If!
%
w
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN
RELIGION
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
RELIGION AND SCIENCE: Some Sug-
gestions for the Study of the Relations
between them. Crown Svo, is, 6d. net.
(Handbooks for the Clergy.)
THE AGE OF DECISION : Sermons.
Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net.
SCIENCE AND FAITH. Crown 8vo,
sewed, 6d. (Pusey House Papers.)
SCIENCE AND CONDUCT. Crown 8vo,
sewed, 6d. (Pusey House Papers.)
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY
THE
SCIENTIFIC TEMPER
IN RELIGION
AND OTHER ADDRESSES
BY THE
REV. P. N. WAGGETT, M.A.
OF THE SOCIETY OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1905
*
All rights reserved
" A Philosopher's life is spent in discovering that of the half
dozen truths he knew when a child, such an one is a lie, as the world
states it in set terms ; and then, after a weary lapse of years and
plenty of hard thinking, it becomes a truth again after all, as he
happens to newly consider it and view it in a different relation with
the others."
Robert Browning
(Ogniben in A Soul's Tragedy, Act II.).
" Was kann der Mensch im Leben mehr gewinnen,
Als dass sich Gott-Natur ihni offenbare,
Wie sie das Feste I'asst zu Geist verrinnen,
Wie sie das Geisterzeugte fest bewahre."
Goethe
{Bei Betrachtung njon Scliiller's Schddel).
Man through his life can win no richer prize
Than if he God-in-nature realise :
How that resolves the solid into soul
And keeps the soul's creations ever whole."
W. H. B.
"Ex uno Verbo omnia, et unum loquitur omnia: et hoc est
Principixim (]uod et loquitur nobis."
De Ifnitatione Christ i, I. iii.
TO MY FATHER
PREFACE
The following chapters, with the exception of
the last, are taken from shorthand reports of
addresses given in St. Mark's Church, Maryle-
bourne, in Lent and May 1903.
The first five were reported at the time in the
Guardian and the Church Times, and I am much
obliged to the Proprietors of those Journals, both
for printing them then and for letting me print
them now.
Besides informalities, interjections, parentheses,
which would be avoided in a written lecture, there
are some features of impromptu speech which
are, I believe, in a measure necessary to keep a
number of minds moving together. They limit
the journey, for they greatly reduce its pace ; but
they make it a journey in companionship. I
mean the repetition of words and thoughts in
detail, and the frequent and full recapitulation of
the argument in broader lines.
Such marks of the nature of its origin I have
viii PREFACE
not been anxious to remove from the little book.
They may serve to recall to some readers the
intimacy which arises between generously con-
siderate hearers and the man whose turn it is to
speak ; especially perhaps when what he has to
say is, like Friar Brackley's sermon, " suddenly
said." ^
The experiment of dealing in Church with the
subjects here touched was made at such hours as
not to interrupt the regular sermons any more
than the regular services.
Without further reference to the present im-
perfect essay, I venture to add three words about
the general requirements of a conference upon
such subjects as are here attempted.
First, such a conference is not to be used for
giving rudimentary instruction in natural science.
The topics discussed may be those known to the
earliest student, but the knowledge must be
assumed. Otherwise, the whole time available for
the conference upon relations will be occupied in
explaining one of the terms, and this under the
1 Paston Letters, i, 511 : A.D. 1460. Friar Brackley to
William Paston. — "Jesii mercy, marie help, cum Sanctis omnibus,
trewe menyng executorjs ftVo fals terrauntcs and alle tribulacyonys.
. . . W. Y. Judex and hise wyt were here with here meny and here
hors in our ladyes place . . . ami I prechid on the Sonday byfore
hem, not warnyd tyl after mete, and than for lak of M. Vergeant, or
our W^ardeyn Barnard, I sodeynly seyd the sermon."
PREFACE ix
worst possible conditions. The rudimentary in-
struction is to be done in a class-room or theatre,
with a blackboard, raised seats, and specimens.
The hearers of the apologetical conference will
be those who have the measure of information
required, or are willing to gain it independently.
Secondly, while the speaker assumes some
scientific knowledge in the hearers, the hearers
must assume some religious knowledge in the
speaker. He must not pause, or at least not
often or long, to prove his own orthodoxy. The
great doctrines of grace cannot be illustrated,
though indeed they may be borne in the heart, by
a man who is speaking of the procedure of the
material creation. To take, for example, a topic
not touched in this book : if one were speaking
of the nature of man, of his hereditary equipment,
and the means or machinery or field for free
choice which exists in his fixed but manifold
constitution, one must not be taken to describe
a substitute for Divine Grace. The question of
the origin of all good and saving motives is
reserved ; and attention is directed only to a part
of the organism in which those motives operate.
A third point is, perhaps, practically most im-
portant. 1 believe that, in spite of what has just
been said, all abstract discussions and all con-
siderations of material facts must be warmed and
X PREFACE
refreshed by frequent returns to thoughts and
words of a different order ; I mean words of
personal appeal, of effort and aspiration, and
concerned with social duty — in a word with the
deeper knowledge which belongs to piety and
love. I think it may be for lack of this refresh-
ment that quasi-scientific Christian conferences
are not persevered with. For nothing can hold
the attention of a body of men as the simple
words of religion can : and we have to keep close
to that geniality, that encouraging sympathetic
temper which I think Richter speaks of as
belonging essentially to the sermon.
We must not hold back our spiritual appeal
to some last address of a course, but keep it in
view all along. Otherwise, the discussion, hard or
simple, successful or unsuccessful on its own line,
and even if it very completely and deftly covers a
certain circle of debated points, will tend to
evaporate and disperse that spirit of devotion for
the sake of which the whole effort, first and last,
is undertaken.
The title given to the second chapter, and
practically to the book, indicates a desire to
depart as far as possible from the initial attitude
of the physician in Lytton's Strange Story , who,
" keeping natural philosophy apart from the
doctrines of revelation . . , never assailed the
PREFACE xi
last . . . left faith to religion and banished it
from philosophy."
The great name of faith has too often been
given to a frail conjecture or an illegitimate
inference, supposed to afford a ' practical ' sub-
stitute for knowledge where knowledge cannot
be secured.
In thought as in action we know not well
which faults are " scholars' faults," such as wise
men " praise in hope of fruit." ^ But for this we
might say, let us part, at whatever present loss and
pain, with that mere simular of faith ; and this
not in order to concentrate all our trust upon the
impressive witness of one part of reality ; but in
order that, accepting experience implicitly as a
whole, and endeavouring perpetually to extend
and deepen our intimacy with its unfolding
lessons, we may advance towards a clearer and
more fruitful apprehension of its various parts,
and of the several functions of authority, medita-
tion, logic, discovery, emotion, and obedience,
and whatever else is found in a man's actual
knowledge of all that is within and beyond his
life.
The second motto is not given to recommend
' "Inter flagitia . . . sunt peccata proficientiiim : quae a bene
judicantibus, et vituperantur ex regula perfectionis, et laudantur spc
frugis siciit herba segetis." — S. Augustinis Confess, Lib. III. Cap. ix.
xii prefacp:
a pantheistic conception of Gott-Natur^ but only
to exclude the divorce of stuff and spirit which
gives rise to all conflicts between Science and
Religion. The identification of God with Nature
robs us of all which makes religion real, and most
evidently of hope. But we are free, or rather we
are bound, to reassert the presence and power of
God in Nature, so but we remember that He
Who sustains, also infinitely transcends, the
universe.^ Process does not exclude purpose ;
but the purpose far exceeds the process we may
ever discern. Stuff is not an alternative of spirit ;
but the spirit which energises in the very exist-
ence of stuff", energises also in fields of action far
beyond that relative existence.
The English quatrain translating Goethe is a
orift from the revered Master of the Charterhouse
o
to his ever-grateful subject,
P. N. W.
Westminster,
August, 1905.
' See Appendix, p. 284.
CONTENTS
CHAPTKK ^^^^
I. Introductory i
II. The Scientific Temper in Religion ... 31
III. The Distribution of Problems 58
IV. The More General Effect of Evolutionary
Doctrine 82
V. Agnosticism and Determinism 105
VI. Natural Selection and Theism : The Subject
resumed 131
VII. The Bible and Evolution 1 53
VIII. Biology and our View of Human Nature . 184
IX. Spiritual Experience and Dogmatic Religion 220
X. The Aids which Science gives to the Re-
ligious Mind 251
Appendix. — Illustrative Passages from Paley,
Newton, Diderot, with a Note on the
Word "Immanence" 275
INTRODUCTORY
The situation — Reasons of the pause in controversy— The change is
partial and local — A truce by estrangement — What is needed
for a better understanding — In science a cautious temper — And
a recognition of its own special foundation — In religion a
scientific spirit.
A GOOD deal might justly be said in criticism
of our proposal to hold conferences during Lent
upon subjects and points in which religious faith
and practice are supposed to touch most closely
upon natural science ; and I am not without
sympathy with the critics. But we must hope
that the work we attempt will prove to be a work
of charity, and that those who share with us in it
may not be distracted from the more serious and
real pursuits of Lent, for which many opportuni-
ties are offered them at other times, on the Sunday
and in the week.
In future addresses I hope to treat of some
special points or regions where religion is thought
to touch most closely upon natural inquiry. I
B
2 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
admit that at present I have hardly any idea of
what those subjects can properly be, and I should
not be ungrateful for guidance.
But to-day, before touching any special point,
it seems to be our duty to consider, so far as our
knowledge permits, what the general
The situation. . .... i i r i
Situation is in the world of thought with
regard to these matters. For everybody must be
aware, I think, that the situation has very much
changed during the last twenty, and especially
during the last ten years. There is much more
courage among Christians. The friends of the
spiritual life have been greatly reassured. There
is a larger measure of wisdom on the side which
used to be arrayed as if in opposition ^ to Christian
doctrine. But, besides those changes for the
better, there is something which certainly gives
cause for regret. What we find is that people are
not so much troubled by special criticisms urged
against special doctrines of the Faith as beset by a
general feeling of discouragement. If one may
use the words which are so commonly used in
private conversation about these things, a great
many people are not prepared to argue upon any
definite issue, but they have the sense that, with
regard to religion, the whole thing has gone for
* I use the awkward expression, ' as if in opposition,' not only
because the hostility of some critics was not a real hostility, but also
because that which they opposed was not really Christian doctrine.
INTRODUCTORY 3
themselves. At some later time It would be
useful to try to show one part, at any rate, of the
process by which it has come to pass that religion
has lost so much more in authority than can be
accounted for by its actual losses in debate. I
will not touch on this point now. At some
future time we may devote to it some time and
care.
There exists, then, in Individuals scattered
amongst us, an indistinct conviction that the whole
thing, as they express it, has gone ; and it is plainly
very difficult to deal with such a state of opinion
as this. When the debate raged very briskly, and,
month after month, in half the monthly magazines ;
when we were constantly entertained by the clash
of arms between aged statesmen and distinguished
morphologists, then we could take up a particular
point, and we were immensely encouraged on one
side or the other by winning a point for our side.
But you cannot by such means build up a soul
which is oppressed with a sense of blankness in
the whole spiritual outlook, and has lost sight of
the wider world of moral and spiritual realities.
That is a case not for argument, but for some-
thing much more like therapeutic treatment.
Let us ask ourselves first how that change has
come to pass. Why Is It that the debate has
come to an end ? Certainly it is not because we
have settled all our questions.
4 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
There are, we may say, three main reasons.
The first, which looms very large but is not
Reasons of actually most important, is that there
the pause ini i .• j'^i. c
contro- nave been certain readjustments or
versy. thought on the part of orthodoxy. The
frame and shape of religious statement is different
from what it was before the great storm of the
last half of the nineteenth century began ; and
the difference is due in part to the influence of
science. Much more important is the fact that
natural science is in a thoroughly vigorous con-
dition at present, and is consequently deeply
occupied with its own problems ; and there has
been, moreover, an immense increase in the range
over which natural investigation extends. An
increase immense indeed ! This is not the time
to illustrate the growth of which I speak, but
the result of such an increased range of observa-
tion is a much broader judgement, for instance,
with regard to the nature of human life. And
this is especially important because, both for
technical philosophy and for thought in general,
psychology is the absorbing study of our time.
The wider range of study and the more broadly
based judgement have resulted in an increased
spirit of caution — caution both with regard to
negative conclusions which at one time men were
ready to draw very hastily, and caution, also, of
a more hopeful kind. For, in fact, there are two
INTRODUCTORY 5
kinds of caution, the caution which makes a man
unwilling to take strong measures because he fears
he may soon be poorer, and the happier caution
which makes a man unwilling to build his house
of brick because, if he waits, he may soon be
able to build it of marble. We know, in certain
respects, so much more than we did twenty
years ago, that men are inclined to say, " Let
us be in no hurry to add up our total and
strike the balance, because we may soon be much
richer than we are." We are not so easily content
as we used to be with short formulae and phrases
describing human nature ; and we are a thousand
miles from that confident materialism in philosophy
which used, one might almost say, to rule in
certain regions of learning and research. Things
are different now. Materialism in the philo-
sophical sense of the word — the materialism, for
instance, of Buchner, whose books still sell by
thousands — is not a thing against which meta-
physics or idealism makes at present a stout fight.
It is a thing of the past in any academic region
you like to name in England or in Germany.
There has been, then, a considerable change in
the spirit of that opposite camp which was in the
habit of speaking in the name of natural science.
" In the name," we must say, because it is not
natural science which is concerned with attacking
our faith, but a certain school of religious thought
6 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
which speaks against another school of religious
thought, namely the Christian, with the pretended
authority of natural science. We ought, for
instance, to think of Professor Huxley, in this
connexion, as a religious teacher. It is not science
itself which is hostile to Christianity, but a certain
school of philosophy and religion which speaks in
the name of science.
There are, then, these two changes : first, the
readjustments in expression made by theology ;
secondly, the native vigour, the preoccupation
with their own problems, the greater philosophic
caution, of the schools of natural science.
Thirdly, there has been a great change for us.
We also are much more fully occupied with other
things. We have grave difficulties of our own
within the Church, some of them indeed of
quite a material kind ; and even where the ques-
tion is of theology itself, we see that theology
has been so busy in modifying and guarding
and checking the rapid advances of what are
known as critical studies that there has been no
time to consider whether or not the creed had
a quarrel with philosophical materialism, or with
the evolutionary interpretation of the world. We
have been very much occupied with another class
of debate. Almost the whole field of the theolo-
gical consciousness has been taken up with the
work of meeting, encouraging, modifying, checking,
INTRODUCTORY 7
and resisting, or again of guiding into hopeful
channels, and seeking to express in fair forms,
the results, on the one hand, of critical research,
and, on the other, of religious self-inspection.
We have, that is to say, been living through the
period of Biblical studies ; and we are now living in
the period of Ritschlian theology, which asks us to
consider what religion is before or even without
inquiring for its historical supports. Men are
much too hard at work in adjusting our new ideas of
what religion is with the old words which already
enshrine them, to be keenly interested about
dangers supposed to arise from friction between
the Bible record and the discoveries of natural
science.
These three things have made a great change
on what you might, without intending any
offence to other regions, call the upper _
° ' -n 1 ^^^ change
regions of educated thought. But the is partial
° , ° . , and local.
change has been very partial, very
local. While we have been so happy in our
truce, and have been pressing forward our own
proper studies without quarrelling with one
another, in other places the state of things has
been quite different. There are questions which
we do not pretend to have solved, but the diffi-
culties of which we manage to bear with in our own
life. We know that these still demand an answer ;
but though we continue to seek the answer we
8 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
can work without It for the present. But these
questions come before other sections of the com-
munity as if they were the latest and the most
important. Take, for example, the case men-
tioned just now — the teaching of Biichner, or
the teaching of Haeckel. In schools of meta-
physical argument, men are not concerned any
more about the contention, for example, that the
mind secretes thought in the same way as our other
organs secrete their various contributions to health.
That famous phrase of Vogt's about thought and
the bile was, we all recognize, a piece of rhetoric.
A sensible man only needs a little time to see
that it does not mean anything in particular. It
sounds as if it were an important analogy, but it
is Impossible to attach any clear or distinct notion
to the words. That is recognized. But the
writings of these extreme materialists, who speak
in the name of biology, sell by thousands still, I
have been told, all over Germany and, so far as
we are a reading people, to a great extent In
England also ; and they are put Into cheap forms,
and thus reach quite new levels of the reading
public. You have to remember that In the last
twenty years a whole nation has newly come Into
possession of the art of reading ; and It has been
stirred up, by these comparatively confined in-
quiries In natural science. Into the delightful
sense of sharing In speculative activity. And so
INTRODUCTORY 9
you will find that some very popular journals
among us, some of those that appeal to the
earnest, progressive, radical and socialist working
man, are beginning of late to deal with these
problems, and to put before their readers just
those crude and hasty conclusions which, in such
regions as you are familiar with, have been
to a considerable extent analysed by reflexion,
so that a part is assimilated in peaceable union
with older elements of teaching, and a part is put
on one side as, at any rate, unsatisfactory. They
are now again put forward in their primary un-
criticlsed form as brilliant discoveries capable of
excluding the necessity of religion. We might
further illustrate this by examples from all parts
of the world. I came across an African chief
who was defying his missionary on grounds which
he drew from what he had heard about the evo-
lutionary hypothesis. In China and Japan at
present, you get, we are informed, the quarrels
which used to occupy us between 1870 and 1880.
The peace, then, is very partial, and if we
feel the claim of charity we must wish ourselves
to grow in clear understanding of the sources
of our own security and faith, so that we may
not fail to do our part — and there is a part for
us — in reassuring and building up the faith of
others, and in keeping open the way for religious
faith among those who are, in certain respects, in
lo THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
the relation of younger brothers to us. For they
are now meeting, in astonishment and distress,
with difficulties which, as I have repeatedly said
already, we do not see how to dispose of, but
which, for certain good reasons of which it will
be our business to speak, we find ourselves
obliged to put up with and able to manage.
For the trouble is not that the positive proofs
of religion are wanting, but that, by being too
much occupied with details, men's souls are
gradually brought into a condition in which they
are unable to be aware of and to appreciate the
great world of life — of spiritual life, experience,
struggle, duty, and victory — which lies around
them.
A word more about the state of truce which,
as I said, exists in the upper regions of educated
life. That truce is not altogether a
A truce by . '^ -
estrange- happy One. It IS not a truce or men
who, standing face to face, have
grasped each other's hands. It is much more
truly a truce of men who, despairing of one
another as unreasonable, have turned their backs
upon those who disagree with them ; who feel
that there is no possibility of coming to terms
with certain other forms of thought, and are
going forward with their own work. Even such a
truce for separated work is far better than standing
still in perpetual debate, but it is not quite a
INTRODUCTORY ii
happy state of things ; and it lays the foundation,
quite possibly, for terrible disappointments later
on.
For a practical purpose it may be worth while
to consider some of its features. In the first place
we may turn to the religious side ; and indeed
with the religious side we may group, to a very
large extent, in this affair, the side of general
culture, literature, and poetry. It is not only
the religious men, it is not only the theologians,
who are inclined to despair of naturalism. It is
the cultured people, the poets, the historians, the
literary men. Men drawn from all these ranks
feel that its recent extraordinary assurance has
put naturalism out of court. They say to them-
selves, " Whatever is true, certainly conclusions
like those which were pressed upon us between
1870 and 1880 are not true." And why?
Because not only do they conflict with certain
developements of religious thought ; but if they
are of any strength at all, if they are to obtain
any kind of victory, they are bound to exclude the
very minimum of a free view of life. For naturalism
in order to be, as a fighting force, worth its salt, in
order to set out in life as a philosophical system,
has to make a large postulate. It has to insist
that the world which is presented to our senses
is a complete and closed sphere of existence, that
there are no intrusions into it ; and that, although
12 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
It contains regions not yet explored, in itself it is a
whole ultimately homogeneous throughout. The
foundation-axiom of natural science — and if I have
time I shall show that we have no quarrel with
this as an axiom of science — is the uniformity of
nature, is the indestructibility of force, is the idea
that you can never get more into the world than
there was always in it. The world in the view
of natural science — and it is perfectly just as an
abstracted, special view of the world for a par-
ticular purpose — the naturalist view of the world
is that it consists of a certain fixed quantity of
matter and of force and of reality ; it is a self-closed
sphere. Such a view not only excludes our con-
ception of heaven, judgement, resurrection, or
some particular interpretation of the miracles in
the Gospels, but it also excludes any conception
whatever of moral freedom as such. It is im-
possible to insert into a truly consistent naturalist
view of existence anything which can properly be
called a belief in freedom. Such a belief would
upset the whole conception. Men are therefore
now able to see that they will have to pay much
more for an exclusively scientific point of view, for
a peace in that sense with science, than they ever in-
tended to pay. And although certain statements of
religion are beset with many difl^culties and much
uncertainty, yet men will not contemplate the
purchase of peace with science by the dogmatic
INTRODUCTORY 13
denial of these statements altogether. The price
is too high. But no lower price will serve ; for
pure and exclusive naturalism breaks down entirely
as a philosophical view, as a conception of the
world, as soon as you have the smallest hint of a
doubt whether the world in itself is a complete
closed sphere — as soon as you have an inkling of a
question whether there may not be, perhaps, more
in God than there is in the world which He made.
We must, for a naturalistic peace, give up such
questionings ; and very few people of ordinary
culture, very few men who know much about their
own hearts, very few of those who are led to
consider the mystery of human will, the extra-
ordinary reality of the joys of virtue — few artists,
few among those who write plays, who know the
absorbing interest of moral problems and who see
that morality cannot retain any genuine interest on
a strictly mechanical view of existence — few human
beings in whom human nature is quick and articu-
late, are now willing to close with the naturalist
view as a consistent philosophy. There has been,
therefore, some tendency to estrangement between
naturalism and culture in general.
And in particular the religious men know that
they are engaged in a great work, like that old hero
of the Bible who refused to come down to speak
with Sanballat and his friends because he was
building the city of God. In the same way a man
14 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
who has any religious experience at all, who knows
anything of the movement of prayer, who knows
the agonies of repentance, who knows the strife
of self-improvement, who knows the attraction of
the Lord — such a man as this is sure that he is
surrounded by the realities of a great life. He
says, " I am about a great work and I cannot come
down. While you asked me to believe that this
or that phrase in the Bible was not true, I might
in a desire to justify my trust in the Bible turn to
answer you. But it appears now that nothing of this
kind will satisfy you. Your system, as a system, is
an impossible one, whether its conclusion be what
is called naturalism — that is to say, the dogmatic
assertion that the world is an independent reality
complete in itself — or whether the conclusion
be what is called agnosticism, namely, the dog-
matic assertion that we cannot know otherwise."
For agnosticism is not merely a new name for
scepticism ; it is the positive and dogmatic assertion
that we cannot know. Whichever of these two
conclusions be the one towards which the naturalist
system of philosophy moves, it is one which the
religious man can rule out for certain at the out-
set ; and he therefore says, " It is waste of time
for me to bargain with you about this or that
concession, because I know that, on the whole,
you have taken up a position which for me is an
impossible one." The religious man, therefore.
INTRODUCTORY 15
turns away in despair from studies which, pre-
tending to sketch out for us a plan of the universe,
land us in a scheme which excludes the greater
part of human consciousness.
On the other hand, the naturalist — by which
in this connexion we do not mean the student of
the forms and ways of animals and plants, but the
upholder of a special scheme of philosophy which
is supposed to have the particular authority of
natural science at its back — looks upon certain
developements of religious life which he thinks,
and perhaps justly, to be unreasonable ; he sees
this or that special statement which has been
drawn out of ancient creeds ; and he is struck by
one or another dogmatic assertion which he finds
to be quite out of tune with his own knowledge
of what the world really is : or he comes across
that stranger perversion of the believing temper
which is content to be ignorant about the world
in which we live, the temper in which men seem
to think that the interest of religion is the opposite
of the interest of science, that its security depends
upon seeing how many difficulties and how many
discrepancies there are in natural science. This
disgusts and chills the naturalist, and he says,
" If the spirit of faith produces this credulity, or
if the spirit of faith produces this intolerance and
this obscurantism — this preference for darkness
over light — then, judging of its nature by its
i6 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
fruits, I will have nothing to do, at any rate, with
any organized community of effort with regard to
faith. I will draw back from any self-committal
to these inward stirrings of my nature lest they
land me in an irrational position."
The religious man, I say, sees his minimum just
as much required from him as his maximum, and
therefore withholds his assent altogether from
naturalist teaching. The other man fixes his eye
chiefly upon the maximum or upon the special
developements of religious practice, and in recoil
from these he may desert all creeds, even that
of naturalism, and fall back upon what is, after
all, very comforting and easy — the position that
we do not know anything beyond our own im-
mediate circle, and that we had better occupy
ourselves between the cradle and the grave in
investigating the threads of knowledge that lie
near to us, and in trying to improve the practice
of mankind, not for long and distant issues, but
for the increase of comfort and of health and
of security of movement.
Now, what do we need in order to remedy
this disease of estrangement } The estrangement
is very dangerous. In the state of
What is / &
needed for estrangement we push forward on our
abetter ° ,. ^
under- Separate lines to very remote and com-
' ^' plicated developements. And when once
sceptical thought, tired of literary studies, turns
INTRODUCTORY 17
again to occupy the ground of attack afforded by
natural history, it will come upon a Church more
than ever unprepared, and it will speak in a
language more than ever unintelligible to us ; so
that we shall be thrown again into one of those
unreasoning panics which must always take place
from time to time in a Church which does not
regard its position in a physical world as a
serious thing, a serious part of the truth of
God ; which turns away from what is really dis-
covered about this world as if it were of no
consequence.
In order to avoid the recurrence of disturbances,
two preparations seem necessary. First, I think
we must pay a more serious regard to the study
of physical facts and of our own position in the
scale of physical being, and we must endeavour to
learn what that position really is ; but the en-
deavour must be made with the caution which
refuses all decisive conclusions upon premisses
which are of necessity incomplete. Truth, of this
kind^ at any rate, will not be reached per saltum^
by leaps and bounds. And on the other hand
it is necessary — but here I touch what lies apart
from our work to-day — to plant our faith upon
its own proper foundations. The security of
that faith must not rest upon our ability to
come to terms with this or the other assertion
with rejxard to the outward frame of things. Such
1 8 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
a method will always lead us into alternations of
unjustified confidence and causeless fear. Knowing
in ourselves that religious certainty cannot be
obtained by looking simply on the world without,
we must be diligent in making our way clear to
the real sources of conviction, to those things
which can alone bring verification to the hypo-
thesis of faith, which can alone justify the enter-
prise, the experiment, which faith is — namely, the
experiences of grace. It is these alone which can
ever bring to a conclusion the argument of faith.
We need, that is to say, on our own side what
I shall venture to call a truly scientific spirit.
Presently we may consider this spirit at
more leisure ; but before doing so, let me say a
word about what I think is needed
In science
a cautious also on the Other side. We must say
' needed ' rather than * wanting ' ; for
indeed this need of science is answered by a
gift which in many quarters grows apace. That
gift is a cautious, a reverent spirit in science.
I spoke of it just now ; it is a sense of the
mystery of things. And, to speak in terms of
mere thought and argument, it is the recognition
that in order for science to make any solid pro-
gress it is obliged to limit itself. It must always
be an abstracted effort of thought. Sometimes
Christian controversialists complain of science
because of its narrow outlook. But this surely
INTRODUCTORY 19
is a mistake. It is the very condition of science
to have a narrow outlook. Limitation is its charter.
It is the only way in which it does practical work.
It can never make any progress except by funda-
mental, axiomatic limitations and by the exclusion
of inappropriate methods. Chemistry, in order
to advance, must exclude all question of the
vegetable origin, for example, of certain produc-
tions. It distinguishes them as vegetable in
nature, but it does not concern itself with the
process of vegetable growth. It looks upon a
vegetable alkaloid as a thing which is to be the
subject only of a particular kind of inquiry —
namely, that of chemical analysis. And in the
same way you may go through the whole series
of the sciences, and show how each one of
them has its solidity and worth and success only
by way of turning away its eyes, with respect
to the object which it investigates, from all
but a special class of the attributes of that
object.
Science is necessarily a limited process, having
abstraction for its basis. This is, in the first place,
evidently true of any particular discipline ^^^ ^ recog-
in science. For example, the chemist is "^""gpeci^i
not concerned, except for identification, foundation,
with the delightful glow and colour of the
solutions he investigates ; the glow and the
colour, which are the very qualities in them
20 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
which would interest a painter. But further, as
each particular discipline in science has abstraction,
limitation, selection of effort, as the foundation ot
its success, so it is with regard to the whole activity
which we describe in general as science, the effort
to arrive at truth by the collection and arrange-
ment of a number of particular facts secured to us
by the action of the senses. This also, which is
science in its broadest expression, has abstraction,
limitation, for its charter and for its character ; and
here is no matter of reproach. It is absurd to
complain of science because it does not include
those fields of thought of which I spoke just now.
There could be no natural science at all unless
we regarded the world as a uniform system of
sequences from which nothing could ever really
be taken, and to which nothing could ever even-
tually be added — growth being always the unfold-
ing of stuff and force which are already present in
the undeveloped. But we must recognize our pro-
cess of abstraction. And, while it is absurd for those
who differ from us to complain of our abstraction,
we who care for science must on our own part,
when we have made the abstraction, take note of
it and allow for it. If we omit this recognition,
this discounting calculation, we fall into error.
We make certain limitations in order to arrive
at conclusions. Then we take those conclusions
away from the special thought-conditions in
INTRODUCTORY 21
which they are true, and propose that they shall
be held valid beyond that very barrier which we
built up in order that we might manufacture
them. We cannot manufacture our conclusions
except inside the precise barrier that we have
made. But the conclusions once obtained, we
go outside our barrier and offer them in the
market, or push them, it may rather be said,
down men's throats, in a region which is plainly
outside those very artificially limited lines, the
creation of which and the agreement upon which
was the first necessity in order that science might
make its initial step.^
Perhaps this intelkciua/ recognition of the limits
of method is equivalent, or at least something
closely parallel, to the characteristic of temper of
which we already spoke. In terms of temper,
what we desire is reverence, caution, kindness,
toleration, patience, and these good things we
thankfully acknowledge to be daily growing, at
least on the scientific or naturalist side of any line
of division we could draw.
And side by side with this — perhaps, as I have
said, the very same thing described as a character-
istic of thought — there is the growing recognition
(for it does grow) of that which long ago was
perpetually urged by preachers and philosophers ;
for example, by Canon Holland, who eloquently
' See Appendix, p. 279.
22 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
invited men to see this truth twenty years ago.
What was then urged by theologians now gains
acceptance in the minds of persons who are in-
terested in natural science, as appears, for instance,
in a book which many of us have seen, Mr.
Wells' Anticipations^ which, although a popular
book, is based upon exact knowledge and written
by a man of something like genius. Mr. Wells
anticipates that science will be recognized as an
abstract, specially but legitimately manufactured,
a view of life deliberately limited ; and that side
by side with it men will continue to cherish what
may be described, perhaps, as the practical, general
prima facie view of life. For we are coming to see
again the value, the lawfulness, and the authenticity
of the prima facie view of life. We are not so
readily frightened as we were out of what we
know naturally — the general effect which the
world of experience has upon us — by the name
of some minute and abstruse analysis of the
machinery which lies behind that great effect.
The same truth has been urged upon us by Mr.
Haldane in his book The Pathway to Reality.
But Mr. Haldane is a metaphysician, and in meta-
physics the obvious has always been respected.
The happy change which we note is that the
philosophic temper, with its regard for ordinary
experience, is becoming characteristic of those who
are specially devoted to the technical analysis of
INTRODUCTORY 23
nature ; that the followers of natural science are
more and more free from naturalism.
We turn to the side of tradition, of faith, of
religion. If in science we need, and , ,. .
t> 'In religion
welcome, a spirit and a method of a scientific
patience ; on the side of religion we
need and ought to show a more truly scientific
temper.
And now, although I have already kept you
longer than I ought, and longer than I shall
again, I will venture to say one or two words
about the scientific temper in religion ; and briefly,
because we may return to this subject another time.
This temper will not be simply a respect
towards natural science on the part of religious
people, though this also ought to grow. It will
not be simply an anxiety to bring our truths, the
things which maintain our life, into actual tune
with the discoveries of the world outside. We
shall be patient about that. We shall come to
know — we ought to know if we think the matter
over — that there is a necessary want of con-
tinuity, an inevitable gap ; that there must be an
interval when two kinds of knowledge which are
both of them growings exist in the same mind, or in
the same world of minds. If both science and
religion had reached home they ought to come
home to one point. But ex hypothesi neither of
them has so reached home. They are both of them
24 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
growing, both of them developing, both of them
learning, one of them confessedly growing rapidly,
and casting behind it every ten years conclusions
which were thought to be certain. Both are
imperfect, though they grow. Both are far from
their end, though they advance. That is to say,
they are forms of knowledge which we cannot
expect to find in complete accord. But we must
say more than this.
Not only may we be well content when we
find them still out of tune with one another ;
but we ought to be positively alarmed at any
appearance of unbroken agreement between them.
If what professed to be science coincided along
the whole line with what professed to be religion,
we ought to be sure either that what we had
hold of as a science was not really science, or
that what we had hold of as religion was not
really religion. It is, on general grounds, im-
possible for two kinds of knowledge, both of
which are in the course of growing, to be at any
moment of their growth coincident along a line
at more than scattered points in an individual con-
sciousness, or in a world of minds, which is the
subject or which is the acquirer of the two kinds
of knowledge. I venture to beg you to think of
this very carefully. I submit that when we find
discrepancies between that which we learn from
the Bible and our own souls, and that which we
INTRODUCTORY 25
learn from the microscope or from speculation, we
ought not to consider such a discovery a cause
for lamentation ; on the contrary, it gives what is
essentially needed for our reassurance that we have
hold of real clues. The religion that was nothing
but a system in tune with science would be no
religion ; and the science that was nothing but a
system in tune with religion would be no science.
In either case we should be listening to an echo.
The so-called religion would be only an abstract of
natural knowledge, possibly "warmed by emotion."
And the science would be a mere republication in
another voice of some story imposed upon mankind
by ecclesiastical authority.
What is true of coincidence is true also, with
a difference, of continuity. A want of continuity
between the different parts of our knowledge seems
to be a necessary accompaniment of all develope-
ment of intellectual life. And we must be patient
under it, and we must not take it to be itself
any sign that either part is untrue. Their want
of continuity, of course, will not by itself show them
to be true ; but it will not by itself show them
to be false. On the contrary — and this is the point
— if we have, in two sections of inquiry, sound
and honest reason to suppose that, without being
infallible, we are yet finding our way according to
some genuine correspondence with the facts, then
the failure to see the two lines of knowledge
26 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
drawn close together and buckled to a circle, so
far from giving us alarm, will be recognized as
the necessary result of the coexistence of two real
forms of knowledge in a growing state within a
single consciousness.
By the religious scientific spirit, then, the
spirit of science in religion, I do not mean just
now the spirit of profound respect for those
wonderful studies which science specially presses
on for the benefit of us all ; nor, secondly, do
I mean by it the fretful and anxious desire to trans-
late the divine facts of salvation into terms, say, of
psychology; nor yet a fear and distress because there
are some things belonging to belief and which we
find ourselves believing, but of which, neverthe-
less, science can give no account. In this matter,
I may interject, there is a curious want of con-
sistency. Formerly we used to disparage religion
if science was able to account for it. Nowadays
we disparage religion because science is unable to
account for it. It seems to me that we cannot
have the advantage of both of these positions, and
I submit, for my part, that the failure of explana-
tion should not tell either against science or arainst
religion, and that we must be content with a want
of continuity in the knowledge that we really
possess.
We are quite content with such a want of
continuity between the different parts of our natural
INTRODUCTORY 27
knowledge. For example, in a perfect scheme of
science we should like to see the study of masses,
weights, and dimensions, and then the study of
movements ranged in order, so as to become the
basis without any gap for further studies upon the
interior molecular movements within bodies which
in the view of mechanics are considered as wholes,
and without reference to any changes within them.
We should like to see the mechanical investiga-
tion of masses going up without any break, until it
could become the mathematics of interior molecular
vibration. We should like, that is, to see all
these movements which are at the root of chemical
attraction, of light, heat, electricity, and Hertzian
vibration, ranged in a steady line from the bottom
to the top, and capable always of being related to
the larger movements of sensible masses. Further,
we should like to see the intimate knowledge of
the vibration of substances within themselves, and
those investigations which are directed towards
the discovery of the ultimate constitution of
matter linked on, either through chemistry or
some other study, to the lower margin, the basis,
the initial axioms of physiology. We should like
to explain the action of cells, the action of the
bodily fluids, the action of nerves in terms of
chemistry and physics.
And if we were impatient of all discontinuity
we should refuse to begin our physiology till we
28 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
had finished our mechanical studies. Is this
the course actually followed ? Everybody knows
with what astonishing rapidity those studies of
molecular movement have advanced during quite
recent years. And remember, the very rapidity
of their advance, with the enormous change that
has quite lately taken place in our whole con-
ception of them, shows that they are capable of
immense further advances. When a thing is
motionless we can suppose it to be permanently
motionless. But when we see it in motion we
cannot tell how far it will go. For all that extra-
ordinary advance, everybody knows that there is
a gap entirely unbridged between the utmost
speculations and the ultimate conclusions of
molecular physics, and the most rudimentary
foundations of physiological science. Do men
put off proceeding with their physiology till they
have made the junction ? They have secure hold
of some certainties with regard to life, and, therefore,
although they cannot explain what life is in itself,
they push on with an amazing rapidity and
success and with astonishing earnestness and
devotion in their studies of the behaviour of life.
It would not be difficult to mention, if it were
proper, certain instances of an activity which puts
ours in the world to shame. For, in fact, science is
a kind of Church pressing on with rare diligence and
devotion and earnestness and with amazing success
INTRODUCTORY 29
along its path of discovery. But it does all this in
spite of the fact that large portions of its knowledge
lie scattered like the unshaped timbers of a forest
under the axe, not fastened each to each to form
a structure. The facts won with so much effort
may have no term in common except such bare
axioms as this — that what is real is real, that the
world indeed exists, that law is uniform. Even
the conception of cause has now for a long time
been upon its trial. Many speak only of sequences.
Things happen one after another ; that is matter
of observation. But the notion that one makes
the other happen is not in all quarters now held
to be one to which science may be committed.
And, notwithstanding all this want of continuity,
see how real is the advance of knowledge. It
marches in spite of all drawbacks. And the un-
mistakable reality, the vital importance of its march,
is a full answer to all speculative difficulties, in so far
as these difficulties are proposed as detracting from
the validity and the essential justice of scientific
inquiry. . . .
To-day we have spent time over questions
which are thought to be apart from religion. Some
day we ought to consider the clearly religious side
of life, to speak about other discoveries, other
realities, other trials, and another call to earnestness,
and so in part redress the balance. Meanwhile
the analogy of the different and discrepant
30 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
branches of natural knowledge supports what
has been said of the wider discrepancy between
faith and natural knowledge as a whole. We
have hold — we cannot tell how — of two bands
of knowledge not different in essential nature
so far as each is real; but different in many
respects and especially in the direction in which
we seem to find them. They are strong bands ;
and the fact that they do not wholly meet, but
show an interval which we call disagreement, is
not of itself ?i reason for distrusting either part of
our knowledge. We ought, if our vocation is to
the special study of nature, to work hard at this
study. W^ith a higher obligation still, we ought —
and it is the vocation of every man — to see that, by
the grace of God, we are gathering the facts and
pushing on with the industry, which will enable
each man to build up in himself a great structure
of practical certainty with regard to the things of
the soul, and of eternity, and of God.
II
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Recapitulation — The scientific spirit in religion — A scientific age
— The subject resumed : psychical research — Fluctuations in
scientific opinion — The adventure of science : I. In specula-
tion. Theory and verification. II. Adventure in actual dis-
covery. ; III. Adventure in the ordinary discipline of science —
Authority and personal assurance — The parallel state in religion
— The place which belongs to action.
"We glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh
patience ; anH patience, experience ; and experience, hope ; and hope
maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." — Rom. v. 3-5.
I READ these words as representative of what 1
have been accustomed in my own mind to call the
scientific spirit in religion.
Before we resume the course of thought begun
last Sunday, I have two remarks to make. First,
I have received some advice which is very valuable,
and which I hope to be able to act upon later.
But we must at present follow the thought that we
touched last Sunday ; and even if it happens that
we do not during Lent arrive at any of those par-
ticular difficulties which reach us from the scientific
32 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
world of thought, yet we shall be doing here what
is absolutely necessary as a preparation for any
wise thought about particulars, and, moreover, a
work worth doing for its own sake.
The second thing that I wish to say is that we
are dealing with a very large range of subjects,
and in consequence every word spoken suggests a
fresh train of thought and illustration which one
would like to enter upon. The task of selection
is difficult, and it is necessary to put a curb upon
one's tongue. Therefore, I will beg you to con-
sider that silence does not imply a disregard of the
things about which one is silent. We have to
make sure of touching some things which, to me
at any rate, appear specially important, but by
directing attention upon these things we do not
in the smallest degree imply that the multitude of
other things which remain unsaid are unimportant
or untrue. For example, the criticism of material-
ism as such on purely philosophical grounds is a
work which is probably by far the most important
of all works of the mere intelligence, and the most
important intellectual safeguard and support which
the Christian possesses. When we do not touch
upon it, or when we dismiss it in order to arrive, by
contrast with it, at the description of another method
of strengthening our faith, it is not implied that in
the view taken of the world of thought, that criti-
cism is in itself either unimportant or unsuccessful.
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 33
Next, let us briefly recapitulate what was
said last Sunday. We said that there was a
measure of estrangement between some Recapituia-
of those who are specially attached to the *^'°"'
study of nature, and some of those who are at-
tached to and who are pressing on in the Christian
life. Here is certainly one of the incomplete
statements of which I spoke. We are never left
without men of large minds and large characters
who show in their own persons the abolition of
these estrangements. And, indeed, the most im-
portant of all reconciliations between divergent
forms of thought is that which is found in great
personalities, in minds, in lives, strong enough to
draw together and focus into one view, sources
of knowledge which, to most of us, seem so far
scattered that we can only look at one or other
source at a time. These men prove by an un-
faltering confidence that they have somehow in
their own lives, although we are not always able
to trace the process, made a synthesis, a combination
of the different kinds of teaching which God gives
us. I will mention only two names, the name of
Sir Gabriel Stokes and the name of Cayley, the
greatest mathematician of the last century ; and I
will only add that a glance at the calendar of the
University of Cambridge will be sufficient to show
that these names by no means stand alone.
We went on to say that in this condition of
D
34 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
estrangement, in order that we may draw more
closely to one another, what is needed is on
the side of naturalism a spirit, a growing spirit, of
reverence, of caution. And the same thing ex-
pressed in another set of terms, expressed as a
habit of thought, is, we said, the recognition on
the part of those who cultivate natural knowledge
that their knowledge is arrived at by a method
which is of necessity a method of abstraction and
limitation. So that it must always be a special
result at which they arrive, and in dealing with
that result they must remember the conditions by
which it was procured. On the other hand, we
need in religion the growth of a spirit which I
called the scientific spirit, and I was proceeding to
an attempt to illustrate or to define more exactly
what we may fairly mean by those words.
And first we said we do not just now mean
by them that which is, in itself, so valuable — a
greater respect in the minds of believing
The scien- ox o
tific spirit in persons for the labours, the methods,
and the results of natural science. This
is, indeed, very much to be desired on many
grounds ; not only on the general ground that
charity requires all men to respect each other's
activities in the world of God, but also for par-
ticular reasons.
