts, with their condition and processes of 
 change, are not so circumscribed as to be unsusceptible of 
 external influence ; for the action of one existence or king- 
 dom in nature entrenches on that of another ; human free- 
 dom controls natural development, and material laws react 
 on human freedom. Nevertheless the totality of finite 
 things forms a vast circle, which, except that it owes its 
 existence and laws to a superior power, suffers no intrusion 
 
Appendix. 1 2 1 
 
 from without. This conviction is so much a habit of 
 thought with the modern world that in actual life the 
 belief in a supernatural manifestation, and immediate 
 Divine agency, is at once attributed to ignorance or im- 
 posture. It has been carried to the extreme in that 
 modern explanation which, in a spirit exactly opposed to that 
 of the Bible, has either totally removed the Divine causation, 
 or has so far restricted it that it is immediate in the act of 
 creation alone, but mediate from that point onward i.e. 
 God operates on the world only in so far as He gave to it 
 this fixed direction at the creation. From this point of 
 view, at which nature and history appear as a compact 
 tissue of finite causes and effects, it was impossible to 
 regard the narratives of the Bible, in which this tissue is 
 broken by innumerable instances of Divine interference, as 
 historical. 
 
 ' It must be confessed, on nearer investigation, that this 
 modern explanation, although it does not exactly deny the 
 existence of God, yet puts aside the idea of Him, as the 
 ancient view did the idea of the world ; for this is, as it 
 has been often and well remarked, no longer a God and 
 Creator, but a mere finite artist, who acts immediately upon 
 his work only during its first production, and then leaves 
 it to itself who becomes excluded, with this full energy, 
 from one particular sphere of existence.' l 
 
 Strauss, it is to be feared, placed himself in his later day 
 upon a lower level in point of faith than even the low one 
 described in the above remarkable passage. It is inter- 
 esting to compare the treatment of some of the same pro- 
 positions at the hand of a believer in the Theism proclaimed 
 in Scripture. Accordingly, we turn to the pages few but 
 
 1 Strauss's Life of Christ, Introduction, 14 (vol. i. pp. 70-72 in 
 English translation). 
 
122 Appendix. 
 
 precious bequeathed to posterity by the lamented Arthur 
 Hallam. 
 
 ' What is the distinguishing character of Hebrew litera- 
 ture which separates it by so broad a line of demarcation 
 from that of every ancient people 1 ? Undoubtedly the 
 sentiment of erotic devotion which pervades it. Their 
 poets never represent the Deity as an impassive principle ; 
 a mere organizing intellect removed at infinite distance 
 from human hopes and fears. He is for them a Being of 
 like passions with themselves, requiring heart for heart, 
 and capable of inspiring affection, because capable of feeling 
 and returning it. Awful, indeed, are the thunders of His 
 utterance, and the clouds that surround His dwelling-place ; 
 very terrible is the vengeance He executes on the nations 
 that forget Him ; but to His chosen people, and especially 
 to the men " after His own heart " whom He anoints from 
 the midst of them, His " still small voice " speaks in sym- 
 pathy and loving -kindness. Every Hebrew, while his 
 breast glowed with patriotic enthusiasm at those promises, 
 which he shared as one of the favoured race, had a yet 
 deeper source of emotion, from which gushed perpetually 
 the aspirations of prayer and thanksgiving. He might 
 consider himself almost in the presence of his God; the 
 single being to whom a great revelation had been made, 
 and over whose head " an exceeding weight of glory was 
 suspended." His personal welfare was infinitely concerned 
 with every event that had taken place in the miraculous 
 order of providence. For him the rocks of Horeb had 
 trembled, and the waters of the Red Sea were parted in 
 their course. The word given on Sinai with such solemn 
 pomp of ministration was given to his own individual soul, 
 and brought him into immediate communion with his 
 Creator. That awful Being could never be put away from 
 
Appendix. 123 
 
 him. He was about his path, and about his feet, and knew 
 all his thoughts long before. Yet this tremendous, enclos- 
 ing presence was a presence of love. It was a manifold 
 everlasting manifestation of one deep feeling a desire for 
 human affection. Such a belief, while it enlisted even pride 
 and self-interest on the side of piety, had a direct tendency 
 to excite the best passions of our nature. Love is not 
 long asked in vain from generous dispositions. A Being, 
 never absent, but standing beside the life of each man with 
 ever-watchful tenderness, and recognized, though invisible, 
 in every blessing that befell them from youth to age, became 
 naturally the object of their warmest affections. Their 
 belief in Him could not exist without producing as a neces- 
 sary effect that profound impression of passionate individual 
 attachment, which in the Hebrew authors always mingles 
 with and vivifies their faith in the Invisible. All the books 
 in the Old Testament are breathed upon by this breath of 
 life. Especially is it to be found in that beautiful collection, 
 entitled the Psalms of David, which remains, after some 
 thousand years, perhaps the most perfect form in which 
 the religious sentiment of man has been embodied.' 1 
 
 1 Remains. Essay on Signer Rosetti. Although it is an excursus 
 in some measure outside the province of this volume, I cannot but 
 think that some readers may be glad to see a portion of the continu- 
 ation of the above passage. 
 
 ' But what is true of Judaism is yet more true of Christianity, 
 " matre pulchrd filia pulchrior." In addition to all the characters of 
 Hebrew Monotheism, there exists in the doctrine of the Cross a 
 peculiar and inexhaustible treasure for the affectionate feelings. The 
 idea of the Qedisdpuiros [God-man] the God, Whose goings forth have 
 been from everlasting, yet visible to men for their redemption as an 
 earthly temporal creature, living, acting, and suffering among them- 
 selves, then (which is yet more important) transferring to the unseen 
 place of His spiritual agency the same humanity He wore on earth, so 
 that the lapse of generations can in no way affect the conception of His 
 identity ; this is the most powerful thought that ever addressed itself to 
 
124 Appendix. 
 
 For the sake of brevity I omit some portions of the 
 sketch given by Cardinal Newman, retaining enough, how- 
 ever, to afford a fair idea of its general character. 
 
 ' By theology I simply mean the science of God, or the 
 truths we know about God put into system; just as we 
 have a science of the stars, and call it astronomy, or of the 
 crust of the earth, and call it geology. 
 