And it is a fact, a very strange fact, that al-
though we are living in a scientific age, anything
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
35
approaching to a knowledge not of the general
principles, but of the methods and the results of
any one department of science, is ex- ^ scientific
tremely rare among educated men. That ^s:e.
is a bold thing to say, but it will bear examina-
tion ; and it is something more than an inevitable
result of specialization. For this condition of
affairs is not paralleled in other cases. There have
been other ages which have had other marked
characteristics. The seventeenth century was a
literary age. In the seventeenth century courtiers
carried Plato or Vergil in their pockets to the
ante-chamber. The eighteenth century was an age
of argument upon a certain level of philosophy,
which now we consider to be a low level ; of an
atmosphere in philosophy which we now consider
to be cold. Well, in that age, the age of the
Deists, and of those who resisted the contentions
of Deism, all kinds of men in all kinds of places
were deeply, practically interested in the arguments
which went forward. This age is supposed to be
a scientific age, and what we may remark as strange
is that in an age which perpetually invokes the
name of science, there is an astonishingly narrow
extension of anything which can properly be called
scientific knowledge in the classes which are sup-
posed to be educated. I do not say this of the classes
whose education has only begun. In the advanced
pupils of the primary schools, in those who attend
36 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
the many institutions for evening instruction, I
have no doubt there is a keen interest in natural
science and a very considerable knowledge. Such
knowledge is extremely rare in those regions of
life which we more specially call educated. I think
that there are a great many who know no more of
science than what is enough to excuse them from
coming to church. Therefore it is indeed most
desirable that there should be an extended recogni-
tion among all kinds of people and all kinds of
Christians of the great and wonderful work of
science; and about this I shall have something to
say, if possible, later on.
Secondly, we dismiss, as not being that which
satisfies for our present purpose the definition of a
scientific spirit in religion, another effort which also
has its merits ; the effort to arrive at a detailed
conciliation with the teaching of natural science,
which may cover all the different parts of the
statements of religion. It is far from being the
case that such an effort is valueless. But it is not
that which I was intending at this time by the ex-
pression " a scientific spirit." I venture to say that
the truly scientific spirit in religion may be press-
ing forward and gaining great victories, although
that work of detailed conciliation between the Bible,
to take one example, and the teachings of zoology,
between our traditions of the past of mankind
and those scattered discoveries which are made by
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 37
anthropologists, meets for a time with great diffi-
culties, and is often seriously set back. We
showed by one example in natural science that a
want of continuity between two kinds of know-
ledge does not by itself constitute any reason
against cultivating both of them with the con-
fidence which is proportioned not to the degree
of harmony which is made evident between them,
but to the relative trustworthiness, the solidity of
the premisses of each.
I will add one example of the same kind,
which perhaps may strike you as more interesting.
The work of biology, the study of natural forms,
which is nowadays, of course, a study of develope-
ment, is deeply at war, you might say, with the
conclusions of astronomical discovery. It is very
difficult for the astronomer and the geologist to
allow to biologists nearly enough time for the
processes which we conceive to have taken place
in the evolution of animal forms ; and we recognize
the great difficulty of this want of harmony. But
there is still within biological study a sufficiency
of real and solid ground ; so that, although we
must all admit that there is a mistake somewhere,
that mistake is much more likely to be rectified
by our pressing on, each on his own side of the
gap, with the special work which lies to his hand,
than by any present attempt to reach a complete
harmony. And, at any rate, that work must not
38 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
be delayed until such a complete harmony has
been established between the present provisional
conclusions of biology and the present conclusions
reached by a larger study of the world's history.
These stand for very fair examples, I think, of
the truth that discontinuity of knowledge is in
itself by no means a sign that either part of the
knowledge is untrue. It is, perhaps — and I think
most certainly — an inevitable condition of the
coexistence of two strains of knowledge, both in
an imperfect state, within the bounds of one
consciousness.
Now our fresh point for to-day. In the
third place, I do not myself intend by a scientific
The subject Spirit in religion that which nowadays
psychicaF would with much more confidence claim
research. ^^^q name than the two we have already
considered. I refer, of course, to those new and
strange and, as they are commonly called, occult
inquiries by which an endeavour is made to give
a scientific basis to religious beliefs ; to find a proof
according to the measures which are used in
physical science for the existence of man after
bodily death. I have not myself nearly sufficiently
digested Mr. Myers's posthumous book to be
able to express any opinion about the measure
of success which his array of proofs has attained
to. But whatever be the case about that, I would
say that this kind of inquiry, valuable as it may
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 39
be, valuable as every inquiry into what appears
to be true is valuable, is not essential at all to a
scientific position for religion, and is not what
we mean particularly by those words. To make
religion scientific it is not necessary to be able
to claim that it is a department of physical or of
physiological or of psychological inquiry, that it
is a department of science in the ordinary sense
of the word. On the contrary, that which could
be proved up to the hilt by tests, by forms of
experiment which would command the assent
of every sensible man, would not have the value
which belongs peculiarly to religion. It would
lack the claim ot faith and the requirement of
adventure by which religion does its work in the
soul. And further, all the conclusions which can
be reached or seem to be reached from time to
time by such special and still strange studies will
certainly share the fluctuations which belong to
the conclusions of natural science Itself.
They may appear certain to-day ; they will
appear uncertain to-morrow. They will perhaps
appear certainly untrue ten years hence.
J^ ^ ' « '' Fluctuations
i may be so fortunate as to have a in scientific
.p . , ,. , , opinion.
scientmc man in the audience ; and i
will venture to say one word which will be a
signal to him of the direction in which my
thought is at present moving — the word phago-
cyte. Twelve years ago it was thought that
40 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
science had laid hold of a new and valuable con-
ception of the manner in which disease is destroyed
or prevented in the body, and the older theory,
which was called the chemical theory, was almost
out of court. But now — to speak of a large
affair most briefly — after studies which are amazing
in their delicacy and in their sureness, and which
are illustrated also by singular incidents of personal
generosity — for it was the leader of the opposite
school who himself gave at the critical moment
the advice which rendered the triumph of the
present theory certain for the present — what has
happened is that we have departed from what was
supposed to be the new discovery of 1890 and
returned with a greatly increased assurance to
something like the conception which ruled before
that, and which was based upon the teaching of
Pasteur/ The matter referred to is still the
subject of great difference of opinion ; but the case
serves to show the fluctuations which take place
in regard to what seem to be scientific certainties.
And I say that if you attempt to base your religion
on something which arises from the study of
the supposed visitations of persons from beyond
the grave, or the supposed influence of disembodied
spirits upon hypnotic subjects, you will be always
open to the terrible risk that some new and
unconsidered thought will arise, that some fresh
* St. Bart/tolomenvs Hospital Journal. December, 1902.
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 41
discovery will be gained, that some unsuspected
power in human nature will be disclosed which
will serve as an explanation for that which you
took for the support of your religion on the ground
that it could not be physically explained. Your
religion will rest upon the gaps in the complete-
ness of our physical knowledge, and whenever one
of those gaps is bridged, one of the pillars of your
chapel of devotion will be undermined. Religion
must take account of facts acquired by these new
studies as of all other facts. But it must not make
of them its peculiar foundation and warrant.
None of those three things, therefore, either —
( 1 ) The general respect which we ought to have
for other men's knowledge ; or
The adven-
(2) The effort to find a detailed con- tureof
. , . , • 1 1 , science :
ciliation between the statements
of religion and the statements of science,
like that, for instance, which Mr. Wal-
lace has lately put before us ; or
(3) The attempt to make a department of
scientific facts which shall be by them-
selves the foundation of religious faith ; —
will satisfy the definition of a scientific spirit in
religion. What we need is not to make of our
religion a department of natural history, but to
follow in it that which is good in the spirit of
science ; to have what science has at its best, a
wide outlook upon all the facts ; to have what
42 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
science has, a generous willingness to adven-
ture into regions yet unknown ; to have what
science has, a contented spirit under the scorn
which comes both upon science and upon religion
from the region of merely critical thought ; to
cultivate, that is to say, what is fine in science —
the positive temper.
And here I would interject the remark, that it
would be far better for us to divide our mental
activities into the positive and the critical temper
than to divide them, as we do now, into reason
and faith. There is not in the Bible ever any
contrast between reason and faith. In the Bible
faith is contrasted never with reason, but always
with sight ; that is to say, with sense-apprehensions.
In point of fact, faith is a kind of knowledge, and
not only so, but it is the model and type of all
sure knowledge. What it is contrasted with is
not knowledge, but the critical temper ; and the
critical temper is also in a sense a branch of
knowledge, a part of the effort of the same
reason, but it is a balancing effort. The reason
of man CToes forward in some such manner as
this. First it reaches after positive gains. It
seizes hold of what seem to be certain intuitions.
It grasps these as direct additions to its store.
And then there comes an answering temper — a
temper of criticism, a temper of doubt ; and it
is by the interaction of the positive, grasping,
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 43
adventurous, covetous spirit, of the acquiring
reason, with the critical, doubting, examining spirit,
the judging reason, that sure advances are made in
human knowledge. Now, science is on the side
of the positive adventure, and religion also is on
the side of the positive adventure. Religion also
must have its criticism, but its sympathy is mainly
with the positive adventure of science.
Let me say a word or two more about this
adventurous spirit in science, which is exactly
what we need in religion. You may j _!„
think that I refer most especially to the Speculation,
speculations of science ; and indeed the word
which I have used applies most directly to that
particular part of its work. It is indeed very
amazing, the speculative activity of science.
Many of the greatest changes in our conception
of the world hav« taken place, not after the
accumulation of vast masses of fact ; they have
not arisen by adding up a long account to arrive
at a certain total ; but they have sprung up almost
fully made in minds specially enlightened, specially
in tune with the realities of the physical world.
There has been something almost of inspiration.
There has been, at any rate, a kind of intuition.
So, for example, long before men could conceive
any method by which evolution might have taken
place, long before there was anything which could
be called, however roughly, a proof of it — we have
44 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
still no proof in the exact sense, but long before
there was anything of the kind, — the dream haunted
the imagination of science. It was there from the
long past — from the days at least of Greece and
Aristotle, and probably as long as men have
been upon the earth. Then came the time when
in Darwin and Wallace, side by side and inde-
pendently, a brilliant conception sprang up, the
conception of Natural Selection.^ These men,
although they were giants of research, although
they accumulated great masses of minute fact,
nevertheless had not arrived at anything approach-
ing to a conclusion. A brilliant thought was
awakened in their minds simultaneously, and then,
being produced, being launched as a speculation
almost in the air, was verified — how ? It is not
indeed verified, but it advances in the direction
of verification by the circumstance that it has been
found capable of co-ordinating, of giving a mean-
ing to, vast multitudes of facts, some of which
were known before, and some of which have been
drawn out of their hiding-places by the exertions
of persons like F. Miiller, who spent their lives in
finding what he called Facts for Darwin.^. It is
' Spencer preceded Darwin and Wallace in reviving the doctrine
of E-volution. But the Conception of Natural Selection or Survival
of the Fittest in the struggle for existence belongs to Darwin and
Wallace. Indeed, it is possible to doubt whether Spencer ever fully
appreciated its value.
2 F. Midler, Fiir Dariv'iii.
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 45
a perfectly legitimate process. A man starts with
hardly more than a vision of a conceivable
method ; and then, as he uses this method in
his study of the world, fact after fact strikes
him which before was unperceived, undoubtedly
to the exclusion of a great number of other
facts which do not illustrate his idea. Subse-
quently the great crowd of facts falling into
place gradually fixes upon men's minds a more
or less fully persuaded conviction of the truth,
in main outline, of the speculation which was
started.
Now, at present, within the schools of natural
science, there is a feeling that speculation has run
riot, that we have been too long engaged Theory and
in spinning out to ever finer details of verification,
conclusion the thread, so to speak, of the new
ideas of the last century. There is much com-
plaint that we continue branching and rebranching
our hypotheses and drawing from them more
remote conclusions, until at last in some expres-
sions of this temper what we have is little more
than dream or poetry. And the cry is that we
should return more rapidly to verification, that we
should bring our hypotheses more quickly to
account. Some go so far as to say that we have
so starved for positive study and have been so full
of imagination and speculation that the Prelate
Mendel alone is fit to be named after Darwin as
46 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
one who has really added anything crucial to our
knowledge of biology.
But, although within science itself there is a
feeling that speculation has run riot and must be
brought more exactly to book, must be more
continually, or at least more frequently matched
against the world which it professes to interpret,
speculation is in itself a perfectly justifiable exercise
of the reason, assisted by the imagination ; and
by its means men often acquire solid truth, solid
reaHties of discovery. There is something like
this also in religion. We reach out after that
which is not at present known to us even by
revelation — there is an eager straining of the soul.
Men have no right to give the name of truth to
their own unverified thoughts and feelings. But
if, in aiming towards that which is at present
unknown, they come to tune their own hearts so
that a larger measure of truth pours into them
from the experience of life, then even speculation
has so far its justification. The place and limits,
the character and the necessary safeguards of
religious speculation cannot here be described, nor
the method suggested by which speculation may
pass through verification into knowledge. But,
at any rate, we may acknowledge that whatever
else a scientific mind might find fault with in
religion, it has no right at all, no shadow of right,
to find fault with religion because it is adventurous.
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 47
because it strikes out Into the dark, because it
steps out into places where it has no footing
assured beforehand.
But, in the second place, the same adventurous,
experimental character belongs to all the special
discoveries of science. It sometimes n.— Adven-
happens that men come actually to see *"^^^
with their bodily eyes what they had discovery,
before divined with the scientific imagination.
And so, not as in the verification of large theories,
which is always a vague and uncertain verification,
but in the actual verification of physical sight, when
the eye of the man through the microscope rests
upon the very structure which the man had con-
ceived — in that also there is something like faith.
There also the eye was, so to speak, plunged into
a darkness which had not been before explored.
There is a particular instrument which to my
ignorance always stands as a kind of image both
of this adventure of physical discovery and of some
of the experiences of faith, an instrument (the
ophthalmoscope) by which the retina of the eye is
examined. If you look where you instinctively
suppose the object to be, you see nothing but a
blurred light. You have by an effort of the will,
until you become practised, to focus the eye, as
if in blind obedience to authority, upon a point
behind and beyond the head of the person whose
eye you wish to examine. You must resist the
48 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
natural inclination to look where by instinct your
mind places the object, and by an effort in obedi-
ence to a type of authority, that is, to knowledge
antecedently secure, you must focus your gaze
beyond. But when this focusing is done, then
the senses are confronted by the sight of a real
object ; and you actually observe that which, so to
speak, you previously divined, that which you
sought after in obedience/ Even so in religion
we are obliged to seek after that which we have
only heard of, and to put ourselves into a posture
for receiving it which has not yet been justified
by any experience — to throw ourselves into an
attitude of mind which is prescribed for us by an
authority coming down from God. But when
that is done, there comes a personal security and
an absolute fitting together of the consciousness
1 The teaching which indicates beforehand the direction in which
a result is to be looked for (and found or missed) must not be con-
founded with the artificial simulation of results in oidcr to encourage
inquiry. Both in natural and in spiritual science the real experi-
mental method, the lawful marriage of authority or instruction with
personal effort and personal verification, is discredited by the exist-
ence of a parody. Lecturers, giving Foucault's pendulum demon-
stration of the earth's rotation, or the classical experiments to show
virtual velocities, are said to have made their instruments move as
they ought to move according to theory — to encourage students.
So I learn from one ot Mr. Wells's characters, a detected spiritualist-
cheat, who defends by this example his own provision of sham
' supernatural phenomena,' which may induce (as Browning's
Sludge pleads) real manifestations. This interference with results
for 'edification ' is not parallel but contrary to the real experimental
method.
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 49
which is capable of receiving Divine instruction
with the Divine instruction which is ready to be
poured into it. There, again, in the actual adven-
turousness which belongs to common observation
— which belongs much more strikingly, of course,
to special and new discoveries, but which results,
not in a theoretical degree of certainty, but in
absolute physical proof — you have something like
the adventurous spirit which is so often complained
of in faith. Very often one is obliged to say
to those who wish for certainty that they must act
in order that they may know ; that they must do
the Will of God in order that they may grow in
conviction ; that they can never know first and
then act, but that their certainty will come in the
course of prolonged obedience. They say, " You
are inviting me to take a leap in the dark," The
same plea would hold good for an inquirer in
natural knowledge. The same plea would most cer-
tainly hold good on the lips of a student who should
approach the schools of anatomy or physiology.
It is not untrue to say that before he can know any-
thing he is invited first to make a leap in the dark.
And so, in the third place, I would speak of
that discipline of teaching by which, in jjj ^^
point of fact, men are trained to become venture m
J. the ordinary
the discoverers whom we reverence. discipline of
A . science.
A man comes to begin the study
of nature, to have his first introduction into
E
50 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
some branch of physical science. Does he know
beforehand what he is going to learn ? Has
he beforehand any ground for security that the
methods which are to be used are just, except
the security of authority ? Let us suppose an
undergraduate at Oxford halting on the steps of
our museum and refusing to enter and put himself
under any discipline until he is sure that there is
such a study as physiology, that its conclusions are
relatively certain, that it is based upon the con-
templation of real laws of nature. Might he not
say something like this ? — " There has been much
difference of opinion on these subjects. Many
things formerly believed are believed no longer.
I am inclined myself to think that it is all un-
susceptible of real proof. I am an agnostic with
regard to physiology." Were he to halt outside
until he had made sure, could he ever enter ? Is
he not obliged to enter with the spirit of faith,
with tremendous presuppositions ; first presuppos-
ing that there is real fact to be discovered, and
secondly that those who teach have hold of a
method which, though imperfect, is in a measure
sure and continually rewarded with fresh results .?
Must he not go in with those presuppositions and
put himself in the hands of men who at first will
show him none of the things that he desires to
know ^ He is, let us say, a medical student.
He sees nothincj at first which seems to have a
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 51
direct, scarcely even a remote, bearing on medicine.
It is by simple, almost mechanical work, by all
sorts of ordinary training, that the man has to be
brought into some degree of discipline before
curiosity receives any satisfaction. There is a
o-reat exercise of faith to be made. But the
student does not perceive discomfort in this exer-
cise of faith, because all round him are people
who thoroughly believe in the reality of physical
science. And, besides, there is a part of his own
being which belongs to the subject-matter of
the science. He carries about his own body as
an ever-present example and evidence of the
reality of the subject. Now, if we also walked
as we ought to walk, in the full exercise of our
other powers, if our spirits which have been made
alive in Christ continued alive In prayer, if we
exercised and energised and worked with those
faculties which God has planted within us for
everlasting life, if we were sweating In the busi-
ness of virtue, then we should be conscious —
as every man is conscious of his body so we
should be conscious also — of our spiritual
being. We should not be cast back when we
draw near to religion by the demand for a self-
committal which Is not at first, or at any rate
not beforehand, justified, but which goes for-
ward to a ground where it shall be rewarded with
certainty.
52 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Notice this in the discipline of natural science.
It begins and it continually proceeds by the exer-
cise of authority and the willingness of
Authority c r i • i •
and personal obedience, otep alter Step this authority
justifies itself. This obedience is re-
warded by a personal apprehension of that which
was spoken of. I myself was instructed — or I
ought rather to say entered to the science which
I have not pursued — by a great teacher of mor-
phology, Professor Moseley, who had perhaps
this as his leading characteristic — that whatever he
spoke of, whatever he taught, he would not on
any account allow one man in his whole class to
suppose himself to be certain of any point, however
minute, however large, however rarely seen, or
however commonly known, which he had not seen
and verified with his own eyes. We were forced,
sometimes against our will, sometimes grumbling
as at an unnecessary discipline, to make sure of
facts which we were perfectly ready to take on
trust — some of them well-known facts, not very
easy to bring to book and to demonstrate, like
the presence of cellulose in the outer coat of
Salpidae. These are worrying, troublesome things
which some students are quite willing to take
out of the books. It was Professor Moseley's
characteristic to insist upon personal investigation.
We learned, indeed, under his authority. He
told us things that we had never heard before ;
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 53
we had to yield our minds to his guidance, and
so it is always in positive instruction. But the
mind once yielded is set upon the track by which
It can itself receive by its own senses its own
certain and immediate assurance.
So it is to be in the conflict and in the labour
of faith. We put ourselves in the school of Christ
Who knoweth the Father. We lay ourselves
alongside not only of the vast multitude who
now find freedom and joy and strength under
His discipline, but of the unnumbered multitudes
of the generations before. We put ourselves in
the great Church under His hand. But our
confidence, although it marches in battalions and
armies, is to be individual in its reward ; and the
man who, putting himself under the guidance
and discipline of Christ, looking up for His Holy
Spirit, reading and studying in the Bible the
ancient records of the body to which he belongs,
will find something which is not ancient and
remote, not literary, not historical only, not
merely corporate ; for in his obedience he will
march to an individual satisfaction. Placing him-
self antecedently under the command of One
Who knows. Whom he believes to know although
he cannot prove that He knows, he shall become
convinced of the knowledge of his Teacher by
the fact that it is communicated to himself.
This is the spirit, as 1 conceive, of science in
54 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
religion ; a spirit which is content in long patience
to gather together the scattered proofs ; a spirit
eager in adventures which are, step by
The parallel , • , • r- i i ^ • • r
state in Step, justified by the certainties or yester-
reigion. j^^ j^^ making ever fresh plunges into
regions beyond our present vision ; a spirit whose
servants put themselves under the guidance of
those who seem to know, and, guided by them,
guided by Him — for there is but One Who knows
of Himself — themselves receive freedom in the
eternal world, and find their own certainties in
their own experience. They have a security
which, though it be individual in its nearness and
intimacy, is in its substance and in its interests
bound up with the great truth which governs
the whole body into which they have been
brought.
And, finally, even as science justifies itself
by the accumulation of fresh truth through the
The place attractive force of a new thought, even
longs to^" '^^ science justifies itself by perpetual
action. arrivals in its repeated adventures —
arrivals which become in turn the basis for new
enterprises of risk — so most expressly science
justifies itself by its power of action^ by its
power of influencing the world, the very world
towards which it is aimed as an interpreta-
tion. That is the supreme verification. If a
man deep in an early study of idealist philosophy
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 55
should find himself in the not uncommon
state of" doubting the reality of the external
world, I would point him, not, as Johnson did,
to a stone and the kick it gets, but to an achieve-
ment of engineering like the great bridge across
the Forth. There you see the reason of man in
practical alliance with the laws of matter. When
you read Professor Ward's great book. Agnosti-
cism and Naturalism^ you may rise from that study,
especially if, with me, you are no mathematician,
under the impression that the whole theoretical
basis of the science of physics has been swept
away. But presently you say to yourself,
" Although the science of physics knows nothing
of absolute time, although it makes many hasty
identifications between its own rough discoveries
and the ultimate and absolute truths of mathe-
mathics, nevertheless it is sufficiently true to be
able to throw iron together in vast masses, to
cast out its venturous immense pair of cantilevers
across a flood of water to arrive at the other side.
The physicists have their laws ; they have their
formulae ; they have their equations, which,
though they be far from the mathematical truth,
are closely enough in tune with the world of
actuality to span the gulfs and to carry human
life from shore to shore." It is the power of
action in science which shows that, however justly
criticism may discount its claim to absolute
56 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
certainty, there is a practical certainty within it,
and also a real though undefined relation to the
fundamental truth itself.
And so it is with religion. There is no end
to the thoughts by which we may challenge
the reality of its premisses. But all these are
answered by the man who looks out not only
into the world of history, though that is rich
in proofs, but into the great world of moral
and spiritual experience, and finds that those
presuppositions which he has trusted bring him
daily into a closer and richer intercourse with
larger multitudes of souls, rob him of no
entrance into other kinds of knowledge, never
obscure tor him the teachings of history and of
science ; and give him what is much more impor-
tant still as a proof, the power and the impulse and
the practical knowledge himself to act upon that
scene from which, by our virtue and by our
obedience, we are to extract the affirmation of
faith.
For, indeed, faith is not a crop which springs
out of the world to reward a careless harvester ;
it is rather the work of a soul which, out of a
world which would otherwise seem dead, extracts
the answer of confidence in God. Did I speak of
the world as if it were empty of meaning ? It is
alive with meaning, filled with a voice of God.
But it is the voice rather of God's question to us
THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION 57
than of His answer. It challenges, it provokes
the response of faith, and the dark places, the
breaks —
" What if the breaks themselves should prove at last
The most consummate of contrivances
To train a man's eye, teach him w^hat is faith ?
And so we stumble at truth's very test." ^
' Robert Browning, Bishop Blougrams Apology.
Ill
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS
From a general discussion of the nature ot faith and of knowledge
— We turn to particular difficulties — The effect of these diffi-
culties is cumulative and not unconfused — Often the contrasted
statements of science and religion are in no real collision —
Four classes of 'modern difficulties' distinguished — Materialism
excluded from the present discussion — Evolution and theism
— The conflict may be better stated as between theism and
natural selection — The so-called deistic tone of the older tele-
ology — Paley — A more apostolic divinity — Faith has gained
by attention to modern science — Not the world observed but
the observing mind was amiss — Pasteur.
"And the angel said unto me, If I had asked thee, saying. How many
dwellings are there in the heart of the sea ? or how many springs are there
at the fountain head of the deep ? or how many ways are above the firma-
ment ? or which are the outgoings of hell ? or which are the paths of
paradise ? peradventure thou wouldest say unto me, I never went down into
the deep, nor as yet into hell, neither did I ever climb up into heaven.
Nevertheless now have I asked thee b\it only of the fire and wind, and of
the day, things wherethrough thou hast passed, and without which thou
canst not be, and yet hast thou given me no answer of them,
"He said, moreover, unto me, Thine own things, that are grown up with
thee, canst thou not know ; how then can thy vessel comprchen<l the way
of the Most High ? and how can he that is already worn out with the
corrupted world understand the way of the incorruptible ? " — 2 Esdras iv.
7-11.
The day just passed through, the things
" without which we cannot be " (Revised Version),
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 59
the " things from which we cannot be separated "
(Authorized Version), the common conditions
and accompaniments of life, are beyond From a
understanding. Nay, "thine own things, fus"s!on of ^'
that are grown up with thee, canst thou SfthlnTof
not know ; how then can thy vessel com- knowledge,
prehend the way of the Most High ? " This ancient
utterance, not belonging to the fully canonical
Scriptures, may well stand in our own minds to
express the sense of mystery in which we ought
to move, we who not only cannot tell much about
the outskirts of the world, the origin of the sphere
in which we live, but do not so much as penetrate
the mystery of the air we breathe. Till quite
lately there was not a man in England or in Europe
who knew why a boy's spinning-top stands up.
Lord Kelvin knows now, but there are not many
men who have been able to master his explanation.
Living in a world of which the common motions
are so mysterious, we must be cautious in drawing
conclusions about great things far afield.
Now, to-day, we are to leave — and I leave it
with reg-ret — the consideration of the nature of
faith and the nature of science, in order
to come to some or those special aim- particular
,..,., , difficulties.
culties in which men are more apt to be
interested. But I cannot leave the earlier con-
sideration without two remarks to make myself
safe ; and first, the remark that our treatment of
6o THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
the nature of faith is very incomplete. Faith
resembles science in many other respects besides
those that I have named, and it differs from science
also in many very important respects. And the
second remark is this — that what you really need,
my brothers who are puzzled and distracted by
what are called scientific difficulties, is precisely to
attain to larger thoughts. The mischief that
special theories do is that they fix your eyes
upon a narrow line and rob you of the spectacle
of the world. What you need is not to press on
along a single line of argument, but to give your-
self a month's rest and let the world — the ordinary
experience of the world, not to mention the ex-
perience of grace which we might have, but the
ordinary impression of the spectacle of the world —
have its effect upon you. There is a young man
who is almost like Romeo in his mother's descrip-
tion : —
" Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night :
Black and portentous must this humour prove.
Unless good counsel may the cause remove." ^
^ Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. i. It must be owned that print
gives the speech to Montague, not Lady Montague. But my
mistake was so natural, that it might almost suggest an emendation
to the learned. The speech is a mother's speech. I would let Lord
Montague begin at "Black and portentous."
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 6i
The humour is portentous, not always because
it leads him to important destructive conclusions
with regard to the Christian faith, but because at
the critical moment of his life, when he ought to
be entering into his heritage of the world and of
religion he is tied up by a network of narrow
considerations. And this servitude, though it
will not bear the wear and tear of life, though
it may probably not outlast the anxieties of the first
years of marriage, will nevertheless serve to tide
him fatally over the critical moments of life when
his soul is yet flexible and impressible ; and
when he emerges from his dream he will emerge
from it a tired man, with very little power and
force in him for the adventure to which God calls
him.
I venture to remind you who are Christians
of this, you whose certain faith is not by any
means dependent upon the way in which our
little argument may turn, and who may think
that these matters of scientific debate are un-
important to believers. Remember that they may,
in the light of a wider study, appear unimportant
for apologetics, for the future of the Christian
faith in literature or in argument. But they are
not unimportant in the lives of men. You say,
" God is sure to win." Yes, God is sure to win.
The question is, Will He win in me, or will His
victory advance and leave me behind ?
62 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Well, with that let us approach these great
questions, these important difficulties which arise
The effect of from modern science. I find myself
cuiues is " here in another kind of difficulty from
and'not un- that which I must attempt to describe,
confused. j^y^Q scientific or naturalistic attack upon
religion, if we may speak of such a thing — always
being careful to remember that it is not science
which is interested in the attack on religion but a
particular school of naturalistic thought — this
attack is itself immensely confused. It is thrown
upon us like a body of fighters, horse, foot, and
artillery mixed together ; and it is very difficult to
disentangle out of the great mass of objections
different points which will meet the different parts
of our faith. Unbelief has what Christians have
always claimed for their own position. It has a
cumulative weight. It has a general and, we must
confess, also a confused effect, but an effect that is
very practical. Now, if we Christians have been
accustomed to say that we have a right to those
conclusions which arise from a general and cumu-
lative study of facts, as well as to those which we
can prove logically along separate lines, we must
o-rant the same freedom to unbelief. And when
my friend who is a materialist or who is an un-
christian evolutionist can give no clear account
of his difficulty, and yet says that on the whole his
religion is gone, I have no right to quarrel with
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 63
that attitude. But we have a right to seek to
disentangle the different elements of that which
disturbs him. Very often they are so entangled
that they have but little effect upon Christians.
They seem to us not only inconclusive, but
to be on a different plane from that of the things
with which we are concerned, and there-
fore not to come into collision with them contested
at all. I read in a popular book which ofsdTncf
describes the mystery of the Holy Trinity tl^e^fir"
by a new name, Triplotheism, and there- s?on."'^"
fore gives it somehow a lessened respect,
that the myth of God has been exploded by
scientific geology ! You may well ask how geology
comes into the same house with the idea of God
our Father 1 I cannot, for my own part, conceive
not only how a person is convinced by this thought,
but how he even gets to blows with such a con-
tention. I cannot so steer my faith as to bring it
into collision with any account which men may
disentangle of the mode in which the earth's crust
has its present form. There is a want of coinci-
dence in the level of the two forces, so that it is
very difficult to bring them into mental opposi-
tion. But to a more refined ingenuity it seems
to be possible. To me the statement I have
quoted sounds very much like a play on words.
It reminds me of the case of the poor man who
represents to the rich man's servant that he has
64 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
come by appointment ; and the shrewd porter says,
" This man is an impostor ; I myself saw him
come by the omnibus." ^
Very many of the contentions with which we
are confronted are little more respectable than
that. We say the world was made by God. You
say the world was made by evolution. Is there
any discrepancy in those two statements ? Do
you distinguish two rooms, and say, " This room
was swept with a purpose, and that room was
swept with a broom " ? I have to admit that my
mind is so framed that I find it immensely difficult
to manage my faith, not so that it may overcome
such objections, but so that it may find them
formidable. The unmusical man at a concert
says, "What are you crying about, with your
Wagner or your Brahms ,? It is only horse-hair
scraping upon catgut." So it is, but the one
account does not exclude the other ; /*//« nempeche
pas f autre. This scraping is also the outpouring
of souls by a method of communication finer and
rarer than speech, so that a power which lies hidden
in the artist and which he could never otherwise
> It may be gravely objected that this and like sayings are mere
tricks of speech, founded on an admitted ambiguity of prepositions,
and intended to win a smile. I quite agree. It is only a joke : but
it is the veiy joke which is offered to us as a philosophy. And I
wish that the humorous quality might be recognized in certain
solemn arguments which depend upon exactly the same ambiguities :
upon the fact, that is, that we use one language to express two kinds
of relation, and that language always lags behind knowledge.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 65
express, touches chords in the hearer which the
hearer could never lay bare. But it is perfectly
true at the same time that the whole effect is
due to the friction increased by resin of little
parcels of horse-hair upon strings of catgut. And
the refined ingenuity, as I said, of some of our
controversialists is able to bring the two kinds of
statement — that which proceeds upon the lines of
physical description, and that which proceeds upon
the lines of spiritual and moral purpose and reality
— into conflict.^ Many of the difficulties of religion
are not the difficulties of reaching a conciliation.
They are the difficulties of originating debate.
Now, in the great mass, the confused array,
of difficulties, I think that we are wise if we
disentanMe these groups. First, there _
^ . . Four classes
are the objections which are brought to of 'modern
, -' , • • 1 • r difficulties '
bear upon the spiritual conception or distin-
the world ; that is to say, there are
the contentions of materialism. Secondly, there
are contentions^ directed against Christian truth.
Thirdly, there are contentions directed against
the general belief in God, against theism. And,
lastly, there are contentions directed against the
dignity and spiritual reality of man's own life.
Or, to put them in an ascending order, there is,
first, materialism ; then there is the attack on the
spiritual nature of man ; thirdly, there is the
I I think I owe the violin example to tiic liisiu))) of Binniiighain.
F
66 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
attack on the general belief in God, natural
religion, theism ; and, lastly, there are the objec-
tions which are of course more serious, and which
are more capable of real debate, the objections
directed against the Christian dogma, positive
religion, Bible religion.
There is the sense that we are real live persons.
That has to be defended. There is the belief that
the ultimate reality of the world is alive as we are,
and is personal, is God. Thirdly, there are the
special and separate and positive beliefs which we
draw from the Bible, or which are part of the
Christian faith.
Now, the question of materialism we must
leave on one side, not because it is unimportant,
but because it would absorb the whole of
Materialism . . , . _
excluded the rcst ot our time during Lent. And
from the . , , • t -n i i •
present dis- With regard to It 1 Will only say this
cussion. ] 1 • 1 r • i
word, which tor practical purposes may
not be worthless. For a man who is himself
driving towards materialism, or who thinks that
the weight of learned authority is against his
spiritual faith, it is good to remember that the
two names which are most freely quoted in this
connexion are both of them names of men who
would never tolerate being called materialists. I
mean, of course, Huxley, and Mr. Spencer, whom
many refer to, with an affectionate familiarity to
which I am not entitled, as Herbert Spencer.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 67
Now, Mr. Huxley in many places has said that
he would on no account accept the name of a
materialist ; and Mr. Spencer, in his latest book,
Facts and Comments^ complains bitterly that men
have tried again to fix this name upon him.
At the close of a passage which I cannot quote in
full, he says. Considering all the positions I have
established or tried to establish, considering finally
that I have taught that " force as we know it can
be regarded only as a conditioned effect of the
Unconditioned Cause [the Unknowable], I might "
— and these are the words I beg you to notice —
" 1 might reasonably have thought that no one
would have called me a materialist." ^ This is
Mr. Spencer : " I might reasonably have thought
that no one would have called me a materialist."
And yet a great many of his younger friends seem
to be quite sure that he is one. He complains
in the same passage that the excuse is put forward
that perhaps his critics have not read his books.
To this he replies, " 1 am not aware that one who
condemns an author's opinions "• — that is by
calling him a materialist — " is excused because he
does not know what those opinions are." The
rebuke, intended for a Broad Church critic of
1 The reference was to Facts and Comments, published 1902, in the
chapter "Exaggerations and Misstatements" (p. 109). Mr. Spencer
proceeds : " Still more atter the elaborate analysis contained in sections
271,272 [ot ' Principles of Psychology '] showing the imtenability of
materialism, I should have supposed the repudiation complete."
68 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Spencer, is worth thinking of by people on the
other side as well. And, by the way, it would not
be a bad rule to make for one's self, to call no
philosopher by his Christian name without reading
at least one of his books. We must leave aside
the question of materialism.
There remains the question of attacks upon
positive religion, Bible religion, dogmatic religion,
historic religion ; the attack upon theism as such,
the belief in God, which is the conclusion of
natural religion ; and those considerations which
seem to conflict with our belief in the dignity,
and the permanence, and the spiritual reality of
our own lives.
What is it which comes into conflict with
theism, with the conclusions of natural religion.
Evolution with the belief in God .'' I put this to
and theism, y^^ . j^. j^ j^q^. ^.j^^ doctrine ot evolution
which comes into conflict with theism. 1 do not
think that one could very easily trame a pair ot
syllogisms, a form of argument by which you
could bring into opposition the conclusion of
theism that there is a personal life, a spiritual
unity behind the world, and the statement that
the world continually changes, grows, unfolds
itself as a flower does, and that it came to have
its present relatively permanent form by processes
comparable to those which we now see going on.
That is what evolution teaches us. It is that ihe
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 69
world came to its present form, its present relatively
permanent form — for of course all things are
changing — hy the action of forces not dissimilar from
those which we now see operative round about us.
And, in particular, it has an important doctrine
with regard to the origin of living forms, and it
teaches with a high degree of certainty that the
forms of animal and of vegetable life are related
to one another by a law of growth ; that the
higher forms have grown out of the lower state
of life which is still represented amongst us by
permanently lower forms. That is to say, currents
in the tide of life have advanced with unequal
velocity, so that there are still in its general stream
representatives of the state in which life started,
or something like that in which it started —
namely, the unicellular animals and plants. And
at the same time other forms have gone further
en echelon till they have reached the high degree
of specialization which we see in vertebrates, in
mammals, and in man.
Now, has that conception anything to urge
against the doctrine that there was a personal
cause behind the whole process : that this cause
has in Himself at least all that we have in our-
selves } Has it anything to say against the con-
tention that the cause must at least be as large as
the effect ? And, if the effect is still going on,
must not the cause be larger yet and lie beyond
70 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
it ? The Psalmist says, " I see that all things
come to an end ; but Thy Commandment is ex-
ceeding broad " — that is, extends beyond the end.
It lies outside each passing thing, and when
each state comes to an end the Commandment
is still there. We may say the same about all
we see, about the universe. It is continually
coming to an end, and yet there is something
which is continually the same. We may say of
all the parts of that effect which we call the
world, that they are continually coming to an
end, but that the origin of them all is " exceeding
broad " ; it goes beyond them all, made what has
been, makes possible what shall be.
I do not stop here to maintain what I have
said, or to show cause for it. I only submit to
you provisionally that there is no ground for
so much as initiating a debate between the idea
of evolution and the idea of God.
But with regard to Natural Selection, the
case is somewhat different. Natural Selection is
the suffPfested mode or machinery by
The conflict , . , °° , . t . /
maybe which this chanfjingr current was guided.
better stated . . ...
as between With regard to this, there \^ prima facie
theism and . ^ ^ • • i i • j
natural an Opportunity or conflict with the idea
of God. There must be primd facie
such a ground, for in point of fact such ground
was taken.
Let us try by the briefest possible reflexion
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 71
on the past to notice how this came to be.
Briefly, it came to pass on account of the fact
that in Christian minds a narrow idea of God
reigned.
This idea is generally called the deistic idea,
but it is not properly the deist's idea at all.
The deist's idea is that God does not affect the
world any more ; that He is remote from it.
But those Christian apologists who have
. ^ The so-
fought against the deists, and of whom called deistic
J • -rj 1 1 tone of the
the most renowned is raley, sought to older teie-
show, m contradiction to this opinion
that God is remote from the world, the traces
of God's action in it ; and in so doing their own
minds became coloured by the notion in which
God is represented as if He were a workman
upon, or at best a workman inside. His own
world. He is continually called the Artificer of
the Universe, the Great Architect, and the sug-
gestion which is raised by these words is of a
wonderful Power Who, in conditions which He
found established beforehand, and with material
which He was able to lay hold of, set in process
changes which lead towards an end which is not
Himself. God is conceived of as One working
upon a material world, which He has to manage
as best He can.
And there was this further weakness in the
system, that the wonderful character and Divine
72 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
origin of the world were thought to be indicated,
not in its general amazing unity, but in the fact
that this or that part of it fitted another part of it,
as if God had been in the world fitting keys to
locks, rather than Himself the source of all the
different sides of every reality. And so in point
of fact in Paley — whom we ought all to remember
with great respect, for he did good work certainly
not for religion only, but for science also — there
is, nevertheless, a tendency to make the most of
those cases of adaptation of which no physical,
mechanical account can be given.
There is a remarkable instance, which I would
not venture to recite from memory, in which he
discusses the mode in which certain
^^^' insects are folded up within the shell
of the egg. He traces the mechanical origin of
this and that adaptation. He says this feature
and this are due to pressure ; but of this third
particular adaptation no account can be given of
its origination by pressure, and therefore we
must say that it is due to design.^ This makes the
1 "The art also with wliich tlic young insect is coiled up in the
egg presents, where it can be examineil, a subject of great curiosity.
The insect, furnished witli all the niemlKTs that it ought to have, is
rolled up into a form which seems to contract it into the least
possible space; by which contraction, notwithstanding the smallness
of the egg, it has room enough in its compartment and to spare.
This folding of the limbs appears to me to indicate a special direction ;
for if it were merely the effect of compression, tlie collocation of the
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 73
evidence of the Divine design vary inversely with
the evidence of the physical process, as if purpose
was something which did not display itself in action.
There was, therefore, a tendency to feel that when
a new physical explanation had been discovered,
a new antecedent for the effect which we are
immediately observing, we get rid of, or we
decrease pro tanto^ the necessity for believing in
God. In fact, God took this place in science ;
He was the power to fill up gaps which could
not be bridged by a description of definite
changes. In science He was the axiom neces-
sary to give unity to the scheme of thought.
In religion he was the demonstrandum^ the thing
to be proved — proved by the need of Him to
explain the physical discrepancy.
Now, that is obviously a very narrow and
unchristian view of God. God is not a Power
Who has to be supposed in order to
. ~ . , A more
complete the conception of a physical apostolic
divinity.
process which is imperfectly observed
or understood. We have vastly different sources
of our confidence in Him. But that line of
thought we must not now pursue. We must
be content to observe that just so far as
Christians were possessed by this narrow and
parts would be more various than it is " (Paley, Natural Theology,
cap. xix.). Some further illustrations of tlic older teleology are placed
in an Appendix, p. 275.
74 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
limited view of God, they were open to a shock
when a physical cause or set of causes was sug-
gested which had not before been considered,
and which seemed to explain most of those adap-
tations which Paley had triumphantly pointed to
as unintelligible. They now became intelligible.
There was now framed, under the name of natural
selection, a scheme of thought by which it could
be shown how, by the excess in multiplication of
individuals, and by the struggle for life under
the stress of circumstances or the competition of
other individuals, various advantages, however
minute, might be selected for survival and for
accumulation by inheritance. Since those days
of the beginnings of the doctrine of natural
selection we have gone a very long way in re-
examining it, strengthening it, and at the same
time showing how far we are from certainty with
regard to it. Nevertheless, taking it as it stands
as a theory having a high relative degree of pro-
bability, at any rate for large classes of facts, you
see how it came into conflict with a proof of God
which relied upon the absence of any clear per-
ception of the manner in which things came to
be what they are. If you could show a physical
antecedent for a given adaptation, so far you had
eot rid of the need of God.
This is the cause of the supposed conflict
between natural selection and the belief in God ;
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 75
and the cure for it we have of necessity described in
speaking of the evil itself. You learned yesterday,^
no doubt, the latest news from medicine — that the
cure for the diseases produced by certain bacteria is
to be found in the juices expressed from the bacteria
themselves crushed, triturated, at the temperature
of liquid air. Well, something of the same sort
happens with the supposed contests and conflicts
between religion and science. The cure for them
is found in that which is extracted from the
crushing of the very thing — the false antithesis- —
which was the source of danger. In the very
effort to bring our minds to bear upon these
supposed new difficulties we have enlarged, we
have corrected, we have brought back again to a
patristic model, to something more like what the
ancient teachers of the Church held, our concep-
tion of God. It is thus, is it not, that we attain
once more
" to perceive that God
Knew what He undertook when He made things " ? '-^
We see more and more clearly that we must
exclude all notions of Him as separate from His
1 The reference was to Dr. Macfadyen's account of the treatment
of typhoid, communicated on Thursday, 12th March, to the Royal
Society by Lord Lister, and noticed in the Times of Sat unlay, 14th
March, 1903.
* Robert Browning, fr/z/ff Hohenstiel-Sch^aiigau, Works, vol. xi.
p. 113.
76 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
world or merely labouring in it, merely fitting this
to that. He is in all and over all and through
Faith h s ^^^ » transcending all, and yet infinitely
g-ainedby near and present to all. And to Him
attention to '^
modern belonp- all the conditions, as well as those
science
things which take place in the condi-
tions. He is powerful on both sides of every pres-
sure. He is in the adapted and in that to which it
is adapted. And as we gaze further on the world,
our wonder is, not as Paley's sometimes was, that
this or that insect's structure shows a form which
we cannot explain, but that the whole great com-
plex, the vast and unimaginable interplay of forces
coming from beyond the furthest star, results in
the varied scene of life and beauty which we see
and in which we share. The wonder of all
wonders is that we can understand it, that we can
look upon it as if from without as well as from
within ; that we can draw and abstract from it
conceptions of its origin, that we can begin to
trace and divine our own place in it, according to
one part — the outward part — of our own nature.
This is almost the supreme wonder, that besides
the vast subject-matter for knowledge there is in
us the faculty for knowledge, the faculty for more
than observation — for drawino: from the world clear
conceptions, growing though still so small, of the
law of its movement and being, that being which
stands by virtue of God's continuous creation.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 77
" Not by the operation of a law
Whose Maker is elsewhere at other work." ^
1 am obliged to pass swiftly from a thought
which might be developed at great length. Let
us approach the world with a spirit set Not the
in tune, and then we shall find its hidden ^?^ed°but
harmony. There is nothing impossible In^^nT''
for faith in the scene upon which we was amiss.
look ; and what we want for Christian assurance
is not this or that discovery, interesting as it must
be, of the probable form of the starry heavens —
this or that proof that no other planet but ours
bears a life like our own. These things, interest-
ing as they are, are not essential to our religion.
What is wanted is that our own organ, which is
the most marvellous product of the whole — the
organ of knowledge and contemplation — should
be set in order progressively, more and more kept
in calmness and in reverence and in hope, and
should fix itself firmly upon those other intimations
of the Divine which are not foreign to any of us ;
and, thus reassured, approach the study of the
world in freedom and good hope.
Sp 7p *P Sff »Jp
1 spoke just now of a typical mind hampered,
entrapped, perplexed, not by the spectacle of the
world, but by the supposed necessity of this or
that abstract formula, such as natural selection,
1 Robeii Browning, Luria, act v.
78 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
which has been manufactured to express, with an
approach to truth, a small part of the many facts
before us.
Let me remind you, in conclusion, of one who
is typical of the other sort of mind, Louis Pasteur,
in my poor judgement the greatest
scientist and the greatest Frenchman of
the age that has passed. He was not one tied up
in narrow ignorance, his mind frozen by dogma.
He was not one, as perhaps you may suppose,
like Louis Agassiz, who spent his life in accumu-
lating piles of fish and mountains of fossils and
manufacturing monographs with a staff of clerks —
a giant investigator and no more. Pasteur was
one as eminent in theory as was Darwin. He
was one who took a foremost place in chemistry
before he ever touched the question of living
matter. He was the author of a revolutionary
change in our conception of certain processes in
crystals. He went on to become the master in
succession of all that was known and all that is
done in respect of fermentation, of the study of
disease and of the victory over disease. He moved
securely in a great range of the most minute facts.
He could lay his hand in a way which seems to
us inconceivable upon the secrets of nature. If
ever there was a man who might have been
absorbed in what he himself has called the enchant-
ment or science, it was this man. It ever any
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 79
man might have been intoxicated by the pride of
intellectual success, Pasteur might have been. His
manner was dignified and somewhat reserved ;
he had the gravity of those whose labours have
won great influence. But he was accessible and
very considerate to those who came to him to
learn, and very patient in showing them the way
about his wonderful works. ^
But what set him above the dangers of unbelief
and made him as much remarkable as a believer as
he is remarkable among the explorers of nature,
was the practical, the loving purpose of his work.
He did not seek to know nature only that he
might construct some description of her with which
his own name might be imperishably connected.
What he desired to do, and what he succeeded in
doing, was to combat disease. He has abso-
lutely abolished two diseases, and has opened the
way towards the fight which has every day more
success against almost all the other diseases that
we know. Side by side with Lister, he is the
man to whom surgery must look back as the
one who has made it what it is to-day, with its
wonderful success, its wonderful, its justified
courage. And what was his life ? Was his life
tied up by the bondages of doubt ? Or, by contrast,
1 Through the kindness of Sir James Paget, 1 had tiic advantage
of going with my brother to sec M. Pasttur anil M. Roux in
Paris, in i88<;.
8o THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
was his life one intoxicated by little certainties
about the origin of metameric segmentation, till
he did not care any more about God and the soul ?
Not at all. Pasteur speaks like this : —
" There are two men in each of us, the
scientist . . . and the man of belief ; . . . the
man who will not die like a vibrio " — (that is
the germ, for example, of cholera) — " but who
feels that the force that is within him cannot die.
The two domains of science and of faith are
distinct, and woe to him who tries to let them
trespass upon each other, in the so imperfect state
of human knowledge." ..." I see everywhere
the inevitable expression of the Infinite in the
world : through it the supernatural is at the
bottom of every heart." ^
This is the man who, surrounded by all the
honours which the entire scientific world could
heap upon him, turned away from his business
and his praise to read the life and to admire the
virtues of St. Vincent de Paul ; who loved Littre,
not because he was the greatest man of intellect
of his day, but because, together with his wife,
he represented in Pasteur's eyes the twofold worth
of human life, in the love of God and the love
of the neighbour. This is the man, the leader
in what is most characteristic and probably most
lasting in our science of nature, who died as he
• Discours de reception a l' AcaJemie fraii false.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROBLEMS 8i
had lived, a true Frenchman, fixed in honour,
fixed in love, and fixed in religion ; with one
hand resting upon the symbol of our Saviour's
Passion, the other in the hand of his wife — " True
to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."^
^ The importance of Pasteur as a Christian has not been sufficiently
considered. Some persons obscure the significance of his attitude
towards unbelief by laying an exclusive stress upon the fact that his
discoveries and cures involve the artificial infection of animals with
disease. The name of vivisection (made to cover a wide range of
facts from simple inoculation to cruelties which were condemned
as heartily by Huxley and other naturalists as by ourselves) Is
brought in to alarm the ignorant and to degrade the name of a
great man. It may rightly be asked whether experiment upon
living animals is ever lawful j and, If so, under what clrcmnstances
and for what purposes ; and whether the achievement of a chosen
purpose is necessary to render experiment guiltless. These are
ethical questions of great importance and urgency, but also of great
complexity. And they require much patience and knowledge and
clearness of thought for their profitable discussion. But there is no
good reason for their being discussed whenever and for whatever
purpose Pasteur's name is introduced. At any rate, it is impossible
for me to combine their treatment with the argument of this book.
The name of Pasteur is here cited as that of a man deeply immersed
in the study of Nature, and at the same time standing quite firm
in the simplest faith. He believed heartily in the Incarnation, and
this fact challenges the attention of all who are interested in the
relations between Science and Religion.
IV
THE MORE GENERAL EFFECT OF
EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE
The course to stop short of questions concerning revealed religion
— The general effect upon religion of evolution theories —
Witness of Huxley on theism and evolution — Creation — The
Ring and the Book — Evolution before Darwin a fruitless specu-
lation — The theory of selection applied too widely — Further
application of the figure — Evolution really of advantage to
theology — But it has left loss in many minds — The return to
faith — The character of religion.
"The voice of the Lortl cleaveth the flames of fire. The voice of the
Lord shaketh the wilderness j the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesli.
The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and strippeth the forests
bare : and in His temple everything saith * Glory.' " — Ps. xxix. 7-9.
There are the two sides of the revelation of God,
God moving in that series of changes which we
call nature, and God sitting above the water-
floods, still recognized by the believing heart. In
the visible scene His thunder shakes the moun-
tains, His lightning cleaves the woods, and the
operations of organic life are in His Hand ; but
above, in His temple, the assemblage of spirits
saith " Holy." In that spiritual world which is
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 83
built of minds, in the great peace which passes
through the storm, " doth every one speak of His
glory." So it has ever been. There have always
been the two sides of our recognition of God,
and, consequently, the possibility of forgetting
one of them. And it is good that we should
remember that no substantial chang-e is made in
the age-long debate between those who regard
solely the outward spectacle and those who regard
as chiefly significant the inward sense of God —
that no substantial change is made by any difference
in our conception of the details of the outward
scene. One often hears that science has made
this and that change for religion, with regard to
questions about which, as a scientific philosopher
says, science can neither allow nor disallow the
affirmative answer of faith. I would even quarrel
with the statement, for example, that science has
driven the dryads from the wood. It was always
known by the wise that trees were made of wood
all through ; and men chose, wrongly as we think,
to imagine some of them also to be inhabited by
living sprites. Our knowledge of the texture of
the wood, our knowledge of the current of the
sap, has neither put the dryad further from us
nor brought her nearer. It was always known
that nature was natural all through, that stuff was
stuff; and men will have, together with their
conception, whatever it may he^ of the stuff, various
84 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
conclusions, based upon a different set of con-
siderations, about what there may be besides the
stuff. It is not science, it is Christianity, which
has driven the dryad from the wood and Pan out
of the thicket. For all that science knows, Pan
may be lurking now in Kensington Gardens. It
has nothing to say in affirmation or in denial of
such a presence.
*****
In the range of subjects to which, if we had
time, we might attend, it is necessary to make a
The course Strict Selection. And after the best
ofqllStKn? thought I can give to the matter, I have
concerning come to the conclusion that durinor this
revealed to
religion. brief Series of lectures in Lent, of which
next Sunday's is the last, it is our interest to keep
to those questions which lie on the hither, or, if
the word is better, the further side of positive
dogmatic religion. We must think, I mean, about
the conclusions of science as they are supposed to
conflict with natural religion, with theism, with the
belief in God on general grounds, and leave for
some other time anything that we may find to say
with regard to the opposition which may lie between
science and the positive statements of the Bible.
And here again I would remind you that Christianity
is much more than, or at any rate something quite
different from, a simple theism. It cannot be
supported on the grounds of a free idealism alone,
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 85
which asserts, against the pressure of sense, the
higher authority and significance of the spiritual
being. That line of thought, inexpressibly valu-
able as it is, will not carry us all the way to
Christianity. For Christianity, besides being an
idealism, is also a positive statement about facts
in a time series, about things which have taken
place within the history of the world we see. We
must always, therefore, in our minds divide those
two aspects of our religion for purposes of defence.
There is on the one hand theism, that affirmative
conclusion concerning the world, the only really
affirmative conclusion, that the world is somewhat,
the world is spiritual, the world is personal in
its root and heart ; and on the other hand there
is the defence, which belongs so very largely to
critical theology, of the statements, the positive
and historical statements, of the Bible and the
Creed. Let us, therefore, be content for the
present to leave these latter on one side.
Fixing our minds, then, wholly upon the general
belief in God, let us ask once more — what differ-
ence has been made to this belief by the
1 • r 1 • J r 1 The general
doctrines or evolution and or natural effect upon
,. 5T-- • • rij Mj religion of
selection : Lven in view or the detailed evolution
W,, , theories,
ems, it IS well worth
while to spend time upon the more general
question ; for if we gain any clearer hold on our
own belief in God, if we see it riding more free
86 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
than we once did of the supposed terrors of the
detailed statements of science, we shall be in a
much better position to consider the Book which
comes to us in the name of God, And, further,
if we gain a stronger hold upon the faith in
the dignity of our own nature, and trust more
courageously the inward witness of our con-
sciences, we shall be in a better position to con-
sider what kind of transaction revelation may be
— what it must be if it really comes to pass ;
after what fashion God is likely to speak to real
spiritual selves whom He has by His will called
into being. Therefore the improvement of god-
liness and the improvement of manfulness, an
increased hold of theism and an increased belief
in human nature, are alike of advantage when
we wish to approach special points of positive
religion.
Last time I suggested, by a very general form of
description, what is the teaching of evolution, what
is the teaching of natural selection; and I submitted
to you that evolution as such has no quarrel with
theism as such, but that it is possible to raise
something like a debate between theism as such
and natural selection as a special doctrine of the
way in which evolution has been guided. And,
if possible, on a future occasion I shall go on to
say that evolution in its broadest expression may
be thought to have a real debate with the positive
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 87
statements of the first Books of the Bible. There
are, then, in my mind, two debates — the debate
between theism as such and natural selection, the
special theory of evolution ; and a debate between
evolution as such and that religion of the Bible
and the Church which contains a special account
of the way in which God has actually worked.
With regard to theism, I may give you one
more witness in support of a contention which I
have not at all argued out before you — witness of
the witness of Huxley, who, towards theism^and
the end of his life, took occasion to say ^^°'"<^'°"-
that the doctrine of theism is neither stronger nor
weaker for the theory of evolution ; no stronger
and no weaker, in his phrase, than on the day in
which it was invented. That is an important
support of my own opinion that theism, as such,
does not come into direct collision at all with
the doctrine of evolution stated generally. But I
am not at all sure that Huxley would have said
the same thing in 1857. I wish I had had the
leisure to look up certain statements which are
put together in the Life of Huxley about it ; but
my impression is that at that time he regarded the
belief in God as a necessary hypothesis which had
to be accepted in order to account for the variety
of the world.' 1 think that between 1857 and
I The principal passages will be found in the Extract from " The
Reception of the ' Origin of Species,' " ami in a Letter to Sir Charles
88 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
1859 he was eagerly seeking for some alternative
hypothesis which, in his phrase, would do away
with the necessity of believing in " creation " — an
employment of the word " creation " to which
Christians find it very difficult to give a meaning.
For, of course, we mean by creation that
unimaginable, totally inexpressible, relation which
exists between the infinite and the finite.
Creation. ^ • ^ • ,r • ■>■,
JDut to some biologists "creation seems
to stand for a set of facts lying inside natural history
and about which biology ought to be able to give
an account. We do not mean the same thing by
creation. But if we may translate his statement
into terms a little more intelligible, he meant that the
doctrine that God has guided the evolution of the
world will account for the fact that it has grown up
into an order, into a cosmos ; and that if we could
find some mechanical process by which of necessity
varieties might appear in the world, we should
pro tanto have got rid, as I said last Sunday, of
the need of the belief in a Person guiding the
chanores of which we see the results.
Now, when the doctrine of natural selection
came before Huxley, at first he was very in-
credulous of its truth ; but in time he saw the
srreat force which belongs to the treatment which
O CI
Darwin has given to the subject, and he accepted
Lyell, June 25, 1859; both in Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley,
Eversley edition, 1903, vol. i. pp. 241 ff. and 249 ff.
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 89
the theory provisionally. And we may say that
he accepted it as an alternative hypothesis, account-
ing for the guidance of evolution, and therefore
doing away with the necessity of belief in the
personal will of God as ruling the process.
And here let me in passing recall your
attention to what I am sure I must have spoken
of before — the peril in which all religion stands
which regards God in this light, as part of a
working hypothesis to explain a series of physical
changes. If this is our religion, then just in so
far as there is suggested a mechanical self-acting
process by which the appearance of guidance might
be produced, so far also we lose hold of our
need of God and our belief in God. And there-
fore it is very important continually to rebase our
religion, not upon any such narrow conception of
God as a force intervening to bridge the gaps of
physical sequence, but rather as One Who finds
His primary witness, though by no means His
only witness, in the wonder of our own moral,
spiritual, and intellectual nature ; Who has, as 1
think Emerson says, an inlet for the eternal
wisdom in the heart of every man.
Now I wish to ask your attention to a point
which I mentioned briefly when first I ^, „.
-' " The Ring
had the honour of addressino; you — one and the
1-^11 Book."
part of the reason why religion has lost
more in its conflict with science than it ought to
90 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
have lost according to the rules of debate. And
if you will have patience with me, I will get to
it by considering first the change which has taken
place in our scientific conception of the world by
a process for which, in my own mind, I have long
been accustomed to find a parallel and an image in
the process described by Browning in the beginning
of his poem, 'The Ring and the Book. Let me
remind you of the opening lines of that poem.
I think they help us quite admirably to understand
the changes which have taken place in our con-
ception of the world. He describes, you know,
how the chased ring of Roman work, " made to
match by Castellani's imitative craft Etrurian
circlets," is formed out of a piece of gold too thin,
too soft to bear working. There is not enough
of the precious metal, and what there is is of too
frail a fibre. How, then, does the ring get its
carving, its completeness \ —
" There's one trick,
Craftsmen instruct me, one approved device,
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was, — such mere oozings from the mine, . . .
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap :
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily flowers.
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey so to speak ; he mingles gold
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 91
With gold's alloy, and duly tempering both,
Effects a jnanageable mass, then works :
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination ! "
(which means, I believe, a return to the gold's
first condition — )
" Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume,
While self-sufficient now the shape remains.
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness.
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore.
Prime nature with an added artistry.
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring !
What of it ? 'Tis a figure, a symbol, say ;
A thing's sign : now for the thing signified."
The notion of evolution had, I venture to
say again, haunted for generations the minds
of men, but it found no substantial
_^ Evolution
p;round to rest upon. 1 here was too before Dar-
11 ^ r r TT J 1 win a fruit-
small a supply or ract. Here and there lessspecuia-
. ^ . , • . tion.
were signincant circumstances in organic
life, but the whole collection was far too slender
to shape out into a theory which could stand by
itself. We had " mere oozings from the mine ; "
here a touch and there a touch, touches which
people believed in much more in the seventeenth
century than they did at the beginning of the
92 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Victorian era. But evolution remained, for all
the efforts for example of Lamarck, a totally
unfruitful speculation. Science, so far as science
advanced in biology, advanced quite independently
of this dream of developement which was flying
about in the upper air of thought. That remained
a fantasy, an amusement.^ It was supported only
by strange and whimsical theories like those which
you may read in T^he Vestiges of Creation^ which
now, I think, no scientific man would hold to
contain anything of scientific worth. But then
came the conception of natural selection, through
Darwin, through Wallace. And as soon as this
conception, — which I positively must not attempt
^ The same phenomenon, viz. a theory one day to be accepted
on the surest grounds but at first partly recommended on the most
fanciful, is presented in the De Re-volutionihiis Orhiiim of Copernicus.
I owe my acquaintance with this book, and very much besides, to
Mr. Wilfrid Ward.
Great theories, like great men, seem sometimes to have been
strengthened by a youth of play ; they have had their toys as
Wellington his bandalore and tea-tray sledge.
One may almost say of modern science in general that its day of
solid achievement was preceded by a day of light-hearted or of sombre
fancy. Van Hcimont's speculative search for the Vital Principle
resulted in the discovery of fixed gases, and thus contributed largely
to our present doctrine of the constitution of matter.
It seems that, in respect of material things, we have an inkling
of truth before the discovery of facts, and arrive at some right con-
clusions before we possess their premisses. But there is generally an
interval of oblivion or discredit between the prophetic fancy and the
sober hypothesis capable of verification.
Speculations which at present are disfigured by bad science and
bad logic may some day prove to have been forenmners, at an
interval, of a real system of knowledge co-ordinating real evidence.
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 93
to unfold, — showed a method by which the flood
of life, the existence of which must always be pre-
supposed, gained the specialization which we now
see, as soon as this conception was launched,
although it was launched as an unproved hypothesis,
it at once put the facts wonderfully into order.
Further — and notice this especially — the theory not
only set forth in an intelligible form all that was
then known of the appearances in organic life which
suggest their origin by descent with modification,
but disclosed and drew together multitudes of other
facts which had before been totally unsuspected.
For example, the whole range of facts which is
generalized under the term "geographical distribu-
tion " formerly contributed nothing to a systematic
conception of animal life. The strange appearances
which we now call " protective mimicry " were
also utterly inexplicable, and lent nothing to any
system. They were the works of the Creator
indeed, and good men then, as now, reverenced
them as marks of His Hand — that glorious Hand
which now, as much as then, we may still recognize
in them. But these special facts contributed
nothing to a biological conception of the origin
of animal and vegetable life. When natural
selection came in, with its notion of a surplus
multiplication of individuals leading up to a
struggle of selective elimination, then at once all
those strange facts, and other facts equally remote
94 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
and strange, such as the phenomena of parasitism
and symbiosis ^ and other unusual conditions of
life, not only received an explanation, but them-
selves yielded enormous support to the new theory,
and in doing so made evolution in general stronger
in its hold upon men's minds, stronger in its actual
claim to probable certainty. The same thing may
be said of the facts of geology, the series in time
of organic forms ; and again of certain facts of
what is called ontogeny — that is, those parallel
changes within the individual life which reflect
and, as it were, shortly recapitulate the stages of
the descent which makes the history of the species.
All these tacts received a new clearness, a
luminous explanation, and themselves in turn
built up the probability of the general doctrine
that organic life as we see it is the result of
the descent from simpler forms accompanied by
modification. Darwin himself, not only at the
beginning, but at the end of his life, said that he
had no concern with the theological conclusions
which might be drawn from his biological doctrine.
Darwin was himself a Little-Darwinite. He had
no notion of being the king of an empire of
thought. He had no notion of his principles
being taken out from their proper connexion
with organic life, where we actually know that
there is excessive multiplication and so forth, and
' See note on p. 263.
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 95
taken over to be a kind of formula fit to explain
all things that are.
Such a notion was far from Darwin's mind ;
and even with regard to a much more limited
speculation he said that he was himself The theory
unconcerned with the question whether appiil?tCo
or no all the forms of life were descended widely,
from a single primordial form. That, he said in
effect, is a matter of probability with which I am
not concerned : what he wished to do was to suggest
an explanation of a certain range of facts — namely,
those which indicate the origin of species.
So then, we may say, the probable hypothesis
of natural selection, which remains to-day only
probable, and which Huxley to the last said lacked
that consistency which would enable it to pass from
the region of speculation to the region of scientific
dogma — this theory, itself only probable, has given
something almost more than probability to the
wider theory of evolution. It has been like the
alloy added to the pure gold. You have your
small supply of " pure crude fact," unfit to bear
the file's tooth and the hammer's tap. But put
something into it, something which is not " pure
crude fact," something which is the manufactured
product of ingenuity ; and this thing, though
not itself part of the undeniable facts of nature,
though it was rather " gold's alloy than gold
itself," yet enabled the scanty supply of gold
96 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
to gather indeed something of additional mass
and bulk, but also to gain, for the time at least, a
new consistency which enabled it to undergo the
handling of constructive thought. And if that
process of criticism which has been going on so
long goes further still, and we are obliged at last
to acknowledge that natural selection does not
possess that high degree of probability or, on the
other hand, that fitness for general application
which we once hoped, nevertheless the advantage
for evolution which arises from Darwin's theory
will not be simply cancelled. What I submit to
you is this, that, suppose the biological criticism
of such writers as Semper, or Cope, or Eimer,
or Cunningham proved to be (as I am far from
saying it is) " the proper fiery spirit " by which
" the alloy unfastened flies in fume," we shall still
have our ring. Suppose we have to say good-bye
to that special theory of the manner of evolution,
we shall not have to say good-bye to our new
security in the probability of evolution in general.
It has gained in the interval too many new sup-
ports for that. That, then, is my little story of
The Ring and the Book.
Now for a still further application of it. Just
Further ^^ cvolution will wake up surer from
o?the^^'°" its dream of natural selection, even if
figure. that proves to be a dream, so there is
something which will be left behind and which is
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 97
left behind in theology, only in this case it is
something bad as well as something good. What
has, in fact, been the later history of your doc-
trine of evolution by natural selection ? Why,
this : you have applied it as if it were a finished
weapon with a cutting edge which could be put
to any substance, quite forgetting that its sureness
arises from the actual facts of organic life, and
has, so far as we know, no application whatever to
the great facts which lie beyond ; for example, in
stellar astronomy.^ Having gained this formula
of the ' creation ' of a special thing by the elimina-
tion of the rest, having acquired the generalized
thought that things are what they are, because
if they were not what they are they could
not be anything at all, some have proceeded to
apply the thought, as if it were a sure mathe-
matical formula or solution, to explain the general
structure of creation. In the name of evolution,
a fact of organic life on this planet, we are invited
to believe that all things come to pass by the
inevitable succession of inevitable changres. In
fact, we are asked in terms of a modern and
special theory concerning organic life in particular,
to let ourselves drift back to the belief in chance
which was sung long ago, and better than ever
since, by Lucretius.
^ The doctrine of E-uolution has, of course, in the department of
astronomy, one of its greatest chapters, the nebular theory of Kant.
But this has nothing to do with natural selection.
II
98 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Now, that involves a perfectly unjustifiable
step in logic, in argument. Here we have a plain
Evolution case in which the thing which has its
adv^tage origin in a particular range of circum-
to theology, st-g^ncgs is endowed by thought with an
effect in totally different regions where we have
no proof of its action. And then, further, another
part of the added alloy was the statement that the
conception of evolution was in conflict with
theism — that the conception of natural selection
was in conflict with the idea of creation. Men
have been busily examining these statements for
years past, and they have shown — I think those
who have followed the matter will see, with a high
degree of success — that they have no foundation
at all in genuine thought. And, on the contrary,
theology finds itself, where it is seriously at work,
immensely helped in its deeper studies, in its
approach to the thought of the relation between
God and the world in general, by this very con-
ception of evolution ; by the thought that what
we see is not a perfect thing which shows its
destined end, but a growing thing whose nature
is to be guessed by the indications of its purpose,
and not by the present and evident successes of
its labour. We are able, in the very name of
evolution, to check those who would demand a
present summing-up of all the evidences of God's
purpose in the world, who hold, as it were, a knife
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 99
to our throats, and say, " Confess that He Is either
powerless or bad, since He made so bad a world."
It is precisely in the name of evolution, it is by
virtue of just this conception of change still in
progress, that we answer that nobody is ready for
such an alternative. And the answer is needed,
for in the world of thought there are spectacles
which are rather like what we remember, some of
us, long ago at school. Cast your mind back to
the first beginnings of education. Remember
the governess or the master at the preparatory
school giving out a problem of mental arithmetic,
or writing out on the board a long sum for
addition or division. Can you not also recall the
ardent infant who shoots out an arm to say that
he knows the answer, meeting the calm rebuke,
" My boy, 1 have not yet finished setting the
question " ? That suggests the answer which we
must give to those who demand from us a sudden
reply to the alternative, " Is God weak, or is He
less than good ? One answer or the other you
must make your own, when you see the world as
it is." To this we must say, "We are not pre-
pared to give you any answer on these grounds,
because the question itself is yet a-setting, and we
know not by that kind of inspection how it may
turn out." If we know, it is by another road ;
if we know, it is by a spiritual reaction between
our spirit and that Spirit which is our Father ; it is
100 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
by the answer of love to a love which makes
itself felt through the storm, through the cloud,
of physical experience.
But, to return, further examination abolished
the supposed opposition between evolution and
creation. Nevertheless, some mischief remains.
We have not really lost, but the impression
remains with us that we have lost. There are
multitudes of Christians who have felt the sup-
posed difficulty — who have taken in, so to speak,
that added thing, not gold, but gold's alloy ; whose
minds have been carved, not to the fair ring with
lilied form, but into a grotesque image of doubt
or despair.
But when through careful criticism, when
through devout thought, when through the
^ . . labours of philosophy, the alien thing:.
But it has ^ . "^ . . . . ^
left loss in the supposcd anti-thcolomcal implication
many minds. .. . in- ■ r >»
of science, " unfastened flies in fume,
the shape remains. The man does not, by the
elimination of error, get back to his old positive
attitude ; he does not thereby recover his peace of
mind, his prayer. He is willing to admit that
what he supposed to be a conclusion destructive of
belief is not, indeed, on inspection, destructive —
" Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume "
but he is not as he was.
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE loi
You have the old substance, perhaps, and
a ring to boot, as it seems ; but your gold ?
There is a work of art, indeed, but a work of
most meretricious and miserable and confining
art ; not something more^ by reason of this intru-
sion of an alien thing now withdrawn, but some-
thing less. For the thing added has altered the
specific gravity and the centre of gravity of the
mass of life ; and, teaching it new dependences,
has left it, in withdrawing, unbalanced. I am not
careful to maintain the consistency of my figure.
It is tho. fact 1 aim at — the fact that the destruction,
the extraction, of error, does not of necessity leave
the old truth triumphant. The substance of life
is for the time impoverished, its energy weakened
by the double process. For a man whose faith
has been checked by intellectual negations, the
cure is not found when his intellectual conclusion
has been reversed. There is still a long labour of
doubt and difficulty. He has to pass through
great and dark chambers of search. He must
touch ground in the mere acknowledgment of
ignorance concerning God before, in a renewed
freedom, he is able once more to apprehend those
ancient foundations of our faith which God has
planted in ourselves.
1 might most easily — too easily — give you out
of the stores of my own memory, but also of my
own most sensitive affections, an account of such
102 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
a life as this, in the end triumphant over doubt ;
a life fit to be remembered, at least by name —
the life of George Romanes. But I cannot bring
myself to do so, because I know about it very
well. It is important, however, to remember in
ourselves, and to remember in our sympathy with
the society to which we belong, this process which
I have named — well or ill — the process of the
Ring and the Book, the sad result which comes
from an intrusion of alien matter, but which does
not depart when the intrusion is withdrawn.
And so, if there be any here who have felt the
pressure of that doubt which comes from a new
The return interest in outward things, who have
to faith. thought that perhaps the mechanical
explanation of organic varieties would carry them,
and ought to carry them, to a necessitarian ex-
planation of the whole of being ; if there are any
who are not sufficiently awake to the general
wonder of things, who do not feel, as Coleridge
felt, that the mystery of mysteries is that there
should be anything at all and not nothing ; whose
souls, asleep to the great marvel of existence itself,
have been absorbed in considering the process of a
supposed mechanical manufacture ; — these cannot
find their safety or their renewed religion only by
a process of argument. All that argument can
do for them is to clear a space where life may act
again. Argum ent is like the whip who cracks his
EFFECT OF EVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINE 103
thong to keep the hounds outside a given line, that
within it men may move at ease. And so the sup-
posed argumentative necessity of unbelief is to be
met by the richly evidenced argumentative liberty
of religion ; but its effect is to be reversed only
by the rising again in personal adventure of the
soul towards God.
For religion is not, like natural science, a
conclusion which arises from the accumulated
possession of a great number of par-
. . . . . The charac-
ticulars in experience ; nor is it the terof
^ r ^ • ■ religion.
necessary result or a clear mspection
of our inward life, a law of thought without
which nobody can think at all. It is no mere
philosophical conclusion, even if that conclusion
be theism. But it is the reaction of a spiritual
being to the love of the Spirit which has created
him. It is the root most inward, most central,
of attachment between the man and God. And
it is from this root, firmly held, deeply planted,
entirely trusted, that we see grow out, more
or less gradually, all the special affirmations
of revealed religion. It is to this almost native
commerce between Himself and His creature that
the Creator appeals in what is called revelation.
It is upon this sympathy that the Saviour makes
His claim. It is in virtue of this kinship, how-
ever obscured, that we recognize that He is indeed
the only-begotten Son ; that He is that perfect
104 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Other, yet the Same, Who is alone worthy to be
the outcome of the perfect God.
It is by this path of apprehension that we see
that the created finite thing cannot look to find
the evidence of its goodness in a mere flawless
integrity as if it could be perfect by itself; but
finds the evidence of its goodness in its own
groaning ; for the perfect God cannot make another
being infinite, perfect, all-holy, like Himself That
would be to call into being another God, which is
impossible. Nor would this second Existence be
a creature, for it would be infinite as God is,
eternal a parte anteriori. But the good thing He
has made is constituted non in perfectione^ sed in
capacitate recipiendi perfectionem ; not in itself com-
plete and good, but in a wonderful condition to
receive the adorable fulness of Him Who has
made it, that it might be empty for Himself, Who
has given it a reality which consists, or which
finds itself, in being directed towards Him, and
a destiny which completes itself in self-emptying
and in the total receiving of Him Who is alone
all Good.
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM
A twofold doubt — I. Is science the only knowledge ? — With divided
knowledge we must be uncontented but not impatient — II. Is
Jaw exclusive of all freedom ? — Science has extended the range
and made more intimate the penetration of law — Religion sup-
posed to be in regions outside law — The extension of law will
go further — A suggestion — Science must speak in the mode ot
necessity — Freedom is a fact for experience — Freedom seems
to grow where law grows clear — Example of agriculture — Two
primitive extremes of thought — The freedom of God — Ward's
image of the mice in the piano — Determinism a conclusion
from limited experience.
"Doth the plowman plow continually to sow? Doth lie continually
open and break the cloils of his ground ? When he hath made plain the
face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin,
and put in the wheat in rows and the barley in the appointed place and the
spelt in the border thereof? For his God doth instruct him aright, and
doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a sharp threshing
instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin, but the
fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn
is ground 5 for he will not ever be threshing it : and though the wheel of his
cart and his horses scatter it, he doth not grind it. This also cometh forth
from the Lord of Hosts, Which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in
wisdom." — IsA. xxviii. 24-29 (R.V.).
This also cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts.
" It came from Him," says a commentator, "and
is an illustration of His own method of working."
io6 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
To-day, In attempting a kind of close, though
not a full close, it is well that we should seek to
press on to the fundamental fear which we have
with regard to natural science.
Beneath all special statements of doubt, and
remaining after we have said all we can in special
A twofold defence of faith, there exists, it seems to
doubt. j^g^ jj^ many minds a twofold suspicion
or fear, or perhaps in some minds it takes the
form of a twofold hope. There is, first, a suspicion
concerning knowledge that science alone is real
knowledge, and that the other things which go
by the name of knowledge are only fancies spun
from our own minds. And the second suspicion
is one concerning the world, that that also is a
fixed and ultimate scene, a reality absolutely
determined in its general history and in all its
details ; that the science which seems sometimes
to be the only real knowledge corresponds to a
universe of law from which freedom is excluded.
Those seem to me two propositions in which one
mieht state the fundamental fear : that science
alone is real knowledge, and that it corresponds
to a universe of law from which freedom is
excluded. The claim for natural science that
it is the only and the sufficient knowledge is
called, by a singular modesty, Agnosticis'm. The
denial of freedom fits one of the senses in which
the word Determinism is used.
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 107
On the first point, that of knowledge, I only
offer one or two headings of thought. There will
be no time to develope these at all. But, i._is sci-
on the other hand, I dare not leave them oni^y know-
unspoken because there has been some- ^ ^^
thing to object to, even from my own point of
view, in what I have already said.
We have tried to speak of the reality of
spiritual knowledge. We have tried to show
that our interest does not lie in the disparage-
ment of any particular theory concerning the
world. Indeed, for my own part, I have for a
good many years been accustomed, whenever
I have had occasion to express myself on these
subjects, to minimise the difficulties which attend
scientific theory ; always, for example, to make the
most of the certainty of evolution, the most I
can of the probability of natural selection, lest it
should be supposed that we have a theological
interest in weakening either of those theories. It
is very important that we should not seem to
have a theological interest in weakening any
particular theory about the physical world. But
we have a theological interest and a spiritual
interest in protesting against that being taken
for certain which is uncertain, whatever it is.
In the second place, our interest does not lie
in the disparagement of natural or physical know-
ledge in nreneral and as such. It does not lie in
io8 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
the direction, that is to say, of scepticism, of
idealism as it is misunderstood by the common-
sense man. I must remind you that idealism in
Berkeley's or in any form — the statement that
the criterion of reality is not in outward things —
suggests to the plain man the notion that we
deny the reality of the external world or the
soundness of the knowledge which comes from
it. That notion ought to have been by this
time driven away, but it is not so wholly. No
idealist has any interest in denying what the
plain man means by reality. We think with him
that his reality which is phenomenal reality is
phenomenally real.
Religion or spiritual thought has no interest,
any more than philosophic idealism, in disparaging
natural knowledge in general.
Nor, in the third place, has it any interest in
segregating the two kinds of knowledge. And
this is the point where I have to make my ex-
planation. For I artlessly quoted an artless
phrase of M. Pasteur in which he speaks of the
two kinds of knowledge as being quite separate.
I have, therefore, to add that I did not mean that
I thought his expression philosophically satisfactory
or sound. On the contrary, thought must always
press on towards a unity. It must never be con-
tented without a unity. It must never think to
abide in a state in which the knowledge of the
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 109
world is one thing and the knowledge of God is
another thing, or suppose that these may be kept
apart in sealed chambers. That would be what
is called obscurantism, or sometimes, and quite
wrongly, mysticism ; the notion that religious
knowledge has nothing to do with natural know-
ledge and need not be conciliated with it, but
rides free in a region where it can neither be
proved nor disproved, in the air. No ; thought
must never be contented with less than a complete
unification of knowledge.
But to refuse to be contented is one thing, and to be
impatient is another} We are not to be contented,
but we are not to be impatient. In w^ithdivid-
fact, uncontentment itself (for we can pdknow-
' V ledge we
scarcely call it discontentment) carries must be un-
J ^ ' contented
with it patience of this kind, because, but not
. , r 1 r 1 • impatient.
precisely on account or the tact that it
desires to co-ordinate all the things that it knows,
it determines not to let go of any one of the things
that it knows. It is just on account of the duty
of unifying thought that we must keep fast hold
of parts of thought which seem to be separate
one from another. We must not try to reach
a unity by defining as outside reality the things
which we cannot understand. You know very
well a theory of the Church which arrives at a
1 "To hope and not to be impatient is really to believe '' (George
Meredith, Harry Richmond^ chap. iii.).
no THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
conception of its accomplished unity by the
simple process of defining as outside the Church
every one who does not agree with a certain part
of the Church. A man can see a harmonious,
indeed an unanimous, Church on that plan, by
selecting the part which agrees with himself as
the true Church and saying that the other parts
do not belong to the true unity. But he who
seeks after a real unity of the Church which can
include all who belong to Christ must take
exactly the opposite course ; and, being discon-
tented with the disunion of the Church, he must
be patient with the disturbances of the Church.
Even so in general thought, it is the main
duty of thought to arrive at a unity, and on that
very ground we have to be patient with dis-
crepancies. We do not mean by this that a final
philosophical solution is discovered by stating
two kinds of knowledge, but we point to a
circumstance in experience and we point to a
rule of conduct. And so in what I have said at
this time and at other times about patience with
regard to discontinuous portions of knowledge, it
would be very unfortunate for me if I were taken
to mean that we must be permanently and, to
use a convenient phrase, absolutely contented with
it. We seek after an absolute and final unity
which we heartily believe to be God, but there is a
■proximate plurality in experience ; and just because
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM iii
we seek after a final unity we must be patient
for a time with this proximate plurality. Indeed,
the perception of difference is itself the implicit
possession of a unifying principle, and it is the
work of thought to render that implicit unifying
principle explicit in explanation.
Now we pass to the second thought — the
thought of the uniformity of nature. Is not
science, and science alone, in relation to
. r 1 1 • • n.— Is law
a universe of law ; and is there room in exclusive of
that universe for the freedom of which
faith speaks ?
We agreed long ago that there could be no
religion unless we believed in freedom in some
true sense. Now I will go further, and say that
there can be no conduct YiiXhont: a belief in freedom.
And in those two points I shall carry everybody
here with me. But I shall not carry everybody
with me in a third assertion — namely, that
without freedom there can be no knowledge. But
I submit to you that if all that we think is deter-
mined mechanically and arises as a necessary
reaction from the world in which we live ; if
what we call our thoughts is nothing: more than
the resonance of a bell which must needs sound
in tune with the vibrations which are round about
it ; — how does there come to be such a thing as
error ? How does there come to be such a thing
as the progressive correction of error ? How
112 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
does there come to be such a thing as falsehood ?
Even in this realm of apprehension, of knowledge,
I am more and more convinced that there is a
place for will, a place for freedom. And it is by
the exercise of the will, though a subtle exercise
which does not seem like mere purpose — we may
rather call it attention — it is by an exercise which
is fundamentally free and personal that knowledge
itself advances.
I admit, then, that if science is indeed in
relation to a universe of law in which there is
no room for freedom, we may altogether throw
up the cause of religion.
In respect of this matter, what has science
done ? In the first place, it has extended our
Science has perception of the range of law. It has
the mn^e niade us see law extending over regions
and made ^f reality wherc we used not to recoo-nize
more mti- J o
mate the \^^ jj-j ^\^q second place, it has made law
penetration .
of law. appear more, penetrating^ more intimately
applied to the details of the world. It presses
forward towards a time when there shall be, on
the one hand, no region of fact outside the realm
of law ; towards a time when, on the other hand,
there shall be no movement so small as to escape
the mesh of law. It has a tendency to increase
the range of law in our conception of the world,
and to increase the penetrating efficacy of law in
our perception of the world.
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 113
Now, this has made a real difference to religion.
For formerly religion in many minds found a
refuge in parts of the universe which
1 1 -11 nr> Relig-ion
were supposed to be outside law. To supposed
the primitive savage weather seemed to regions out-
be outside law. There, in the matters
of rain and hail, was precisely the home of his
devotion. Other things were fixed. If you
knocked a man on the head hard enough he fell
down. There was law about that. You did not
say your prayers, but you hit as hard as you
could. But the rain was a different affair. There
was nothing to be done with regard to that except
to drive up cows to the Bushman on the hill.
(It is an interesting circumstance in ethnology
that races often venerate the scattered remains of
the population which they have displaced. So
the Hottentots venerate the Bushmen, and the
Kaffirs venerate the Hottentots remaining among
them.) There, in the weather, was a place for
religion, a region outside any law which you could
calculate upon ; and, therefore, a region of facts
in respect of which you might properly make
prayers to God or to those who seemed to know
the way of the god of the country.
In our day and place science, although it does not
profess to be able to foretell with great accuracy the
particular changes of the weather, would never admit
tor a moment that it was outside the range of law.
I
114 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
At a later stage life seemed to be outside the
range of law. We saw a world which was fixed
in its physical characteristics of heat and cold and
the rest, which we called either the uniformity of
nature or the expression, the fixed expression, of
God's Will. But we considered the diversities
of organic life as if they had a different kind of
origin, as if they were made by a different class
of fiat, and as if they were the result of a freer
choice than the relations which exist, for example,
between raising the temperature of a metal and
changing its molecular condition, between the
heating and the liquefying of lead.
That region of life also, although it has not
been reduced to stateable law and form, will never
now be allowed, 1 do not say by scientific persons
only, but by any thinking men, to be outside the
realm of law. We are sure, though we have not
proved it, from the advances that we have made
in the study of living substance — In medicine, in
physiology, in the observation of the varieties of
animal life, and, quite lately, in the further
scrutiny of the mysterious changes in the nucleus
which precede the segmentation of the cell — that,
whatever the law be, and however difficult it may
be to find it out and to state it in all its intricacy,
there is a law of life quite as binding and quite
as uniform in its procedure as the law by which
water grows larger when it freezes. We may
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 115
say the same about the origin of species. Though
there again the explanation is not yet found, we
feel it to be among the things which might be
found if we went on far enough along the right
track. The developement of man, both in the
sense of his descent as a species and in the sense
of his individual growth, is a subject from which
science does not turn away as being outside its
scope.
And we shall go on claiming more and more
things which used to seem outside its range.
Mental processes, the movements of the ^j^^ ^^^^^
affections and of the will, all these J°i^°y^^
become the subjects of exact observation further,
or of observation which is by way of being exact.
Very likely in years to come we shall think our
tests were crude and rough or even quite mistaken.
Still they are efforts in scientific analysis. And
we shall press on until, perhaps, all the move-
ments of thought, will, emotion, appear to be
either within the range of law or capable of being
brought within it. So, then, the various kinds
of experiences and the various tracts of the life of
the world in which religion of certain kinds has
from age to age found a new refuge, as if retreat-
ing from the plains into the mountains, are taken
from it, if, which I am far from granting, religion
requires a refuge which is outside the law of
uniformity. And to those who trust to such
ii6 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
remote fastnesses it must appear as if religion
would be obliged to pass into the air and ride
free of facts altogether. . . . This, then, is what
science is doing. It is extending, for the mind,
the range and increasing the penetration of law.