 * For instance, I mean for this is the main point that 
 as in the human frame there is a living principle acting 
 upon it and through it by means of volition, so, behind 
 the veil of the visible universe there is an invisible intelli- 
 gent Being, acting on and through it, as and when He will. 
 Further, I mean that this invisible Agent is in no sense a 
 soul of the world, after the analogy of human nature, but, 
 on the contrary, is absolutely distinct from the world, as 
 being its Creator, Upholder, Governor, and Sovereign 
 
 a human imagination. It is the TTOU OTW [the standing point] which 
 alone was wanting to move the world. Here was solved at once the 
 great problem which so long had distressed the teachers of mankind, 
 how to make virtue the object of passion, and to secure at once the 
 warmest enthusiasm in the heart, with the clearest perception of right 
 and wrong in the understanding. The character of the blessed 
 Founder of our faith became an abstract of morality to determine the 
 judgment, while at the same time it remained personal and liable to 
 love. The written word and the Established Church prevented a 
 degeneration into ungoverned mysticism, but the predominant prin- 
 ciple of vital religion always remained that of self-sacrifice to the 
 Saviour. Not only the higher divisions of moral duties, but the 
 simple primary impulses of benevolence, were subordinated to this 
 new absorbing passion. The world was loved "in Christ alone." 
 The brethren were members of this mystical body. All the other 
 bonds that had fastened down the Spirit of the Universe to our narrow 
 round of earth were as nothing in comparison to this golden chain of 
 suffering and self-sacrifice, which at once riveted the heart of man to 
 One, Who, like himself, was acquainted with grief. Pain is the 
 deepest thing we have in our nature, and union through pain has 
 always seemed more holy and more real than any other.' 
 
Appendix. 1 2 5 
 
 Lord. Here we are at once brought into the circle of 
 doctrines which the idea of God embodies. I mean then 
 by the Supreme Being, one who is simply self-dependent 
 and the only Being Who is such; moreover, that He is 
 without beginning or eternal, and the only eternal ; that in 
 consequence He has lived a whole eternity by Himself, and 
 hence that he is all-sufficient, sufficient for His own blessed- 
 ness and all-blessed and ever-blessed. Further, I mean a 
 Being who, having these prerogatives, has the Supreme 
 Good, or has all the attributes of God in infinite greatness ; 
 all wisdom, all truth, all justice, all love, all holiness, all 
 beautif ulness ; who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent ; 
 ineffably one, absolutely perfect ; and such, that what we 
 do not know and cannot even imagine of Him, is far more 
 wonderful than what we do and can. I mean one who is 
 sovereign over His own will and actions, though always 
 according to the eternal rule of right and wrong which is 
 Himself. I mean, moreover, that He created all things out 
 of nothing, and preserves them every moment, and could 
 destroy them as easily as He made them ; and thus in con- 
 sequence He is separated from them by an abyss, and is 
 incommunicable in His attributes. . . . His are all beings 
 visible and invisible, the noblest and the vilest of them. 
 His are the substance and the operation, and the results 
 of that system of physical nature into which we are born. 
 His, too, are the powers and achievements of the intellectual 
 essences on which he has bestowed an independent action 
 and the gift of origination. The laws of the universe, the 
 principles of truth, the relation of one thing to another, 
 their qualities and virtues, the rules and harmony of the 
 whole, all that exists is from Him ; and if evil is not from 
 Him, as assuredly it is not, this is because evil has no sub- 
 stance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, 
 
126 Appendix. 
 
 or corruption of that which has. . . . The primary atoms 
 of matter, their properties, their mutual action, their dis- 
 position and collocation, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, 
 light, and whatever other subtle principles or operations 
 the wit of man is detecting or shall detect, are the works 
 of His hands. From Him has been every movement which 
 has convulsed and refashioned the surface of the earth. 
 The most insignificant or unsightly insect is from Him, and 
 is good in its kind ; the everteeming, inexhaustible swarms 
 of animalculse, the myriads of living motes invisible to the 
 naked eye, the restless overspreading vegetation which 
 creeps like a garment over the whole earth, the lofty cedar, 
 the umbrageous banana, are His. His are the tribes and 
 families of birds and beasts, their graceful forms, their 
 wild gestures, and their passionate cries. 
 
 'And so in the intellectual, moral, social, and political 
 world. Man, with his motives and works, his languages, 
 his propagation, his diffusion, is from Him. Agriculture, 
 medicine, and the arts of life, are His gifts. Society, laws, 
 government, He is their sanction. The pageant of earthly 
 royalty has the semblance and the benediction of the Eternal 
 King. Peace and civilization, commerce and adventure, 
 wars when just, conquest when humane and necessary, 
 have His co-operation, and His blessing upon them. . . . 
 " He enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world." 
 His are the dictates of the moral sense, and the retributive 
 reproaches of conscience. To Him must be ascribed the 
 rich endowments of the intellect, the radiation of genius, 
 the imagination of the poet, the sagacity of the politician, 
 the wisdom, (as Scripture calls it) which now rears and 
 decorates the temple, now manifests itself in proverb or in 
 parable. The old saws of nations, the majestic precepts of 
 philosophy, the luminous maxims of law, the oracles of 
 
Appendix. 127 
 
 individual wisdom, the traditionary rules of truth, justice, 
 and religion, even though embedded in the corruption, or 
 alloyed with the pride of the world, bespeak His original 
 agency, and His long-suffering presence. Even where there 
 is habitual rebellion against Him, or profound far-spreading 
 social depravity, still the undercurrent, or the heroic out- 
 burst of natural virtue, as well as the yearnings of the heart 
 after what it has not, and its presentment of its true 
 remedies are to be ascribed to the Author of all good. 
 Anticipations or reminiscences of His glory haunt the 
 mind of the self-sufficient sage, and of the pagan devotee : 
 His writing is upon the wall, whether of the Indian fane 
 or of the porticoes of Greece. He introduces Himself, He 
 all but concurs, according to his good pleasure, and in His 
 selected season, in the issues of unbelief, superstition, and 
 false worship, and changes the character of acts by His 
 overruling operation. He condescends, though he gives no 
 sanction, to the altars and shrines of imposture, and He 
 makes His own fiat the substitute for its sorceries. He 
 speaks amid the incantations of Balaam, raises Samuel's 
 spirit in the witch's cavern, prophesies of the Messias by 
 the tongue of the Sibyl, forces Python to recognize His 
 ministers, and baptizes by the hand of the unbeliever. He 
 is with the heathen dramatist in his denunciations of 
 injustice and tyranny, and his auguries of divine vengeance 
 upon crime. Even on the unseemly legends of a popular 
 mythology He casts His shadow, and is dimly discerned in 
 the ode or the epic as in troubled waters or in fantastic 
 dreams. All that is good, all that is true, all that is 
 beautiful, all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it 
 perfect or fragmentary, natural as well as supernatural, 
 moral as well as material comes from Him.' (On University 
 Education. Discourse III. Dublin, 1852.) 
 
128 Appendix. 
 
 It is right to add that, as on the one hand some authors 
 have professed Theism while falling short of what such a 
 profession should include when rightly understood, so, on 
 the other hand, we occasionally meet with assertions which 
 seem somewhat extravagant in the enlargement of the 
 meaning of the term, and with accusations of Atheism, 
 which have been unfairly directed. An example of the 
 first-named fault occurs in a recent number of the Dublin 
 Review, where one of the contributors to that serial writes 
 as follows : ' We are far from saying that the religion of 
 our fellow-countrymen is not, as far as it goes, a good thing, 
 but how many of them, in their millions, believe in the 
 Trinity, or in the Divinity of Christ, or in sin and grace ? 
 And the man who does not believe in these things cannot 
 believe in God, in the true and catholic sense of that word.' 
 (No. for July 1884, p. 147, Art. 'Pope Leo XIII. and the 
 Freemasons.') 
 
 I do not pause to discuss the profound and interesting 
 question how far real belief in God, such as may be taught 
 even by natural religion, prepares the mind for the reception 
 of sublime verities, such as those of the Holy Trinity, and 
 the Incarnation, which have only been learned from revealed 
 religion. But it is obvious that to include in the idea of 
 Theism truths not explicitly known before the dawn of the 
 Christian revelation must exclude from the ranks of Theists 
 not merely Mohammedans, but also the spiritual forefathers 
 of Christians the patriarchs, kings, prophets, and people 
 of the older covenant, of whom we are assured that ' these 
 all died according to faith.' 
 
 I have been anxious in these Lectures to write in the 
 spirit of a founder of earlier date, the celebrated Robert 
 Boyle, who enjoined those elected to his lectureship to dis- 
 cuss fundamental truths of religion, c not descending lower 
 
Appendix. 129 
 
 to any controversies that are among Christians themselves.' 
 I have derived great assistance from the works of Christians 
 of almost every leading denomination, from Fathers and 
 Schoolmen, from Lutherans, from Presbyterians, Anglicans, 
 Roman Catholics, and even from Unitarians. It is, conse- 
 quently, in no polemic spirit that I make the above quot- 
 ation from the Dublin Review. If I were inclined to con- 
 trovert it in detail, I should begin by appealing to the very 
 opposite language employed by such writers as Father 
 Gratry and Cardinal Newman. 
 
 Two other forms of an unreal character of quasi-Theism 
 ought perhaps to have been more fully noticed, though they 
 hardly deserve it. The one is the creed of men who accept 
 the doctrine of a Supreme Creator and Governor of the 
 universe, but do not allow that He is omniscient and omni- 
 potent. Such a being is not in any true sense God : and a 
 devout Theist feels instinctively that he could not cherish 
 towards such a Creator any approximation to real faith and 
 reverence, submissive awe or childlike trust. 
 
 The other form is that of the kind of Agnostic, who 
 says, 'I do not know whether God has conscious intelli- 
 gence.' A being who has not conscious intelligence is no 
 God to me : He is my inferior and not my superior. The 
 fact of my possessing conscious intelligence at once. places 
 me above any substance not similarly endowed. 'I am.' 
 says Pascal, ' a reed, but a reed that can think.' 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 IT has been intimated that I am desirous of following, how- 
 ever humbly and distantly, in the steps of the author of the 
 Advancement of Learning, who not only reports what has 
 been achieved in the various departments of knowledge, but 
 also sets down those which appear to him deficient. My 
 survey, however, unlike that of Bacon, is a comparatively 
 narrow one. 
 
 The literature on the relation between science and 
 religion is becoming an immense one. How much of it 
 will survive must be a question for posterity. On one side 
 it touches the question treated in these Lectures, namely, 
 where it is admitted that an a priori element is involved in 
 the discussion of the points at issue. Illustrations abound. 
 I must be content to refer to Mr. Balfour's Philosophic Doubt, 
 and to a paper read before the Victoria Society by Bishop 
 Cotterill. 
 
 There is one department of this subject which seems to 
 me to be well worthy of further investigation by competent 
 thinkers. I refer to the question of what have been often 
 called (I believe justly) necessary truths. Their nature 
 has been stated and explained by Kant, Hamilton, Mansel, 
 M'Cosh, and many others. Some, like M'Cosh and the 
 late Dr. Ward, have shown their intimate connexion with 
 the argument for the being of God. 
 
Appendix. 131 
 
 It would, I think, be accepted as a fair statement of the 
 case, if I were to say that these eminent writers recognize 
 three conditions of a necessary truth ; namely (1) that it be 
 of such a nature as to be recognized as true by all persons 
 of fairly sane and developed intellect; (2) that it carries 
 along with it its own evidence ; (3) that it be of such char- 
 acter as that we cannot conceive a state of things in which 
 it should cease to be true. 
 
 These truths have been believed to be especially promi- 
 nent in the realm of metaphysical, moral, and mathematical 
 science. Metaphysical, e.g. 'No change can take place in 
 phenomena without a cause.' Moral, e.g. 'I am bound to 
 restore to my friend, on his demand, a thing which he 
 entrusted to my charge.' Mathematical, e.g. l Things which 
 are equal to the same are equal to each other.' 'Two added 
 to two equals four.' 
 
 Assaults are at this moment being made upon all three 
 of these alleged specimens of necessary truth. 
 
 A man of the first rank among lecturers on physical 
 science, Professor Helmholtz, declares that 'he tries to 
 impress upon his pupils, whenever he can, the principle 
 that " a metaphysical conclusion is either a false conclusion 
 or a concealed experimental conclusion.'" Metaphysicians 
 may find it necessary to accept this challenge. I quoted 
 the words of Helmholtz to a distinguished Edinburgh pro- 
 fessor (not the occupant of a chair of mental science), and 
 he gave me, by way of reply, the following comment, ' that 
 means that he is a metaphysician, and a metaphysician of a 
 bad school.' This comment I believe to be as true as it is 
 pithy. The words of Helmholtz remind me of persons who 
 denounce all casuistry as pernicious and sophistical, and 
 
 1 Popular Scientific Lectures (Second Series), English Translation, 
 p. 234. London, Longmans and Co., 1880. 
 
132 Appendix. 
 
 then in the same breath proceed to discuss the question 
 whether this or that species of amusement is or is not lawful 
 for a Christian man to indulge in ; a question which in any 
 case must needs involve the whole principle of casuistry. 
 
 2. Necessary truth in morals may be described in the 
 admirable words of Dr. Martineau, which I have already 
 quoted. 'Nor can any one be penetrated with the dis- 
 tinction between right and wrong, without recognizing it as 
 valid for all free beings, and incapable of local or arbitrary 
 change.' Many will remember the story told by Herodotus 
 of the Spartan Glaucus, son of Epicydes, who, having re- 
 ceived a deposit, afterwards denied the fact, and then con- 
 sulted the oracle at Delphi. The solemn answer warned 
 him that for merely having thought of such a deed (though he 
 was penitent and did not carry it out in practice) his race 
 should utterly perish. And this, says the historian, came 
 to pass. The Roman satirist, Juvenal, a writer not too 
 favourable to Grecian literature, singles out this narrative 
 for special approbation. 1 
 
 We are told that the doctrine of Evolution saps this 
 certitude. Now I am, I believe, correct in asserting that 
 the great teacher of Evolution, Darwin, never asserted his 
 own view to be more than an hypothesis. The Professor 
 of Botany in Edinburgh, Mr. Dickson, has declared his 
 conviction, as a man of science, that it is an hypothesis ; 
 which, however ingenious, is thus far non-proven, and that 
 it is one which, in all probability, never will be proven. 
 Virchow, the first pathologist in Europe, if I understand 
 him rightly, endorses the first part of Professor Dickson's 
 verdict. Is it not then a little too early to plan attempts 
 at reconciliation between the foundation of morals and an 
 unproven theory 1 
 