I may mention here, although it does not
come strictly in the order I have planned, what
A sugges- I think we shall arrive at with regard to
tion. Q^j. Q^j^ jjfg^ J think that we shall be
led to distinguish more clearly than before between
all the complex of faculties, even the most inward,
in which men energise, and the root of personal
being itself. In past ages men did not distinguish
between their limbs and their inward centre of
identity ; and indeed they were right in an im-
portant sense, for one's limbs are not an adjunct
or possession ; they are a part of one's self Still,
as thought went on, men separated the willing,
feeling faculties of themselves which they grouped
together as ' soul,' from the outward, muscular
effects of the same self. In our own day, these
inward movements are in turn claimed by natural
science, and we shall make a further step. We shall
be obliged to distinguish between all the charac-
teristics, all that goes to make up that spiritual
vessel in which we make our voyage of life, and —
I use for the moment an unsatisfactory expression
— the essential passenger himself We shall come
to recognize a root of will and choice which lies
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 117
below the complex of motives and the complex
of capabilities, which we roughly call our inward
being. And it is there, not as in its sole residence,
but as if in focus, that we shall distinguish a central
force of freedom working outwards, the will, to
speak figuratively, springing from that hidden
place, to the faculties, and the characteristics,
and the motives, and the tendencies themselves
which form our inward life ; and, through them,
developed in the bodily movements in conduct,
in the organization of society, and in the widest
range of human influence. At the root, just
in proportion as we see the range of law going
without exception through the whole series of
particulars, so much the more clearly shall we
be forced to acknowledge this other reality, the
mystery of freedom working in the midst of it.
With regard to this subject, I will remind you
once more of what at an earlier moment we dealt
with, namely, the fact that science is an science
abstraction, an abstracted operation of jJJ"hVmo(^e
the mind; that it must speak under a of necessity,
particular mode, and that the mode under which
it speaks is the mode of necessity. It must
speak of things as if they were necessarily what
they are. If they have their form through the
freewill of some being, science, nevertheless, must
always speak of them in so far as they are deter-
mined. Even with regard to the thino^s which
ii8 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
man eiFects, you would have to make this separa-
tion of aspects for purposes of study. If you were
inquiring, for example, into the action of radium,
seeking to know whether or not Professor
Crookes's suggestion as to the gathering in of
energy from the subtle movements of the air is
the true account of its apparently inexhaustible
fount of force, you would have to leave out of
account the life history of those two persons to
whom we owe so much. Monsieur Curie and his
wife. That would not come into the particular
class of facts regarded. When we were examining
these we could not admit to our scientific analysis
the fact that Monsieur and Madame Curie might,
if they chose, have let the affair alone. The radium
is for this particular analysis a fixed datum. For a
wider point of view our present knowledge of its
behaviour is due to a person's free choice of the
manner in which he should employ his life. But
the personal questions form no part of the physical
inquiry. Even so the world, though it be made
by the free action of God, has to be regarded by
science as the one and only possible thing which
could have been there. Otherwise our particular
and abstracted methods of observation would be
upset by problems which do not belong to it.
Science, therefore, is bound to speak of all things
under the mode of necessity, under the notion
that they must be what they are.
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 119
With these preliminary remarks we face the
difficult problem of necessity, a problem to which
I have, no more than anybody else, an answer,
but about the practical aspect of which every one
has a conviction of his own.
I leave on one side, I do not approach, that
famous employment of the intelligence, the phi-
losophical defence of freewill. You may think
that from the great thinkers of the world — from
Hegel or Lotze — you have a formula which
makes it plainer to you, or, at any rate, one which
enables you to be perfectly sure, that freev/ill is in
the root of things a reality. Or, by contrast, you
may think that all philosophical discussions of the
matter hitherto have been totally unsatisfactory.
But whatever be your view about them, every-
body here will admit that freewill is for us an
empirical certainty — it is a fact of experience. If
it is an illusion, it is a complete illusion to which
we are all subject. It is as complete an illusion
as the illusion, if it be one, of the uniformity of
nature ; and that uniformity is as little susceptible
as freewill is of philosophical proof.
We have, then, to take freedom, along with
necessity, as among those things which are true
for us in our present experience, what-
1 • 1 • Freedom is
ever be the result of the ultimate analysis a fact for
^ , . J f. . . experience.
or that experience. It it is a mystery,
it is a mystery with which we are certainly
120 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
confronted. If philosophy has been a failure in
this respect, then freedom is a mystery, but it is a
real mystery. We live in a world which at one
moment, or when we are thinking in one way,
seems wholly fixed. We live in a world in which
day by day we have alternative courses before us,
and take which we please. The old statement of
Johnson remains true, if at all, only with a difference.
He said that all speculation is against freewill, and
all experience is in its favour. This will not hold
true quite as it stands. All speculation is not
against freewill, nor is all experience in its favour.
There are many experiences, and many stretches
of experience, in which we are inclined to give up
the notion of freewill because we find ourselves
swept to and fro by irresistible forces. We
cannot say that, speculatively, there is nothing to
be said for freewill, and, experimentally, nothing
to be said against it. Both in speculation and
experience we are confronted with these two
realities — the reality of necessity and the reality
of freewill.
The second point I wish to make is, that in
our experience of freewill there is a certain growth ;
and that the growth is significant. It
seems to is a variation which establishes the fact
^w^^ws that it is not where law is most obscure
that freewill is most operative. On the
contrary, it is precisely where law is most clear
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 121
and where law has been best learned and sub-
mitted to and mastered (for, as Bacon said long
ago, we only master the world by submitting to
it), it is just there that freedom gets its chance.
There are two men dealing with the ground.
One of them is an untutored savage. He knows
nothing about laws of growth. He has not gone
behind that old devout and most true statement
of the matter which St. Paul gave to the Lycao-
nians, when he said that God gives rain from
Heaven, and fruitful seasons. This truth, it may
be, he dimly discerns, but he has not learned any
part of the ordered manner in which the gift
arrives. He grubs in the wood for a root ;
sometimes he finds it and is glad ; sometimes he
misses it, and I will not say that he is sorry, but he
is hungry. Occasionally he may plant seed, and
it is for him an affair of accident whether it bear
fruit or not. He knows nothing — does he ^ —
about treating his land with basic slag. He has
never worked out the laws — I do not mean abstruse
and intricate laws like that of bacterial action
upon raw nitrogenous products, the behaviour
of those organisms which inhabit the rootlets of
leguminous plants, and capture the free nitrogen
which would otherwise fly off into space. He
does not even know that if you sow wheat it
will not come up barley. He thinks of agriculture
as a very vague process. The notion of regular
122 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
sequence is not in his mind at all. Sometimes he
gets what he wants, and sometimes he goes with-
out, and that is all that can be said. Is he the
free man, or is the farmer the free man ?
Surely the farmer who knows the law of the
matter, the farmer who regards it as a rigid
Example of ^^^chine from whose grip there is no
agriculture, escape, he is the man who will get
wheat when he wants it, and potatoes when he
prefers them. " When he hath made plain the
face of his ground," he does not continue in-
definitely to plough in a vague manner. " Doth
he not cast abroad the fitches and scatter the
cummin," and put in the wheat where he wants
it to be, " in rows, and the barley in the appointed
place, and the spelt in the border " of his field
to protect it from the encroachment of animals }
" For his God doth instruct him aright and doth
teach him." And, further, he knows what to
do with his mechanical means. " The fitches
are not threshed with a sharp threshing instru-
ment." That would not be the way to treat this
crop. *' Neither is a cart wheel turned about upon
the cummin ; but the fitches are beaten out
with a staff, and the cummin " with another suitable
instrument. " Bread corn is ground. He will
not for ever be threshing it." There is an order
in the operations of agriculture. " He doth not
break up corn with the wheel of his cart." " This
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 123
also," his agricultural knowledge, " cometh forth
from the Lord of Hosts, Which is wonderful in
counsel and excellent in wisdom." It is part of
His gift, and it discloses something of His own
method. Surely that is a plain case. Is it not
where the law grows plainer, and precisely for the
man to whom it is plain, that freedom and choice
become effective ^
The same variation is observed in the different
parts of our own experience. There are some
things of which we know the law, and therein
we are free. There are some things about which
we do not know the law — such as the weather —
and about these we are slaves.
One can put the two poles of feeling about
this matter very well in an image which con-
tinually recurs to one who travels about Twoprfmi-
the country. There is a time on a rail- JJ-em^eTof
way journey when the antic savage thought,
wakes up in us again, when the darkness of the
tunnel shuts down as you read your book.
Have you never known the feeling that it
was an incalculable accident ? Have you never
known an impatience which was thoroughly
unreasonable ? You have tapped your foot,
perhaps, until the gloom went up, as if it were
something which could be altered. I take it that
in that moment when you are impatient, as if the
regular recurrence of the dark between this and
124 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Sevenoaks ^ were something that could be avoided,
you are reflecting the ancient savage who does not
read law in anything. It is a moment of ancestral
sympathy with him. When we think a little we
see that the experience belongs to going by train.
There is no getting out of it. There are so many
tunnels, and they are so long, and they will not
come to an end a second sooner for any desire of
ours. There we have the old savage idea of
freedom, exaggerated and one-sided, corrected by
a simple reflexion on the iron rigidity of the
system on which we move.
But, on the other hand, there is the savage,
unintelligent belief in necessity. I take another
journey ; this time on a motor-car. Suppose it is an
old one, perhaps not of the best make, and perhaps
not driven in the best way. There is a break-
down every twenty miles and a wait of half an
hour before each fresh start. The antic savao-e
o
spirit in its opposite extreme rises to the asser-
tion that all motor travelling has of necessity
innumerable breakdowns and they all of them
take at least half an hour to get over. There
is one savage who thinks you might avoid the
dark tunnel through which you are bound
to go and for which you have taken a ticket ;
and there is another savage who folds his hands
' A more speaking example would be the road between Rapallo
and Genoa.
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 125
at the innumerable breakdowns which might be
avoided by a better mechanician.
I think that those two simple things throw
no contemptible light upon the twofold mystery
of necessity and freewill. There are times when
we think that things are to be changed which are
fixed ; and there are times when we think that
things must be fixed which ought to be changed.
There is no need for us at the present day to
grow in the sense of the inevitable. We have a
full enough philosophy of the inevitable already.
The proper work of the spirit of man is to extend
the range of freedom ; and he will extend it, not
by philosophical discussion, but by mastering the
very laws in the midst of which he dwells, and
by bringing to bear upon them that mysterious
fountain of origination which is in himself.
I think that those brief examples, if thought
over, will do one more good with regard to the
uniformity of nature than a more learned dis-
cussion. At any rate, I will leave the matter
there, in order that I may add a word about
another freedom which also concerns us, the
freedom of God.
If we are interested in showing that man has
in himself a fount of origination, small, relative,
confined, and strictly conditioned by the jhe freedom
world in which he lives, but yet real; °^^°'^-
how much more are we interested in continuino;
126 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
the belief that God is a fountain of unlimited
freedom, ruling with sovereign majesty for His
own purposes over all that He has created. And
surely what we have said about our own freedom
within the range of law should carry us to the
conclusion a fortiori about God's freedom, Who
is Himself holding in the hollow of His hand
that universe the laws of which we ipainfuUy and
partially observe. Surely if we who are the
products of the play of forces can yet, from our
nest within the play of forces, make our change
in the sequences of the physical events of which
we are the children — and this is one of the
greatest mysteries of the world, but it is also one
of its plainest facts — how much more shall God,
Who is not contained in the physical universe,
but contains it, control it to His own ends ?
How much more shall we continue to believe in
His personal freedom of will, although we see
uniformity of sequence in the world which He
has made }
My brothers, the uniformity of nature, so far
as we have discerned it, is nothing but the ex-
pression of the stability of God's good pleasure.
The sun rises every morning, and we shall not
be warm without it. It is the signal of the sure
mercies of God, sure in their recurrence, but
merciful in their freedom. . . . The very work
of man in this world is to answer to the signal ;
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 127
to know the Father and Jesus Christ Whom He
has sent. It is to know the reality of God's
controlling power and the clearness of His
manifestations within our own flesh, and man
ought to grow to know this by what he knows
of his own limited self-determination. He ought
to look up with joy and reverence to God and
adore in Him a great reality, which answers to
that small but real spark of freedom which He
has planted in us, and which makes the possibility
of virtue and of honour.
But instead of this, forgetting our own limita-
tion, or rather in the very name of our own
limitation judging the Almighty, we deny His
freedom because of the constancy of His gitts.
It is very strange — is it not ? — that the naturalistic
analysis, which goes to show that the knowledge
of men and their mental processes are totally
insignificant and hardly respectable, being, indeed,
if this interpretation stands, nothing but the in-
evitable reaction of quasi-chemical changes, should
rely upon these very processes which are shown
to be so mean for a title to judge of the great
reality which lies behind all that encloses us.
You remember the old image of the mice in
the piano. You must distinguish it from ward's
another story, very valuable, about the J^cffn^the ^
beetles in the clock. It is an image in- P'^°-
vented by Dr. W. G. Ward, not the Ward whose
128 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
book, Agnosticism and Naturalism^ you ought all
to be reading now, but another Ward, " Ideal "
Ward, one of the men of the Oxford Movement.
The image is this, and it is one which carries
something like conviction with it to my mind.
Dr. Ward pictures a nation of mice living within
a piano, which is their world, beyond which they
do not pass. The possibility of a supply of food
must be imagined. They live within their world
of wood and wires. There they are born, and
there they grow up. Over their heads continually
is music, and they perceive something, though
but a little, of its mechanism. You have to
suppose them endowed with reasoning faculties
not inferior to our own. Now, such mice, says
Dr. W^ard, observing the sequence of sounds over
their heads, enjoying, one may suppose, the
music, would at first think that all was ' free ' in
the savage sense, all incalculable. But as genera-
tions went on they would begin to observe the
sequences. And then, further, some would arise
who observed the fall of the hammers upon the
wires and they would say — and it is not an
exaggeration of what is said by ourselves — "This
music which you take to be a token of a person-
ality like our own is but the result of the impact
of the hammers upon the wires, which could only
come to pass after this antecedent and that."
One can imagine something like a parallel of
AGNOSTICISM AND DETERMINISM 129
some statements of Tyndall. " You can no more
expect the tune without the fall of the hammers
than you can expect to see the mouse walk upon
the ceiling of the piano." Here arises rationalism
in the mouse mind. Then, further, there appear
in this generation of scientific mice one or two
explorers bolder and more persevering than the
rest. At last one who has gone up above the
hammers and above the wires, who has explored
through several joints the system of levers, returns
to announce that what appeared to be the incalcu-
lable fall of the hammers upon the wires is itself
strictly determined by processes which he is quite
sure are ultimate and final, the movement of
certain rods behind the scene. Under this teach-
ing, under this disheartening gospel, the poor mice
lose all trust in anything beyond their universe.
The rigorous logic of experience is too strong
for them. They see, too plainly to deny it, the
sequence between sound and hammer and the
movement of the rods behind ; and if there are
some things which they cannot follow, they are
willing to fall down before the authority of the
mouse who knows. . . . And all the while outside
there is some one who ordains the tune, who
creates the music, who pours into this machine,
through all its intricacy, the reality of a spiritual
life, so that beings of a higher order, not living
inside the piano, but seated round it, not only
K
130 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
admire the working of art brought out by a skill
which they know to be personal, but are also
touched by a spiritual message which finds an
echo in their own hearts.
Even so, while we, observing the few joints
in the machinery which we have been able to trace,
Determinism ^hink fit to assert dogmatically that the
fromTimfted world, in which necessity plainly rules,
experience, ^nd in which One thing is determined
by its antecedent, can have no reality of
freedom behind it, we are like the mice within
the piano, and prate our disbelief in the unseen
presence of other beings of a higher scale ; nay,
in the presence of the humblest village wife who
is a believing Christian, and who by her belief has
escaped from this shell of carnal and physical
experience to a direct intuition of the great Artist,
of the real Freedom, of the sovereign Will and
Love which lie behind the regulated world we
see.
VI
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM :
THE SUBJECT RESUMED^
The spectacle of life — Recapitulation — Different views of Natural
Selection — For our purpose the greatest possible force allowed
to Natural Selection — What is Natural Selection ? — -Selection
does not account for Life — The wonder of life is in the whole
of it — A dilemma — Natural Selection does not account for
variation.
"Then were the entrances of this world made narrow, and sorrowful
and toilsome : they are but few and evil, full of perils, and charged with
great toils." — 2 Esdras vii. 12 (R.V.),
The five Addresses delivered in Lent may, I
hope, have been useful in establishing some degree
of acquaintance, though it be of a one- -j-he spectacle
sided sort, between the speaker and °^^^^^-
those who are so patient as to listen. I am
still seeking guidance as to the subjects which
interest my hearers. Some letters have reached
me, and these indicate what is to me a specially
welcome fact, viz. that minds are movincr
' CD
1 Between the two addresses which are given in Chapters V.
and VI. there was an interval of many weeks.
132 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
away from particular biological or physical dis-
cussions to the wider problems of metaphysics
and of faith. It is pessimism which is felt to be
the main danger by believers ; and to others it is
precisely the doctrine of evil and of sin, the
general form of our Theodike, which seems most
difficult and most worthy of examination in our
Christian belief. Both the tendency to a wider
speculation and the wider questions themselves
are alike most welcome to me ; but at present and
for the purpose of this particular course it seems a
duty to keep as near as we can to questions which
are usually, if roughly, called scientific. Perhaps
when we have paid in this way some very small
instalment of our debt to the narrower subjects,
we may find opportunity to work together upon
deeper questions of life.
To-day I return to Natural Selection and its
supposed conflict with Theism ; and with regard
Recapituia- ^o this conflict 1 will recall certain points
tion. |.Q your memory. First, in physical
inquiry we distinguish Evolution — the general
doctrine of the specialization of living creatures
by descent with modification — from Natural
Selection, which is the supposed guide or directive
factor of evolution. Perhaps we ought not to
speak of the theory of Natural Selection, for a
theory should in some particular respect cover
the whole of the facts under examination. Thus,
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 133
Young's undulatory theory of light is an interpre-
tation, for certain purposes and to a certain degree,
of the whole of the phenomena of light, so far as
they were known to Young.
The Doctrine of Natural Selection is not in a
similar position. For Natural Selection was not
held by Darwin to be a fact operating over
the whole field of evolution, but to be a factor, a
working influence mingled with, or alternating
with, other influences. Let us, then, call the facts
pointed to under this name the selective elements
in evolution, and let us call the doctrine of those
facts the Principle of Natural Selection in the
Evolution Theory. We distinguish, then, first,
the general doctrine, or T^heory^ of Evolution from
the special Principle of Natural Selection, which
was Darwin's original contribution to that theory
— a contribution, you will remember, which was
independently ofi^ered by Wallace at the same
time.
We made also a distinction with rep-ard to the
matter of faith in question ; a distinction between
Theism, or the general belief in God, and Bible
or Church Doctrine. It is perhaps almost the
same distinction as that between natural and
revealed religion. Taking this distinction, I
ventured to suggest — I do not profess to have
proved the point — that the general doctrine of
evolution does not come into conflict with Theism
134 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
as such, though it may be thought, and indeed it
has been thought, to be in conflict with Chris-
tianity. But the principle of Natural Selection
may indeed seem to be in conflict with Theism
because it seems to provide a method for the
guidance of evolution which may be substituted
for the directing power of God. It seems to
some minds to complete a mechanical theory of
the origination of the universe, because as, 1
think, Professor Karl Pearson says, it brings life
within the range of a mechanical theory which,
before Darwin, had to allow an exception in the
case of life. Here we are plainly face to face with
a number of opportunities for debate which 1
must only most briefly indicate, grouping them
under two principal heads.
In the first place it may be questioned — and
the question will range in various directions —
whether the doctrine of Natural Selection does
really thus complete a mechanical theory of the
universe ; and in the second place we may ask —
and here, again, is a wide inquiry — whether a
completed mechanical theory of the universe is
in any true respect hostile to a rational Theism.
But I pass from these questions, which plainly
require very patient treatment, to indicate some
further necessary distinctions in the scientific
doctrine of Natural Selection itself.
On the scientific side of the matter the
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 135
following positions may be distinguished if we
are to get anything like a full account of
Natural Selection. Some, like Darwin Different
himself, consider that this influence is Nlui^rai ■
one part — and the most important part Selection.
— of the machinery by which specific differences,
without distinguishing them from adaptations, in
organic life have been reached.
Secondly. Others, like Weismann, hold that,
granted certain data, Natural Selection alone is
sufficient to account for the organic scene, that it
may be made to cover all differences of living
beings that exist.
Thirdly. These latter naturalists are in turn
criticized by writers of whom for a time, and for
the purpose of securing fuller discussion, Romanes
made himself the leader, and who contend that
the Doctrine of Selection is only an account of the
origin of adaptations^ and does not cover the whole
range of specific differences. To identify this
position with that of Darwin would be to beg the
question in debate between them and such writers
as Weismann and Lankester. It would also be to
deny any special value to the distinction drawn
between character and adaptation.
Fourthly. There are those who consider
either that the secret causes of variation and the
directive force of the environment account for the
animal forms we see, or who are on other grounds
136 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
inclined to consider that the importance of
Darwin's principle has been very much over-
estimated. Of these, perhaps the most important
is Eimer, but he was preceded by several impor-
tant American naturalists, among whom Cope is
perhaps the best known. I have mentioned these
points with a definite purpose, although it is
not the purpose of examining the merits of the
different views. Such a work would be out of
place here, and I am anxious to make one point
alone, namely, that we are not as Christians, that
we are not as Theists, interested in the disparage-
ment, or in the refutation, or in the retrenching of
the doctrine of Darwinism. The question of the
nature of evolution is far more complicated than
it was in Darwin's time. We are more and more
fully aware how small a part of the facts is at
present within our reach, and the very advance of
knowledge with regard to the accumulation of
adaptations only shows us more clearly the great
fact of variation, the more general facts of heredity
itself, lying before us for an investigation which
has hardly begun. In fact, those who most con-
fidently accept the Darwinian principle as sound are,
most of all men, obliged to acknowledge the large-
ness and the importance of the unexplained facts
which constitute the necessary postulates of the
system. For the purposes of a theological inquiry
it is best, and indeed, when we are to consider the
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 137
relations between Natural Selection and Theism, it
is the only possible course, to take the most favour-
able view of the certainty of Natural For our pur-
Selection and to give it in our minds |reatest
the widest range which has ever been fonfe*^'^
claimed for it. If there is in it something nSSi ^°
inconsistent with rational Theism, we Selection,
should not, as Theists, be better off if we could
drive this something into a corner, if we could
show that it operated only within a narrow range ;
for a principle which is in its own nature incon-
sistent with belief in God is entirely destructive
of our position, even if it emerges only quite
exceptionally in the course of a long range of
facts. Let us, therefore, grant it provisionally the
widest conceivable range. Let us suppose, as 1
for my part wish that on scientific grounds we
could securely suppose, that to discover the origin
of adaptations would be to discover the origin of
species ; that all adaptations may be shown to have
survived and been accumulated by means of the
elimination of the unfit ; that in this way the
whole vast aggregate of organic forms, both plants
and animals, and not excluding man, could be set
theoretically in a series, so as to demonstrate the
origin of each from some primitive and simple
and undifferentiated form through chains of
intermediate species. Suppose, that is to say, that
the boldest aspiration of a system of evolutionary
138 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
biology were completely fulfilled, and fulfilled in
such a way as to show that the directing force
throughout had been that which is generalized
under the term of " the survival of the fittest," or
Natural Selection. But at this point, and before
I take my next step, I must in some brief way
illustrate the supposed nature of that process, and
here is a task of the utmost difficulty, only
increased by long familiarity with the idea to be
expressed, a familiarity, no doubt, shared by many
in this place.
What, in roughest outline, is the description
of this supposed process .? Perhaps we get at
the matter best in the way along which
What is . "^ ° .
Natural Darwin was actually led towards his
Selection ? , , , ... r 1
theory, by the consideration or the
facts of variation under the culture of man.
We know that many varieties exist in each
kind of domestic animals and of domestic plants ;
and that it is often alleged, and in some cases
proved, that these varieties are in the case of each
kind descended from a common and undifferen-
tiated stock. How, Darwin asked himself, are the
varieties established ? Not, he thought — this
description is a little one-sided — by direct in-
fluences being brought to bear upon the plant
which it was desired to improve, but by taking
advantage of a certain inherent quality in the
unimproved stock. The plant or the pigeon —
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 139
and the matter is the same in either case — gives
rise to a number of individuals like itself in the
most important respects, but varying in respect of
details — varying in size, in shade of colour, and
in a multitude of other characters. The gardener
or the fancier effects his improvements not by any
direct influence upon these variations, but by
selecting among them that which he prefers, by
continually destroying all those which fall below
a certain standard with respect to the feature
which he desires to obtain. By keeping, to take
a rough example, among his pigeons all those
which show a large supply of white feathers,
he eventually ' produces ' a race of birds which
is immensely different in aspect from that with
which he started. His new specialized type has
been obtained by a selective process of elimination
carried on in the treatment of the highly varied
offspring of his generalized type. Just such a
process, Darwin conceived, we may trace in
Nature itself. The fancier ' selects ' his whitish
pigeon by the destruction of the others, and so
at last gets out his pure white stock. Even so
Nature, by the pressure of necessity, by the race
for food, by the difficulties of escape, by the
decimations of flood and winter, may be said to
select among the infinitely graduated variations of
an unspecializcd stock this or that specific point
for preservation ; this or that species to fit a
I40 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
particular niche in the competitive world of
animal life ; this or that hardier wheat in the
struggle of excessive vegetation. . . . But it is
not our duty to-day to describe this famous
doctrine. I must refer you to the great books
which are devoted to its discussion, for no brief
indication of it is satisfactory. Nevertheless, what
I have said is fair, so far as it goes ; it is fair
because it is friendly ; and enough has been said
to indicate the general line of a doctrine which
has met on the side of science with a perpetually
increased delicacy of criticism, and which un-
doubtedly must go through many modifications,
a long struggle for survival on its own part, before
it reaches anything like a final and fixed form.
I believe, however, that I have not left out of
my description of it any quite vitally necessary
element. It is a doctrine of the accumulation of
variations through and by a sifting process of
advantage and disadvantage in the perpetual race
for life. It has for its root the notion and the
fact of the excess multiplication of plants and
animals, the notion and the fact that in the
struggle to survive a result is produced which
resembles the effect of a definite and purposeful
choice. Whether or no such a doctrine as this
is incompatible with the idea of God it is not
now in place to say. I find it most diflficult to
catch, for my own part, any signs of such an
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 141
opposition, and Darwin himself, in one of the
newly published letters, speaks in his almost
always gentle and humble way in deprecation of
any idea such as might be called the Deification
of Natural Selection.^ His vision, he says, of a
purely mechanical process surely does not exclude
the general laws of the universe under which
alone any such play of competition could produce
the particular effect which is actually produced.^
For our present purpose I will indicate only two
points with regard to this doctrine taken, as I
have repeatedly said, at its largest and freest.
First, it was never offered as a theory to ac-
count for the fact of life. It does not account,
as Darwin himself urged, either for the origin of
life, or for the origin of its character Selection
and behaviour. It assumes life as its account for
necessary basis ; it is on the known
facts of life that it rests its claim to be pro-
bable. Nothing in it has the smallest tendency,
when rightly considered, to bridge the gulf, the
great gulf, between life and no-life. Let me,
before I further illustrate this point, interject the
remark that I should not for my own part be
content with any support of the Theistic position
which was drawn from life alone in such a way as
to suggest that in life we had evidence which is
1 Ne^-w Letters of Charles Darivin, vol. i. p. 154 (til. 1903).
* See on this point Baldwin's Denjelopment ami Frvolutioti , p. 232
(ed, 1902).
142 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
absent from the things without life. Nor, again,
could I rest content with a theology which might
be shaken by the discovery of some bridge of
natural process linking the phenomena of crystal-
growth to the phenomena of living substances.
What it is, how much and how little, that such
links effect for the explanation of the facts which
they connect is a question hardly lying within the
range either of Physics or Biology, and It is one
which cannot now be discussed. But for those
whose minds are disturbed by the suggestion that
life has been in some sense explained by the
principle of Natural Selection it is in point to
say, as I have already said, that nothing in the
Selectionist description of the behaviour of life
accounts, or is entitled to account. In the slightest
degree, for the existence of life itself ; nor does it,
as I have said, tend to bridge the gap, or even to
narrow the gulf, that lies between life and all that
Is not life.^
Here we have to deal with a special source
of confusion in thought. Men have traced lines
of descent more or less successfully towards their
source. They point to a very simple, highly
unspeclalized form of living substance as the
' From the point of view ot a philosopher, the problcMii of the
appearance of life itself is a special instance of the problem ot the
origin of variety or heterogeneity in general. But the Biological in-
vestigation of the origin of species presupposes living matter, and at
first presupposed also the existence of variations.
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 143
common origin of all the animals and plants we
see, and the question arises whether those who
have travelled so far may not hope to take one
more step ? Surely if we can pass from the ele-
phant to the protozoon, or, more boldly yet, from
man and all that he is and does, to the unicellular
organism, which is, after all, morphologically
comparable to one of the cells which together
constitute man's body, — surely after such a
journey we may have courage, and we may hope
for one more step, the step from the living jelly,
which is so like a drop of oil, to the inorganic com-
pound which, under certain conditions, so closely
simulates the movements of the living jelly.
Now, here is a fallacy, which I wish I could
disentangle. The thought which I have tried to
describe contains in it the notion that we have
somehow got away from the nearer links in
reaching the more remote, that we have passed
from the man or the horse to the moneron in
such a way as to have wiped out the high and
greatly specialized forms behind our backs. But
this is a mere figure of speech. We have only
arrived at the moneron, we have only traced our
path back or down to it, by means of the facts
which lie along the whole range of organized life ;
and we carry along with us in our thought the whole
of that life. That is to say, in climbing down we
have not rid ourselves of the need of the highest
144 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
links of the chain down which we climb. We
are attempting a piece of injustice, which is a
kind of inversion of that which is known as kick-
ing away the ladder by which we climb. Here
we try to kick away the ladder by which we
descended, and we speak of the leap at the bottom
as small in such a way as to forget that it would
not have been small, but destructively deep, if it
were not for all the links which lie above our head
and which still form an absolutely inseparable part
of the facts upon which alone we can proceed. Or,
changing the figure, make it no ladder, but a rope,
and our very sensations will warn us of the peril
of losing its uppermost strands ; will tell us that it
is not the end of rope between our hands, but the
long line of rope by which it is attached to the
solid beam, on which, at every point, and all along,
we depend.
So if there existed, as no naturalist will say
there does exist, a thinker so acute and so suc-
cessful that he had traced his path all the way
by secure steps down from the varied scene of
mammalian existence to the formless but still
living reality of the cell-like protozoon, he
would not really have reduced the gulf to an
easy leaping-space between non-life and lowest
life, for he carries along with him in his very
knowledge of the characteristics of protoplasm
all the facts that go to the full description of
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 145
the entire varied scene of organic life. Or if
you choose to put it otherwise, if indeed his
process has been a process of reduction, so that
he need only regard the quotient which he has
arrived at, and not the great sum upon which he
has operated with his divisors, yet even if this be
granted, his resultant simplicity, his last term is
shown by the very nature of such an argument to
contain, in Tyndal's phrase, " the promise and the
potency " of all the rest.
I take the risk which belongs to repetition in
order to secure clearness for this point. By every
new attempt at analysis, I repeat, organic -j-he wonder
life is made to disclose more grounds the^^hoi"
for wonder than before. It must be °^ '^•
steadily contemplated as a whole, and nothing which
has been proved, nothing which has been ^sug-
gested, about its humble and simple origin, ought
to hide from us the challenge which is constituted
by that whole. This simple original form, this
humble ancestor, is thought to be represented in
the actual organic population by certain unicellu-
lar forms. These are, if I may so express the
matter, the unprogressive, old-fashioned cousins
living as the first ancestors lived, but in the
society of other descendants of that ancestor who
have departed very far and in many different
directions from the primitive simplicity.
Now, this contemporary simple form, and this
L
146 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
supposed ancestor of us all, have alike caused un-
reasonable disturbance in our minds. Something
like the same disturbance, a touch of fear and
shame, exists when, in the scale of merely social or
conventional developement, a lowly forefather is
found for a distinguished house. This powerful
ruler, this gallant gentleman, this dame the flower
of our refinement, are descended, and at no long
remove, from a mechanic, a countryman, a poor
lad of the romantic half-crown. The answer
surely springs for recognition and use. What a
wonderful lad, then, what a wonderful peasant,
what a blacksmith or wheelwright was this !
Simple as he stood a century or so ago among
his comrades, he was, as Buonaparte said of
himself, already an ancestor — ancestor of such
gracious ladies, such noble knights. We have
certainly no need to be ashamed of him, the
founder of the house. We point for proof of his
quality to the house he has founded.
About the lowly ancestors of living forms at
large, my answer would run on somewhat the
same lines. With regard to this humblest form —
and he is immeasurably below the vertebrates, or
that perhaps degenerate vertebrate the Ascidian,
once called " ancestor of man " — with regard to this
earliest living thing, we are in a dilemma, a happy
dilemma, shutting us up on either hand to a
hopeful conclusion.
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 147
Grant, first — and it is a bold concession — that
the relation between the lowest protozoon and the
mammal is a relation of time ; that the one
represents an earlier form than the other ; that
there has been in short a succession of forms on
the earth, a succession such that the earlier linger
on with the later arrivals.
Grant, further, that the succession is wholly
one of descent ; that the various forms are related
to one another in kinship.
Then follows our dilemma. Either the pro-
gressive differentiation of the later, younger, more
complicated forms has been wholly due
^ ^, • • 1 ^• /-I A dilemma.
to the ongmal quality or the proto-
zoon (of course, under the various stimulations
and opportunities of the environment), or it has
not. If it has not, then additional forces of life,
forces of vigour, and forces to shape and qualify,
have been introduced into the series of descent
from outside the series. From whence .'' From
whatever source they have come, to suppose them
is to say very precisely that the variety of the
organic population is not due to mere descent,
accompanied by mechanical modification in corre-
spondence with the environment ; that another
force has been at work ; that the primitive form
is not in any true sense an ancestor, but only the
leading member of a file ; finally, that in reaching
by inquiry that simplest form we have not at all
148 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
narrowed the description or lessened the wonder
of life, for besides the slender thread we trace to
that small beginning, there have been all along
other powers introduced which elude our dis-
covery, which command our wonder.
What is the other horn of the dilemma ? If
the descent has been indeed a descent, if no
forces have been at work except such as were
present in the earliest form, and required only the
environment for their developement, then mark
what follows. It follows that, instead of taking
the undifferentiated jelly as explanation of the
flocks and herds, of man with his society and
the creations of his art, we have to take these
as the explanation, as the large and manifested
description, of the hidden potencies of the jelly.
In either case, we have not narrowed the
stream, we have not lessened the bulk. We have
not found the answer to the mystery of life, we
have only read out more at length the great
question that it is ; read it so as to catch some
of its first trembling whispers, but not so as to
escape from its more immense and challenging
notes.
Your stately civilization, your art, your
prayer, says the Naturalist-Agnostic, these are no
spiritual creation. They are but the last result
of nervous reflexes which exist in essence in the
simplest monad. Your life is nothing greater
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 149
than a speck of jelly opened out. And we reply :
your jelly is nothing less than human society
folded up.
That is our reply, on his own terms. We
do not commit ourselves to his premiss, an
unproved premiss, that it is only the unfolding of
the jelly that goes to the result. But for one
who rests on that premiss there is no escape from
the wonder which is due to such a jelly. It is
the whole scene of organic life, it is the whole
range of life including man and all he may be,
which in any case and on any showing constitutes
the great question which we meet. There is life
before you. What do you think of it ? Do not
answer by the cry, " See how small its smallest
part is, and the whole is in the part."
It is, after all, then, with the whole range of
life that we have to deal ; and however interest-
ing, however intensely valuable would be such a
reduction as we have not yet seen, it would leave
us as before, face to face with life as a great
positive fact, with life in all its possibilities of
variation — to deal with, to account for, do I say ?
Nay, to admire and to reverence, as the authentic
manifestation of a creative mind.
But, secondly, not only does the Selection
theory decline to account for the fact of life,
requiring rather the deepest recognition of the
fact ; it does not even propose to accoimt for
150 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
one special feature of living substance, namely,
its tendency to variation. Here, at any rate, we
are not face to face with something with
Natural ... , , . , ,
Selection which Only metaphysics or theology can
account for deal. We are confronted by something
variation. i*i* u-^.r* ■l'i*i
which IS a proper subject ror biological
inquiry, and begins now to receive that inquiry
in something like sufficient measure. I have
pronounced once and again the name, perhaps
some day to be so distinguished, of the Abbot,
or more properly the Prelate, Mendel, made
known in England by Mr. Bateson.^
If you know anything of Mendel's apparently
most fruitful suggestions, you know he is dealing
with a range of biological facts which Darwin was
fain to take unexplained as the given postulate of his
theory. Darwin assumed the infinite variation of
living creatures. Some have challenged the very
fact. Bateson has done a great deal to show that a
continuous and minute variation does not prevail.'^
But be that as it may. The variation may be con-
tinuous and minute, or it may be, on the contrary,
large and spasmodic, and proceed per saltum. In
either case it remains a fact requiring its own
> MendeVs Principles of Heredity, by W. Bateson. Cambridge
University Press, 1902.
* At any rate, he shows the existence of many cases of discon-
tinuous variation. It may be convenient to add that the existence
of Natural Selection does not depend upon the existence of con-
tinuous and minute variation.
NATURAL SELECTION AND THEISM 151
biological explanation ; and that explanation
certainly cannot be derived from Natural Selec-
tion itself. For this seems to require for its
application the existence of an infinite, or almost
infinite, capacity and tendency to vary ; and this is
true, whether the actual variations are minute and
continuous or occasional and large.
So far, our time this afternoon permits us
to follow this subject, which has engaged some
of the most acute thinkers for a large number
of years, and will continue to engage the energy of
many more. It is obvious that we can only touch
it here. 1 hope that, only touching it, we have
yet touched it to some effect. I hope that under
the conditions here of necessity imposed upon us, I
have done something of what can be done to show
that on biological grounds alone — for it was my
second point — Natural Selection is not an explana-
tion of so much as the procedure of organic life ;
that it describes a process within a certain range
by which variations, the origin of which is not by
it accounted for, may have been accumulated. And
besides, I hope that in my first point 1 was able to
suggest that, supposing what of course, in fact,
has not taken place, namely, that the process of
explanation had gone to its utmost possible
stretch, and that the entire scene of organic life
could be arranged, for thought, in a series leading
back and down to the simplest and most generalized
152 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
form of living matter, we should not thereby
have made a step towards accounting for, still less
towards eliminating, the wonder of organic life.
We should only have shown that great positive
fact as more intricately admirable than we had
before suspected. We should see, indeed, the
reign of law traceable to some degree within a
region which was anciently thought to be outside
it, but we should not thereby have been forced to
take one step in the abandonment of that rever-
ence for supreme creative power which finds its
evidence partly in the outward scene, though it
has, as I shall always hold, its primary supports
in that interior consciousness of likeness to and
of union with God which forms the centre and
burning focus of man's self-recognition.
VII
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION
Recapitulation — A plausible case for opposition between Bible and
Evolution — The opposition roughly stated — More than one
kind of question is involved — We do not really judge the Bible
from outside — Genesis should be compared not with modern
biology, but with other ancient cosmogonies — The mythology
of Teutonic races — The philosophy of Greece — Scepticism or
Dualism — First leading thought of Genesis : Creation — The
word translated * Create ' — A second leading thought of
Genesis : Change — A third point : the unity of living with
inanimate nature — Fourth point : the unity of man with
nature — The presence in man of an element beyond nature —
Does Science forbid the statement that man is complex ? — No
revolution in thought has taken place — Recapitulation — The
Bible gives truth in a form credible through many ages.
"And the Lord said unto me, In the beginning, when the earth was
made, before the outgoings of the world were fixed, or ever the gatherings
of the winds blew, before the voices of the thunder sounded, and before the
flashes of the lightning shone, or ever the foundations of paradise were laid,
before the fair flowers were seen, . . . and or ever the imaginations of
them that now sin were estranged . . . then did I consider these things,
and they were all made through me alone, and through none other." —
2 EsDRAS vi. 1-6 (R.V.).
In earlier addresses an effort was made to dis-
tinguish two different pairs of supposed incom-
patible terms in thought. In each case j^^^^ ^^.^j
we desire to show that the contrasted *'°"-
terms are not really incompatible with one
154 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
another. But as a preliminary, it is important
to make each pair stand clear of the other, so
that the supposed conflict may be definite and
apparently serious.
In the part of scientific doctrine which we are
considering we distinguish between the conception
of Evolution in general and that of Natural
Selection in particular. In religious doctrine we
distinguish between Theism (or natural religion)
in general and Christian belief in particular ; or,
to give the matter what may appear at first sight
a wider scope, between Theism and Bible Doctrine.
It is no part of our present business to ask
whether for us there can be a Bible Doctrine
which is not Christian, and how far we are
bound, as Christians, to certain views of the
nature of the Bible and of its contents. It is
enough to point in general terms to the fact
that to defend Theism in the abstract is not
sufficiently to defend Christianity, or to relieve the
believers in the Bible of the charge of neglecting
or affronting the teachings of science.
Further, we paired our opposites in this
manner. We said that with abstract Theism it
was difficult to bring Evolution as such into
collision, if Evolution is stated in general terms
and without definition of its mode of action.
With Theism Natural Selection must be paired as
a possible opponent, since it describes a mode of
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 155
Evolution which may conceivably, or at least in
argument, be set in contrast with the Theistic
conception of the world's nature and origin.
But with Bible doctrine it is still possible that
even Evolution in general is in conflict. For
evidently it is one thing to show that belief in
God in general escapes a certain opposition, and
a different thing to show that a particular doctrine
of God which (on the whole and in variously
growing clearness) is displayed in the books of
the Bible is free (at any rate in the same degree)
from the same opposition.
A particular doctrine of Evolution might be
in conflict with the most general and the most
generous Theism. A particular doctrine about
God may be in conflict with the most general and
most generous scheme of Evolution.
Under the title, therefore, of the present
lecture, we are to raise this question of the com-
patibility of the Bible and Evolution.
Now, when we come to the Bible, to revealed
religion, to positive theology, it may be admitted
that there is prima facie an opposition a plausible
between some of our sources of doctrine opposiUon
and some of the lessons of science. eSk^fnci
And for an example of such an opposi- Evolution,
tion primd facie I take one which has been
very generally made the subject of considera-
tion ; the contrast between the teaching of Genesis
156 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
and the teaching of natural history with regard to
the past of the planet we live in and of its living
inhabitants. Here, those who have given up
hope of war upon other grounds take heart once
more, and expect relief from the weariness of
peace. Here, it is urged, the contradiction of the
two teachings is too glaring to be managed or
disguised.
The doctrine of the Bible and the Church (we
are asked to admit) is that at a particular point of
^^ time God made the world : that He
The opposi-
tion roughly peopled it in a few days with various
stated. .
forms of life, and finally made man
separately in His image ; nor is there much to
quarrel with in such a statement of our faith.
But science, on the other hand, it is urged, shows
that the earth is the result of long developement,
and that all the forms of life have appeared
according to natural laws, that they have arisen
in succession from some generalized forms of
existence by the operation of forces not different
from those which we see in action in the world
to-day.
Is it not in the contrast between continuous
succession and abrupt change that we find
by far the most trenchant point of difference ?
Religion is supposed to teach that there was a
definite moment when ' creation ' came to an
end ; and science, on the other hand, is held to
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 157
show that there has been no such catastrophe, or
climax, or cessation of change. It is urged that,
in respect of geology, we are now^ — or were for a
long time after the teaching of Lyell — less inclined
to believe in catastrophic change, more inclined to
believe that the earth has its present form on
account of the operation of the same powers which
we see actually at work, as water and wind and so
forth. And, correspondingly, in the larger question
of the origin of all things, the anti-catastrophic
view is prominent. And, indeed, it is here that
we shall find our point of debate in certain minds.