 1 Herodotus (lib. vi. cap. 86) ; Juvenalis (Sat. xiii. 202). 
 
Appendix. 133 
 
 In saying this I fully recognize what Mr. Darwin him- 
 self allowed namely, that the theory of Evolution, as 
 taught by him, is quite compatible with Theism, and that 
 many religious men seem inclined either wholly or par- 
 tially to adopt it, among whom are Dr. Asa Gray, Bishop 
 Cotterill, the Eev. David Greig, possibly also Mr. Mivart 
 and Mr. Justin M'Carthy. With the last-named writer I 
 entirely believe that the hypothesis of Evolution may be 
 held in such wise as not to interfere with true religion, 
 natural or revealed. Nor does it seem to me at all incon- 
 ceivable that the Creator of all things may have so ordered 
 them as that, when matter reaches a certain stage, mind 
 may supervene. Consequently I should be sorry to rest 
 any cause upon such a basis, as that a proven instance of 
 abiogenesis would destroy it. 1 
 
 3. There remains the question of necessary truth in 
 mathematical science. This branch of knowledge was by 
 many regarded as the very stronghold of illustrations of 
 the very meaning of the phrase necessary truth. And in 
 such light it is still regarded in many quarters. Let me 
 cite a recent instance. In Bishop Temple's Bampton Lec- 
 tures for 1884 we read the following: 'We attach, and 
 cannot help attaching, a conviction of necessity to all 
 mathematical reasoning. We not only know that two 
 straight lines cannot enclose a space, but we know that 
 this is so, and must be so, in all places and at all times, and 
 we know it without any proof whatever' (p. 15). 
 
 In the next page the view of John Stuart Mill, that 
 the conviction of the necessity of mathematical truth is a 
 
 1 Hence I am compelled, with regret, to admit the existence of a 
 certain distrust of that brilliant and wondrously popular work by 
 Professor Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, though 
 in many ways it seems to have done much good. 
 
134 Appendix. 
 
 delusion is set aside (justly, I conceive, so far as Mill's 
 reasoning is concerned) on the ground that it fails to 
 account for all the facts. 
 
 But a more formidable (I do not say a finally successful) 
 assault proceeds from another quarter. It comes from the 
 distinguished mathematicians and physiologists who are 
 teaching what is termed non-Euclidean geometry. Their 
 case against the necessary character of at least some of the 
 axioms of geometry may be read in the Lectures of Helm- 
 holtz already quoted, and in a paper read before the Royal 
 Society of Edinburgh, in October 1880, by the occupant of 
 the Chair of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, 
 Professor Chrystal. 1 
 
 Is it possible that the question concerning the existence 
 or non-existence of necessary truth may become, in certain 
 minds, mixed up with the question of the Being of God 1 
 Several thinkers, men of diverse training and temperament, 
 would answer this question in the affirmative. We may 
 name, for example, the late Dr. G. Ward, Dr. M'Cosh, and 
 others. But a more pertinent example is at hand. The 
 late William Kingdon Clifford, having in youth been a 
 sincere believer in Christianity, became an ardent atheist 
 so ardent that a man of large and varied attainments, 
 both in physical science and other departments of know- 
 ledge, has been heard to say that Clifford seemed to him 
 like one who would really like to persecute Christianity. 
 He persuaded himself that all knowledge is derived from 
 experience. ' He saw, however,' to quote the words of Mr. 
 Mallock, * that there was one great difficulty in the way of 
 this theory, and that was the necessity and the universality 
 
 1 This paper (re-printed and published by David Douglas, Edin- 
 burgh, 1880) was read at the request of the Council of the Royal 
 Society of Edinburgh. 
 
Appendix. 135 
 
 of the truths of geometry.' l From this difficulty he at- 
 tempted to escape, and persuaded himself that he had 
 escaped by enthusiastically adopting the opinions of the 
 non-Euclidean geometers, Lobatchewsky and his followers. 
 Clifford maintained that this school had proved that geo- 
 metrical truths are neither necessarily nor universally true 
 now, and that in the remote past they may not have been 
 true at all. Hence Clifford argued that the change was 
 one of transcendent importance, being, in fact, a change 
 in our conception of the cosmos. 'Were,' he says, 'the 
 Euclidean assumptions true, the constitution of the uni- 
 verse at an infinite distance from us would be as well 
 known as the geometry of this room, so that here we should 
 have real knowledge of something at least that concerns 
 the cosmos something that is true throughout the immen- 
 sities and eternities. That something Lobatchewsky and 
 his followers have taken away.' Clifford hence argued 
 that we have no reason for believing in an immaterial soul, 
 and no parallels by which to illustrate and support a belief 
 in a theological intuition. 2 
 
 We need a scientist (one who, like Descartes, is competent 
 to handle problems metaphysical as well as mathematical) 
 to discuss the real relation between the non-Euclidean geo- 
 metry and the question of necessary truth. The author of 
 the Bampton Lectures for 1884 might well undertake such 
 a task, if the supervision of the see which he now holds 
 can leave him any leisure for its accomplishment. Mean- 
 while it may be observed that the paper by Professor 
 Chrystal does not appear to go the length of Professor 
 Clifford's theories in regarding experience as our sole in- 
 structor. ' It might be granted,' says Mr. Chrystal, ' as I 
 
 1 Atheism and the Value of Life (London, 1884), pp. 45-47. 
 2 Mallock, ubi supra. 
 
136 Appendix. 
 
 for the most part take it to be, that any axioms that can 
 be made the foundation of a consistent reasoned system are 
 given d priori' (p. 6). 1 And I think that, even if it should 
 prove impossible to regard all the axioms of Euclid as 
 necessary truths, some of them, as also the elementary 
 truths concerning number, may still be ranked within that 
 category. Other writers may lend assistance. Thus, for 
 example, there is much that is suggestive in the Hampton 
 Lectures of Mr. Jackson, though I have failed to grasp with 
 precision his view concerning the relation between deduc- 
 tive and inductive truth, and cannot but regret the extreme 
 one-sidedness of many of his references to history.. The 
 Boston Monday Lectures for 1884, by Mr. Joseph Cook, also 
 touch upon these themes. Mr. Goldwin Smith has been 
 lending the powerful aid of his pen towards an exhibition 
 of the peril involved in some evolutionary theories of 
 morality. 2 If I do not speak of the gratitude also due to 
 the late Professor Clerk Maxwell and to the authors of 
 The Unseen Universe (Professors Tait and Balfour Stewart), 
 it is because I suppose the works of those writers to be 
 more immediately connected with the a posteriori rather 
 than with the a priori arguments for religion, and because 
 The Unseen Universe starts from the assumption of Theism. 
 On similar grounds, though with more diffidence, I pass 
 by Canon Mozley's Sermon on Nature ; the amplifications 
 and additions to its arguments by my friend and colleague, 
 Dr. Dowden, in his discourse on the same theme ; the cele- 
 brated works of Mr. Euskin, and the writings of the 
 lamented Principal Shairp. 
 
 1 I cite Professor Chrystal's paper as a source of information, and 
 not as in the least degree wishing to make him responsible for any 
 inferences drawn by Clifford from Pangeometry. 
 
 2 I refer to the article in the Contemporary Review for June 1882, 
 and to subsequent defences of the author's position. 
 
POSTSCEIPT. 
 
 CIRCUMSTANCES, with which it is not necessary to trouble 
 the reader, have rendered the delay between the delivery 
 and the publication of these Lectures longer than I had 
 intended it to be, and longer than is desirable. But I take 
 the opportunity of the delay to add a few last words on 
 (a) the subject of Kant and the d priori view ; (b) and on 
 the alleged Pantheism of Plato. I must also (c) add some- 
 thing concerning Spinoza. 
 
 (a) The writer who first suggested to me the difference 
 between a concept, such as that of the unicorn (false in 
 itself but compounded of two real entities, a horse and a 
 horn), and an idea which cannot be thus severed into parts, 
 such as the idea of God and of the soul, was a French 
 barrister, M. Nicolas. It is employed at the very outset 
 of his Etudes ^Philosophiques sur le Christianisme (Paris, 1851. 
 seventh ed.). But I have since found it in some work of 
 earlier date, though I cannot recollect where possibly in 
 one of the treatises of De Maistre. It may be much earlier 
 than this. Anselm has, I think, a partial but only a 
 partial glimpse of the matter. In his reply to Gaunilo 
 he seems to see the difference between our concept of a 
 picture which is not yet produced, but only exists in the 
 painter's mind, and our idea of the Divine nature. 
 
138 Postscript. 
 
 The further argument, that this idea of a thing which is 
 single and indiscerptible is a strong plea for the true exist- 
 ence of the thing thus imaged to us, is disallowed by Kant. 
 I am glad to find that in maintaining that Anselm has a 
 real case in this matter, and that Kant has not quite done 
 justice to its force, I can claim some measure of support 
 from the writings of Principal Tulloch, of Professor Edward 
 Caird, and of Principal Caird. Principal Tulloch speaks as 
 follows : 
 
 'In the same point of view we see the fallacy of the 
 Kantian doctrine of the infinite. Admitting it as a regulat- 
 ing idea of human knowledge, Kant yet denied to it any 
 objective validity. The idea according to him might be 
 necessary to us, and yet not represent a reality. And so 
 it might, were the ideal or notional the mode in which the 
 infinite is alone present to us. But this is so far from 
 being the case that the idea as present in the understanding 
 is only the dim reflection of the fact present in reason. 
 The infinite comes to us intuitively, and not notionally, and 
 in this the very mode of its apprehension affirms its reality. 
 The soul looks upward, and the light of the infinite dawns 
 upon it. It presents itself as an objective presence a self- 
 revealing vision and is not wrought out as a mere ideal 
 projection from our mental restlessness. It is felt to be a 
 reality, containing and conditioning the soul, which, with 
 all its power, it cannot think away ; and this it would not 
 be were it a mere created form of the soul.' (Burnett Prize 
 Essay on Theism, p. 280. Edinburgh, 1855.) 
 
 A little farther on Dr. Tulloch proceeds to say that 
 
 * It is now admitted on all hands that Kant's denial of 
 objectivity to the pure reason and his virtual readmission 
 of their reality as postulates of the practical reason is the 
 most inconsequent and feeble portion of his whole philo- 
 
Postscript. 139 
 
 sophy. . . . We have in the last case no higher name for 
 knowledge everywhere than belief. And this belief, as Sir 
 Wm. Hamilton says, " is mistaken by Kant when recognized 
 as a mere spiritual craving." It is rather "an immediate 
 manifestation to intelligence, not as a postulate, but as a 
 datum not as an interest in certain truths, but as the fact, 
 the principle, the warrant of their cognition and reality.'" 1 
 
 Without claiming Professor Edward Caird as an actual 
 supporter of the d priori argument for the being of God, 
 it may be said that he is evidently unprepared to commit 
 himself to its rejection on the ground adopted by Kant. 
 
 * Pure thought cannot be conceived as dwelling in itself, 
 but only as relating to existence, to a world in time and 
 space; and it is only (1) through the opposition between 
 itself and such a world ; and (2) through the transcendence 
 of that opposition that it can come to the full consciousness 
 of itself. In the language of theology, the ontological 
 argument expresses the doctrine that God as a spirit is 
 necessarily self-revealing to the world.' Philosophy of Kant, 
 chap, xviii. 
 
 Dr. Caird seems to show more marked favour to the 
 Anselmian argument. 
 
 ' The Ontological Argument, as commonly stated, finds in 
 the very idea of God the proof of His existence. The 
 thought of God in the mind demonstrates His Being.' 
 
 The Principal then proceeds, as his brother has also 
 done, to exhibit the weakness of such reasoning if applied 
 to food, or raiment, or (as in Kant's illustration) to dollars. 
 But presently he adds 
 
 1 For a somewhat different and perhaps more favourable view of 
 Kant, see an article in the Fortnightly Review (May 1844), 'The 
 Speculative Basis of Unbelief,' by a most acute metaphysician, the Rev. 
 David Greig. 
 
1 40 Postscript. 
 
 1 It is difficult, however, to conceive that an argument, 
 of which the refutation seems so easy and obvious, could 
 have imposed itself on thinkers such as those above named; 
 and on closer examination we shall find that, imperfect as 
 may be the form in which it has often been presented, the 
 principle of this argument is that on which our whole 
 religious consciousness may be said to rest. 
 
 ' It is quite true that there are many things of which, 
 from the mere idea or conception of them in our minds, we 
 cannot infer the objective existence. If existence means, 
 as in the case of Kant's dollars, the accidental existence of 
 particular objects for sensuous perception, such an existence 
 we cannot infer from thought. It is indeed of the very 
 nature of such things that, regarded simply in themselves, 
 they either may or may not be ; and to infer their necessary 
 existence from the idea of them would be in direct con- 
 tradiction with that idea. But there are other ideas with 
 respect to which this does not hold good ; and there is 
 especially one idea which, whether we are explicitly or only 
 implicitly conscious of it, so proves its reality from thought, 
 that thought itself becomes impossible without it. Its 
 absolute objective reality is so fundamental to thought that 
 to doubt it implies the subversion of all thought and all 
 existence alike.' Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 
 (Glasgow, 1880), pp. 153-156. 
 
 Principal Caird appears to me to throw himself more 
 completely on Anselm's side than I have done. But I am 
 far from presuming to say that he may not be in the right. 
 
 THE ALLEGED PANTHEISM OF PLATO. 
 