For science does indeed declare that the causes
which have brought into their present shape the
existing forms of life, just as truly as the shape of
the earth's crust upon which they move, are forces
of the same character as those which are still
operating round about us. Here, then, we may
formulate the supposed difference. " Science
teaches a continuous and still continuing process ;
the Bible a * making ' finished long ago." These
words, I hope, put the position in a fiiirly
extreme form ; but I admit that my own difficulty
in these questions will always be to go back in
imagination to the state of mind in which these
contrasts were trenchant, so as to be able to pro-
pose them in sufficiently harsh language.
Now, with our Bibles in our hands, what have
we to say to this supposed contradiction ? 1
158 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
think we shall be wise if we begin by making the
note that the question by which we are confronted
More than ^^ ^ complicated or compound ques-
questi'onis^ tion — a question which is not simply
involved. qj^q of thosc which are common to
Religion and Science ; for here we have a/so to do
with a question which belongs to the inward
domestic debates of Religion itself. We have a
question, that is to say, about the relation between
the Book of Genesis and Religion, as well as a
question about the relation between the Book of
Genesis and Science. With the relation between
the Book of Genesis and Religion I have nothing to
do here. That is a question for theological discus-
sion, by which men are to show what is the function
of the Bible in the whole scheme of religion. Let
us retire from it respectfully, remembering that
there is a great work still in progress which,
although at some particular moment it may pro-
duce results which are unwelcome to some be-
lievers, will undoubtedly in the end strengthen
and clear our faith. The truth will certainly
prevail. And just as in respect of the Gospels,
whatever may for a time be advanced by a few
teachers, the Christian general mind is now greatly
reassured concerning the integrity of these records,
and the integrity and authenticity of the whole
New Testament, so it will undoubtedly be with
regard to the Old Testament also. We are
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 159
passing through a time of some intellectual strain,
but the end is certain to be a gain of light to all
those who love light. But all this we put on one
side ; and for our present purpose it will be our
wisdom to accept uncritically such an account of
our relation to the letter of Scripture as would be
proposed by an adversary. In considering our
relations with Natural Science, we put at its out-
side value the force of the principle of Natural
Selection, and regarded Science as if it were
wholly committed to that principle ; and this, of
course, is to go beyond the facts. In the same
spirit, when we turn to our religious documents,
let us put their difficulty at its outside value.
This is a reasonable course ; for if we can carry
along with us this book clothed, as it has been,
partly by artificial efforts, in difficulties of the
most extreme kind, all the more certainly shall
we be able to defend our use of the same Book,
under the interpretation of a sane and rational
Christianity.
One further note may be added by way of
preface. It is to be remembered that we are not
in a position to estimate, I do not say ^^ ^o not
the value of this sacred teaching, but [he^Biff^^
even the value of its effect upon our- ^ro™ outside.
selves; and for this reason, that it has steadily
impregnated our thinking, not only during the
whole extent of our individual lives, but also
i6o THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
during the many Christian generations which
went before us. We have been born into a
society which, however much it may have been
persuaded to suspect the teaching of the Bible, is
living upon the intellectual fruits of the Bible.
Just as truly as we are in a society which rests
upon the moral fruits of the Bible which it some-
times disparages, so also are we living in a society
which enjoys the intellectual fruits of this teaching.
We profit by a priceless education of the mind
by dogma. But we are unaware of this advantage,
because we have never during conscious life
occupied that mental position which is excluded
by the Bible teaching.
Further, we are accustomed to compare the
teaching of Genesis with the latest statements of
biological science. A memorable debate
Genesis ...
should be in the Times some years ago, between
compared ii-r-virA 11
not with Mr. Huxley and the Duke or Argyll,
bioiog-y, but illustrated this tendency. The debate
ancient cos- turned upon the place to be assigned to
mogonies. ^^ Lacertilia ^ in the animal series. The
latest teaching of science upon this head was
put in contrast with what the Book of Genesis
is supposed to have said about the " creeping
things." Mr. Huxley compared the statements of
the Book of Genesis with the results of palaeon-
tology and comparative anatomy, as if the ancient
' Lacertilia are lizards, and animals like them.
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION i6i
Scriptures were to be judged by the measure in
which they reached the systematic exactness of a
modern book of zoology. But is this a reasonable
comparison ?
What ought we to compare the Bible to in
order that we may get a glimpse of its true
value ? Surely in regard to such questions we
ought first to set it side by side with other ancient
cosmogonies, with descriptions which have been
made from time to time by the human mind ot
the oriofin of the world. There are some who
think that such a comparison is destined to
abolish our reverence for the Bible narrative.
Experience, on the contrary, makes it probable
that it will greatly increase our sense of the true
value of the Bible ; and this, I think, one may be
allowed to conjecture, who is not qualified to
compare our Scriptures in anything like detail,
or even in the most general way, with the great
Eastern mythologies which were given to English
readers by Max Miiller, or with the newly
recovered Babylonian teachings to which the
Bible is said, especially by Professor Delitzsch,
to owe so much. But we might all follow with
some intelligence a comparison of the Bible story
of creation with the myths of Greece, some of
which most of us learned in our childhood, or
with the cosmogonies of our own ancestors, the
ancient stories of the Scandinavian races from
1 62 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
which we ourselves in part spring, and to which
it seems probable that we may have by mental
constitution the readiest actual access in sympathy
and understanding.
It is quite possible that the value of a com-
parison in this direction has been to some con-
The mytho- siderable extent overlooked. For it
xlftonic rnay well be argued that, if we wish
races. j.^ measure our northern debt to the
Bible by estimate of what, without the Bible, we
northerners should have thought of the world,
we ought to consider the native impressions, the
conjectures and beliefs which actually filled the
minds of our blood-ancestors. Look at the
wonderfully poetic myths of Scandinavia, and you
will see there nothing approaching to a doctrine
of God ; you will see a crowd of larger and more
or less supernatural beings like ourselves, occupy-
ing a scene which can be readily recognized.
Gotterdammerung, the Twilight of the Gods,
is nothing but a heightened version of those
regions of the North, where the sun for a long
time in the year does not come above the horizon.
These mythologies represent nothing but the
conviction of the people that, as a race, they
came from a distant cradle ; and those whom in
our interpretation of the stories we call the gods,
as Thor and Odin — Odin, or Wotan, from whom
our own king is lineally descended — these are
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 163
nothing but earlier members of the same race
clothed in a majesty more than human. What
was meant, I suppose, in the sixth century by
saying that Egbert, of whom our king is the
present representative, was descended from the
hero who gives his name to Wednesday, was
simply that already in the sixth century his
ancestry, in the language of the old editions of
Burke, was "lost in the mists of antiquity," and
the nation had no knowledge of itself but under
the leadership of his race. It means nothing less
and nothing more ; only the mists are more
wondrous and romantic than ours. This language
does not attach to the name anything properly
comparable to our belief in God. What you see
in these stories is a society of larger Norsemen —
Baldur, Odin, Freya, and the rest. And the
stories of their effect upon Nature are simply the
exaggeration of a childish mind. The legend that
this or the other god of the Norsemen, when he
threw his hammer, could break the mountains,
carries with it no doctrine of the origin of the
world in which they lived, and in which they were
as much enclosed as was the man who sang their
stories. We have here no interpretation of the
world as such ; we have simply a second imagina-
tive peopling of the same scene by men of a
larger growth.'
' WTiat is true in respect of the cosmology is true still more
i64 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
When we open our Bibles, then, let us note
the sane, quiet, steady account which we find
there without one word which gives an opening,
or with scarcely one word in it which, considered
by itself, gives an opening to mere incredulity.
And let us compare this with the stories which
have occupied the minds of mankind outside the
circle of Israel, with the stories of aimless miracle
or of bizarre symbolism, which fill the religious
myths of the peoples. Put your Bible side by
side with these, and not with the latest result of
geological research, and you will be amazed at
the simplicity, scientific plainness, and verbal clear-
ness which belongs to the Semitic narrative
which our distant northern race has learned to
reverence.
And now, in the second place, set your Bible
alongside of another great mental reality which
balances the mythologies of the East or of the
North — I mean the philosophy of Greece.
evidently of the ethics of Holy Scripture. To begin to measure
what we of the North have gained in this respect, consider the
character of the Odin (Woden, Wotan) of our ancestral reverence, the
Father of gods and men ; and that not only in respect of human
frailties mistaken for robustness, and naturally prominent in a
robust and high-fed poetry, but also in respect of much more funda-
mental and less compiexional qualities, ot shifty purpose and vanity
and revenge.
The same contrast does not hold good in anything like the
same degree between the Bible and ChaUaean religious writings, of
wiiich tlic Prayer of Nebuchadnezzar in the India-House Inscription
is a very well-known example.
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 165
In Greece, thought was in its active stages
largely separated from religion, It had little or
nothing to do with the myths of the ^.
° . -^ , . The philo-
people, excepting when, as so brilliantly sophy of
in Plato,^ those myths, or myths like
them, are used in a special manner to give utterance
to a thought which would otherwise have escaped
the philosopher. But whatever be the function of
adopted or original myths in the practice of Plato
the seer, we may confidently say that the popular
ideal histories of the past are not relied upon in
the schools of Greek philosophy as affording any
clue to the origin of the world. What, then,
do we find in Greek systematic thought .? We
find it perpetually haunted by the difficulty, not
of explaining, but of formulating any connexion
between God and the world at all. Plato is the
thinker who adventured furthest in the pursuit of
such a formula. And yet, as his great disciple and
critic Aristotle declares, the main weakness of his
system lies precisely in the lack of it, in his failure
to suggest the nature or possibility of a dynamic
relation between the Idea and the world ; between
what Plato calls " the same and the other." What
does this mean } It means that the notion o^ creation
' A vast exception indeed. Plato stands wholly apart, or ratiuT
he stands in the small and high company of those tlirougli whom
knowledge comes to man. On ' Plato the Seer,* see Professor
Stewart's great work, The Myt/is of Plato (London : .Macmillan,
1905).
i66 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
is one which had not dawned upon the ancient
Greek mind. We are so accustomed to this idea —
which implies that God and the world are both,
though not alike, ' real,' and that God made the
world — that we take it without examination as a
matter of universal knowledge. Let me remind
those who know the past history of thought that
the very notion of creation is never securely
attained in the thought of Greece. Instead, you
are in that thought confronted with these alterna-
tives. Either the world of phenomena is strictly
unreal, or else the world, the universe, the matter
Scepticism which wc scc is itsclf, and as we see
or Dualism. [^^ conceived as eternal, even as God is
eternal. There are in Plato's words " the one and
the other " — this world and the world of ideas,
which somehow or other is its original, and which
may, in some minds, approach to the notion of God.
But the two realities stand side by side uncon-
nected, equally eternal. This is a system of strict
dualism, which, whimsically enough, it has pleased
that great thinker Haeckel to attribute to Christian
teachers of all people in the world, but not with-
out this measure of excuse that some Christians
have allowed him, and those who think with him,
to monopolize the word ' monism,' which belongs
to all reasonable thought alike. For no thought
can be content to acknowledge two fundamental
realities, both of them equally eternal. That is
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 167
the position in which Greek thought finds itself,
with an eternal God and an eternal world. The
only other position which was possible to ancient
thought was one which involved the unreality of
the world. In this way, indeed, they reached a
monistic thought and an idea of one reality, the
reality of God, or of spirit ; but only by denying
reality to all the rest of our experience. The
alternative seems to be dualism or scepticism,
scepticism with regard to the ' not ourselves,'
which is also not God.
Reflexion upon this alternative enables us to
perceive the immense value of the apparently
simple thought of creation which stands First lead-
at the head of our Bible. By this JTf^enTsfs :*
thought we secure, on the one hand, a ^''^^^'O"-
belief in the relative reality of the external world,
but, on the other hand, we secure the unity of our
thought, for we describe the external not as eternal,
but as having proceeded by the will of the Eternal
out of nothing into being. Or, in a closer method
of speech, it is in its measure and according to its
reality a pouring forth of the one Eternal Spirit
Himself, Who has called it into being and put it
over against Himself, so that He bestows upon it
genuine reality, but such a reality as is not co-
eternal with Himself This notion of creation,
which is woven in the texture of all modern
thouo-ht, believing and unbelieving alike, which is
1 68 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
the common furniture of all our minds, was once
an original visitant to the minds of the people of
the West and of the North. It came to us from
the East, this proclamation that there is but one
Eternal, that is God ; but that the one Eternal
has called forth or thrust forth from Himself a
true reality which we call the world. This is
exactly one of those accustomed thoughts for
which we are not grateful, but which distinguish
the Bible narrative from all other narratives of the
same kind. " In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth." He gave it true reality
by His own will, remaining ever in Himself the
only fountain of being, and abiding still the
eternal One which He was before. This is in
point of fact the element in Genesis which inspired
thought lays hold of and emphasizes. " Where
wast thou " — it is the Divine question to Job
— "when I laid the foundations of the earth?"
And the Psalmist chaunts, "By the word of
the Lord were the heavens made^ all the hosts
of them by the breath of His mouth. He
ofathereth the waters of the sea toQ^ether as an
heap. He layeth up the deep in storehouses."
"God by His understanding made the heavens.
He brought forth the earth above the waters."
That was the truth upon which the sequence of
religious thought in the great line of those who
worship the one God laid its stress — this statement
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 169
of creation, which in our reading of Genesis
we sometimes pass over as if it were matter of
course, not observing that in this word we have
a force to liberate our thought from the helpless
dualism of Greece, and from the grandiose, but
often grotesque, mythologies of the North and
East, which never answer, which do not even ask,
the question how the world came to be, but
merely read to us an earlier chapter, a remote,
wondrous, magical, unlikely chapter of the
phenomenal existence which we know.
Now, this word "creation " occurs in the first
verse of Genesis, and then not again, excepting
in a few particular places, to which ^ ~ ^ j. .
will draw your attention. It appears translated
in the first verse, "In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth," that mass
of things which we see ; and then in the twenty-first
verse we read, "God created the great sea monsters."
Why this indication of one particular kind of the
inhabitants of the earth ? I conceive because to
the early days of human thought, when men were
struck with wonder at strange and large things, there
was a constant danger that they might suppose that
something in the world was the original or funda-
mental part of the world, or even the thing which
was outside the mystery of creation, and itself the
cause of it. Here and there in different nations
men have fixed on this or that thing as, so to
170 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
speak, the root of the world ; some mountain which
was God, some stream of ocean which was the
Serpent of Eternity. And accordingly in the
presence of these great monsters, which seemed
almost supernatural, the sacred poet finds it worth
while to say. Yes, that also owes its being, not
only its structure and its form (as I shall show
presently), but its existence to the Almighty ; it is
included in my former word, "the heaven and
the earth." God also created the great sea
monsters.
The third place of this word's occurrence is that
in which the prophet speaks of man. There also, as
one plainly sees, an exception might be supposed.
Those who already knew that man was made in
the image of God, might suppose that while the
world of matter in which he lived came from God's
hands, there was some difference between his rela-
tion to God and that of the world. And therefore
the prophet declares that, in respect of existence,
the fundamental relation of man to God is the
same as the relation of the dust to God. If the
dust owes its existence to God, man also owes his
existence to God. God created the heaven and
the earth ; God created the great sea monsters ;
God created man. That is the first great truth
written in this book, that the things which we see
proceed from God's creation ; that they are not, as
we now see them, eternal, nor yet, as some of the
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 171
schools of Greek thought supposed, formed by
God out of a pre-existing material or vXr), as it
was called, found ready to His hands. In neither
sense was this world eternal, neither as we now see
it nor in some earlier formless mode of existence.
Its whole being, first and now and last, is due to
the ^at of God.
What is the second point in this book of
Genesis .'' What we read is that the matter which
God called into being, the heaven and
the earth, passed through changes after leading
He had called it into being. It was Gen^is:°
first waste and void and dark, and the ^"^^'
Spirit of God moved upon it ; light appeared,
and the division of light and darkness ; and the
heavenly bodies and the waters and the dry land.
And presently arose the forms of life of different
kinds ; first the vegetable, then the aquatic forms
in the water, finally the land animals, and, last of
all, man. What is the meaning of this history }
Taking it generally and in one view, it means
this : that the matter which God called into exist-
ence by His Will, within the bounds of its own
existence, within the history of its own being, has
passed through many and important changes —
changes, moreover, which have resulted in variety
and distinction in a scene originally uniform. The
studious modern is reminded of the authoritative
expression of Spencer — unstable homogeneity
172 THE scip:ntific temper in religion
giving place to stable heterogeneity. In contrast
to this sacred account, you might put two alter-
native theories ; either, as I have already said to
a wearisome extent, that the whole scheme always
existed as it is, before any act of God, or that the
whole was called into existence by God at once,
just as it now appears. In contrast to this last
statement, the Bible teaches that the world was
not called into existence by God just as it now
appears, but that after He had caused it to
come into existence. He also caused it to pass
through manifold changes^ which are described
after the figure or symbol of six successive periods
of time called ' days.' The rehearsal of the days
is to be read in a general sense, and it gives us
this most valuable thought ; that the world of
material being which God has called into exist-
ence has, within its own material history^ passed
through many and most important changes, and
from a formless state has come into the state
which we now see. Is that statement inconsistent
with natural history ? Is it not rather a state-
ment at which we stand astonished because of the
extraordinary degree of its fundamental harmony
with the best results of our independent thought ?
Contrast it in this respect with all the other cos-
mogonies known to us. The world, our Scrip-
tures teach us, has passed through manifold
forms ; surely this is as much as to say that
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 173
it has been the subject of an evolutionary-
process.
What shall we take as a third point ? The
third point which stands clearly on the face of the
record in Genesis is that in this world a third
of manifold changes, and which has uniTyof
reached its present state after a process I'nanimrte^
which we should call evolution, the "^^"•■e-
living beings which inhabit it form, and have
always formed, one reality and one whole with
the inanimate scene ; that they were formed of
the dust of the earth ; that the waters brought
them forth ; that the earth brought forth the
living creatures each after its kind, cattle and
creeping things and beasts of the earth after their
kind ; that the vast living population which we
see is not, so to speak, like some stock put into a
farm from outside, but is, in all its constituents,
part of the one reality of the material world.
Now, if you will compare this statement with some
Eastern stories, you will see how in them this or
that power is said to have put its various denizens
into the world as if from outside. The Bible
stands conspicuous in describing them as the
result of what is fitly called a productive energy,
a "bringing forth" of the water and of the earth,
that is, of the elements which we still see around
us. Instead, therefore, of the Bible binding us
to some mechanical doctrine such as that which
174 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
we read rightly enough in poetry, in Milton,
this notion of the origin of living things is, as
1 said before in respect of evolution in general,
in a surprising and wonderful harmony with the
present results of our thought.
Further, if the world is shown as the result
of progressive change, as it is in Genesis, if the
Fourth whole of the populations of the world,
unity of man plant and animal, are shown as being
with nature, p^^j.^ ^f ^^^ ^^^^ reality, brought forth
by the elements upon which they live by the
power of God and at the command of His
word, we may go one step further and say
that man is described as being also, on one
side of his being, a part of the same reality.
God, we read, formed man of the dust of the
ground. God is said to have made the other
creatures out of the matter which He had
called into existence. With regard to man.
He is said to have " moulded him." We have
here a fresh word. There are three words —
words which are translated " create," " make,"
and "form " ; all of them repeated in one passage
in Isaiah : " I have created thee, I have formed
thee, yea, 1 have made thee." This word
"moulding," or "forming," puts the man on
one side of his being in a line with all the other
living creatures. That is to say, he has not, on
one side of his being, an origin fundamentally
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 175
different from theirs. He also is a production of
the earth on which he lives.
But, then, Genesis goes on to teach us that,
besides this nature of his which is of the earth,
which is moulded by God out of the
^ The pre-
dust of the ground, man possesses senceinman
° ^ . of an ele-
something else. He possesses an ni- mentbeyond
° ... . , . nature.
ward power which constitutes his
likeness to God — " God breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, and man became a living soul."
We must not attempt here to examine the Christian
doctrine of the constitution of man, for this is a
subject by itself. It is enough if we can accept the
statement of the Bible that, on the one hand, man is
part of the same reality as the other living creatures,
formed out of the same material, lying in series
with them, and, like them fundamentally, part of
that material universe which God in the beginning
called into existence; but that, on the other hand,
there is in him a different element, an element of
a heavenly nature, an element by virtue of which
he is a visitant upon the earth of which he is, on
the other side of his nature, a part.
Now, have we here a statement which conflicts
with anything which science is in a Does
\ ^ ^ r 1 Science
position to show : Ir any man speak- forbid the
^1 c ' i. statement
ing in the name ot science were to that man is
allege that there is no such other side "^on^piex?
of man, he would be simply going beyond any
176 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
position which can possibly be established by-
proof, and he would be throwing himself into
direct collision, not with this or that dogmatic
religion, but with the most enduring and the
most lasting convictions of every single conscious-
ness. It would be indeed a very serious thing
if this were so ; a very serious difficulty, that is to
say, for science. For if it could be shown that
natural science was committed to a position which
would make it impossible for those who would
follow science to believe in the spiritual nature of
man, then I conceive that the same kind of answer
must be given as that which Stephenson gave when
he was asked whether it would not be a very
serious thing if a cow were to stroll in front of
one of his new locomotive engines. You will
remember his answer, " It would indeed be a
most serious thing — for the cow." 1 think we
may say that, if it is true that science is com-
mitted, which it is not, to any such disparage-
ment of the spiritual nature of man, then indeed
it would be a most serious position of affiiirs for
the present and for the future of science as an
auxiliary to speculation ; and we must in that
case make ourselves ready for a period of scientific
retreat. Physics and biology, from moving as the
masterful allies of philosophy, must sink back to
the old work of bare scrutiny and description,
even it they are not reduced to simple labour
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION
//
in the service of commerce and locomotion. For
all their wider inquiries would certainly perish if
they drove full steam ahead on the rocks of
the deepest and most unshakable convictions
of all sensible men. I think it is plain that
we cannot quarrel with the Bible because it bears
witness to the complex nature of man. On the
contrary, we find here something which precisely
matches our daily experience. And, on the other
hand, there is nothing in the teaching of science in
regard to the lower kinships of man which need
offend us as religious people.
The position, in fact, is not so new as we have
supposed. We have all along been aware in our
own individual lives from childhood that no revoiu-
we had kinship with, that we had some- Jh°o"ught has
thing which belonged to, the material t^^en place,
world, and something which belonged to the animal
world. We were warned not to allow ourselves
to go down towards the beast, by following the
impulses of mere hunger and anger and the like,
which we share with the animal part of creation.
We have always known that ; and mankind all
along has known the same story. It was known
that man on one side was linked to the material
world, formed part of it ; dust he was and unto
dust he should return, and he lay in series with the
rest of the living inhabitants of that world, and
was indeed an animal like them. Now, we have
N
178 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
different conceptions of the relations of animals to
one another. We have introduced the idea of
their kinship by descent. We see them as a
family ; and therefore the man who has always
been regarded as like them, in one sense, must
now also be recognized as belonging with them to
one family. But the new thought is not funda-
mentally different from the old ; and it ought
not to distract us from the other side of the
truth concerning man, that man is in himself
a mystery, being, on the one hand, something
quite readily explained physiologically, one of the
mammalia, one of the quadrupeds, having all
the qualities which belong to other quadrupeds ;
and, on the other hand, having something which
was totally different not only from all the other
quadrupeds, but from the whole world, the
whole material existence to which he belongs,
and which, nevertheless, he looks upon as though
from outside.
We have gathered some points in which the
Bible at least foreshadows the surest and some of
Recapituia- ^^^ most prominent elements of modern
tion. thought. It excludes the two extremes
of dualism and of scepticism. The reality of
the world is asserted, while the thought is ex-
cluded of its co-eternity with God. We have the
wonderful conception ot creation, which, while we
cannot give it definition or expression, acts like a
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 179
magic in our minds and enables us to believe at
one moment in the twofold reality of God and
the world, and yet to know that they are at root
but one reality, that the spiritual reality which is
God has brought forth by His own Will that
material reality to which, for a time, He has given
a measure, as it were, of His own permanence.
In the second place, the Bible teaches us that
this world which God calls into being has passed
through many changes within the history of time.
Thirdly, it teaches us that its living population
is not fundamentally separate from the crust of
its hills or the water of its seas, but is brought
forth by the water and by the earth. Fourthly,
it allows us to put along with those other living
inhabitants men themselves, on their material and
on their animal side. And lastly, it goes on to
teach us what is the origin of that other and
mysterious Hfe which we also possess, the life of
communion, kinship, likeness to God, the image of
God within us ; that image which is, on the one
hand, the power of reason, to contemplate and to
speak about the world in which He puts us, and, on
the other hand, the power of virtue, the possession
of will, by which we may choose that which is
good, and reject that which is evil.
We must defer to another time any con-
sideration of the special difficulties which have
been found in the Bible history ; of the fall
I Ho THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
of man and that which lies behind it, the orreat
and terrible question of the possibility and
meaning of evil. I have endeavoured to-day to
suggest that if there is in some minds a great
discrepancy between the sound conclusions of
scientific inquiry and the sense of the Bible, these
difficulties are largely such as belong of necessity
to two different forms of language employed
about one set of facts. And, in conclusion, I would
beg you to consider that, in spite of these strictly
inevitable difficulties, the Bible not only remains
credible, so that we can understand it and read it
as harmonizing with the facts which we imperfectly
apprehend at the present day, but that it has been
so through many ages and to many different
generations of men.
How wonderful a fact is this ! how much
beyond the power of man to frame a statement
The Bible which should be at once credible to
ma^form*^ thosc wandcrers of Israel who first
through perhaps heard this story, and credible
many ages, ^-q yg to-day ! It might be easy to
write a Genesis which should correspond more
closely to what we think we know about the
origin of the heavenly bodies, which would
bring in clear references to the nebular hypothesis ^
' The Bible account of the appearance of light preceding the
formation ut the heavenly bodies is easily credible to us who have
learnt the same sequence from the nebular-developement doctrine of
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION i8i
which is somewhat on its trial, 1 understand, in
the schools of astronomy, but which, of course,
recovers the vigour of its first youth in the
publications of the Rationalist Press. How easy
it would be to frame a Bible with a sort of Bible
tone about it, but containing all our modern
catch-words, showing man as the result of modi-
fication by descent, and so forth. But who would
have believed such a story a hundred years ago ?
Who would have believed it when first these pro-
phetic scenes were put before the people of Israel }
Or, to put a simpler and still more familiar case.
If Moses had announced that the earth went
round the sun, would not his contemporary critics
have stepped to their tent doors and triumphantly
refuted the statement by the plain evidence of their
senses, which report that, day by day, the sun rises
from the eastern, and in due course sinks below the
western horizon ? Would it not have been said it
was an attempt to blind the eyes of the faithful ?
It is not a simple matter, even at a given moment
and for the moment, to say what is at once true
and credible. Credulity causes many things to
be believed which are not true ; and suspicion or
ignorance causes some things which are true to be
disbelieved. It is, in fact, the very problem of
Physical science. It was also credible to early Israel. But this would
not have been so if the ancient dociiinenl had described the Re(]uence
in modem language.
1 82 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
utterance to find a description of reality which
shall penetrate to assent, and to say what is believed
without leaving a false impression. But the diffi-
culty is vastly increased when the statement of
truth is to remain credible to more than one
generation. It would be impossible now for us
to speak in language which should be credible to
those who thought l^he Vestiges of Creation a
scientific book ; and probably, if any of us are
destined to be alive fifty years hence, we shall
meet with new doctrines of science which are as
unintelligible to us as those of the old days are
becoming. What a revelation has to do, what a
lasting statement of the relation between God and
the world has to achieve, is to speak in general
terms of the deepest part of the truth, to illustrate
that truth by some forms of speech which may
remain not only true but also credible through all
the diversities of intellig-ence which belono; to
different times and to different classes of men.
That is exactly what our Book has done. And I
believe that, if you consider this fact more fully
(as you will find it illustrated in Mr. Gladstone's
book, l^he Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture)^
you will conclude that a great deal of weight
is to be given to it ; and instead of considering
Genesis as a series of rash statements which it is
impossible for a modern scientific reader to retain
in his belief, you will see in it the most wonderful
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION 183
example of a general and devout, poetic but
inspired, description, in historical or narrative
form, of the world we live in and of ourselves
who inhabit it ; and you will acknowledge with
thankfulness the wonderful way in which these
simple poetic utterances steer the mind through
various snares which have swallowed up genera-
tions of acute thinkers in former days ; how they
guard us from polytheism, from pantheism, from
dualism, and yet equally exclude that denial of
all reality to the world which has been the refuge
of so many devout minds.
An attitude of apology, in the English sense
of the word, is not what is justified by a deliberate
review of the early chapters of Genesis. The
followers of science should rather make a bold
claim for them as containing the foundations ot
the only religious system which can support u
robust and genuine natural philosophy.^
» I venture here to refer to a single passa<^c (pp. 109-111) of"
Religion and Science (Longmans), in which several important con-
siderations about the Bible and modern thought are very briefly
indicated.
VIII
BIOLOGY AND OUR VIEW OF
HUMAN NATURE
Omission not oblivion — The defence of scientific anthropology at
the bar of Faith — I. Biological doctrine of the origin of man.
The position not really new — In the analysis of man the positive
nobility does not become insignificant — And, besides analysis,
we had a brief historical view — The nature of a thing is deter-
mined by its perfect developement — We have now a long history
in place ot the analysis of inspection — But this affords no reason
for parting with our knowledge of what man is — II. Natural
Law in Human Life — Law and Freedom do not vary inversely
— III. Mental Physiology — Physiology is not a substitute for
Psychology — What is memory ? — IV. The direct effect of
scientific studies upon spiritual appreciation — Selective attention
— As we cannot avoid or correct it, we must allo-ivjor selective
attention in our view of life — The absorbing character of
Biology — Charles Darwin.
'&
" Behold, even the moon hath no brightness, and the stars are not pure in
His sight : how much less man, that is a worm ! And the son of man,
which is a worm !" — Job xxv. 5, 6 (R.V.).
We come near the end of our conferences with a
strong sense of regret that so little ground has
Omission ^^^^ Opened, and that in those matters
not oblivion. Y^rhich have been touched, we have
seemed able to make so small a selection of
points. Silence must not be taken as proof
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 185
of a complete want of appreciation of the
many connected topics and lines of thought
which have been left without mention. Of these
the most important is the study of the transition
from the general Theism which we have been
attempting to illustrate, to the heights and depths
of the Christian Creed and Life. To show this
transition is the great task of our time. But
during this particular course of addresses we can-
not, however humbly, contribute to it except so
far as in the next lecture, which will be the last,
we may be able to suggest certain heads of pro-
cedure. But of the questions which lie closer to
Natural Science, the most difficult, and in some
respects the most painful, is the question of the
place and dignity of Human Nature.
In order to set a few thoughts on this head in
a convenient order, one may, in the first place,
speak as if in justification of the The defence
modern doctrines of science at the bar °nthro"^'^'^
of Christian opinion. That is to say, fhe^^^of
one may attempt to show to believers ^^^^•
that there is less which is intolerable than we are
sometimes inclined to think in the suggestions
of Natural Science in this matter. And in the
second place, one may endeavour to defend our
real position against what is actually dangerous
in the Naturalist attack. Here, as always, we
use the words ' Naturalist ' and ' Naturalistic,' not
1 86 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
in their scientific application, but to indicate that
philosophic doctrine which, to speak briefly and
roughly, attempts to make Science do the work
of Faith as well as its own, and to exclude from
the number of those things which may fairly affect
our view of reality all considerations which do
not fall under the definition of natural inquiry.
Now, if we are to make a case before Chris-
tians for much of the teaching of Science, we
must assume that the Christian who judges is
possessed of real convictions. Indeed, the whole
work of defining the relations of Science to
Religion is of very little value for a Christian who
has not found the positive grounds of belief in
his own soul and of belief in God. Unless he
is standing firm upon a real experience of faith,
justified and verified by its own proper tests
(tests which we cannot here deal with, but which
are continually illustrated in the regular teaching
of the Church), he approaches all questions of
relation in a nervous spirit, which very easily
becomes a spirit of alarm and hostility. He is
jealous of every approach of criticism, and flings
himself, as in the panic of dreams, into terrified
attack upon the opposite side. Our faith, if it is
a real faith, does not depend (as I fear 1 must
have said before in the course of these addresses)
upon the gathering of many particulars of proof
out of the world of sense-experience. It is not
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 187
to be shaken by the explanation of activities of
nature which were formerly considered especially
mysterious ; for it never rested upon any supposed
fault in the universality of law. It would not be
shaken if the gulf which lies for thought between
organic and inorganic matter were for thought to
be bridged ; for it has never rested upon this or
any other interval.^ It would not be shaken if
' While these pages are in the press comes (June 20, 1905) the
news of Mr. Burke's observations of the behaviour of sterilized
bouillon when it is shut up in a tube containing radium. These
observations may well in time prove to have markeci a most eventful
step in discovery.
Meanwhile an able and thoughtful writer in the Daily
Chronicle says of the minute bodies detected by Mr. Burke,
" In a word, they are alive ; " and adds, " It is impossible to resist
the conclusion that he (Mr. Burke) has demonstrated the evolution
of living matter from lifeless matter."
That is our difficulty. Conclusions arc what some of us cannot
resist. They are so veiy attractive. A clergyman, learning to ride
a bicycle under the tuition of a boy of fifteen, pleaded that he could
not remember to use the brake. " Oh, but in that case," said the
young instructor, " you must give up the idea of riding a bicycle."
But the writer of that article, whose simply scientific ardour here
runs fast, would not, I think, differ from us on the larger question
which some call metaphysical. I hope that he would agree that if
Mr. Burke has found an unchallengeable case of abiogencsis, he has
simply made us contemporary spectators at first hand of the mysterious
advent of life which we have always known must at some time or other
have been accomplislied in the past.
Bouillon, of course, however dead and sterilized, is not an inorganic
compound. For a recovery in experiment of the first origin of life
we need something quite different from the reappearance of life in a
lifeless infusion made of material which was once living. But, if
this limitation is remembered, it is difficult to exaggerate the present
interest and the possible importance of Mr. Burke's observations.
Articles on tlie same subject in the S/caiJtirJ lA' Junt: 21, and the
1 88 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
that happened which a writer pictured for us a
year or two ago — if we received a message from
Mars declaring that in that planet beings like
ourselves had found the proof of atheism. It
would make no difference to this real faith if all
the stars sang in chorus, " There is no God."
This would only show to the man who was at all
beginning to be a real Christian that something
had gone amiss with what, thank God, we find
in fact to be the unchanging witness of the skies.
True faith is not dependent upon nature, it does
not arise by the accumulation of a multitude of
particulars in experience ; it grows from a root of
vital intercourse.
I speak here as to those who have a firm hold
of our Christian faith. Like all of us, you wish
to see it stronger, and you look for the tests by
which it may be ascertained, and especially for the
Westminster Gazette of June 24. ("Radium and Life "), are, I venture
to say, models of what such articles should be, in respect ot scientific
caution as well as of metaphysical liberty.
No comment, indeed, could be better than that of Mr. Burke
himself upon the discovery which he thinks he may have reached.
He says, " In fact, if it can be shown that tlust and earth can produce
life on account of radio-activity, it would only confirm the truth ot
Biblical teaching."
We seem to have reached in the general Press the level of liberality
on which the Guardian stood twenty years ago, and earlier. A large
chapter of discussion is closed.
But how many years must still pass before such words as Mr.
Burke's overtake, in the minds of a certain larger public, the effect
of arguments of a different tone, written long ago, and «oxu offered m
cheap forms as the living utterance of science.
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 189
experiences by which it may be made to grow in
vigour ; but still you are not at all in danger of
giving it up because at a given point you cannot
come to terms with Science. On the contrary,
you are in more danger of saying, " This Natural
Science of the modern world is a false and bad
science, because it challenges our inward conviction
of the rank in being ,and of the intrinsic value,
of human life." To such a temper, to such a
feeling, what can we say ?
I. Ought we not to begin by saying this ^
The position in which we find ourselves is not
essentially a new position. We lately
glanced at it from another point of view doctrin°e^or
when we were considering the Bible. nian°"The°
The position is that Natural Science PSly n"ew°^
endeavours to disclose under the form
of a history of origins what we have always known
about human nature under the form of a
description of its actual state and of its observed
course in individuals. We always knew that
human nature was a great mystery, a mystery of
unmeasured apparent inconsistency. There cannot
be added to our thought a single word of humilia-
tion ; we have drunk deep of the cup of disgrace
from the very first. " What is man," says the
inspired poet, " that Thou regardest him ? or the
son of man, that Thou considerest him ? " He is
stuff, and made of stuff, and is perpetually remade
1 90 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
from the same source, during his short span in
this world. He is dependent, to the last degree
of humiliation, upon the material things beneath
him. A pinch too much of some ingredient in
his food may not merely wipe out his animal life ;
that would be a minor token of subjection. It
may do more ; it may prove strong enough to dis-
order his moral nature, those powers and qualities
by which he stands above the world. We knew
of old that heat and cold and approaching
thunderstorms, circumstances of soil and air,
conditions of light or situation, we knew that
these could penetrate to what seemed to be the
very roots of his character. We knew that a
man's mercy, his justice, his confidence, even his
integrity, may all suffer eclipse after a sleepless
night ; that he is apt in the confusion of fever to
seem another man and not himself. And, more-
over, for some considerable time past we have
known that if you could safely, without imperil-
ling his life, lay a trifling pressure upon certain
areas of the brain's surface, he would cease to
exhibit the thought which belongs to the defini-
tion of his nature, and consciousness itself would
be for the time extinguished under merely
material influences. And yet "what a piece of
work is a man (this quintessence of dust) ! How
noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in lorm
and moving, how express and admirable ! in action.
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 191
how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a
god ! " '
All this, or almost all of this, we knew per-
fectly well from the old days. Was it not known
in the least critical ages that this immortal spirit,
this great creature in communion with God, this
soul who, as the Greeks said, was " the measure of
all things," was still but " the paragon of animals,"
and had only to be struck hard enough with a
sharp point between the ribs and he became
nothing but stuff for the camp followers to drag
out of sight. It is a very old, old, sad story,
the story of the mixed nature of man. And all
throuo^h the orenerations we have managed this
difficulty, we have been enabled to bear with it
by reason of lour ineradicable consciousness of his
essential nobility.
All along men have said, in different tones,
" The negative facts, the low facts, do not avail to
extinguish the witness of the great intheanaiy-
facts ; more than that, they do not th^e^poSe
possess any real tendency even to dim no^'becomr
that witness. So St. John says about insignificant,
spiritual life in general, " The light shineth in the
darkness, and the darkness does not put it out."
It is indeed a physical fact of great significance
that the greatest depth of darkness not only does
not avail to put candles out, but even has no
' Hnmiet, act ii. so. 2, line (<v't.) 320.
192 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
tendency to do so. The lights do not shine the
least less truly, or less brightly, because the dark-
ness is let in upon them. And all positive facts
have this character ; all facts of positive spiritual
consciousness and life have, through the whole
history of mankind, held their place in human
convictions, in the very presence of facts which
seemed to be incompatible with them.
But, further, we did of old possess a hr'ief
historical view of human nature. We did not go
very far, but we did know about our-
And, besides , .,,.., i ^ o i
analysis, we sclvcs as individuals what bolomon
had a brief ^ j r ^l • • C
historical put on record or the origin even or a
^^^^' king. Every one of us had the same
strange little beginning ; every one had the like
pale or dark-red wrinkled aspect once, when first
he looked upon the world and cried out at
the light, and felt feebly after things, not know-
ing what he desired, and did not recognize those
who loved him and whom he needed. And
when first our feet touched the ground, we all
staggered wildly in an absurd manner, aimless,
confused, unpractical, giving no promise what-
ever of the strong man, showing indeed not
nearly so clear an indication of what the adult
would be as do the infant stages of lowlier forms
of life. " I also," says the King in the Book,
" when 1 was born drew in the common air, and
fell upon the kindred earth, uttering, like all, tor
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 193
my first voice, the self-same wail." ^ And later,
in the petulance of early strength, in what Faber
rather cruelly calls the " inevitable ugliness of
youth," few hints are in some lives given of the
nobility of sacrifice which will appear later ; of the
infinite courage which is in man, and of the insight
of which he becomes capable. There are many
young lives full of light ; but in some which will
afterwards be worthy, there is hardly a gleam of
wisdom, less than a gleam of goodness in any real
sense of that word. All this we have known from
the beginning, and accordingly it ought not now to
shock us when the same knowledge comes in a new
form. We ought to have drunk deep enough of
this humiliating truth not to be alarmed when we
hear that the history may be extended beyond the
individual life, and that there is a " Law of Von
Baer " with respect to human developement also ;
that is to say, that the individual growth represents
in small the conjectured history of remote descent.
If this is true, surely it does not add essentially to
our humiliating, to our humbled position. We
are sharers indeed in the material world, with all
its lowly circumstances ; but the nature The nature
of a whole must be judged by its best, dlfermS^
must be judged by its greatness and its £lop^^*^^
heights, by its end and not by its begin- '"^"^•
nings. So we learned from Aristotle long ago ; and
' Wisdom of Solomon, vii. 1-7.
O
194 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
it is impossible by any contemplation of the lowlier
facts of life to get rid of the meaning of the great
facts, to lose — not to point now to the highest ot
all — the significance of the poets or of St. Paul
as he lives so freely in thoughts so great ; and, what-
ever this or that critic may sometimes think, about
his premiss, about his right to speak, yet reasons
so wisely, so solidly, moving at home in the great
world of great ideas ; and drawing, moreover, from
that world forces operative in the ordinary scene,
operative for society, creating, as in the human
sense of the word St. Paul in fact created, all that
we call modern Europe. We have to judge
things by their end, by what they come to. And
supposing, as I said lately about the purpose of
merely organic life, supposing we could trace back
the series to the humblest beginning, we have
only in consequence to conclude that in that form-
less beginning lay all the promise and potency of
an almost unimaginable wealth.
With regard to man we are not in a position
to draw this conclusion, to reduce what we see to
a lowly origin. We seem forced to suppose a
complex origin for that complex nature. But so
far as the point is concerned that all things must
be judged by their excellence, we are on exactly
the same safe ground with regard to man as
with regard to organic life in general. And
the point I would make to Christians is this
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 195
— that baffling as it is to us and to all men, to
contemplate this material past of the race, with
anything like equanimity or with anything like
clearness of thought (for it lies quite beyond any
conception we can form of it), yet it ought not to
add essentially to the old humiliation in which we
have all along walked. For from the beginning
man has known himself to be on the one side a
creature walking in a vain shadow and disquieting
himself in vain, whose life, according to a certain
measure of judgement, is but a toilful rise and
a helpless fall. With uncertain and dangerous
advance he reaches, through a youth which shows
already the incidents of decay, the level ground
of a momentary prime ; and presently weakness
appears in the harp of a thousand strings, and the
harmony is silenced, the beauty is formless, the
man is nothing. We always knew that about
him on one side ; but this could not extinguish
the other consciousness, and it could not rob of
its significance the other and greater facts. If,
then, and quite provisionally, we were to accept,
as having some measure of probability, the
statements proposed to us on the side of
biology, we ought to feel that they do not
add essentially to the puzzle of mankind. They
have only read out in fuller form the dusty
side of our nature which was all along familiar
to us.
196 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
They have read it out suh specie histori^e ;
they have shown it as a sequence of events.
We have Formerly it was dealt with simply by
S^\°n ^ way of analysis. We said of old, there
alfa'iys^s of ^ is the lower part of man and the higher
inspection, ^p-^vt. But now we are invited to think
that there was a lower past of man which explains
the lower part ; and we must reassert the grounds
for believing also in a higher past, and in the
higher possibilities of the future. But in this we
are merely reading out into a new formula, under
a new category — the category of time — what all
along was perfectly familiar to us under the
category of substance, as an answer to the question
of what we are. To say how we became what we
are does not alter the main effect of the facts.
We always had to bear up under that weight,
under that knowledge of our earthliness, of our
material existence, of our animal kinship ; and
because that kinship is read out to us after a
fashion which may not stand the test of time, —
for my part I think it will, though just now, with
greater light upon its own difficulties, it does not
stand quite so well in the battle of thought as it
did at first — this does not essentially change the
problem which has always been before all those
who considered seriously the nature of man, the
mystery of man's existence. If then we could all
along bear with the low because of that brightness
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 197
which shone above it, so we ought to be able to
bear with the new story of origins.