 The admirable scholarship, the philosophic thought, the 
 acquaintance with German editions and criticisms of Plato, 
 
 
Postscript. 141 
 
 and the independence of mind displayed by Mr. E. D. 
 Archer-Hind and Mr. Henry Jackson in their treatment of 
 the Platonic dialogues might almost justify us in calling 
 them 'the New Cambridge Platonists.' Whether further 
 study may bring me round to an opinion expressed by one 
 of these gentlemen I cannot tell. But for the present, after 
 some renewal of my own inquiries, and after conversations 
 held with two of the best Greek scholars in this city, both 
 of whom are conversant with such themes, I find myself 
 unable to subscribe to the verdict of Mr. Archer -Hind 
 when, in the Introduction to his very valuable edition of 
 the Phcedo, he speaks of 'the matured Pantheism of the 
 TimcBUS.' How far I can go with him may be judged from 
 the following statements : 
 
 The phrase 'matured Pantheism' implies that such an 
 eschatology was not developed in the earlier dialogues. 
 Thus much, indeed, our critic seems, in the context, dis- 
 tinctly to admit. 'Even were it shown,' he says, 'that 
 personal immortality is inadmissible in the Timceus, it does 
 not follow that it is so in the Phcedo.' 
 
 But if we look back to a still earlier date, we must 
 surely hold that Plato did not merely hint at, but emphati- 
 cally assert a belief in personal immortality, unless we 
 assume that the utterances ascribed to Socrates afford us no 
 clue to the convictions of Plato himself. For towards the 
 close of the Apologia, when Socrates is trying to impress 
 upon his hearers his conviction that death will be a gain, he 
 reserves to the last the prospect of possibly conversing with 
 poets such as Orpheus and Musaeus, Hesiod and Homer, and 
 with victims of unrighteous judgments, such as Palamedes 
 and Ajax, son of Telamon. The possibility of nothing- 
 ness, of dreamless sleep, is indeed mentioned. But 
 absorption into an impersonal Anima Mundi and loss of 
 
142 Postscript. 
 
 individuality appears to have no place in the speaker's 
 thoughts. 
 
 That Plato taught a real Theism has been the impres- 
 sion left upon minds very differently trained; such as, 
 for example, those of Coleridge, Father Gratry, Eowland 
 Williams, Davis, Dollinger. Williams and Davis make 
 special appeal to the Timceus. I have elsewhere 1 cited 
 a few sentences which, taken by themselves, appear to 
 favour this view. 'To discover, then, the Creator and 
 Father of this universe (rov TTOI^T^V KOI Trarepa rovSe 
 rov Trai/ro?) is difficult, and that he who has discovered 
 Him should announce Him to all men is impossible ' (p. 29). 
 'But when the Creator Father (o yevvrjcras Trarrjp) per- 
 ceived that this created image of the eternal gods was 
 endued with motion and life (/civvjOev avrb /cal %cov 
 evevorjae), He was delighted, and from His joy sought to 
 render it still more like to its pattern.' Another passage, 
 to which Mr. Rowland Williams calls particular attention, 
 occurs in pp. 47, 48 of the Timceus, on the gift of sight and 
 the other senses as imparted by God to man. 
 
 I am, however, compelled, on reconsidering the question, 
 with the aid of the friends to whom I have referred and of 
 the Introduction to this dialogue by Professor Jowett, to 
 admit that there do appear to be some blemishes upon the 
 clearness and precision of the doctrine of Theism as set 
 forth by Plato. He is not perfectly consistent. He seems 
 to admit the existence of matter moving about in an inhar- 
 monious and disorderly manner (icivovpzvov 7r\r}/uL/jie\a)^ 
 teal aTaKTWs), a chaos, in short, which is coeval with God. 
 This is, indeed, the common teaching of Greek philosophy. 
 But it is an assault, however unconscious, on the first pre- 
 
 1 In an article contributed to The Church Quarterly Review of April 
 1877, headed ' Pantheism From the Vedas to Spinoza ' (p. 17, note). 
 
Postscript. 143 
 
 rogative of the Creator, His Almightiness ; for if anything 
 has existed without His leave then He is not Almighty. 
 'The Creator in Plato,' says Dr. Jowett (p. 568), 'is still 
 subject to a remnant of necessity which He cannot wholly 
 overcome.' ' The Platonic compared with the Jewish de- 
 scription of the process of creation has less of freedom or 
 spontaneity.' The part assigned to man in the Timceus 
 (though apparently modified, perhaps we might say cor- 
 rected, in the Laws, book x. p. 903) may be thought to 
 leave an opening for Pantheism, and such passages do not 
 stand alone. Still I fail to perceive a doctrine of matured 
 Pantheism. 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 I am sorry to find myself, on the subject of Spinoza, at 
 variance with so calm, learned, and candid a thinker as 
 Principal Fairbairn, who believes that Spinoza wrought 
 well for the doctrine of Theism. But I am unable to 
 retract a single word. To my thinking Mr. Leslie Stephen 
 and Mr. Matthew Arnold thus far make for me, in that 
 they are thoroughly conscious of the profound gulf between 
 Spinozism and Hebraism. The Jews of the Portuguese 
 synagogue at Amsterdam, in A.D. 1656, excommunicated 
 Spinoza. ' They,' says Mr. Arnold, ' remained children of 
 Israel, and he became a child of modern Europe.' Must 
 we not add, ' Immune quantum discrepat'? 
 
 Professor Edward Caird, though giving Spinoza credit 
 for good motives, and even willing to accept the strange 
 eulogy of Novalis, who called Spinoza ' a God-intoxicated 
 man,' yet admits that ' Spinoza has been called an Atheist, 
 not witlwut reason, if we look at his system from the outside, 
 and in its ultimate logical results? 1 
 
 1 Philosophy of Kant (p. 43). 
 
1 44 Postscript. 
 
 1 Spinoza/ said the late Principal Le Bas to me, ' may 
 have believed in a God, but it was a God whom I should 
 as soon think of worshipping as I should of falling down 
 before the force of gravitation.' I might cite similar lan- 
 guage from the Prize Essay on Theism by the Kev. W. 
 Anchor Thomson, but I prefer to close with the often- 
 quoted words of Niebuhr. Mr. Fairbairn maintains that 
 Spinoza has benefited Christianity. But Niebuhr said, ' A 
 Christianity after the fashion of the modern philosophers 
 and Pantheists, without a personal God, without immortal- 
 ity, without human individuality, without historical faith, 
 is no Christianity at all to me ; though it may be a very 
 intellectual, very ingenious faith-philosophy.' * 
 
 1 Life and Letters (vol. ii. p. 123). While I am writing, the report 
 of a similar reply by the Rev. Dr. Walter Smith has reached me. It 
 is an expansion, clothed in language of much beauty, to an invitation 
 to substitute belief in ' the stream of tendency ' for belief in Theism 
 and in Christianity. (See Scotsman newspaper of 26th December 1885.) 
 The late Bishop Cotton of Calcutta, in his primary charge, has also 
 spoken of the deadening tendency of Pantheism. He spoke from 
 experience of its effects in India. 
 