And certainly this story provides no ground
for parting with our positive convictions. On
the contrary, if it could be shown to g^^^j^^^
come into direct conflict with these, affords no
' reason for
then it is quite plain to us which of parting with
. ^ .„ ^ ourknow-
the doctrines will turn out to represent ledge of
. . 1 1 • 1 1 what man is.
the passing opinion and which the un-
shakable conviction. It is the story of the
material things which shifts and changes under
the light of advancing knowledge, different tempers
of inquiry, different fashions in the world of
thought. It is the abiding conviction of the time-
less element in the nature of man which stands sure,
and which alone can account for the fact that he has
so much as any curiosity, far less than any power
to satisfy his curiosity, with regard to the scene in
which, on one side of his nature, he forms a part.
It is to be confessed that studies in the
Natural History of man are easily found gloomy
and uninteresting ; if unbalanced, they become
depressing ; they ought not to be found alarming.
II. From the suggestion of apology tor the
new Natural History of man we have now to
turn to the defence of our old „ „ , ,
II. Natural
spiritual convictions aeainst a natural- V,^"'*",..
r o Human Life.
istic attack.
This defence is weakened, as it seems to me,
198 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
by a certain unwise and unnecessary intolerance.
The method of science is a method of limitation.
A purely natural science is of necessity excluded
from the study of spiritual laws. But it would
be a mistake to conclude from this that the facts
of spirit and those subject to natural inquiry are
contained in mutually exclusive spheres. It is a
notion like this which constitutes a grave danger
for spiritual thought. There has been a tendency
among those who believe in spirit, in freedom, in
will, and personality, to speak as if the advance of
the observed range of natural law was a menace to
the kingdom of freedom ; as if the place of freedom
began where law was left behind, so that it became
the interest of those who believe in freedom to
keep back the advancing waves of manifested law.
(The advance is, of course, the advance of a mani-
festation^ for the law itself is now what it must always
have been.) That notion haunts the minds of
many people who believe in God, or who believe in
man ; and consequently it has been accepted and
absorbed by men upon the other side. The other
side has seen an enemy in the name of freedom as
if it challenged the integrity of law. Even in
these last few weeks, one of the writers in the
Times correspondence about Lord Kelvin's speech
suggests that the assertion of a spiritual reality,
or a directive power underlying organic life would,
if it were granted, sweep away (I am not giving
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 199
the words) all that Darwin has won for us. And
the writer justifies this assertion by showing what
Darwin has indeed won for us, namely, the
advantage of bringing organic life within the
range of our conception of law.^
There is no doubt that formerly natural law
was thought of as extending through the material,
or merely mechanical movements of the world,
but stopping short at the boundaries of organic
life. The inclusion of organic changes within
the conception of law has indeed, been powerfully
promoted by the Darwinian movement ; and, in
fact, this change of thought has been welcomed
now for a long time by Churchmen — for example,
in the pages of our Church journals — as the most
important result of Darwin's work, and of the
work which he inspired. As this work goes on,
uniformities of law will be traced in organic nature
as truly and with a more intense interest than in
inorganic nature. But the extension of the range
of law does not carry with it the restriction of the
range of freedom. Freedom does not find its
refuge where law is absent or unknown. On the
contrary, freedom never has its chance excepting
in so far as the free person not only is existing
under a system of law, but has discovered its
nature, and so is able to lay hands upon its
advantages. Long ago Hegel said that necessity
' See note on p. 273.
200 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
and freedom were the same thing looked at from
different sides ; and this statement represents not
Law and simply a truth of the higher logic, but
not v^^ ^° ^ f^ct of experience. What we find in
inversely. experience is that law is everywhere,
and that freedom, without being absolute, runs all
through it and increases in the ratio in which the
law is observable and observed.
What is society ? Society is a system of
necessities. If there was not a regular, however
imperfectly known, sequence in the developement
of the minds and actions of nations, there could be
no science of politics, no science of history, no
forecast, no judgement, no prudence. In one point
of view, political art rests upon the knowledge of
the laws by which nations move from point to
point. But what is political action viewed from
another side ? Is it not precisely the activity of
persuading men to do what before they did not
wish to do } And in the smaller spheres of
human intercourse, social life is altogether a net-
work of necessities, but it is at the same time
altogether a network of influences, of persuasions,
of asking, and of granting or refusing what is asked.
It is, therefore, a fact of experience, and not only a
conclusion of absolute philosophy, that necessity
and freedom penetrate one another. Their
spheres are not separate, so that the one stops
where the other begins. They arc rather two
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 201
mysterious aspects of one given reality. Con-
sequently, if law comes to be read in all the doings
of life and can be traced in clear sequences in
many parts of our being which, at one time, we
thought rode aloft of law, this will not by itself
narrow the range or lessen the evidences of
freedom. But the kind of fight which we have
kept up against the mechanical explanation of
human life has given rise, and has given roots, to
the conviction in the minds of many good men
who study especially the law-side of things, that
the two explanations are alternative and mutually
exclusive explanations. It is the very vocation of
thoughtful believers to resolve superficial con-
trasts and oppositions. And it is our duty to
remember, with regard to this matter of human
descent, human heredity, human national character-
istics, and all that goes to make man what man is
and the several kinds of men what they severally
are, that when the whole range of events comes to
be drawn within the scope of law, this will not
exclude the fact of freedom.
III. We pass to another head of what is formid-
able in the naturalist criticism of the spiritual doctrine
of life, I mean the new psychology, the ^j Mental
study of mind which rests upon physi- Physiology,
ology. There, again, we find a source of confusion
in the tendency to treat the physiological explana-
tion as a sufficient alternative for that which uses
202 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
the terms of spirit, rather than as a new version
in different language. The older psychological
systems were the work of men who contemplated
the reality itself which we actually possess in our
consciousness ; who asked themselves, without
much considering the external conditions of con-
sciousness, what consciousness itself contained.
They answered, it contains names, concepts,
judgements, purposes, and so forth. Such a study
deals with the fact itself as we know it at first hand
in our own minds. The mental physiologist, on the
other hand and as a complementary work, attempts
to find out the machinery by which the thing itself,
the thought, finds its ground in our bodily frames.
And a great deal of good will be done now that
professional psychologists are more and more
ready to learn from physiology this physical aspect
or condition of the thought which is the direct
object of their study. For in this way they are
likely to bring to an end the half-hostile feelings
with which pure psychology has sometimes been
regarded by the physical or medical student of
mental facts.
His explanation will then no longer appear to
be an alternative exclusive of the other ; and yet
how easy it is to set it up as if it were such an
alternative. A man says, I am full of grief and
depression of heart because of the sense of my
sins. And the medical account of the matter
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 203
might, 1 suppose, if it were thoroughly successful,
trace all these impressions to changes in the circula-
ting medium, the blood ; to degradation of tissue
in the brain ; to want of proper co-ordination in
the different parts of the great central exchange-
office of our nervous system. It follows that the
physiological critic in pressing for attention to
the physical basis of mental facts often alarms the
theologian or psychologist by his able presentation
of the truth about nervous impulses, about senso-
motor, and ideo-motor reflex actions. Still worse,
passing beyond the geography of our confined
education, he describes in language sometimes
invaded by psychological terms, the lobes and
convolutions of the brain until at last you almost
catch the impression that he is conscious of aff^erent
impulses, conscious of the lobes of the brain, con-
scious, as I once heard a distinguished physiologist
in a hurry say, of the large pyramidal cells which
distinguish part of the brain's cortex. Conscious-
ness is not in fact thus richly furnished. What
the consciousness reports is not the afferent im-
pulse. The consciousness reports feelings, names
of things, judgements about things, motives
and, in more highly developed natures, regret,
repentance, aspiration. We know these other
facts, the grey matter and the ganglia, by in-
ductive science ; by the observation of other brains
than our own, by dissecting the tissues and nerve
204 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
tracts of other organisms, and by putting, as we
say, two and two together. In health we are in
no sense conscious of them except as ideas. Of
physiological ideas one is conscious as of other
ideas, but one is not conscious in that sense of
physiological processes.
It may seem absurd to dwell upon so easily
recognized a confusion ; but the defensive attitude
of the theologian, finding ground for alarm in the
suggestion of a material basis for the movements
of thought and will, may be traced to a conviction
very natural when we consider the language of
some physiologists, that material studies in general
have produced an alternative and hostile account
of what theology has hitherto known as the soul.
And there is no complete absence of this kind of
confusion even on the side of the physiologists
themselves.
We ought, therefore, gladly to welcome all the
help that we can get from those who tell us of
Physiology ^^^ machinery of the body which in a
sftitute^for"''' '^'1''^'"^^'" '^^^ Understood accompanies
Psychology, thought and constitutes its material
condition ; and we ought, indeed, to stand very
humbly, wondering at the great mystery of the
inter-connexion between the two sets of facts ; and
quite frankly to confess how new this knowledge
is to us, and how startling it is to learn that
materia] changes can so profoundly condition and
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 205
modify the movements which we thought to be
quite independent of them. We have much to
learn in this direction. But still all that we can
learn of the machinery of mental processes and of
co-ordinating arrangements, of structural changes
which may be conceived as accompanying the
observed fact of mental associations — all this does
not lift the veil from the secret foundation of
thought itself, that thought which always remains
distinct from every material object. The nervous
organization is indeed the nearest edge, the most
closely apposed part, as it were, of that material
scene which must always remain other than the
thinking subject which perceives it and co-ordi-
nates it and brings all those complex formulae of
law into it. But in the study of nerve we have
not bridged the gulf between matter and that
which is not matter.
Take, for example, the case of memory.
What I may venture to call the unsophisticated
psychology which took little account of ^j^^^^ ^^
physiology might speak of memory as memory?
almost wholly mysterious. How does the man
look back upon his own past ^ How does he
measure the present accomplishment against a
former state of being ? What is the continuum on
which the two states abide and by some scale in
which they are measured } What is it in the
man which judges and disparages his own present
2o6 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
power of judgement ? Or, if this seems simple,
what shall we say of the moral comparison of self
with self, a comparison at once more delicate and
more severe ? How does the man condemn his
present moral apprehension by the standard which
was his own yesterday ? And the physiologist is
ready to answer : All these mental connexions
have a material basis. You undertook a certain
action at a former period under a certain stimulus
coming from the sensory organs to the brain.
The brain worked out suitable motor impulses
to meet the case ; and these received a certain
measure of success and satisfaction. And both
the reception of the sensory afferent impulses and
the production of the energising efferent impulses
left their impressions upon the nervous tissues.^
There the action left its record in subtle changes
of structure or state ; and this record is memory.
When to-day you undertake an action of the same
kind but with a lower degree of energy, it leaves
a new but comparable result in the same organiza-
tion, and it is in the likeness and difference of
these two records that the impression of improve-
ment or defect is found.
Such an explanation, phrased in a better way
than this, seems for the moment to take the
• The afferent impulses are those which travel from the nerve-
endings to the centre ; the efferent impulses are those which travel
from the centre to the nerve-endings.
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 207
mystery from memory, from self-reproach, from
regret. It is only after a pause that the question
asserts itself. But who read the records ? Who
compared them ? Did the old record read the
new one, or the new record the old ? And how
did the new experience itself find power to measure
itself against the old ? Or was there, after all,
some third power which looked at them both, or
was conscious of them both, which felt (as, with-
out knowing its exact nature, we feel the sense
impression) the net result of the sense impression
translated into terms of consciousness ? To
speak of memory as a mere matter of successive
nervous events is something like saying that in
a phonograph the record on the second half of
the cylinder was able to recognize its own likeness
to, or difference from, the record on the first part
of the cylinder.
No. The clearest physiological explanation,
most valuable as all such things are, of the
machinery of memory, never arrives at discover-
ing that mysterious unity upon which, as on a
kind of conscious sheet, all these changes tran-
spire, the unity of the personal consciousness.
The physiological and the spiritual accounts of
these matters have been unwisely, and without
justification, thrown into antagonism, as if they
were mutually exclusive alternatives. They are
really two readings arrived at by different
2o8 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
approaches to the same set oi facts. To use
once more a foolish example, it is as if one should
object to the statement that a crime was the effect
of an evil purpose, because it was also of necessity
the eifect of muscular energy, or the corrosive
properties of an alkali.
IV. The conjecture of human origins, the
enlarged perception of the reign of law in human
IV. The life, the novel investigations of the
o^sden^fic physics of psychology, these are three
IpHtulTap" disturbing elements of scientific teach-
preciation. \^g ^j^-]^ regard to our own nature, and
for the moment hostile to the claim of spirit. I
pass to another reason why there is in physical
study, at any rate while the studies are new, a
tendency towards disparagement of spiritual facts.
It is a matter on which, perhaps, we might well
have spent the whole time this afternoon ; for it
is very interesting and very little examined.
And first, it is certainly worth remark that the
studies which are technically called physics and
mechanics, which are controlled by mathematics
and examine by means of numbers the behaviour of
masses and molecules — do not have this character.
It is a fact that most great physicists — at least
a very large number of great physicists — have
been at the same time eminent Christians.
There does not seem to be in that range of
study any natural tendency to obliterate or to
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURP: 209
confuse spiritual apprehensions ; but there does
seem to be some such tendency in abstract biological
studies. The tendency is not evident in biologi-
cal studies when they are active, when they are
practical, when they have regard to medicine or
to public health. They do not then seem to have
any particular effect upon the opinions which men
hold on other subjects. But biological studies in
the abstract do seem to have in some measure
this tendency. I must reserve for another time
what I think to be the most important cause con-
tributing to this result in the particular case of
biology. It seems hardly sufficiently explained
by the operation of selective attention. But this
operation deserves notice here, since it has lately
received much study from psychologists ; and we
may recognize its effect in the case of biological
studies, though we cannot determine why the
effect should be especially great in that case.
We know ourselves very partially and very
dimly, and we think that we attend moderately
well to all the objects and affairs which selective
come before us. In point of fact our attention,
attention is strictly confined, and very highly
selective. Something of this truth may be seen in a
physical image, in the action of the sense of sight.
A man might naturally say, for example, that he
saw the whole of this building quite plainly. But
the fact, I suppose, is that we see one very small
210 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
portion of the field clearly, that portion of which
at a given moment the image is thrown upon the
yellow spot of the retina ; and that as soon as the
eye moves ever so little so that this image no
longer falls upon the yellow spot, that object is
seen only quite dimly. Thus, there is only one
small circular area in the whole scene which one
sees with anything like definition, and of the rest
there is a mere blurred image. But this is not
the impression we carry away with us. For the
eye continually moves ; and in this way we have
from one side to the other of the room a range of
clear images formed in succession, but which we
carry with us in a kind of brief memory. And
accordingly, although at any one moment one has
a strictly definite vision of only one particular
point, yet when the whole scene is changed for
another scene, the natural statement and the
natural impression is that we saw the whole of the
first in one experience of sight. The artist, if he
is to convince us by the representation of a scene,
is obliged to show a considerable range in con-
siderable definition. If he placed upon canvas the
record which our eye really receives by looking
steadily at any particular scene, his picture may
come to be disrespectfully described, as some
valuable impressionist pictures have been, as " a
spot of painting and a lot of fudge." But such a
canvas corresponds in a certain true sense to
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 211
what the eye really receives. The painter in
order to fit our notion of what we see, has
to represent a great space seen in clearness all
over its extent ; of course with gradations of
clearness, but with very much more clearness than
the eye ever enjoys in any one experience. I
believe that an architect could tell something of
the extraordinary difficulty of drawing an interior
which shall be convincing to the layman or the
client. An interior drawn in strict perspective, as
if from an actual and single point of view would
suggest to the untrained eye and mind a roof
leaning far upon one side. The convincing repre-
sentation which recalls such a building as the client
hopes to see, is made, I have heard, by combining
portions as they would be actually viewed from
several points, into a whole which is a kind of
compromise.
This may illustrate the way in which we over-
rate the quality of our apprehension, and over-
estimate its range. Something of the as we can-
same sort happens with regard to what "orrecuf.we
we call our view of life, our Weltan- {^rserJSe
skht. But in life at large we have no attention in
D our view ot
such ready means of correction and ''^^■
combination as we have In the narrow and par-
ticular experience of physical vision. We are not
able, for a judgement of life's meaning or of life's
aspect, to change almost instantaneously our
212 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
point of view ; for the mental standpoint is fixed
by a long preparation, and is not easily changed.
Nor have we anything nearly approaching to the
instinctive machinery by which, in the visual
sense-experience, successive images are knit into
a whole. Mentally, we have the same false
impression as we have in sight, the impression of
a wide range of simultaneous clearness. But we
have not, at least in anything like an equal
degree, the same means of keeping such an
impression close to the facts by successive views,
or by binocular vision. His was a rare gift who
" saw life steadily and saw it whole."
Yet we are not slow to claim this choice fruit
of long experience, of sure intuition. We fall
easily under the conviction that the whole scene
and all the rival explanations of its significance are
before us for judgement and for choice. But in
fact, just as in physical sight, the eye sees really
— that is clearly — but one spot, so in any par-
ticular walk of our life we see but one class of
facts clearly and really, and the rest of facts,
though we think we do them justice, although we
have the impression of judging life in a thoroughly
impartial and enlightened way, have sunk into
dimness. How hard it is to remember this
limitation with regard to our special pursuits.
For my own part 1 can bear witness that the
special pursuits of biology, at any rate when they
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 213
are fresh, when they come upon the young and
forming mind, have a tendency to exclude almost
entirely from direct and definite thought most of
the other measures by which men and life can be
judged.
You must remember the extraordinary fascina-
tion of the study. You must remember its ex-
hausting and exacting discipline. And jhe absorb-
further, the study is very new, unlike rafte?o"f
anything that we have been prepared biology.
for at school ; it offers teaching which is otten
totally unlike our general notion of nature as we
had it from childhood. Biology is full of surprises,
of paradoxes, of fresh constructions of idea from
the foundations. The new work absorbs the
attention to the exclusion of almost every other
consideration ; and the student wakes up to find
that he has been thinking of man as one of the
Primates, as one of the Mammalia, as one of the
Vertebrates^ as immensely distinguished in his
early ancestry by the possession of a notochord,
and as differentiated from his nearest congeners
very largely by the happy absence of a fully
opposable hallux.
These characters take of necessity an impor-
tant place in his mind. He knows a great deal of
the sutures and foramina of the brain-case, of the
arrangement of the facial bones, of the angles of
the si<.ull. He has considered the deleterious
214 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
effects of adopting the erect posture so ill-suited
to some features of our anatomy. And all this
excludes from his notions, I will not say great and
high things, the notion of poetry, the thoughts
which come to us by inspiration ; it excludes for
a time all appreciation of the other great sciences
which are being pursued within a stone's throw
of the building in which he works. Indeed a
moment comes when science may be said to have
hidden nature.^ This absorption may become
very nearly complete. I remember the case of a
man shocked out of that position of fixed attention
to these facts — by what .'' Not by a great and
inspired drama, or by a story of human passion
and tenderness and courage, but by an article on
Banking which struck him at once as being quite
outside the kind of knowledge he had been
accustomed to consider."
1 " Ceux qui passent toutc leur vie ii retudc des coquillages, disent
(ju'ils contemplent la nature. O demencc aveuglc ! '' — *De Vauvc-
nargucs, Discours Preliminaire,^ printed in the first edition only of
his works.
There are some students of science so much lovers of nature that
they are aware of the possible error and guard against it. " I love
nature and I hate science," was said to me twenty years ago by a
very distinguished zoologist, who in the interval has so served science
as to bring nature nearer to us.
^ I think this tendency of a special study to fix and limit the
mental range (somewhat as a man's head used to be fixed in the
photographer's studio) is stronger if the student is allowed to devote
himself to any science without a preliminary expatiation in the arts.
The 'arts ' course, introducing men to a number of different modes
of thought, all made respectable by accomplished utterance, perhaps
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 215
There is, then, an immense force in selective
attention ; and men must be ready, if they are
following studies connected with the material side
of their being, perpetually to allow for their
inevitable effect of seclusion. For this effect
will be stronger in special studies than in studies
more general, and it will be strongest of all in
those studies in which we have few comrades.
If we study politics we must meet with other
men of all kinds who are studying politics from
other points of view, and who bring their percep-
tions into the general stock. But if we gain
entrance to the high and great schools of natural
inquiry, so absorbing, so zealous, so jealous of inter-
ference, so wonderful in success, so miraculously
practical in effect as compared, for example, with
our fumbling experiments in social reform ; then
by itself tends to excessive tlevelopement of the liberal and critical
faculties. Under this training the man learns to question every-
thing, and to hold himself free to believe anything. Such an
influence as this is, however, very wisely combined with the influence
of science, for this last tends by itself to paralyse the native faculties
of criticism, and to make men slaves to the recent orthodoxy of an
intellectual school which still has some of the intolerance of youth.
Laud, wondering (in a letter to the Bishop of Winchester) " why so
many good scholars came from Winchester to New College, and
yet so few of them afterwards prove eminent men," thinks it is
because the probationary " two years, and some years after, are not
allowed to logic, philosophy, mathematics, and the like grounds of
learning," instead of being devoted at once to Calvin's Institutes.
This, he said, "ilotii too much possess their jvidgements before they
are able to judge." — (Hook's Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. vi.
p. 273-)
2i6 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
we must remember, and we must resist, the great
pressure of a profound and selective attention
which victoriously absorbs all the powers of the
mind in one aspect of things, and for the time
leaves, so to speak, no sensitive surface unexhausted
and ready to respond to any other stimulus.
You know the behaviour of the eye. Set the
eye over against a bright surface and it becomes
after a time deadened. It has no sensitive element
left ready to vibrate to fresh rays. This exhaustion
may, of course, be only partial ; may affect only
some elements of the sensitive tissue. Set the
eye not against a bright white light, but against
rays of a particular measure ; as, for instance, those
which give rise to the sensation of red. If you
look long enough, all those elements in the retina
which vibrate to red are fatigued. They have
finished their little stir, and can stir no more for
the time. Consequently if the eye is now newly
set against a white surface, it brings to you only
the message of green, this being the colour which
sets in activity those sensitive elements which have
not answered to and so have not been exhausted
by the red light.
There are cases, then, in which the mind turns
with refreshment to new subjects ; but the image
more fit for our purpose, and of more general
application, is that of a reception of light by which
the whole retina is for the time exhausted. In
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 217
some such manner the mind long closely set upon
the spectacle presented by science loses its answer-
ing, its receptive power. Fresh objects find it
dulled : and it is able to trace its way only through
what is familiar and requires no direct apprehen-
sion. The reading man, no longer shot or angler,
can still, and half by habit, read the accustomed
page. But for fresh discoveries his eyes lack
force and keenness.
Some of us find ourselves dull and insensitive
to spiritual impressions. Along the accustomed
track, given rest, we find our way by a habit
which survives joy. But there is an inflexibility,
a want of elasticity for more distant views. Our
complaint is not of any difficulty in religion. We
have nothing to object to there, for we have nothing
to experience. We do not know how to begin
to think about it even in criticism. Let us re-
member that we have the same inability with
regard to many particular pursuits outside our
special sphere of interest. But the absorption in
material things as such is more universal and
more dangerous. . . .
I acknowledge a hope that we shall less
steadily than for some time past illustrate this
familiar truth by the example of charies
Darwin's failing interest in poetry. ^'"W"-
Too much has been made of this. Darwin
was one of the simplest, sweetest, gentlest, most
2i8 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
alive of all beautiful old men. His was a large
nature of special powers, and with a singular fresh-
ness. Inquiries which exhaust most men do not
exhaust the Titan. This man was great enough
and wise enough, patient and humble enough,
to give himself in a very whole-hearted way to
his wonderful studies of some of the humblest
parts of nature, and at the same time to keep
his heart as fresh and tender as a child's, quick
to respond to friendship and to love, and awake,
as one of his letters to Romanes shows, awake up
to the end to the great mystery of existence. It
was he who said to Romanes that when a man
attempts to judge of the great possibilities of the
spiritual life — I am not repeating his exact words
— by our little measures of logic, he is like one
who should hold up a chamber-candle to light
and search the sky above his head. That kindly
frankness in which he confided the fact that he
was not free from this general law of exclusive
attention, of exhausted or inflexible apprehension,
has, I think, been used so as to throw out of
proportion our own apprehension, our own im-
pression, of a great nature. But the truth itself,
of which he afforded a measured instance, is of
general application and of importance to every
man who would use to the best effect the powers
which he has received, and by which he is to
know the world, to know himself and God.
BIOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE 219
As belonging to the general subject of the
effect of Natural Science upon our thoughts of
human nature, I have proposed these four topics :
the biological doctrine of our origin ; the exten-
sion in thought of the reign of law to man ; the
contributions of physiology to the study of mind ;
the tendency of biology to diminish our personal
appreciation of spiritual facts. In all four cases
there is matter for serious study, and for prudent
management, but nothing which should rob us of
couraa^e either for faith or for science.
IX
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE AND
DOGMATIC RELIGION
The title corrected — Two contrasted schools of religious thought —
The work of the new generation is to reduce these divergences
— Distribution of inquiry — Argument and experience — A
function of argument : to make room for experience — A par-
ticular delusion affects a man's general intelligence 5 — and it
affects his social usefidness — Christian faith has raised the power
of intelligence in individuals and societies, — and it has raised
the power of common action — It is through Christ and the
fact of His Church that the soul is hound to the Positive con-
tent of the Creed — Non-Christian faith and goodness — The
influence of the Church on those outside it — The present
address merely suggestive — Envoy.
"The witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life
is in His Son. — i John v. ii. (R.V.).
The witness or evidence consists in the fact that
we have received from God the present gift of
eternal life ; and in the accompanying fact that
this life belongs to Christ and is in Christ. The
man who knows that he has passed from death
unto life, knows also, and with corresponding
certainty, that he possesses the new life not by
himself or for himself, but in so fir as Christ
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 221
Is in him and he in Christ. It is not the rein-
forcement of his own old life but the translation
of his being into the life of another, "I live, yet
not I but Christ."
This twofold experience is the witness or
evidence, or, in earlier and still legal English,
"the record." By this we know that we have
not followed cunningly devised fables.
By the terms of the notice-paper, and not
altogether by my own initiative, I stand to-day
committed to a discussion of the contrasts and
connexions between Natural Religion and Revela-
tion.
A few words, I hope, will be sufficient to ex-
plain both why the terms of this title must be
changed, and why it is desirable to conclude our
course with some kind of consideration of the
great subject which is intended.
To take the last-named question first, certainly
there are motives in abundance to restrain a man
from adding to notes upon natural science, a brief
mention of the great questions of religion itself.
Nothing like a sketch, in however slight an out-
line, can be provided even of one's own conception
222 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
of these high matters, and they might well, on
many grounds, be set entirely apart and reserved
for other opportunities, and indeed for other
speakers.
But there are reasons for another course,
however inconvenient it may be. It would
be mischievous, by complete silence, to suggest
to any believer the idea that the high interests
of his faith can be really separated from any
inquiry, however humble and departmental, or,
on the other hand, that any religious inquiry
concerning science can be isolated from those
greater interests.
What can we do ? We cannot give any
sketch of an adequate treatment, but we can once
more say that such a treatment is to be desired,
and we can point in the direction of it — the
direction along which an inquirer must adventure
who desires to pass from such subjects as have
occupied us, to the eventful fields of theology
itself. For indeed it is not the avenues of
doubt which are most full of possibility and
activity. The man who passes from these to the
questions which lie within the range of faith will
find that he has passed into a fuller and a more
exacting occupation of all his powers.
Of this general necessity for some word of
suggestion, 1 had lately a particular signal.
In one of the earlier addresses in Lent, we
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 223
agreed, you may remember, to appeal from argu-
ment to the experience of human souls ; and we
pointed to the believing state as a fact which must
be accounted for like any other. It is indeed
this appeal to experience which marks the scientific
temper in religion.
This plea produced an interesting sermon
which was sent to me by the kindness of the
preacher, a distinguished man who has maintained
for many years a ministry to souls upon a theistic
basis, I mean Mr. Voysey. He seeks to popularize
a religion founded upon facts about which every-
body is agreed ; and his sermon was an interesting
and devout one welcoming our appeal to the facts
of spiritual experience. Its title was " Prayer as
a support of Faith," and its object was to reinforce
any plea for reliance upon the inward witness,
but at the same time to urge that the Christian
experience, or rather the experience of Commu-
nion with God, has no essential connection with
Christian dogma.
This I need hardly say is not an account of
the matter which we can accept. We have found
that the victory which overcometh the world is
our faith, the faith that Jesus is the Son of God.
At that time, therefore, I thought it would be
right to take an early opportunity of suggesting
some thoughts on the connexion between thestf
two parts of religion.
224 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
But I did not phrase my title rightly, and I
wish now to amend it. For what we ought to
The title Consider is not so much the connexion
corrected, between natural religion and revealed
religion, as the connexion between inward experi-
mental religion and dogmatic or historical creeds,
and organized systems of worship. The ambiguity
which I fell into, though natural enough, was
mischievous ; because the very contention I had
in view was the contention that the inward
experimental religion, the knowledge of com-
munion with God, is not connected with revealed
religion, but is a part of natural religion. There-
fore, we must not accept this identification of
spirituality with natural religion, but must rather
ask the question. What is the nature of the
connexion between these inwardly possessed
experiences of communion and of kinship with
God, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the
dogmatic statements of creeds, and the organized
efforts of what we usually call religions ?
Now, it Is plain that any attempt out of one's
knowledge to enumerate or to describe the links
which constitute that bond would be doomed to
failure. The utmost that one can hope for is to
indicate something of the general nature of the
transition in question. And it is impossible to
do more, not only because of the magnitude of the
work, but also because it is a work which has not
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 225
yet in any very large degree been undertaken, at
least in such a way as to show the results of the
attempt as a whole. In one sense, no doubt, it is
the perpetual occupation of all Christian religious
thought, but on this very account it would be
impossible to summarize it. In another sense it
constitutes a task in theology which, if I may
venture an opinion, is the special and characteristic
and freshly proposed task for devout thought in
the ape upon which we are just entering:. ^
or J & Two con-
We find ourselves now in presence of two trasted
. r 1- • schools of
strong and distinct currents or religious reUgious
thought. Of these one lays almost ex-
clusive stress upon the inward private experiences
of the believing soul ; and shows a tendency, not
only to disregard or forget the historical environ-
ment in which this believing state is imbedded,
but also to make it a positive point of theology to
describe as insignificant and almost worthless those
very ' external ' facts which we should rather
desire to show in relation with the personal realities
of Christian life. For example, the theology of
Harnack, which is considered, and, from a certain
point of view, justly considered, to be by far the
most important intellectual and spiritual force in
Germany at the present time, and which bids fair,
as we are told, to create a religious movement
there and possibly a religious body, has for its
positive teaching that the inward treasure of the
Q
226 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
heart and confidence in God ought to be stripped
of all historical and dogmatic conditions, and,
above all, should be relieved of all elaborations
of organisation and government. The Church is
to Harnack not only something unnecessary, but
something mischievous, something which interrupts
and confuses the witness of the soul to God.
On the other hand, there is an historical and
dogmatic school of Christian thinkers who, I will
not say lay exclusive stress upon the large and
corporate aspect of Christian life, but who would
be prepared to gather together men whose inward
convictions were widely different in respect of
matters which are almost of the essence of faith,
if only the great political structure of the Western
Church could be left untouched. Is it not fair to
say that these are the two important and extremely
contrasted lines of religious thought in the
presence of which we actually find ourselves ?
And is it not the very work of all devout Christian
thought to seek to discover the correlation
between the two parts of reality which are
segregated by these schools ; to show how the
historical structure of the Church, in so far as it is
legitimate and really comes to us by authentic
descent from the dispositions made by Christ's
will, finds its expression and fulfilment in the
inward history of the soul. That is the very
work of theology. And this it is which the men
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 227
who are now entering upon the life of thought
have before them for their principal occupation
through the whole of their lifetimes.
If this is true, if the work is really the special
and new work of the age, it would plainly be
wrong to offer any hasty sketch of the The work of
nature which I imagine ought to belong ^'^gngr^^jon
to such a process of co-ordination. All is to reduce
r these diver-
that we can try to do is to show the fences,
general character, and perhaps some one particular
aspect, of the transition which actually takes place,
of the connexion which actually exists in Christian
minds, between that unchallengeable experience of
kinship with God and the loudly challenged, though
equally indispensable, foundations of Christian
history and dogma, and of Christian organized
life. To pass from that dim — so some people
would call it — or, at any rate, general and neces-
sarily secret and inexpressible sense of belonging
to God, to all the explicit elaboration of dogma
and discipline, that is the difficulty, is it not ?
And we can only show in a very bald way the
kind of path which such an inquiry must take.
Even if we obtained from our previous discus-
sions, or rather, even if in them we found that we
already possessed, something like a conviction of
the truth of the presence and love of God, we
should still be a very long way from positive
religion as it actually confronts us.
228 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Yet there is encouragement in the hiatus
itself ; for it is something to distribute the inquiry,
Distribution ^o have acquired some perception of its
of inquiry, departments and necessary steps, even
if no one of the departments is at present ex-
plored. This advantage of distribution deserves
notice for a few moments. For my own part,
if, in the course of these conferences, I have
learned nothing else, I have learned that perhaps
the principal difficulty in the way of an under-
standing with those who, in the common phrase,
do not believe, arises from no malice, from no ill-
will, nor from any profound ignorance on either
side, excepting that ignorance which we all share.
It arises from lack of order in procedure. We are
apt to take the whole subject in dispute in a mass
without distinction of parts ; and then to present it
to our opponents by precisely that aspect of it
which they can least easily manage. For example,
in many men who would call themselves Agnostics
or Materialists, there exists this state of mind :
they desire to believe ; they regard religion as a
great mixed whole containing a general belief in
God, but containing also a multitude of particular
statements about the ancient history of the Jews,
and carrying with it a great many practices and
ways, some of which we hold to be essential, and
some of which we should all of us hold to be
unessential and merely convenient. All this mass
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 229
of material comes together for acceptance ; and the
inquirer, with perfect goodwill, takes the Bible as
that by which Christians propose to recommend
the whole scheme. Endeavouring, as it were, to
introduce the thick end of the wedge first, he
examines the Scripture, as if it were designed to
impose upon him a belief in God by the authority
of revelation. Now this method illustrates what
I have said of the need of distribution. Neither
the Bible, nor any revelation could impose upon
anybody, or even recommend to anybody, a belief
in God. It must always appeal to an existing belief
in God. The Bible opens with the word — to
speak by rule it has for its second word — that
which is translated " God," Eiohim. You must
have God, something to match that word Eiohim,
before you can construe the first sentence of
Genesis. You do not believe that there is a God
because the Bible says so. On the contrary, it is
to an already existing, though perhaps vague and
unexamined, conviction of the existence of God
that the first verse in the revelation makes its
appeal. And, in correspondence with this, the
person who is striving to pass from unfaith to
faith must, in most instances, first examine the
grounds of theism, the grounds which exist within
himself, for it is only when he has already several
convictions within himself concerning God, that he
can attribute any meaning to the first words of
230 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
positive religion. In distributing the inquiry,
this is the first step of order.
Further, as we distribute the inquiry, so, also,
we must distribute the means at our disposal for
investigation. We have more than
and expe- One power within us for the investiga-
tion in which we conceive ourselves to
be employed. What function in this investigation
belongs to argument ^ Here a familiar answer
must be repeated. Argument, dialectic, discus-
sion never produce the enrichment of our know-
ledge of facts. It is not their business to furnish
our consciousness with fresh convictions. It is
worth while to reflect upon this, because although
it is so familiar a truth, yet in common practice
we perpetually disregard it. You will find men
ready to argue for a long time about the hour at
which the fast train goes to Oxford. In practice,
they do not show themselves acquainted with the
truth that argument can never give us positive in-
formation with regard to matters of fact. This
is always obtained in another way altogether.
The only sort of arguments fit to settle matters
of fact are the so-called arguments of school-
boys which consist in the alternate utterance of
confident affirmations, ending with an offer to
support one's affirmation, first by a wager, and
finally, in extreme cases, by an appeal to force.
Such discussions, I admit, do eventually enrich
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 231
somebody's consciousness with a new fact ; but
it is doubtful whether they properly deserve the
name of argument. Arguments which properly
deserve the name, have for their function to dis-
entangle the already existing content of the mind ;
they never add to our positive information. No
argument in the world could show that the Cam-
bridge tap-water possesses radio-active elements
which are removed by boiling ; but the conscious-
ness of mankind has been enriched with this most
surprising fact within the last week, not by a pro-
cess of a priori argument, but by a carefully con-
ducted system of experiment. It is perfectly
true that you might conduct an argument on the
question of the validity of these experiments.
There might be, there probably will be next week
in Nature^ a letter to show that a mistake has
been made. That is a proper subject for argu-
ment, because here argument could make its
appeal to facts known in common and acknow-
ledged in common by both parties to the discus-
sion. Argument has for function the clearing of
a space on ground which has been threatened by
merely antecedent objections. Against the critical
arguments, advanced against religion in the name
of natural science, other arguments may be arrayed ;
and if they are strong enough they will avail
eventually to make in the mind a clear field and
no favour. But upon this clear field, after the
232 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
antecedent prejudices have disappeared, conviction
can only arise by the acquisition of positive proofs
drawn from the world of spiritual fact. It is of
very great importance to conduct such discussions
well, because they do a real work of charity ;
they make the soul ready to receive whatever
A fun f f po^^^'^'^^ proof is available. There is a
argument: condition of the soul in which it is so
to make
room for entangled by supposed argumentative
experience. ° •' '^ '^ ^ ° .
necessities, or by unrounded prejudices
concerning real facts, that it is not in a position
to read its own direct witness, or to receive those
informations which God will bestow upon it.
When dialectic has done its work to clear the
ground, still religion can only arise by God's own
gift in the heart.
When we speak of God's gift of truth being
thus made, we have already made an important
statement about the nature and mode of Revela-
tion. Revelation is made in man.
Can we, to-day, find some test or proof of the
value and reality of what seems to be revelation
in the heart and life of man } I would point to
one which it may be not unprofitable for us to
consider.
I think we shall all admit that the form of a
man's thoughts and the kind of ideas which he
entertains on any one subject if it is sufficiently
important, have a grave effect upon the nature
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 233
of his judgement in other regions. If a man
is profoundly mistaken on some important point
of fact, it is not likely that his mind ^ tj^uiar
will remain the instrument of iudge- delusion af-
_ •> ^ fects a man s
ment which it ought to be for his other general in-
. . . IT telbgence ;
inquiries. If his mistake is small, or if
it is concerned with a small thing, then the effect
of his error will be small and inappreciable ; and
because he is one of a society of which all the
members are in error in something, he will pass
among the rest and will find correction in the
general wisdom. But if his error is profound
and obstinate and has reference to an important
subject, it cannot leave him as free as other men
to form sane judgements upon the rest of ex-
perience. Moreover, a wrong judgement upon
an important matter will surely tend — and this
will be, perhaps, a more delicate test than the
simply intellectual one — to alter and to injure a
man's relations with his fellows. It will, in the
degree of its importance, render him less fit not
only for social intercourse but also for co-operative
action. He will be hampered and crippled.
Everybody knows the extreme case of a profound
delusion with regard to one of the common
matters which, to the majority of mankind, appear
to admit of one opinion only. If a man is
obstinately convinced that he is a vegetable grow-
ing in the soil, his judgement upon several
234 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
matters may be in many respects fair and good,
but nobody would think of taking it upon delicate,
or doubtful, or difficult affairs. We should not
be surprised to find him perfectly right on many
subjects, but we should not go to him in order
to disentangle a perplexed question.
But what I am much more sure of is that such
a man, in the proportion in which his delusion
is real and is important, is unfit for
and it affects , ...
his social society, does not mix with other men, can
li Scf U 1 H £ SS
not maintain the ordinary interchanges
which make up family or national life with com-
fort either to himself or to others ; and still less
can he be a valuable ally in any common enter-
prise requiring organized plans and energetic
co-operation. What is true of the case of an
extreme delusion is true in this measure or that of
all wrong judgements.
Now, if the Christian faith is a delusion, it is a
gigantic delusion indeed ! It is real ; it is im-
portant in degree ; and it is important in its
subject-matter. To imagine one's self a lily in a
garden-bed would be a very trifling mistake com-
pared to the mistake which Christians labour under,
if they are not right. They are committed to state-
ments, to begin with, of the most tremendously
fundamental character ; and further they are com-
mitted to statements ranging over an immense
extent of fact. They have judgements, rules, ideals
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 235
referring to every relation in life. There is no
subject hardly, there is, indeed, no subject at all
which has to do with the essence of morals, about
which the Christian religion does not provide an
answer which, with care, could be made to appear
perfectly definite. Christians are possessed of a
tremendous armoury of statements ; and here lies
precisely the difficulty for our friends who possess
in common with us the general conviction of God's
presence and God's goodness. If, then, christian
this Christian story is a delusion, how raised the
seriously it ought to cripple the in- teiUgenceTn
telligence in its ordinary operations. a'Ji^^'^"^^^
Surely a man possessed with this false societies,
history — supposing it were false — with this pro-
foundly false philosophy, with this fundamentally
erroneous conception of his relation to God and
to the world, ought to be a man whom we should
find failing in every department of what we all
alike recognize as positive inquiry. We ought to
be unable to show in the Church any historians,
any scientific workers, any doctors, or even any
masters of the law, for these last have to deal
with the natural relations between men as they
are organized together on a basis of self-interest.
We ought indeed to be, as the old critics of
Christianity at the beginning said we were,
mutterers in corners who have nothing to do
with the general work or the general thought of
236 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
mankind, and who are disqualified by their gross
and pernicious superstition — I am repeating, as of
course you know, classical words of the old critics
of the Church — we ought to be disquahfied by our
pernicious superstition from all the employments
of government, of philosophy, and of research. Is
that approximately what we find ? Is that a
colourable account of what is learnt from a general
view of the history of the Church ; and is it what
any one of us finds, when we look at the story of
our own lives ?
To take that lesser example first, have you
found it to be the case that your arrival at con-
viction, perhaps after many years of doubt and
faint-heartedness, has blunted your appetite for
study, has clouded your judgement, has made you
unable to keep pace with other people of moderate
gifts like your own, in whatever work you have
chosen to undertake ? In such a case as this
every man must speak for himself; and, therefore,
1 am obliged to speak for myself, and to say that
the moderate powers which I possess for any kind
of study have certainly not been checked, hindered,
hampered ; have not found in Christian faith
any obstacle upon the path in any one branch
of human information ; certainly not in biology,
certainly not in physics, certainly in nothing else
to which one has given even a measure of diligence.
It is absolutely certain on examination of ourselves
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 237
that our belief or conversion has not hampered,
has not crippled, has not dimmed, or clouded, or
rendered less alert, such powers of general observa-
tion as we have, such powers of arranging know-
ledge, such powers of expressing the result of our
thought. And if we pass from these humblest
examples within our own breasts to a general view
of the Church, what do we find ?
We find, indeed, here and there, at a particular
point of time, or in a particular quarter, great
official leaders of Church thought throwing them-
selves in vain against the progress of this or that
science. We all remember — who has ever a chance
of forgetting ? — the case of Galileo. What a pity-
it is they did not make Galileo a cardinal, and then
the whole story would have read in the opposite
sense. There are, of course, higher degrees of
rank in the Christian world which do not always
coincide with the most special presence of light
and power ; but, taking the history as a whole,
what do you find t Was the old prophecy of
the early critics, was Lucian's account of the
Church right, or Aristides' account ^ Which was
the wiser man, Augustine or the most eminent
Manichaean ? Which was the more enlightened,
would you say, Ambrose or the leader of those
who wished to keep up the altar of Victory in the
Forum ? Have they been, in point of fact —
these believing men — crippled, hampered, purblind ?
238 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
Has Christian science been backward science ; has
Christian philosophy been retrograde philosophy ?
Gentlemen, there is no philosophy in the world
now which is not by descent Christian philosophy/
The doctrines of Kant and Hegel are derived
historically from the Christian thought of the
Middle Ages. Was Anselm stupid ? Who was
the backward thinker, Anselm or the man who
' It is not to be forgotten that the form and method of our
dialectic, and the very categories of our philosophy, come to us,
without break, from the Greece and Rome in which the modern
world began and continued, or rather in which the first triumphant
impetus was gained by that movement which was to meet from the
forgotten East the influence which made it our world.
But this Greek philosophy, which was to be revived in Europe
in the fifteenth century, escaped extinction in the interval because its
greatest works were preserved by the Church.
The thread of intellectual continuity which ran from the classic
past through the moral and spiritual revolution of the Gospel, was
guarded in the dark age within monastery walls.
As to the spirit and tendency of our philosophy, the terms of
dualism (substance and accident, spirit and matter) come from
Greece. But the conciliation of these contrasted terms, their inclu-
sion in a wider unity, which gives them their value for us, is an
effect from the Hebrew world which did not feel the need of
synthesis because it had never lost the confidence of its spiritually-
actual monism. Hegel's recognition of the ideal significance of the
actual is Hebrew and Christian ; and so are all the philosophies
which find the unity of the universe in nx)Ul.
On the intellectual continuity of the modern world of logic from
B.C. 4.50 to our day, and on the spiritual control obtained at the
Gospel era by the faith of the Incarnation over an intellectual move-
ment already strong in the victories of five hundred years, I hope
that we may be able to refer by printed page and chapter to a great
sermon preached by Canon Holland before the University of Oxford,
June 25, 1905.
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 239
in controversy with Anselm took the title of
the Fool ? It is unnecessary to elaborate the
question. It is plain that the history of our
present civilization is the history of Christianity.
It is perfectly plain that the leaders of faith have
been the leaders of knowledge also. We cannot
reverse that judgement because of an instance
here and there of an eminent man who has
slipped out of the current of faith. The thing,
judged as a whole, admits of but one judgement ; ^
and if we turn from the history of thought to the
history of social effort we shall be driven to a
parallel conclusion, that Christian faith , . .
IS SO far trom having hampered and raised the
1 J 1 • 1 • r power of
crippled the practical intercourse or men common
with one another that it has proved to
be the one thing which can bind them together
in a thoroughly operative society. '^
It is true that long before our time, before
the time of Christ, great societies existed which
1 When these words were spoken, I had not read for many years
Newman's magnificent last University Sermon. Let me make of
this an occasion to beg others to read it again, to refresh their
memory of that great argument in which he shows how " the Cross
has enlisted under its banner all those great endowments of mind
which in former times had been expended on vanities, or dissipated
in doubt and speculation."
* In so far as our modern society fails to be co-operative tor the
best interests of all and each, in so far, that is to say, as it is talst- to
its name " society," no one will allege that the failure is due to the
excessive influence of principles characteristically Christian.
240 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
did much for men. But nobody who judges
the facts impartially, I make bold to say, would
contend that even the great empire of Rome,
with its large extent of equality, with its world-
wide justice, was a system which could compare
for a single moment with Christian free civili-
zation, when that civilization has been true to
its own principles. And if, reversing our former
process, we now come back to the individual case,
what will you say about your own life ? Has the
emergence of faith in you, has the victory of
prayer, has religious security put you apart from
your fellows, made you unsocial, made it more
difficult for you to act with others, made you
ineffective ? Has it not rather liberated every
useful quality that you had, and brought it into
the general market of human effort ? Time forbids
me to enlarge upon this question, but I leave it
with you for consideration. And I can leave it
with you the more readily because I am perfectly
confident what the nature of your answer must be
on a general view of the facts.
Armed in anticipation with that reply, I return
to our original statement that the contents of
positive religion, if they do not indeed represent
the very truth, constitute so monstrous a delusion
that they ought not merely to have hampered a
man in his thought or to have set up barriers
between him and his neighbour, but they ought
experiencp: and dogma 241
to have paralysed human thought and totally
disorganized human life. Some would say that
this is the effect, or would be if belief were sincere
and obeyed. Appeal must be to the facts ; and
since the faith is nowhere perfectly held or entirely
rejected, the facts must teach by the method of
concomitant variation.
So much, then, about a suggested test of the
value of what we know as positive religion. It
is a very strong test, a very important one. I need
hardly add that it is only one among many ; and I
have chosen to dwell upon it not as a feature in a
general sketch of Christian evidences — for that I
do not make the least attempt to provide — but as
a test often forgotten, and which may profitably
receive your attention on this particular afternoon.
Now for one word of contribution towards the
study of the nature of the connexion between
faith and dogma. The explanation can ,,. ,,
, J . It IS through
only be approached by assuminp- pro- Christ and
^ or j.jjg i2^QX of
visionally the faith of which we speak. His Church
-J,,. . , . . ^ , ,. that the soul
We gain the conviction or the reality is bound to
of the whole circle of religious state- cont^enTor
ments only through Christ. No reli-
gious consciousness bears witness immediately and
primarily to all the statements which constitute
the fabric of the Christian Creed. If a man says,
" I am sure, by my own inward knowledge, that
this and this and this is true," you are not to
R
242 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
suppose that he is speaking without justification ;
but he is giving you elliptically the result of an
experience by which he has scaled the steps. A
man may think that he has an inward verification
of the propriety of a definite ceremonial practice,
but he has, in fact, arrived at it by a process of
inference from certain facts about which he really
possesses an immediate conviction. That is to
say, he infers it from the right of Christ to
organize his religious life ; and it comes down
to him, this true judgement, through a long
series of historical steps in the evolution of the
Church. What a man really has is confidence
in Christ ; and he has confidence in Christ in
this particular form, that he has found that
through Christ he came to be sure of the reality
and the nearness of God ; that in Christ he
gains a conviction to which all other experience
provided only an approximation. He was always
yearning after it, feeling towards it, hoping it might
at last prove itself. And it proves itself in Christ.
He looks at the great scene of Nature ; and
he sees that there is nothing in nature which can
possibly compare with human nature as the field
or matrix of revelation, the place where revelations
may be expected. He knows that it is only in
his own heart that the conviction can possibly be
established ; that if there is a root of communion
with God it is a root planted in his own life,
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 243
and that if there are outward facts which can, as it
were, teach his heart how to spring, and point for
him the direction in which to aim his venture
after the unknown God, these facts must lie in
the region of the nature which is Hke his own,
in Human Nature. And as he goes further in
his study of human nature, he sees, first, that he
can by no means exclude from the facts which are
to guide his judgement, the great fact o^ goodness ;
the nature of good men. And, further, that
among these none wholly deserves the title except-
ing one, Jesus of Nazareth. In the first place, he
will see quite for certain that his whole judgement
of existence must hidude Jesus ; and, further, he
will see that it is the apex of the series, tht good
nature, the perfect nature, which alone really tells
the meaning of any mixed constitution.
Badness — I must not step far into what
belongs to another inquiry — badness can always
be accounted for as the failure of something else.
But of what is goodness the failure .'* It is some-
times urged that we might so read the mixed
facts of life that they will bear either of two inter-
pretations ; either that there is a good God who
sometimes lets some bad things slip through, or
that there is a bad God who sometimes lets good
things slip through. I deny this ; for what is the
nature of the ideal of which goodness is the defect ?
What is the net, through the mesh of which
244 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
goodness escapes ? What is the mark, the missing
of which is goodness ? What is the developement,
the breakdown of which is goodness ? It is not
the fact that you can state the matter either way,
that badness is the failure of a good purpose, or
goodness the failure of a bad purpose caught
napping. Nobody creates what is good by mis-
take in the effort to make what is bad. All of
us make what is bad by mistake in the endeavour
to make what is good. This goodness is always a
positive fact which can never be explained away,
and which requires a God to account for it. And
so, to resume, our inquirer's view of Nature will not
only include Jesus, but he will see that if he cannot
account for the goodness which is the character
of Christ he has accounted for nothing, and that
therefore he might most profitably concentrate his
inquiry upon that character. I must not pursue
that line further ; but it is along that line that the
man so makes his way towards the reality of infinite
goodness, that at last he reaches a point where the
truth and his conviction, so to speak, come near
enough to spark. Christ is Himself indeed that
union-point in which human nature is at one with
God ; and it is in the contemplation of Him and
by sympathy with Him and obedience to Him,
and only by belonging to Him, that we can share
the content in some measure of His life. As a
matter of fact, in history, taking the world as a
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 245
whole, no men have come to be so certain of
the existence and nearness of God as the
men who were looking at Jesus, either looking
back to Him by history or looking forward to
Him in prophecy. You may object to Non-Chris-
me the case of Mohammedanism. But gooJ^'ess^"'^
Mohammedanism is nothing but a
developed form of such a belief as we are rapidly
approaching in this unhappy country, the developed
degeneration of a Christianity which denies its
own foundations. It is nothing but a degradation
of the theism received from Israel and from Christ.
And if we turn from this to the general history of
the world, where can you find any instance of a
nation secure in the conviction of the oneness, of
the nearness and operative power, of God excepting
those who have looked to Christ, either backward
along the tracks of tradition or forward along the
almost still more miraculous road of expectation
which is the especial glory of all those whose
witness we read in the Old Testament '^. The
same statement can be made about the individual
life. People do not, as a matter of fact, often
come to be believers in the one God and then add
to it a statement about Jesus Christ. They reach
it through Him.
And this is true of the genesis of their faith,
although in the intellectual discussion of that
faith, as was said earlier, men must ask themselves
246 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
whether they are Theists before they are qualified
to discuss the Theism of Christ.
So far, in our short hour, we may indicate
without developing it, one character of the line of
knowledge. It is only possible now to add this
further statement ; that the confidence in Christ,
the contemplation of Christ only becomes effectual
in conviction and operative in virtue when it is
held as a whole, when it is in a certain sense
completed in its circle. To attempt to take parts
of the truth about Christ, to choose this part and
to draw the line at some other part, is exactly like
attempting to produce a result by electricity with
an electrical arrangement in which the circuit is
broken. You have your battery, that is, you have
the necessary plates and vessels ; you have the
acids, you have the wires, but if there is a gap
in the circuit the whole contrivance is inopera-
tive. Chemical effects do not begin in the cells,
the molecular vibrations do not begin in the
connecting medium, nothing moves. It is only
when the circle is complete, it is only when the
end becomes possible that even the beginning is
liberated. And so it is with an eclectic view of
Christ. It is far from being valueless ; it is very
precious because it is on the way to becoming com-
plete. But in a certain sense of completeness, it
must be complete before its justification appears.
It is not without the sense of having reasons in
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 247
reserve that I shall venture, without ofFering
reasons, upon the statement that, on the whole,
and taking things at large, it is only when the
faith in Christ makes in a sense the full circle,
not of completed knowledge, but of ungrudging
confidence ; takes, that is to say. His own account
of Himself and of His doings to be true, that it
becomes an operative faith producing the intimate
conviction of our nearness to the Father, and
yielding the effective impulse to virtue, courage,
and loyalty, to those actions and tempers which,
even apart from His name, we knew to be good.
You say this is a harsh judgement of the many
round about us who serve God better in their
conduct than we do who call upon the name of
Christ. I have not forgotten that. 1 said in
general, and on the whole. Faith in Christ has
acted in great masses, in bodies ; it has acted in
the building up, and in the filling of the con-
sciousness of, a society which we can point to,
which has come down from the first. There is a
Spirit-bearing body reaching through the ages ;
and this body, the Church (for which I would
make no narrow definition, for I believe, as I
have said to you before, that there is no limiting
line which we can draw around it, that it is
defined by its ever-glowing centre — the Heart of
Jesus), this body cannot live and move in the
world without creating a moral atmosphere within
248 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
itself and round about itself. It makes its own
great tradition of morals ; it makes its own great
mass of examples ; it radiates its own great warmth
of love. And the men born within the range of
this warmth, who are by accident or man's design
withdrawn from the actual sharing of its sacra-
mental blessings, cannot escape from all the effects
of its presence.
These effects will be abundantly evident
amongst those so-called non-Christian individuals
who show forth more plainly than, alas 1
The in- . ^ . ~,^ . .
fluenceof we do, the virtues or the Christian state ;
on those but they have inherited along with their
English blood and their place amongst
us, a mass of ideals, a mass of moral preferences,
an immense system of training and of correc-
tion, a special range of feelings, impulses, in-
fluences, gales like gales of spring, water from
Heaven itself After all, the world about the
Church is such that in many respects it is easier
to do well in it than to do ill ; and con-
sequently we can point with joy to examples of
individual life which seem at first sight to weaken
the argument which I have attempted to suggest.
But while they seem to weaken it they really
strengthen it ; for, by what seems at first sight
their independence of the real Christian life, they
do but bear witness to the overpowering influence
of the corporate Christian conscience ; they do but
EXPERIENCE AND DOGMA 249
provide further and still more telling evidence of
the might with which Christ can fill the lives of
men ; the working through which, by simply ruling
men's hearts, He is changing the face of the earth
and of society. For surely it is true, and almost
all men will acknowledge it, that common human
life grows better precisely in the proportion in
which it genuinely answers to the word and example
of Christ.
It is on such lines as that, it is through the
personal link of Christ, it is by finding out what
He really said concerning Himself, it -j-he present
is by considering the nature of the ^el-d?^
faith which He in fact originated, and suggestive,
the conditions of health in the social body which
in fact He founded and sustains, that we trace in
thought our passage from the sense of God, to the
possession of a large circle of experiences, which
to those outside appear like a mere accumulation
of details ; but which are known to us as the
developement, intrinsically single and undivided,
of a perfectly simple condition of trust in Jesus
Christ, God and Man. .....
I am grieved to leave our discussion so seriously
incomplete ; but there are particular and positive
duties of a given hour, and 1 must, if I am to be
true to any sort of conscience, release you without
250 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
further delay. I shall hope that you will not
judge the strength of the faith which I most
unworthily represent at this moment, and on this
spot, by the degree of clearness which I have been
able to give to the suggestion of one among its
lines of proof.
It is the consolation of all our work that it is
not isolated. Small indeed is the work which can
be completed by small powers in a few
Envoy.
short conferences. But that little may,
in some measure, be capable of combination
with weightier lessons learned in other quarters.
It may even be prelude for better work to be done
together by us who have met in this place. If there
is any grain of good in it, it cannot be lost ; " for
there is no waste in the great household " ^ wherein
we serve.
' " For there is no waste in the great household of the master
that lie serves." Words spoken of the man of vocation. Rev. J. R.
lUingworth, U/ii'versity and Cathedral Sermons, p. 153, cd. 1893.
X
THE AIDS WHICH SCIENCE GIVES
TO THE RELIGIOUS MIND.^
Character of the Subject — What is required for its study — First
' Aid ' of Science : truer ideas about Life — The expectation of
finality recedes as knowledge advances — "Sanderson knows"
— Second Aid : enrichment of analogy — Third Aid : niany
gains from the study of evolution — Important topics briefly
enumerated — The last and greatest Aid comes by the deeper
knowledge of Law — Law in Life should teach us a new
affirmation about Law ; not a new negation about Life — The
Lines of Law and Freedom converge — The observed facts of
concomitant variation point the direction of a complete recon-
ciliation of Law and Will, of Science and Religion.
I. The subject which has been proposed to us is
very welcome to me, and for this reason. We
have heard enough for the present of
Character
the oppositions between science and of the
religion. And further, for the present
we have spoken enough in reference to science
and religion as if they were two forces moving
independently in the air ; two systems, like the
tides or the railways, which can be described apart
' A paper read hi fori.' the Cluircii Congress at Bristol, 1^03.
252 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
from the consciousness which includes them. The
relation between science and religion is a relation
in the minds of men ; and the only form of that
relation which is worth serious study for its own
sake^ or, at least, for its intrinsic value, is that
relation which exists in those particular minds,
which have real knowledg-e under both heads —
o
science and religion. There is, of course, a great
deal of real science in heads which have little con-
sciousness of religion, and a great deal of real
religion in hearts which have no natural science.
But the relation between relimon and science can
only be studied after this fashion in minds which,
to some considerable degree, are influenced by
both. The opposition worth reconciling is not the
opposition traceable between rival statements which
might be set in parallel columns of print, nor the
opposition between the scientist and the theologian
considered as separate men, but the opposition
existing in a good and wise man's mind. And,
accordingly, the real synthesis of science and
religion is the personal one, the combination of
both, which is effected in intelligences at once
devout and instructed. And the modus vivendi
which has been reached between the two systems
(which it is not our business now to analyse), is
not simply a logical harmony, but is rather found
in the fact that there are some men who are
both religious and scientific, and under whatever
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 253
intellectual strain they may experience, live at
peace within themselves. The conciliation, then,
which is found in the existence of men of double
sympathies, is much more valuable than the pro-
duction of a logical harmony which might be
available for every man who is able to read and to
reason.
By such a judgement we do not disparage the
logical harmony, but assert that it will be founded
upon the personal harmony of existing minds ;
that the man in whom the two streams of know-
ledge, religious and natural, are combined will be
able more and more clearly to explain in terms of
logic the method by which the forms of truth co-
exist within him. I venture, then, to take the
title offered to us as meaning the effect of scientific
training upon the devout mind.
II. But while such a study is most desirable, it
is not easy to get. Since the synthesis to be
observed is personal, the observation
of it must be personal too. There is required for
abundant material, indeed, for some- ' ^ ^ " ^'
thing which would satisfy verbally the require-
ments of my version of the text. We see a
good deal, and in the past we have seen a
great deal more, of the effect upon the religious
mind produced by other mens scientific studies !
and an unhappy effect it often is in more respects
than one. But this I conceive is not what we are
254 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
intended to talk about to-day. To describe the
real thing — the effect of his own scientific training
upon a devout man — who can be sufficient but
the man who is himself possessed of both terms
of our inquiry, the religious mind and the
scientific training ? I am very far from making
such a claim for myself. I pretend to no more
than an eager sympathy with both, and the
briefest experience of that one of them which is
most easily come by, the technical training ; and
that technical training in the department of
biology only, in the study of living creatures.
At present the public interest is not focussed
upon biology ; though not only the accumulation
of facts, but crucial studies of the greatest
theoretical importance are going on there with
undiminished energy. I need only refer in
passing to the inquiry into zymotic disease and
the amoebic origination of malaria, as one instance
of many in the biological department. It is in
physics that the things are done which strike
public attention at this moment. And first in
the application ot a new control over vibratory
forces — forces in many cases newly distinguished.
I mean, of course — in the elaboration of what is
known as wireless telegraphy, or the curative
application of the Rontgen rays and of electric
light. Secondly, in a further investigation of
those forces, as for example, in the study of
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 255
light as itself a phenomenon of electrical inter-
ruption ; and, thirdly, in the pursuit pushed on
now with fresh ardour, of that ever-distant
fugitive, the discovery of what is called the
ultimate constitution of matter. The Romanes
Lecture of this year by Sir Oliver Lodge
will give a definite idea of the extraordinary
prosperity of physical science in this and other
directions. So far as religion is concerned, it is
the attempted completion of the mechanical theory
of the universe and not any special doctrine about
organic forms which seems to threaten the interests
of Theism. In prefacing, therefore, that all I
know is a little biology and nothing of physics
and mathematics, I put myself out of line as a
judge of what we are here to inquire about. I
claim only a sympathy with science and with
devotion.
III. The subject is further narrowed by the
word " aid," pointing, I suppose, to the obvious
advantages and not the apparent disadvantages of
scientific training. There are cases in which the
apparent disadvantages are finally the greatest aids
to the believer ; because they throw faith back
upon the discovery of its own laws, the canons
of its conduct, the conditions of its prosperity ;
because they teach devotion to cultivate the
patience and honesty of the methods of physical
inquiry ; and because they lead to a recovery of
256 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
that inductive or experimental element which has
a place as much in religion as in physics. But we
are to look, at any rate to start with, for the more
immediate aids, and those not simply from nature
but from science.
The contemplation of Nature , indeed, is always
fruitful for the religious mind, or at least for those
minds which find joy in the outward scene.
Some religious minds there are, as there are some
irreligious minds, which find little to attract them
in what is before their senses. They are like the
maid Anne who travelled with Charles Dickens
and his wife in America. " I do not think,"
writes Dickens, "Anne has so much as seen an
American tree. She never looks at a prospect by
any chance or displays the smallest emotion at any
sight whatever. She objects to Niagara that * it's
nothing but water,' and considers that ' there is
too much of that.' " ' But to many, perhaps to
most religious minds, fields and sea and sky are
friends and helpers whenever they are seen.
The advantages of science do not quite so
quickly jump to the eye ; for too often it has
happened that science, with its necessarily limited
view, with its artificial but perfectly legitimate
structures of hypothesis, has had a different effect
upon the mind from that which was the proper
> Letters of Charles Dickens, p. 67. (Ed. Macmillan, 1893) Letter
to Austin, May 1, 1842.
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 257
result of the contemplation of nature as it is. I
touch here a subject which is evidently capable of
wide developement. Even within science itself,
the effect of the direct observation which is its
foundation is quite diff*erent from the effect of
mere book-learning, much more wholesome than
that of an irresponsible study of theory, like that
to which some popular publications invite our
brothers of the labouring ranks. There is, then,
an unfavourable eff^ect of Science which is very real,
but which 1 do not at this time stop to analyse.
IV. Turning, then, to our defined area of
observation — to science in the strict sense ; to
biological science as being to some extent within
my own knowledge ; to the real work of science
as distinguished from irresponsible theorizing;
and to the conditions which are created by all this
in the devout mind itself — what can we choose
out of the great list of happy influences for the
man of scientific training ? I would put as most
immediately important, as most fruitful, (i) t/ie
observation of life itself as life.
There is no material image of spiritual realities
nearly so eloquent as the image of organic life.
The modern progress of science has First 'Aid'
greatly enlarged the significance of this TrJeHdels
created image. We see, as men never ^^°^^ ^'^^•
saw before, the infinite complexity and delicacy of
life. There is the exhibition of perfectly ordered
s
258 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
form and movement in structures inconceivably
minute. We never reach the unit, we never find
the raw material out of which tissues, structures,
organisms are made. We never find those
imagined bricks of uniform size and shape, by
the arrangement of which all the varieties of
o
living substance might be conceived to be formed.
It is true that protoplasm, or proteid material, has
a definite and highly complex chemical constitu-
tion — complex not only from the relatively large
number of elements, but by reason of the relation
between them, a relation only to be expressed by
the use of high numerals in the molecular formula.
But this formula does not express the form in
which proteid material actually exists. It gives an
account of it according to one particular measure,
the measure of chemical analysis, and the re-
actions which substances exhibit towards certain
tests. But in respect of organic form we have
reached no unit. Once the cell was thought to
be such a unit, not uniform in size or shape but
morphologically equivalent ; now I suppose the
chromosomes might a little claim this name. How-
ever far we go we find the fulness of complexity,
the spontaneity, and the regular process, which are
characteristic of life itself. We find no merely
mechanical structure, no merely mechanical move-
ment out of which vital movements, living struc-
tures, are built. The final prize of our research
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 259
is already living. Formerly, in a more rudi-
mentary stage of histology/ we used to speak of
certain substances as homogeneous, or structure-
less. We now have the best of reasons for
knowing that we never reached this structureless
basis of the structures that we knew. The Chro-
matin of the nucleus is as much alive, and its
living movements and history as much call for
explanation as did the observable tissues when
Schwann pointed to what for a time seemed a
unit of morphology — the cell, the equivalent
given thing, by the various arrangement ot
which various forms of tissues might be sup-
posed to be reached. Within our knowledge,
there is no such uniform brick ; there is no
molecule of organic structure ; there is no one
thing, incapable of further analysis, which is the
basis of living structure and function. On the
contrary, what we find in the most remote prize
of examination, is in every case a body evidently
complex, evidently differentiate, evidently the
result and not only the source of an evolution.
To say that we are further than ever from arriving
at the unit, is a rough use of language which con-
veys, nevertheless, the real truth, that the more
we know the more distant that goal evidently
appears. We never spy behind the scenes of life,
' Histology is the study of tissues anil of the structure of cells
by means of the microscope.
26o THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
or surprise the ultimate machinery of its effects.
What we find at last is already a fact as fully
organized as the outward aspect of life itself, and
which bears witness (putting aside all speech of a
First Cause), to facts of material life still unknown.
Whatever be the meaning of this for controversy
— and 1 am, perhaps, less inclined than others to
dwell on it in that connection — certainly to the
religious mind it is a lesson very impressive, very
fit to bring home the mystery of life. Life, where-
ever it appears, stands as a mystery in material
things, alone and original, accounted for only by
other life. I am not for a moment denying,
indeed I should be eager to urge, that the other
studies which have regard to non-vital phenomena,
that chemistry, and physics, both of mass and of
molecule, contribute to physiology. The move-
ments which physiological study describes have
their place among other movements. The changes
of chemical composition or of temperature which
physiology deals with must be assigned their place
among other such changes, by chemistry and
physics. And further, there is real advantage
when we can reduce the account of vital move-
ments to terms of heat, or weight, or transfusion,
of resistance to pressure and the like. But all
this does not explain ; it does not bring us to the
foundation either of life regarded in the abstract
as a presence in the world, or of those living
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 261
substances which form the object of our actual
observation.^
Moreover, the more knowledge we have of
these facts of organic structure and function, the
greater is the impression of the unknown
.... , T1-11- • ^h^ expec-
which IS made upon us, 1 think this point tation of
is one which is worth dwelling upon, cedesas^'
The ignorant imagine that the bodily life advancesf^
has no secrets for the doctor ; that we
have a shell, a case, and, inside of it, works which
are perfectly familiar to those who have been
authorized to open the case. There may once
have been doctors ignorant enough to think that
what is mysterious to them is simple to the phy-
siologist ; that a sufficiently accurate, or suffi-
ciently prolonged inquiry would make that clear
which is essentially obscure. But the more fully
trained a man is, just in this proportion he parts
with the vision which is so simple for the simple
man. Once in an Oxford Common-Room, some
one was speaking of an eloquent sermon of Dr.
Liddon's, in which our preacher had pointed to
the mystery of the connexion between thought
' If abiogcnesis, that is, the arising of living substance from that
which is not living, were to be observed, the i//j//«(f//o« between living
and non-living would not disappear. The transition from one to
the other would have appeared. It would be a discovery surpassing
almost any other that we could name, but it certainly would not rob
us of the wonder of life, or enable us to reduce its character to the
terms of non-living matter. We should have become contemporary
spectators of the great miracle. See also p. 187.
262 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
and action, a mystery which remains even when the
connexion is observed in the simplest instances.
" He spoke," said the reporter, " of the
activities of the brain, of the correlation be-
" Sanderson twccn its physical changcs and the
knows." changes of mind. He spoke of how,
through link after link, any given outward move-
ment of the body was caused by changes in the
central nervous system. But nobody knows," he
concluded, " how the change of purpose and will
becomes translated into the simplest of muscular
actions ; how the mind moves the hand. That
nobody knows." " Ah ! " cried a listener, " San-
derson knows " — fondly imagining that the phy-
siologist sufficiently acute, sufficiently trained,
knew a way to bridge this, perhaps essentially
necessary, gap in our knowledge. Sir John
Burdon-Sanderson would have been the first to
smile at the opinion, with a smile a little
Dantesque. The physiologist laughs at his own
supposed omniscience ; the histologist (that is,
the man who uses the microscope) knows that,
however far he may penetrate into the secrets of
living structure, he is always confronted by the
same spectacle of organized life. The growth of
knowledge means, in this case, the growth of
wonder ; it makes for reverence. And this re-
verence is not lessened by the observed correlation
of the different parts — to dismiss in a breath
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 263
what might well take up all my time — nor by the
closeness of the dependence in details between
thought or spiritual life, and that which is its
organ, its physical basis, its material sine qud non.
I should say, then, that for the religious mind a
scientific training in the observation of life is of
definite and profound advantage.
(ii) Analogy. In the second place, there is the
familiar encouragement which comes from analogy.
Analogy also is enriched by the new
^^ r , , , -^ , , . Second Aid:
mmuteness or knowledge, and by its Enrichment
wider range. We always pointed to the
striking facts of animal life, to metamorphosis, the
change of the caterpillar to the butterfly, the
growth of the plant. Drummond added to our
stock instances some striking ones of degenera-
tion. Instances of larval activity and of paedo-
genesis readily suggest parallels in the history
of societies and states.^ I would rather point
^ It is a little dangerous to offer any notes on technical terms,
when one cannot find space for an explanation of ail. Such words as
coelenterata will be found in most dictionaries. On parasitism and
symbiosis van Beneden's Animal Parasites and Messmates (Inter-
national Scientific Series) will be found a sufficient guide. Of
pedogenesis I do not recall a like accessible account. The facts
referred to by the word will be found under the heads Axolotl and
Ambly stoma in indexes, and in the article Siredon in the Encyclopedia
Britannica. The word piedogenesis oti'ers a special interpretation of
the facts of the metamorphosis of a species of Siredon into a species
of Amblystoma, which had been known as a distinct genus of
amphibians.
It is thought that a certain siredon is really tlu- larva of a certiiin
264 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
to analogies of a more general scope ; to what
might be called the gradual advance in the
realization of individuality — very striking, for
example, among the coelenterata ; to the won-
derful facts of nutrition ; to the many ways in
which the whole world is linked each part to each
in mutual dependence. I might point to the
manner of growth, to its conditions, to its rela-
tion to death, to the meaning of death itself, its
advantage to the life of the species as a whole,
discussed in brilliant essays by Weismann.
All material analogies, we have said, fade
before those which are supplied by life ; and they
are not mere analogies, but afford light for the
guidance of our own conduct. We learn, for ex-
ample, that expression is not a functionless decora-
tion, but is necessary to the realization of life ; the
foliage necessary for the nutrition of the root.
Then again, and more particularly, there are the
strange phenomena of symbiosis, that extraordi-
narily intimate dependence of one organic form
amblystoma ; and that this larva has regularly and for an indefinite
time reproduced itself just as if it were an adult perennibranchiate,
a large newt ; and that it is shown to be a larval form because
under certain circumstances it grows to an adult which is a widely
different (caduci branchiate) air-breathing animal. All air-breathing
amphibians have a water-breathing gilled larval form, like the
tadpole of the frog. A race of tadpoles, multiplying as tadpoles,
but capable of becoming frogs, would exhibit the phenomenon of
paedogenesis. But paedogenesis is, of course, not indicated by the
mere discovery that of two supposed species (whether of the same
geuns or not) one is really the larval form of the other.
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 265
upon another, which we see, for example, in the
lichen, which is a combination of two plants, each
one feeding the other ; or in looser cases not
strictly so to be described, like that of the
anemones which the hermit crab plants upon his
shell that by their stinging powers he may be
protected from some fish, while the anemones are
themselves no doubt assisted by his slow travels
which bring them to untried waters and fresh
food. There is the gloomier spectacle of para-
sitism so carefully worked out by Drummond ;
the degradation of forms which are in earlier stages
active and highly complicated, like certain of the
Crustacea, to the state of mere mouths, blind
mouths, which only suck the life-blood of a host,
for whom they do nothing in return. All this is
very familiar ground. Again, there is the old
comparison of the state or society to an organic
form, a comparison familiar and accepted among
the ancients, employed to throw light upon the
nature of society and to recall men to forgotten
social duties. When Menenius Agrippa told the
fable of Venter et Membra to the Roman crowd he
was telling an old story to them ; and St. Paul used
the old analogy, roughly speaking, rather to point
forgotten obligations of duty than to make an
original statement. He appealed to the analogy as
a well-known one. For us it ought to carry with it
the sense of a much more delicate co-ordination.
266 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
a much stricter interdependence than most of
the old teachers conceived. It ought to appear
to us more absolutely impossible for one member
truly to profit at the expense of others than it did
in old days, when members of classes were led to
suppose that their prosperity might be based upon
the poverty of their neighbours, and nations
imagined that commerce advanced through the
ruin of other States/ We may point to this, to
the delicacy, to the penetration, the breadth of
analogy, as one of the gains which scientific study
will bring to the religious mind. And further, we
may say that such a study, as one of the chief
fruits of analogy, shows to be quite untenable
the thought of an opposition — so dangerous to
religion — between vitality and order, between
health and consistency of form. Yet with regard
to this matter of form, the analogy will support a
conception of unity consisting in identity of vital
growth, and not constituted or defined by an
easily described outline.
(iii) In the third place, let us briefly mention
the advantage of more general observations of the
teaching of evolution, of natural selec-
ThirdAid: . ° , _ ' _ .
Many gains tion, SO cloquent ot pertection growing
study of out of imperfection by a process ot
evolution. , , . , i- r
struggle ; demonstrating the reality or
^ When I spoke of this coiulition of opinion as a thing of the
past, it was not in irony ; it was in 1903.
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 267
a true presence of life which is undisplayed and
even, so to speak, unrealized, which not only is
not manifested but which cannot in a full sense be
said to exist ; showing that through struggle the
potentiality which was general or indifferentiate,
works out, by success in this or that department
of the fight to the various strong and beautiful
forms which make up the organic population of
the world. I think it will be evident that a
scanty treatment of such a theme as this can be
nothing but misleading. It will be our truer
wisdom to have pointed in quite general terms to
immense topics of encouragement which may be
found in regions once, as I think, quite unreason-
ably, supposed to be dangerous to spiritual faith.
For I shall venture to add that evolution
throws light upon the doctrine of the Fall ; that
it enables us to understand how a state important
can be at once in a real sense good, J,°Pgfly
and in a real sense rudimentary ; how enumerated,
a process of growth may be at once a real advance
and yet a faulty advance ; how the state in which
we find ourselves may indeed be vastly greater
in certain respects than the initial condition of
man, and yet immeasurably removed from the
state of happiness to which from that rudimentary
beginning he ought to have advanced. Evolution
throws light and not darkness upon the doctrine
of the Fall ; upon the possibilities of restoration ;
268 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
upon the necessity of salvation, not by a life other
than our own, but in a life which becomes our
own.
It is a familiar thought to us that the general
belief in growth ought to encourage us with regard
to the history, the structure, the composition of
the sacred books of revelation itself as it has come
to man. Truth, being pure truth in itself, yet
struggles long in the darkness which cannot over-
whelm it, even as life grows slowly through and in
and by the conquest of the dead material, whose
very character of inorganic is the negation of
life.
V. But in conclusion, I would point for a
moment to the illumination shed by science in its
. broadest possible sense upon relig-ion.
The last and . ^ . . ^ ^ °
greatest What is this broadcst and most funda-
aid comes ^ . . ^ . . .
by the mental lesson or scientinc inquiry r
knowledge What is it which will stand fast for the
student of science when many particular
theories go ? What is our modern gain from the
long brooding over the external scene ? Surely it
is the universality, or at any rate the growth of
our perception, of law. This which is the haunt-
ing terror of a religion distrustful of itself, is the
true friend of a wise confidence in God. As the
study of life advances we see that we must reject
as baseless the notion that law is characteristic of
certain regions and shut out from certain other
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 269
regions of existence in order to make room for
freedom. It used to be supposed that life was in
some sense removed as an exception from the
ordinary sway of mechanical necessity. If we
have learnt by further studies that those con-
ceptions of ordinary sequence which had of old
been traced in respect ot the movements of masses
of stuff are traceable also in the actions of life, and
are to be supposed as having operated in bringing
the forms of life to the state in which they actually
exist ; surely this is a gain and not a loss. For,
while we learn this, we do not lose the old know-
ledge of the self-government, the growth and
freedom, of life.
If law penetrates the organic world, surely
this should teach us that law is not inconsistent
with an essential though limited freedom ; for
freedom of some sort and to some extent there
certainly is in life.
The conclusion we ought to draw is not a
new negation about life, but a new affirmation about
law ; namely, that it cannot be incon- ^ . .^
. ~ r A • Law in life
sistent with freedom because we find it should teach
.... , , r J V us a new
m the living, and because we tina it affirmation
.... . , about law ;
more evidently in proportion to the not a new
fulness and the reahty of life. For abfut'ufe.
we may say with a certain truth that
there are among the forms of life some more
living than others which also truly live ; forms
270 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
in which life is more fully realized. But these
are not the forms in which law is less evident,
less fully realized, less completely organized.
The * highly generalized ' primitive animal
consisting of one cell, presents a condition in
which law is less vigorous, less delicately elabo-
rated than it is in the vertebrate. In the low
type nourishment may be received by the whole
surface, by the flowing of protoplasm round food,
by a mere invasion of the cell-mass ; in the
* speciahzed ' type nourishment must enter by
one small aperture and pass to a difficult assimi-
lation through a series of chambers in each of
which the machinery and the conditions of the
successful treatment of food are of the most elabo-
rate and the most invariably indispensable kind.
In the low type life is continuous, repro-
duction is on any one of several modes in the
same animal, and oftenest by mere division of
substance ; repair is hardly an incident, and
survival no particular adventure. In the verte-
brate all these things are matter of the most
accurate adjustment of means to ends. There is
quite a tolerable sense in which it may be said that
law universally present, universally and everywhere
equally real, is yet more actualized in the higher
form, because it is developed in the pressure of
a more numerous and more delicate series of
necessities.
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 271
Yet it is surely the vertebrate which exhibits
the larger self-determination ; the greater power
to evolve from the potentialities of the rest of
the universe, that one which is actually desired.
It is in the highest vertebrate, man, that you find
the greatest complexity of necessities and the
largest scope of self-determination. In him
appears obedience. He does not move with
the current or towards the most desired object.
His success increases in the degree in which he
follows by obedience a law known in his own
being, in the rest of nature, and by the voice
of Prophets. And to say obedience is to say
freedom, for there can be no obedience excepting
in a freely operating will.
Within the ranks of human nature the same
concomitant variation of law and freedom may
be observed. The savage has few wants, few
necessities one might say, and a most helpless
dependence upon what appear to him the in-
calculable gifts of nature. The civilized man with
his finely adjusted life and exacting necessities, is
profuse in expedients to meet them ; and to
provide his hardly digested food, covers the globe
with his conquests, diplomacies, commerce, ex-
changes. The pressure under which he maintains
individual lives, which in a savage state would
be eliminated, acts as a challenge to the self-
determined ingenuity, and this in turn extracts
272 THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPER IN RELIGION
from the possibilities of the world actualities
which without man's will would never have been.
Life and Law do not vary inversely, so that
where there is most law there is least life, and
where there is most life there is least law. And
in this fact we ought to find pointers to a
mysterious secret which now indeed we cannot
reach, but which we have strong reasons to
believe in ; the secret of a reconciliation which
is perfect and complete between law and freedom.
If the two lines under observation were
divergent within the field of observation, we
should have no right to this hope.
The lines of -r, i i- i i
law and But the lines converge, they approach
converge. within the scope of our view ; for in
proportion as we observe the strict co-
ordination, the wonderful and unerring corre-
spondences of life, we also observe its power of
relative self-determination. Nor is the growth
only one of observation ; it is an increase lying
within the facts themselves.
For we may say briefly that whereas all beings
are under law, it is precisely those which most
fully understand and most fully submit to the
law as it penetrates themselves, which are also
most completely set free for the accomplishment
of original effects which without the strange and
secret spring of living will could not have come
to pass.
The ob-
served facts
AIDS FROM SCIENCE 273
I submit that in this contemplation of law
by modern science, and in the effort made by
modern thought to destroy the barriers
which once seemed to limit the reign
of law/ we have the most general, the pfconcomi
' o ' tant varia-
most lasting, and the most precious, of tion point
° . . . ^ . . the direction
the aids which scientific training or ofacom-
. - , . J , plete recon-
scientinc observation renders to the ciiiation of
devout mind ; and this because the win, of
observed interpenetration of mechanism and religion,
and will points — as to a goal still far
ahead and out of sight — to the final reconcilia-
tion, for our thought, of our two mysteries of
experience ; the mystery of unbending necessity,
and the mystery, revealed in our consciousness,
of unconquerable liberty.
' We may speak of the Reign of Law, though not of the
Reign of Laws. Scientific 'Laws' (law of inverse s(]uares and so
forth) do not reign. They are generalisations, less or more im-
perfect, made by the observing mind. But the fact that any generali-
sation can be made at all indicates a regularity in the sequences
observed, as well as in that which observes them ; and this regu-
larity, rather divined than either proved or assumed, is fairly spoken
of in such words as ' uniformity of nature,' and ' reign of law.'
APPENDIX
Paley's Natural Theology
The instance given in the text at p. 72 is chosen
for its moderate and unsensational character. It
is interesting for its agreement with the Selec-
tionist rejection of the theory of adaptations pro-
duced by Direct Effect. But the suggestion of
any other natural method of production would
have been equally unwelcome to Paley. His
procedure is to show the presence of purpose by
the absence of discoverable process ; for a strong
proof of Design in his system, it must be " im-
possible to assign any cause except the final cause,"
for the observed structure.
Though undertaken under the influence of a
false antithesis, Paley's study of adaptations may
well have been fruitful for science,
and his disproof of merely mechanical Ts^eSito
'Direct-Effects' might still in skilful =''^""-
hands yield support to Selectionist views.^
* Other religiously minded writers on science might tor the same
reason still be read with profit. Their rhetoric, "warmed by
276 APPENDIX
Paley speaks of God as of One Who had
worked within the conditions of the world. His
favourite word is " contrivance."
" If this is not contrivance, what is?" "In
order to meet this difficulty, the eyes are made
scarcely larger than the head of a corking pin." ^
Again he speaks of " the stiff robust cartilage
which butchers call the pax-wax. . . . No such
organ is found in the human subject. . . . This
cautionary expedient is limited to quadrupeds ;
the care of the Creator is seen where it is wanted." ^
He overlooked the ligamenta suhflava and ligamen-
tum nucha. But it is not this that matters. It is
the method of his argument.
" The Creator had to prepare for different
situations, for different difficulties, yet the purpose
is accomplished not less successfully in one case
than in the other. . . . and without deserting
the original idea." ^ " The retired under-jaw of
a swine works in the ground ... a conformation
so happy was not the gift of chance." When we
come to the chapter on Prospective Contrivances
(chap, xiv.) we have further the notion of a
emotion," often lit on a particularly happy and lucid description of
structures ; and their teleological aim secured an appreciation of
functional relations which is not always shown in a greater degree
by modern writers. See, for an example, the Twelfth Dialogue of
Theron and Aspasio, by the Rev. James Hervey, who died 1758.
1 Natural Theology, i. 330.
Ibid., i. 292. '^ Ibid., i. 279.
NEWTON 277
limitation under the conditions of Time. " That
intelHgence which was employed in creation looked
beyond the first year of the infant's life ; yet whilst
she was providing for functions which were after
that term to become necessary, was careful not to
incommode those that preceded them." ^
Certainly this is not simply the " remote "
Deity of the Deists. The activity spoken of is
indeed in a sense past, and the concep- And not a
tion is a very long way from that of an ^^'^^•
Immanent Divine Power. But the Power is in
another sense all too much inside the world,
reading its problems, managing its material with
wonderful foresight, with impartial attention, with
economy of effort, and with a versatility which
commands the admiration of the most accomplished
human critic.
Newton
Our reverence for the almost prophetic cha-
racter of Newton's genius need not hide from us
that, according to the mental tone of
.... Newton.
his age, he sometimes, even more than
Paley, seems to speak of God as working on
the world's scene with remarkable but occasional
success. Of course this view may be true. There
may be, and indeed to our capacity there are,
' Natural Tlicology, i. 309.
278 APPENDIX
exceptional evidences of the Unseen Power. But
these are not to be relied on because they are
exceptional but because they are exemplary.
He writes thus about the origin of the Solar
System. Much, he seems to say, may be set
down to mechanical process. '* But how the
matter should divide itself into two sorts ; . . .
or if the sun at first were an opake body like the
planets, ... or the planets lucid bodies like the
sun, how he alone should be changed into a
shining body whilst all they continue opake ; or
all they be changed into opake ones, whilst he
remains unchanged ; I do not think explicable by
meer natural causes, but am forced to ascribe
it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary
Agent." ^
Again, " the motions which the planets now
have, could not spring from any natural cause
alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent."
" Lastly, I see nothing extraordinary in the
inclination of the Earth's axis for proving a Deity."
" There is yet another argument for a Deity,
which I take to be a very strong one ; but till the
principles on which it is grounded are better
received, I think it more adviseable to let it sleep." ^
These last instances give a clearer and a more
1 Sir I. Newton. Letters to Mr. Bentley. First letter. Horsley's
Nenvton, vol. iv. p. 430. London, 1782.