ADDENDUM. 
 
 MUCH has been written concerning the force and prac- 
 tical authority of truths for which the proof falls short of 
 absolute demonstration. It might suffice to refer to Bishop 
 Butler's well-known dictum, in his introduction to the 
 Analogy, that ' to us Probability is the very guide of life,' 
 on which that wonderful treatise is so largely a comment. 
 The question also occupies considerable space in Cardinal 
 Newman's Grammar of Assent, and is there treated with 
 much candour as well as ability (see esp. Part II., chap, vi.) 
 But to the slight references to this question made by me 
 in pages 84 and 130, I wish to add the following: (1) 
 The Lecture headed ' What is Science ? ' delivered in Glas- 
 gow by the Duke of Argyll, and re-published in Good 
 Words (vol. for 1885, p. 236); (2) a passage from M. 
 Ozanam's Civilization in the Fifth Century, which runs as 
 follows : ' The power of theology lies in its being the parent 
 soil of faith and love. And mankind only loves what it 
 takes upon trust, not what it can easily compass ; the not 
 understanding a thing is the condition of loving it; and 
 whatever is capable of mathematical demonstration gives 
 little or no warmth to the heart. Who has ever been in 
 love with an axiom, with a truth that leaves no need of 
 further search 1 The unknown is the most powerful con- 
 
146 Addendum. 
 
 stituent of love, for nothing fascinates the human mind like 
 mystery ; and, on the contrary, we soon weary of what we 
 comprehend. Mystery is the secret of love, and in love 
 there is faith.' l 
 
 1 Although I have long known and possessed M. Ozanam's book, I 
 owe the recollection of this passage to an article on ' The Mysteries of 
 Revelation and of Nature ' in The Quiver for November 1884, by my 
 own diocesan, Bishop Cotterill. Frederick Robertson of Brighton has 
 something like it in one of his Sermons, but I have mislaid my refer- 
 
 
INDEX. 
 
 AESCHYLUS, his teaching, 101. 
 
 Agnosticism, Mr. Harrison's cri- 
 tique upon it (from Fortnightly 
 Review, February 1885), 50; con- 
 temned by the atheist Buchner, 
 42, 93 ; criticism of it, 104-105. 
 
 Alice, the Princess, her struggle 
 with doubt, and conquest over 
 it, 5, 6. 
 
 Allardyce, Mr., his tale, A City of 
 Sunshine (London, 1872), 112. 
 
 Andersen, Hans Christian, quoted, 
 66. 
 
 Anselm, St., one of the three 
 writers specially prominent in 
 the use of the d, priori argument, 
 14 ; date of his birth, 22 ; Prior, 
 and then Abbot of Bee, ibid; 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, ibid ; 
 combines desire of knowledge 
 with faith, 23 ; his eulogists, 
 ibid ; his Cur Deus Homo, 24 ; 
 his Monologium and Proslogium, 
 24-30 ; criticism of his argument, 
 31-37 ; how far original, 38-48 ; 
 his followers and opponents, see 
 Descartes and Kant; recent critics, 
 see Cousin, Bouchitte", Flint, 
 ^ Tulloch, Caird. 
 
 A posteriori argument for Theism, 
 
 the most obvious and best known, 
 13 ; sanctioned by Socrates, by 
 Cicero, by St. Paul, ibid; Paley's 
 work based upon it, Dr. Mozley's 
 support of it, ibid ; is it wholly 
 separable from the a priori argu- 
 ment? 87, 88. 
 
 A priori argument for Theism, 
 suggested by Plato, 44-48 ; em- 
 ployed by St. Augustine, 39-41 ; 
 but first formalized by St. Anselm, 
 41 ; names of eminent supporters, 
 83. 
 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas, his agreement 
 with Anselm doubtful, 54. 
 
 Archer-Hind, Mr., on Plato, 140- 
 144. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, his Essay on 
 Science, 145. 
 
 Aristotle, 46, 107. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, on Spinoza, 143. 
 
 Atheism, historic case against it, 
 8-12. 
 
 Augustine, St., his De Trinitate 
 quoted, 39-41 ; his Confessions 
 quoted, 116 ; Anselm's debt to 
 him, 38, 41. 
 
 BACON, Francis, suggestion from his 
 Advancement of Learning, 130. 
 
148 
 
 Index. 
 
 Bouchitte, M., his version of An- 
 selm's Monologium and Pros- 
 logium, and his commentary, 32. 
 
 Broglie, Due de, his Questions de 
 Religion et d'Histoire (especially 
 the essay La Religion Naturelle], 
 Paris, 1860, 92-93. x 
 
 Buchner, his avowed Atheism ; de- 
 nounces Agnostics and the ad- 
 missions of Darwin and of Her- 
 bert Spencer, 42, 93. 
 
 Buddhism, 112. 
 
 Butler, Bishop, recognizes the d 
 priori argument, 51, 77, 79 ; his 
 dictum on the value of proba- 
 bility, 145. 
 
 C^DMON, the poet, 11. 
 
 Caird, Professor Edward, does not 
 accept Kant's line of argument 
 against Anselm, 139 ; on Spinoza, 
 143. 
 
 Caird, Rev. Principal, D.D., defends 
 against Kant the validity of the 
 Ontological argument, 139, 140. 
 
 Cause, Argument from (Clarke and 
 Mozley), 61-64. 
 
 Chaucer quoted, 7. 
 
 Chretien, Rev. C. P., his essay on 
 Logical Method (Oxford, 1848), 
 77. 
 
 Chrystal, Professor, on Non-Euc- 
 lidean Geometry, 134. 
 
 Clarke, Dr. Samuel, his Boyle 
 Lectures, his line of argument, 
 Dr. Mozley's re -statement of 
 Clarke's reasonings, 59-64. 
 
 i I have given an epitome of this essay 
 in the Christian Remembrancer for April 
 1868, in an article headed "Lines of De- 
 marcation," and based on it a reply to 
 the Duke of Somerset (London, Ridgway, 
 1872). 
 
 Cleanthes, the Stoic, a real Theist, 
 his noble hymn, 108. 2 
 
 Clifford, W. K., his Atheism, 134 ; 
 its connexion with the denial of 
 necessary truth, ibid. 
 
 Cotterill, Bishop, reference to, 130, 
 133, 146. 
 
 Cousin, M. Victor, a defender 
 (against Kant) of the d priori 
 line of argument, 32, 69. 
 
 Crusades, ages of ; question of 
 Theism versus Atheism not pro- 
 minent in those times, 53. 
 
 DANTE. Citation from the third 
 part of his Divina Commedia, 
 the Paradiso, 117, 118. 
 
 Demosthenes, his seemingly theistic 
 language, 108, 109 ; his recogni- 
 tion of the moral law, 110. 
 
 Descartes renews the Anselmian ar- 
 gument, 55 ; his versatility, ibid; 
 criticism of his contributions to 
 the subject, 55-57; how far 
 original, 57, 58 ; his influence in 
 this matter, 59. 
 
 Dickson, Professor, on Darwinism, 
 132. 
 
 Dryden, Dr. Johnson on his alleged 
 plagiarisms, 57. 
 
 Dublin Review, its apparent over- 
 statement of what is included in 
 Theism, 128. 
 
 EESKINE of Linlathen favours the 
 argument from conscience, 85. 
 
 2 Extracts from this hymn have often 
 been given, e.g. by the late Archbishop 
 Sumner in his Records of the Creation 
 (London, 1818). Compare Flint's Theism, 
 where full justice is done to Cleanthes 
 both as poet and reasoner. 
 
Index. 
 
 149 
 
 FAIKBAIRN, Rev. Principal, on 
 Spinoza, 143-44. 
 
 GASSENDI, an opponent of the Onto- 
 logical argument, 32. 
 
 Gaunilo, his criticism of Anselm, 
 35 ; Anselm's reply, 36. 
 
 Gibbon quoted, 9, 101. 
 
 Gillespie, Mr. Wm. Honyman, his 
 work on the d priori argument, 
 69 ; eulogists of it, 70 ; its line 
 of thought, 71-73; criticism, 75; 
 objections to it derived from the 
 philosophy of Kant, 76 ; reply, 
 ibid; from the philosophy of 
 Leibnitz, and reply, 77-78 ; other 
 objections and answers, 78-81. 
 
 Glaucus, son of Epicydes, his crime 
 and its penalty, 132. 
 
 Goreh, Rev. Father, on Hindoo 
 worship, 112. 
 
 Gratry, Rev. Father, his learning, 
 118 ; his work La Connaissance 
 de Dieu (Paris, 1853), ibid; claims 
 Aristotle as a Theist, 107 ; and 
 Plato, 142. 
 
 Greig, Rev. D., his essay on Un- 
 belief, 139 (note). 
 
 H ALLAM, Henry (historian), cites the 
 charges of plagiarism against Des- 
 cartes made by Leibnitz (Litera- 
 ture of Europe, London, 1837), 58. 
 
 Hallam, Arthur (son of the above), 
 his description of Hebrew Theism, 
 122, 123 ; of Christian Theism, 
 123 (note). 
 
 Helmholtz, Professor, his disbelief 
 of metaphysical science, 129. 
 
 Herodotus inclined to some sort of 
 Theism, 107. 
 
 Hindostan and Hindoo religion, 
 19, 20, 112, 114. 
 
 Hobbes and Huet, opponents of On- 
 tological argument, 32. 
 
 Hobbes an object of assault to 
 Clarke, 60. 
 
 Homer, his teaching mainly poly- 
 theistic, 107. 
 
 Horace, occasionally theistic in 
 tone, 106. 
 
 INDIA (see Hindostan). 
 
 JACKSON, Mr. Henry, on Plato, 141. 
 Jackson, Rev. W., his Bampton 
 
 Lectures, 136. 
 Jowett, Professor, his introduction 
 
 to Plato's Timceus (Plato's 
 
 Dialogues Translated, Oxford, 
 
 2ded., 1875), 142, 143. 
 Judaism, its Theism (see Strauss 
 
 and A. Hallam, also Spinoza). 
 
 KANT opposes the a priori as well as 
 the a posteriori argument for 
 Theism, 32, 59, 68 ; but employs 
 the argument fromconscience,85 ; 
 his views on time and space, 76, 
 77 ; on cause, 61 ; critics of 
 Kant (see Caird, Chretien, Greig, 
 Tulloch). 
 
 Koran, the, teaches a real Theism, 
 110. 
 
 LE BAS, Principal, on Spinoza, 144. 
 Lecky, W. E. H., reference to, 11 
 
 (see his European Morals, 3d ed. , 
 
 London, 1877). 
 Leibnitz questions the originality of 
 
 Descartes, 58 ; his views on time 
 
 and space, 77. 
 
 MACAULAY, Lord, on Hindoo re- 
 ligion, 113. 
 
Index. 
 
 M'Cosh, Rev. James, LL.D., his 
 defence of the existence of neces- 
 sary truths (see his Intuitions of 
 theMind, new ed., London, 1865), 
 130, 132. 
 
 Mallock, W. H., on the late Pro- 
 fessor Clifford, 134. 
 
 Martineau, Mr., his Studies of 
 
 Christianity, 85, 86. 
 Mohammed and Mohammedanism, 
 reality of its Theism, 3, 110, 
 112. 
 
 Mozley, Rev. Dr. (Reg. Professor 
 of Divinity at Oxford), restates 
 the argument from design, 13 ; 
 also the d priori one of Clarke, 
 61, 64; Sir J. Paget on his 
 merits, 60. 
 
 NEWMAN, Cardinal, favours the 
 argument for Theism derived 
 from conscience, 85 ; his descrip- 
 tion of what is involved in real 
 Theism, 124 ; his Grammar of 
 Assent, 146. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, passage from his 
 Principia on the relation of time 
 and space to their Creator, 80. 
 
 Niebuhr, B. G. (the historian), his 
 rejection of Pantheism, 144. 
 
 OVID, clearness of his distinction 
 between a Creator and things 
 created, 44, 106. 
 
 Ozanam, M., on the fascination of 
 mystery, 145. 
 
 PANTHEISM, 8, 43, 100. 
 
 Paulicianism, a revival of Manichse- 
 
 ism, 101. 
 Perfection, the main idea in Anselm's 
 
 Monologium, 37 ; as also with 
 
 Augustine, 39, 40 ; and with 
 
 Plato, 45, 48. 
 Plato, germ of d, priori argument in 
 
 his works, 41, 48 ; did he only 
 
 teach Pantheism ? 140, 143. 
 Pliny (the elder) Epicurean in words, 
 
 nobly Stoic in his life and death, 
 
 111. 
 
 SOPHOCLES, recognition in his Anti- 
 gone of the eternal nature of the 
 moral law, 110. 
 
 Strauss, his description of Jewish 
 Theism, 119, 121. 
 
 Sufis, their infusion of a pantheistic 
 element into Mohammedanism, 
 111. 
 
 TIME and Space. Appealed to by 
 Clarke, 64 ; by Gillespie, 70, 71 ; 
 view of Kant, 76; of Leibnitz, 
 77 ; of Newton, 80. 
 
 Tulloch, Rev. Principal (the late), 1 
 his defence of the a priori argu- 
 ment against Kant, 138, 139. 
 
 WABD, Rev. Mr. (Baptist mission- 
 ary), on Hindooism, 113. 
 
 Ward, Dr. Win. Geo. (the late), 
 his Philosophy of Theism (Lon- 
 don, 1884), 85, 103 (note). 
 
 i It is with much regret that in the 
 concluding pages of this volume I find 
 myself obliged thus to describe the Prin- 
 cipal of St. Andrews. 
 
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