2 //'/(/., p. 431.
DIDEROT 279
favourable view of the great reasoner's intention.
Those parts of the world's system which seem to
result from " natural causes alone," are not said
to be thereby less truly the result of the creative
will ; but they are less available for purposes of
apologetic — " for proving a Deity."
Diderot
The limitation of a given scientific discipline
by its own method, a limitation which is no
disaster but a condition of progress, is spoken
of on p. 21.
The following passage from Diderot is in-
teresting in this connexion. It is in his work
De r interpretation de la Nature^ xlix.
He complains of the reasoning of the
systematists in natural science, whom he calls
methodistes, " Mais c'est une chose trop singuliere
que la dialectique de quelques methodistes pour
n'en pas donner un echantillon." He gives an
example from Linnaeus who, when discussing the
differentiation of man as a species concludes, " Je
n'ai jamais su distinguer I'homme du singe. . . .
La parole n'est point pour moi un charact^re
distinctif ; je n'admets, selon ma methode, que
des characteres qui dependent du nombre, de
la figure, de la proportion, et de la situation."
28o APPENDIX
(so far Linnaeus. Diderot answers) " ' Done votre
methode est mauvaise,' dit la logique. ' Done
rhomme est un animal a quatre pieds,' dit le
naturaliste."
We do not share Diderot's discontent, though
Linnaeus' method, even as a method, is imper-
fect, and leads to a methodically false conclusion.
But Diderot complains because it is a method.
We should rather say to the naturalist. Your
science is of necessity a matter of method, and
by the same necessity it must take a special^ a
limited view. Only it should recognize the fact
of limitation, and if possible define the limits.
Linnaeus should say, Man is anatomically {i.e.
selon ma methode) indistinguishable from a
monkey.
But note (we should continue) that if the
qualifying word is to rescue you from the charge
of ridiculous conclusions or bad logic, this quali-
fying word must have the same qualifying force
in all contexts ; and anatomy must not in your
next breath put forward a claim to be a philosophy
of life.
It is precisely because you claim the immu-
nities of a method that we leave your conclusion
unchallenged. Indeed it was only by strict atten-
tion to your method that you managed to manu-
facture the conclusion at all.
You must not now ask us to accept it as
METHOD 281
a refutation or an alternative of other conclusions
which we never made, nous autres, selon votre
methode a vous.
At Capetown, not so very long ago, the
Malay (Moslem) authorities declared that, what-
ever the Museum might say. Crawfish were
" Spiders " for purposes of the Moslem law.
And the Mollahs were perfectly right to keep
to their method, and to enforce its conclusions
upon those who wished to be reckoned obedient
children of Islam.
But it would be a little too bad to ask us
to review our definition of Arachnida on that
account ; and when an enlightened Zoology in
turn has reached fresh provisional conclusions,
it must be content to say, " For purposes of
Zoology, man is this or that."
Otherwise Science as well as Religion must
suffer from the perpetual disturbance of study
by an intellectual /r.^^'^j.
In the science and practice of law, we have a
familiar and acknowledged instance of the limita-
tion which belongs to method. There the limita-
tion is deliberately made and well understood by
the lawyers ; and moreover, they observe one set
of limits when they are distributing equity, and
another when awarding damages at Common Law,
and again a third when they are administering
penal statutes. The same admitted facts will
282 APPENDIX
yield three different results of judgement under
these different disciplines of the lawyers' method.
The lawyers understand, but the laymen at law
do not always understand this. They sometimes
forget the deliberate limitations, and when the
lawyers (judge and advocates together) have
simply declared that in a given case a particular
tooth of a particular statute will or will not bite,
their decision has been used outside the Court as
if it supplied an item for the general history of
morals, or guidance for the developement of the
Church, or defined the limits of belief " on matters
about which hearts burn and souls tremble." ^
This is not the fault of the lawyers. They
make, or at least recognize, their limits deliberately,
and if " the law " is in any case an unsatisfactory
product, they would advise men not " to have the
law of" one another in that case.
It is not so with other specialists — and we
are all specialists more or less. In other studies
the limitation is very often made quite un-
consciously. The man who uses a given
method is doing all he can^ and is not aware that
anything more can be done. His method is
his vocation. It is not deliberately chosen ; it is
the one he can use. And he very naturally thinks
it is a universal organon. And, indeed, in theory
1 Dean Church on Privy Council Jutlgements. Occasional Papers,
vol. ii. p. 38.
METHOD 283
it is universally applicable^ but its products are not
the only products possible. If a man is not in-
stinctively conscious of this truth, he does not
always become aware of it by reflexion ; for a great
systematist is not of necessity also a great epistem-
ologist. He may study stars or monuments for
the great gain of us all, without studying the
nature of knowledge.
When one urges the reality of methodic limita-
tion, it is very important to add that it is not reason
or even reasoning which is objected to in any case
whatever. There are said to be Christians who
have been taught " to think reasoning wicked."
They have been misled into a most unchristian
school. Reasoning is precious, so far as it is
reasoning. But all our reasoning is very imper-
fect, and some of it is worse than the rest. We
do not object to reasoning when we object to
reasoning badly, or without materials.
Moreover, to avoid misunderstanding, it must
be repeated that the limit of a method is not
theoretically a limit with respect to the field of
application. Any method may justly be applied
to anything whatsoever to which it can be applied.
But the product will not always repay the process.
Sometimes, as in the case of a chemical examina-
tion of sound, the answer will be purely negative
— " no results obtained."
You may, for example, have a geological study
284 APPENDIX
of Wordsworth's poems, or Watson's, or any-
other treasure of literature. But the geological
description of these will not be particularly valuable.
It will not distinguish them sufficiently from one
another, or from dockyards, slag-heaps, disused
omnibuses, live torpedoes, and Etruscan jewels,
all of which for geology belong to the irregularities
of the earth's surface caused by recent organic
activity.
All sorts of things may be examined by any
method. The limit of the method appears in the
particular kind of judgement or description of the
things which is obtained. And what has to be
remembered is that the result of no one method
is the only possible result.
Immanence
In the preface, p. xii., I have reluctantly avoided
the word * immanence.' The newer use of this
word concerning God, to express the belief " that
the Divine is in everything, pervading and em-
bracing and dwelling in it " (S. Gregory of Nyssa,
in Inge's Christian Mysticism^ p. 100), is not yet
wholly free from inconvenience ; especially when
the argument in which it appears dwells upon the
impression conveyed by nature. For in Spinoza
and other philosophical writers the sense of re-
maining or abiding seems to have been emphatic
IMMANENCE 285
in the word, so that It contained the force of
* intransitive,' and indicated a power dwelling in,
but not acting beyond^ a body. And in theology
the same emphasis appeared in the word ; for it
indicated those actions of God which find their
end within the Divine nature, In contradistinction
from such a Divine act as the creation of the
world. It Is a question of a word, whether or no
it is permanently polarized. One would be glad
to learn how, If at all, this word, or Its verb. Is
used by earlier latin ecclesiastical writers, in con-
nexion with the Divine Presence. The doctrine
now Intended by the word can be guarded from
danger of Pantheism by the balancing doctrine of
Transcendence. It has no necessary connexion
whatever with Stoical or any other Pantheism.
S. Augustine, who pours scorn on the conception
of Anima — or, as he calls It, Animus — Mundi (De
Civ. Deij Lib. IV. cap. xll.), gives In many forms
the teaching that the very existence of things
depends upon the Divine presence in them.
Doubtless the Impression of " a soul of good-
ness " In them is by no means the on/y impression
which the objects of sense give. We Christians
have received words — " subject to vanity," " the
creature groaneth and travalleth " — which provide
for those other and darker Impressions, while
delivering us from the dualism which contempla-
tion has sometimes drawn from the perplexing
286 APPENDIX
and oppressive spectacle. What we see is that
the sustaining element is good ; and that the evil
does not belong to material existence as such.
S. Augustine may be studied in this connexion
with special profit, because he had known in
Manichaeism a dualistic system in earnest, and
which actually afforded the foundation for a
vigorous society.
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
A Selection of Works
IN
THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE
PUBLISHED BY
Messrs. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
London : 39 Paternoster Row, E.C.
New York : 91 and 93 Fifth Avenue.
Bombay : 8 Hornby Road.
Abbey and Overton.— THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By Charles J. Abbey, M.A., Rector
of Checkendon, Reading, and John H. Overton, D.D., late Canon
of Lincoln. Crown 8vo, js. 6d.
Adams.— SACRED ALLEGORIES. The Shadow of the Cross
—The Distant Hills— The Old Man's Home— The King's Messengers.
By the Rev. William Adams, M.A. With Illustrations, ibmo,
3i. net.
The four Allegories may be had separately, i6mo, xs. each.
Aids to the Inner Life.
Edited by the Venble. W. H. Hutchings, M.A., Archdeacon of Cleve-
land, Canon of York, Rector of Kirby Misperton, and Rural Dean of
Malton. Five Vols. 2>'^mo, cloth limp, 6d. each; or cloth extra, is. each,
OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By THOMAS X Kempis.
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.
THE DEVOUT LIFE. By ST. Francis de Sales.
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SOUL. By Jean Nicolas Groi;.
THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT. By LAURENCE ScupOLi.
Baily-Browne.— Works by A. B. Baily-Brown.
A HELP TO THE SPIRITUAL INTERPRETATION OF THE
PENITENTIAL PSALMS, consisting of Brief Notes from The
Fathers, gathered from Neale and Littledale's Commentary. With
Preface by the Rev. George Eudy, D.D., Canon of Durham. Crovan
8vo. IS, net.
THE SONGS OF DEGREES; or. Gradual Psalms. Interleaved
with Notes from Neale and Littledale's Commentary on the Psalms.
Crnvn 8vo, is, net.
A SELECTION OF WORKS
Bathe.— Works by the Rev. Anthony Bathe, M.A.
A LENT WITH JESUS. A Plain Guide for Churchmen. Containing
Readings for Lent and Easter Week, and on the Holy Eucharist.
yitno, xs. ; or in paper cover, td.
AN ADVENT WITH JESUS, ^■zmo, u., or in paper cover M.
WHAT I SHOULD BELIEVE. A Simple Manual of Self- Instruction
for Church People. Small Zvo, limp, is. ; cloth gilt, 2s.
Benson.— Works by the Rev. R. M. Benson, M.A., Student of
Christ Church, Oxford.
THE FOLLOWERS OF THE LAMB : a Series of Meditations, especially
intended for Persons living under Religious Vows, and for Seasons of
Retreat, etc. Crown 8vo. 45. 6d.
THE FINAL PASSOVER : A Series of Meditations upon the Passion of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Small 8vo.
Vol, L— The Rejection. 5^.
Vol, II.— The Upper Chamber.
Part I. 5^.
Part II. 5^.
Vol. III.— The Divine Exodus.
Parts I. and 11. 51. each.
Vol. IV.— The Life Beyond the
Grave. 5^,
THE MAGNIFICAT; a Series of Meditations upon the Song of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. Small 8vo. 2s.
SPIRITUAL READINGS FOR EVERY DAY. 3 vols. Small 8vo.
y. 6d. each.
I. Advent. II. Christmas. III. Epiphany,
BENEDICTUS DOMINUS : A Course of Meditations for Every Day of
the Year. Vol. I.— Advent to Trinity. Vol. II.— Trinity, Saints'
Days, etc. Small 8vo. 3s. 6d. each ; or in One Volume, js,
BIBLE TEACHINGS: The Discourse at Capernaum.— St. John vi.
Small Zvo, is. ; or with Notes, y. 6d.
THE WISDOM OF THE SON OF DAVID : An Exposition of the First
Nine Chapters of the Book of Proverbs. Small 8vo. 3s. 6d.
THE MANUAL OF INTERCESSORY PRAYER. Royal 22mo ; cloth
boards, is. ^d. ; cloth limp, gd.
THE EVANGELIST LIBRARY CATECHISM. Parti. Small Zvo. 3s.
PAROCHIAL MISSIONS. Small Zvo. 2J. td.
Bickersteth.— YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER :
a Poem in Twelve Books. By Edward Henry Bickersteth, D.D.,
formerly Bishop of Exeter. iZmo. is. net. With red borders,
i6mo, as. net.
The CrowH Zvo Edition (sj.) may still be had.
THE HYMNAL COMPANION TO THE BOOK OF COMMON
PRAYER.
''»• A List will be tent oh application.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.
Blunt.— Works by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, D.D.
THE ANNOTATED BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: Being an
Historical, Ritual, and Theological Commentary on the Devotional
System of the Church of England, ^o. \-2.s. 6d. net.
THE COMPENDIOUS EDITION OF THE ANNOTATED BOOK
OF COMMON PRAYER : Forming a concise Commentary on the
Devotional System of the Church of England. Crown Svo. los. 6d.
DICTIONARY OF DOCTRINAL AND HISTORICAL THEOLOGY.
By various Writers. Imperial 8vo. 21s.
DICTIONARY OF SECTS, HERESIES, ECCLESIASTICAL PAR-
TIES AND SCHOOLS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. By various
Writers. Imperial Svo. 21J.
THE BOOK OF CHURCH LAW. Being an Exposition of the Legal
Rights and Duties of the Parochial Clergy and the Laity of the Church
of England. Revised by the Right Hon. Sir Walter G. F. Philli-
MORE, Bart., D.C.L., and G. Edwardes Jones, Barrister-at-Law.
Crown Svo. 8s. net,
A COMPANION TO THE BIBLE : Being a Plain Commentary on
Scripture History, to the end of the ApostoUc Age. Two Vols, small
8vo. Sold separately. Old Testament, y. 6d. New Testament.
3s. 6d.
HOUSEHOLD THEOLOGY : a Handbook of Religious Information
respecting the Holy Bible, the Prayer Book, the Church, etc, etc.
i6mo. Paper cover, IS. Also the Larger Edition, Fcap. Svo. 2s. net.
Body.— Works by the Rev.GEORGE BODY,D.D., Canon of Durham.
THE LIFE OF LOVE. A Course of Lent Lectures. i6mo. us. net.
THE SCHOOL OF CALVARY ; or, Lavirs of Christian Life revealed
from the Cross. i6mo. 2s. net.
THE LIFE OF JUSTIFICATION. i6mo. 2s. net.
THE LIFE OF TEMPTATION. x6mo. 2S. net.
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. Small
Svo. sewed, 6d. ^zmo. cloth, \s.
Book of Private Prayer, The. For use Twice Daily ; together
with the Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy
Communion. \Smo. Limp cloth, 2s.; Cloth boards, 2s. 6d.
Book of Prayer and Daily Texts for English Churchmen.
2,'2.mo. IS. net.
Boultbee.— A COMMENTARY ON THE THIRTY-NINE
ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. By the Rev.
T. P. BouLTBEE. Crown Bvo. 6s ■
A SELECT/ON OF WORKS
Brent.— THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE CROSS : Addresses
on the Seven Words of the Dying Lord, given at St. Stephen's Church,
Boston (U.S.), on Good Friday, 1902. Together with Two Sermons.
By the Right Rev. C. H. Brent, D.D., Bishop of the Philippine
Islands. Crow?i 8vo. 2s. 6d, net.
Brett.— Works by the Rev. Jesse Brett, L.Th., Chaplain of All
Saints' Hospital, Eastbourne.
THE SYMPATHY OF THE CRUCIFIED. Fcaf. 8vo. 2s. vet.
ANIMA CHRISTI : Devotional Addresses. Crown 8vo. is. net.
THE BLESSED LIFE : Devotional Studies of the Beatitudes. Crown
Zvo. 2s. net.
THE WITNESS OF LOVE: Some Mysteries of the Divine Love
revealed in the Passion of our Holy Redeemer. Fcaf. 8vo. zs. net.
Bright.— Works by William Bright, D.D., late Regius
Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University
of O.vford.
THE AGE OF THE FATHERS. Being Chapters in the History of
the Church during the Fourth and Fifth Centuries. Two Vols. 8vo.
2.8s. net.
LESSONS FROM THE LIVES OF THREE GREAT FATHERS.
St, Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THE ROMAN SEE IN THE EARLY CHURCH, and other
Studies in Church History. Crown 8vo. -js. 6d.
Bright and Medd.— LIBER PRECUM PUBLICARUM EC-
CLESI^ ANGLICANS. A Gulielmo Bright, S.T.P., et Petro
Goldsmith Medd, A.M., Latine redditus. Small 8vo. 5^. net.
Brockington.— THE PARABLES OF THE WAY: a Com-
parative Study of the Beatitudes (St. Matt. v. 3-13) and Twelve
Parables of the Way (St. Luke ix. 5i-xix. 11). By A. Allen
Brockington, M.A. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
Browne.— AN EXPOSITION OF THE THIRTY-NINE
ARTICLES, Historical and Doctrinal. By E. H. BROWNE, D.D.,
sometime Bishop of Winchester, 8vo, i6s.
Bruce. -THE COMMON HOPE. Firstfruits of Ministerial
Experience in Thought and Life. Edited by the Rev. RossLYN
Bruce, M.A. , Rector of Clifton, Nottingham ; with an Introduction
by the Right Rev. the Bishop ov Stepnev. Crown 8vo, 3^. 6d. net.
Campion and Beamont.— THE PRAYER BOOK INTER-
LEAVED, With Historical Illustrations and Explanatory Notes
arranged parallel to the Text. By W. M. CAMPION, D.D,, and W. J.
B£AUONT, M.A. Small 8vo, js. 6d.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.
Carter.— LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS THELLUS-
SON CAR TER, Warden of the House of Mercy, Clewer, and Hon.
Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Edited by the Ven. W. H.
HurcHiNGS, M.A., Archdeacon of Cleveland. With 3 Portraits and
8 other Illustrations. %vo. los. 6d, net.
Carter.— Works by, and edited by, the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A.
SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTIONS. Crown 2.vo.
Our Lord's Early Life. 3s. 6rf.
Our Lords Entrance on his
Ministry. 35. bd.
The Holy Eucharist. 35. td.
The Divine Dispensations. 35. (>d.
The Life of Grace. 3^. bd.
The Religious Life. 3J. bd,
A BOOK OF PRIVATE PRAYER FOR MORNING, MID-DAY, AND
OTHER TIMES. \Zmo, limp cloth, xs. ; cloth, red edges, \s. ^d.
THE DOCTRINE OF CONFESSION IN THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND. Crown 8w. 55.
THE SPIRIT OF WATCHFULNESS AND OTHER SERMONS.
Crown Bvo. 55.
THE TREASURY OF DEVOTION : a Manual of Prayer for General
and Daily Use, Compiled by a Priest.
iSmo. 2s. bd. ; cloth limp, 2s. Bound with the Book of Common
Prayer, ^s. bd. Red-Line Edition. Cloth extra, gilt top. i8mo.
2s. bd, net. Large-Type Edition. Crown Svo. y. bd.
THE WAY OF LIFE : A Book of Prayers and Instruction for the Young
at School, with a Preparation for Confirmation. i8mo, is. bd,
THE PATH OF HOLINESS: a First Book of Prayers, with the Service
of the Holy Communion, for the Young. Compiled by a Priest. With
Illustrations, ibmo. is. bd. ; cloth limp, is.
THE GUIDE TO HEAVEN : a Book of Prayers for every Want. (For
the Working Classes.) Compiled by a Priest, i8mo. is. bd. ; cloth
limp, IS, Large- Type Edition. Crown Svo, is. 6d. ; cloth limp, is.
THE STAR OF CHILDHOOD : a First Book of Prayers and Instruction
for Children. Compiled by a Priest. With Illustrations, ibmo, 2s. bd.
SIMPLE LESSONS ; or, Words Easy to be Understood. A Manual of
Teaching, i. On the Creed. 11. The Ten Commandments, iii. The
Sacrament. iBmo. 35.
MANUAL OF DEVOTION FOR SISTERS OF MERCY. 8 parts in
2 vols. 32mo. 10s. Or separately : — Part i. i^. bd. Part li. is. Part
III. ij. Part IV. 2J. Partv. ij, Partvi. u. Partvii, Partvill, is. bd.
Coles.— Works by the Rev. V. S. S. Coles, M.A., Principal of the
Pusey House, Oxford.
LENTEN MEDITATIONS. i8mo. zs. bd.
ADVENT MEDITATIONS ON ISAIAH I.-XIL : together with Out-
lines of Christmas Meditations on St, John i. 1-12, ibmo. 2s.
6 A SELECTION OF WORKS
Company, The, of Heaven : Daily Links with the Household of
God. Being Selections in Prose and Verse from various Authors.
With Autotype Frontispiece. Crown 2,vo. 2s. 6d. net.
Conybeare and Howson.— THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF
ST. PAUL. By the Rev, W. J. Conybeare, M.A., and the Very
Rev. J. S. Howson, D.D. With numerous Maps and Illustrations.
Library Edition. Two Vols. Svo. 21s. Students' Edition. One Vol.
Crown Svo. 6s. POPULAR Edition. One Vol. Crown Svo. y. 6d.
Oreighton.— LIFE AND LETTERS OF MANDELL
CREIGHTON, D.D., Oxon. andCamb., sometime Bishop of London.
By his Wife. With 8 Portraits (4 Photogravures), and 3 other Illus-
trations. Two Vols. Svo. 28.f. net.
Oreighton.— Works by Mandell Creighton, D.D., late Lord
Bishop of London.
A HISTORY OF THE PAPACY FROM THE GREAT SCHISM
TO THE SACK OF ROME (1378-1527). Six Volumes. Crown Svo.
^s. each net.
THE CHURCH AND THE NATION : Charges and Addresses.
Crown Svo. ^s. net.
THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION : Speeches and Sermons. Crown Svo.
5J. net.
UNIVERSITY AND OTHER SERMONS. Crown Svo. 5^. net.
THE MIND OF ST. PETER; and other Sermons. Crown Svo.
y. 6d. net.
Day-Hours of the Church of England, The. Newly Revised
according to the Prayer Book and the Authorised Translation of the
Bible. Crown Svo, sewed, ■^j. ; cloth, 3?. 6d.
SUPPLEMENT TO THE DAY-HOURS OF THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND, being the Service for certain Holy Days. Crown Svo,
sewed, y. ; cloth, y. 6rf.
Drawbridge.— THE TRAINING OF THE TWIG: an Essay
on the Religious Education of the Young. By the Rev, C. L.
Drawbridge, M.A. Crtivn Svo. y. net.
Edersheim.— Works by Alfred Edersheim, M.A., D.D., Ph.D.
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JESUS THE MESSIAH. Two Vols.
Svo. I2S. net.
JESUS THE MESSIAH : being an Abridged Edition of ' The Life and
Times of Jesus the Messiah." Crown Svo. 6s.net.
Ellicott.— Works by C. J. Ellicott, D.D., formerly Bishop of
Gloucester.
A CRITICAL AND GRAMMATICAL COMMENTARY ON ST.
PAUL'S EPISTLES. Greek Text, with a Critical and Grammatical
Commentary, and a Revised English Translation. Svo.
PHILIPPIANS, COLOSSIANS, AND
Philemon, ioj. 6d.
Thessalonians. 7s. 6d.
HISTORICAL LECTURES ON THE LIFE OF OUR LORD
JESUS CHRIST. Svo. izj.
Galatians. 8j. 6d.
Ephesians. Ss. 6d.
Pastoral Epistles, ioj. 6rf.
TN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.
Emery. — THE INNER LIFE OF THE SOUL. Short
Spiritual Messages for the Ecclesiastical Year. By S. L. Emery.
Crown Bvo. 4s. 6d. net.
English (The) Catholic's Vade Mecum: a Short Manual of General
Devotion. Compiled by a Priest, yzmo. limp, xs. ; cloth, "is.
Epochs of Church History.— Edited by Mandell Creighton,
D.D., late Lord Bishop of London. Small Zvo. 2s. 6d.
each.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN
OTHER LANDS. By the Rev. H. W.
Tucker, M.A.
THE HISTORY OF THE REFOR-
MATION IN ENGLAND. By the
Rev. Geo. G. Perry, M.A.
THE CHURCH OF THE EARLY
FATHERS. By the Rev. Alfred
Plummer, D.D.
THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL IN
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
By the Rev. J. H. Overton, D.D.
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
By the Hon. G. C Brodrick, D.C.L.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CAM-
BRIDGE. By J. Bass Mullinger,
M.A.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE
MIDDLE AGES. By the Rev. W.
Hunt, M.A.
Manual
THE CHURCH AND THE
EASTERN EMPIRE. By the Rev.
H. F. Tozer, M.A.
THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN
EMPIRE. By the Rev. A. Carr,
M.A.
THE CHURCH AND THE PURI-
TANS, 1570-1660. By Henry Offlbv
Wakeman, M.A.
HILDEBRAND and HIS TIMES.
By the Very Rev. W. R. W. Stephens,
B.D.
THE POPES AND THE HOHEN-
STAUFEN. By Ugo Balzani.
THE COUNTER REFORMATION.
By Adolphus William Ward, Litt. D.
WYCLIFFE AND MOVEMENTS
FOR REFORM. By Reginald L.
Poole, M.A.
THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. By
the Rev. Professor H. M. Gwatkin,
Eucharistic
(The).
M.A.
Consisting of Instructions and
Devotions for the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. From various sources.
32WO. cloth gilt, red edges, xs. Cheap Edition, limp cloth, gd,
Farrar.— Works by Frederic W. Farrar, D.D., late Dean of
Canterbury.
TEXTS EXPLAINED ; or, Helps to Understand the New Testament.
Crown Zvo. 5^. net.
THE BIBLE : Its Meaning and Supremacy. Zvo. 6s. net.
Fosbery.— VOICES OF COMFORT. Edited by the Rev.
Thomas Vincent Fosbery, M.A., sometime Vicar of St. Giles's,
Reading. Cheap Edition. Small 8vo. 31. net.
The Larger Edition (ts. dd.) tnay still be had.
Gammack.— GOOD FRIDAY. The Seven Last Words in their
Significance for Life, with a Good Friday Address to Children. By the
Rev. Arthur J. Gammack, Rector of Christ Chuich, West Haven,
Conn. \(>mo. is. 6d. net.
8
A SELECTION OF WORKS
Qeikie.— Works by J. Cunningham Geikie, D.D., LL.D., late
Vicar of St. Martin-at-Palace, Norwich.
HOURS WITH THE BIBLE : the Scriptures in the Light of Modern
Discovery and Knowledge. Complete in Twelve Volumes. Crewn Zvo.
OLD TESTAMENT.
Creation to the Patriarchs.
With a Map and Illustrations. 5^.
Moses to Judges. With a Map
and Illustrations. 55.
Samson to Solomon. With a
Map and Illustrations. 5^.
With
Rehoboam to Hezekiah.
Illustrations. 5J.
Manasseh to Zedekiah. With
the Contemporary Prophets. With
a Map and Illustrations. $5.
Exile to Malachi. With the
Contemporary Prophets. With
Illustrations. c,s.
NEW TESTAMENT.
The Gospels. With a Map and
Illustrations. 5 J.
Life and Words of Christ.
With Map. 2 vols. 10s.
Life and Epistles of St. Paul.
With Maps and Illustrations.
2 vols, xos.
St. Peter to Revelation. With
29 Illustrations, ss.
LIFE AND WORDS OF CHRIST.
Cabinet Edition. With Map. 2 vols. Post Zvo. los.
Cheap Edition, without the Notes. 1 vol. 8vo. 6s.
A SHORT LIFE OF CHRIST. With 34 Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
y. 6d. ; gilt edges, 45. 6rf.
Gold Dust: a Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sancti-
fication of Daily Life.
Translated and abridged from the French by E.L.E.E. Edited by
Charlotte M. Yonge. Parts I. II. III. Small Pocket Volumes.
Cloth, gilt, each is. , or in white cloth, with red edges, the three parts
in a box, 2s. 6d. each net. Parts I., II., and III. in One Volume.
2s. net,
Gore.— Works by the Right Rev. Charles Gore, D.D., Lord
Bishop of Birmingham.
THE CHURCH AND THE MINISTRY. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. Crown Svo. 3s. net.
Popular Edition. Crown Svo. Sewed. 6d. net.
Goreh.— THE LIFE OF FATHER GOREH. By C E.
Gardner, S.S.J. E, With Portrait. Crown Svo. 5?.
Great Truths of the Christian Beligion.
W. U. Richards. Small Svo. 2s.
Edited by the Rev.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.
Hall.— Works by the Right Rev. A. C. A. Hall, D.D., Bishop
of Vermont.
CONFIRMATION. Cr.^vo. 5^. (Oxford Library of Practical Theology.)
THE VIRGIN MOTHER: Retreat Addresses on the Life of the
Blessed Virgin Mary as told in the Gospels. With an appended
Essay on the Virgin Birth of our Lord. Crotvn Zvo. 4J. 6d.
CHRIST'S TEMPTATION AND OURS. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Hallowing of Sorrow. By E. R. With a Preface by H. S.
Holland, M.A. , Canon and Precentor of St. Paul's. Small 8vo, zs.
Handbooks for the Clergy. Edited by the Rev. Arthur W.
Robinson, D.D., Vicar of Allhallows Barking by the Tower,
Crown Svo. 2s. bd. net each Volume.
THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THE CLERGY. By the Rev. Arthur
W. Robinson, D.D., Vicar of Allhallows Barking by the Tower.
THE MINISTRY OF CONVERSION. By the Rev. A. J. Mason, D.D.,
Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Canon of Canterbury,
PATRISTIC STUDY. By the Rev. H. B. Swete, D.D., Regius Pro-
fessor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge.
FOREIGN MISSIONS, By the Right Rev. H. H. Montgomery, D.D„
Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
THE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS. By the Very Rev. J. Armitags
Robinson, D.D., Dean of Westminster.
A CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC. By the Very Rev. Wilford L.
ROBBINS, D.D., Dean of the Theological Seminary, New York.
PASTORAL VISIT.A.TION. By the Rev. H. E. Savage, M.A., Vicar
of Halifax.
AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH. By the Very Rev. J. B. STRONG,
D.D., Dean of Christ Church, Oxford.
THE STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. By the Right
Rev. W. E. Collins, D.D., Bishop of Gibraltar.
CHURCH MUSIC. By A. Madeley Richardson, Mus. Doc, Organist
of St. Saviour's Cathedral, Southwark.
LAY WORK AND THE OFFICE OF READER. By the Right
Rev. HUYSHE Yeatman-Biggs, D.D., Lord Bishop of Worcester.
RELIGION AND SCIENCE By the Rev. P. N. Waggett, M.A. of
the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cowley.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. By the Rev. W. FoXLEY NORRIS. M.A.,
Rector of Barnsley.
CHARITABLE RELIEF. By the Rev. Clement F. Rogers, M.A.
INTEMPERANCE. By the Right Rev. H. H. Pereira, Bishop of
Croydon.
THE LEGAL POSITION OF THE CLERGY. Bv P. V Smith.
LL. D., Chancellor of the Diocese of Manchester.
A 2
lo A SELECTION OF WORKS
Hatch.— THE ORGANIZATION OF THE EARLY
CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1880.
By Edwin Hatch, M.A., D.D., late Reader in Ecclesiastical History
in the University of Oxford. Zvo. ^s.
Holland.— Works by the Rev. Henry Scott Holland, M.A.
Canon and Precentor of St. Paul's.
GOD'S CITY AND THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM. Crown
Zvo. 3s. 6d.
PLEAS AND CLAIMS FOR CHRIST. Crown. 8vo. 3^. 6d.
CREED AND CHARACTER : Sermons. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
ON BEHALF OF BELIEF. Sermons. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
CHRIST OR ECCLESIASTES. Sermons. Crown 8m zr. 6rf.
LOGIC AND LIFE, with other Sermons. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
GOOD FRIDAY. Being Addresses on the Seven Last Words. Small
8vo. 2S.
Hollings.— Works by the Rev. G. S. Hollings, Mission Priest of
the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford.
THE HEAVENLY STAIR ; or, A Ladder of the Love of God for Sinners.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
PORTA REGALIS ; or, Considerations on Prayer. Crown 8vo. limp cloth,
15. 6d. net ; cloth boards, zs, net,
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE WISDOM OF GOD. Crown 8vo. ^.
PARADOXES OF THE LOVE OF GOD, especially as they are seen in
the way of the Evangelical Counsels. Crown 8vo. 45.
ONE BORN OF THE SPIRIT ; or, the Unification of our Life in God.
Crown 8vo. 3s, 6d.
Holmes.— IN WATCHINGS OFTEN: Addresses to Nurses.
By the Rev. E. E. Holmes, Honorary Canon of Christ Church,
Oxford. With a Frontispiece. Crozvn 8vo. Seioed, zs. 6d. ; cloth, 3s. 6d.
Hutchings.— Works by the Ven. W. H. Hutchings, M.A. Arch-
deacon of Cleveland, Canon of York, Rector of Kirby
Misperton, and Rural Dean of Malton.
SERMON SKETCHES from some of the Sunday Lessons throughout
the Church's Year. Vols. I and II. Crown 8vo. 55. each.
THE LIFE OF PRAYER : a Course of Lectures delivered in All Saints'
Church, Margaret Street, during Lent. Crown 8vo. 45. bd.
THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE HOLY GHOST : a Doctrinal
and Devotional Treatise. Crown 8vo. 4^. dd.
SOME ASPECTS OF THE CROSS. Crown 8vo. 45. dd.
THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. Lent Lectures delivered at
St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington. Crvwn 8vo. 45. od.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. n
Inheritance of the Saints ; or, Thoughts on the Communion
of Saints and the Life of the World to come. Collected chiefly
from English Writers by L. P. With a Preface by the Rev, HENRY
Scott Holland, M.A. Croivn Zvo. y. 6d. net.
Illustrated Edition. With 8 Pictures in Colour by Hamel Lister.
Crown Zvo, 6s. net.
James.— THE VARIETIES OFRELIGIOUSEXPERIENCE:
A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural
Religion delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902. By William James,
LL.D., etc., Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. 8t/#.
I2J. net.
Jameson.— Works by Mrs. Jameson.
SACRED AND LEGENDARY ART, containing Legends of the Angels
and Archangels, the Evangelists, the Apostles. With 19 Etchings and
187 Woodcuts. 2 vols. Svo. 20s. net.
LEGENDS OF THE MONASTIC ORDERS, as represented in the
Fine Arts. With 11 Etchings and 88 Woodcuts. 8w. 10^. net.
LEGENDS OF THE MADONNA, OR BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.
With 27 Etchings and 165 Woodcuts, ivo, \os. net.
THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD, as exemplified in Works of Art.
Commenced by the late Mrs. Jameson ; continued and completed by
Lady Eastlake. With 31 Etchings and 281 Woodcuts. 2 Vols.
Bvo. 20s. net.
Jones.— ENGLAND AND THE HOLY SEE: An Essay
towards Reunion. By Spencer Jones, M.A., Rector of Moretou-
in-Marsh. With a Preface by the Right Hon. Viscount Halifax.
Crown 8vo, ^s. 6d. net.
Jukes. — Works by Andrew Jukes.
LETTERS OF ANDREW JUKES. Edited, with a Short Biography,
by the Rev. Herbert H. Jeafferson, M.A. Croiun Svo. ^s. 6d. net.
THE NAMES OK GOD IN HOLY SCRIPTURE: a Revelation of
His Nature and Relationships. Crown Svo, 4s. 6d.
THE TYPES OF GENESIS. Crown Svo, 7s. 6d,
THE SECOND DEATH AND THE RESTITUTION OF ALL
THINGS. Crown Svo. 3s.6d.
Kelly. — Works by the Rev. Herbert H. Kelly, M.A., Director
of the Society of the Sacred Mission, Kelham, Newark.
A HISTORY OF THE CHURCHOF CHRIST. Vol. I. a.d. 29-342.
Crown Svo. ■^s. 6d.net. Vol. II. A.D. 324-430. Crown Svo. 3s.6d.net.
ENGLAND AND THE CHURCH : Her Calling and its Fulfilment
Considered in Relation to the Increase and Efficiency of Her Ministry,
Crown Svo. 4s. net.
12 A SELECTION OF WORKS
Knox.— PASTORS AND TEACHERS : Six Lectures on
Pastoral Theology. By the Right Rev. Edmund Arbuthnott Knox,
D.D., Bishop of Manchester. With an Introduction by the Right Rev.
Charles Gore, D.D., Bishop of Birmingham. Crown 8vo. e,s. net.
Cheap Edition, without the Appendices. Crown 8vo. is. net.
Knox.— THE GRACE OF SACRAMENTS. Being Treatises
on Baptism and the Eucharist. By Alexander Knox. (1737-1831.)
Edited, with a Preface, by William Dalrymple Maclagan, D.D.,
Archbishop of York. Crown 8vo. ^s. net.
Snoz Little.— Works by W. J. Knox Little, M.A., Canon
Residentiary of Worcester, and Vicar of Hoar Cross.
HOLY MATRIMONY. Cr(rwn 8w. SJ. {.The Oxford Library oj
Practical Theology.)
THE CHRISTIAN HOME. Crown 8vo. 31. 6d.
THE MYSTERY OF THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY
REDEEMER. Crown 8vo. ss. 6d.
THE LIGHT OF LIFE. Sermons preached on Various Occasions.
Crown 8vo. 3J. 6d.
Lear.— Works by, and Edited by, H, L. Sidney Lear.
FOR DAYS AND YEARS. A book containing a Text, Short Reading,
and Hymn for Every Day in the Church's Year. i6mo. as. net. Also a
Cheap Edition, 22tno, is.; or cloth gilt, xs, 6d.\or with red borders,
2s. net.
FIVE MINUTES. Daily Readings of Poetry. i6mo. 3J, dd. Also a
Cheap Edition, 32;«o. is.; or cloth gilt, is. 6d.
WEARINESS. A Book for the Languid and Lonely. Large Type.
Small 8vo. gj,
DEVOTIONAL WORKS. Edited by H. L. Sidney Lear. New and
Uniform Editions. Nine Vols. i6mo. as. net each.
F^nelon's Spiritual Letters to
Men.
FiiNELON's Spiritual Letters to
Women.
A Selection from the Spiritual
Letters of St. Francis de
Sales. Also Cheap Edition, 32/wt>,
6d. cloth limp ; is. cloth boards.
The Spirit of St, Francis de
Sales.
The Hidden Life of the Soul.
The Light of the Conscience.
Also Cheap Edition, ■^•zmo, 6d.
cloth limp ; is. cloth boards.
Self-Renunciation. From the
French.
St. Francis de Sales' Of the
Love of God.
Selections from Pascal's
' Thoughts.'
CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHIES. Edited by H. L. Sidney Lear.
CroT.un 8vo. 31. 6d. each.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.
13
Lear. — Works by, and Edited by, H.
continued.
L. Sidney Lear.—
Madame Louise de France,
Daughter of Louis XV., known
also as the Mother T^rfese de St.
Augustin.
A Dominican Artist : a Sketch of
the Life of the Rev. P^re Besson,
of the Order of St. Dominic.
Henri Perreyve. By PfeRE
Gratry. With Portrait.
St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and
Prince of Geneva.
A Christian Painter of the
Nineteenth Century : being
the Life of Hippolyte Flandrin.
The Revival of Priestly Life
IN THE Seventeenth Century
IN France.
BOSSUET AND HIS CONTEMPORA-
RIES.
F^NELON, Archbishop of Cam-
BRAI.
Henri Dominique Lacordaire.
Lenten Collects (The). A Series of Sermons. By the Author
of * Praeparatio. ' Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. net.
Liddon.— LIFE AND LETTERS OF HENRY PARRY
LIDDON, D.D., Canon of St. Paul's. By John Octavius
Johnston, M.A. , Principal of Cuddesdon Theological College ; with
a Concluding Chapter by the LoRD Bishop of Oxford. With 5
Illustrations (4 Portraits). 8vo. i^s. net.
Liddon.— Works by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L.,LL.D.
SERMONS ON SOME WORDS OF ST. PAUL. Crown 8vo. 51.
SERMONS PREACHED ON SPECIAL OCCASIONS, 1860-1889.
Crown 8vo. 51.
CLERICAL LIFE AND WORK : Sermons. Crown 8vo. 51.
ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES : Lectures on Buddhism— Lectures on the
Life of St. Paul — Papers on Dante. Crown 8vo. 55.
EXPLANATORY ANALYSIS OF PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THK
ROMANS. 8vo. 14J.
EXPLANATORY ANALYSIS OF ST. PAUL'S FIRST EPISTLE
TO TIMOTHY. 8vo. ys. 6d.
SERMONS ON OLD TESTAMENT SUBJECTS. Crown8vu. 55.
SERMONS ON SOME WORDS OF CHRIST. Crown 8vo. 55.
THE DIVINITY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.
Being the Bampton Lectures for 1866. Crown 8vo. y.
ADVENT IN ST. PAUL'S. Crown 8vo. 5^.
CHRISTMASTIDE IN ST. PAUL'S. Cr<nun8vo. y-
PASSIONTIDE SERMONS. Crown 8vo. 5^.
[continued.
14 A SELECTION OF WORKS
Liddon.— Works by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D,, D.C.L.,
L L. D . — contin ued.
EASTER IN ST. PAUL'S. Sermons bearing chiefly on the Resurr«c-
tion of our Lord. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. 31. 6d. each. Cheap
Edition in one Volume. Crow7i Zvo. ^s,
SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF
OXFORD. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. each. Cheap Edition in
one Volume. Crown 8vo. c,s.
THE MAGNIFICAT. Sermons in St. Paul's. Crown 8vo. zs. net.
SOME ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. Lent Lectures. Small 8vo.
2S. net. [The Crown 8vo Edition (55.) may still be had.]
Popular Edition. Crown 8vo. Sewed. 6d. net.
Lowrie.— Works by the Rev. WALTER LowRiE, Emmanuel
Church, Boston, U.S.
THE CHURCH AND ITS ORGANIS.VriON IN PRIMITIVE AND
CATHOLIC TIMES : an Interpretation of Rudolph Sohm's ' Kir-
chenrecht ' — The Primitive Age. 8vo. \d,s. net.
GAUDIUM CRUCIS: a Meditation for Good Friday upon the Seven
Words from the Cross. Crown 8vo. 35. net.
Luckock.— Works by Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D.,
Dean of Lichfield.
THE SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.
Crown 8vo. (>s.
AFTER DEATH. An Examination of the Testimony of Primitive
Times respecting the State of the Faithful Dead, and their Relationship
to the Living. Crown 8vo. y. net.
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE BETWEEN DEATH AND
JUDGMENT. Being a Sequel to ^//t'r £)£a/A. Crown 8vo. z^. net.
FOOTPRINTS OF THE SON OF MAN, as traced by St. Mark. Being
Eighty Portions for Private Study, Family Reading, and Instruction
in Church. Crown 8vo. 3T. net.
FOOTPRINTS OF THE APOSTLES, as traced by St. Luke in the
Acts. Being Sixty Portions for Private Study, and Instruction in
Church. A Sequel to 'Footprints of the Son of Man, as traced by
St. Mark." Two Vols. Croivn 8vo. 12s.
THE DIVINE LITURGY. Being the Order for Holy Communion,
Historically, Doctrinally, and Devotionally set forth, in Fifty Portions.
Crown 8vo. ^s. net.
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON
PRAYER. The Anglican Reform — The Puritan Innovations— The
Elizabethan Reaction— The Caroline Settlement. With Appendices.
Crown 8vo. 3^. 7iet.
Lyra Germanica: Hymns for the Sundays and Chief Festivals
of the Christian Year. Complete Edition. Small 8vo. 5J.
First Series. i6mo, with red borders, 2s. net.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. iS
MacCoU.— Works by the Rev. MALCOLM MacColl, D.D., Canon
Residentiary of Ripon.
THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT : Examined in the Light of
History and Law. Tenth Edition, Revised, with a new Preface.
Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. net,
CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO SCIENCE AND MORALS.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
LIFE HERE AND HEREAFTER : Sermons. Crown 8m ys. 6d.
Marriage Addresses and Marriage Hymns. By the Bishop of
London, the Bishop of Rochester, the Bishop of Truro, the Dean
OF Rochester, the Dean of Norwich, Archdeacon Sinclair,
Canon Duckworth, Canon Newbolt, Canon Knox Little,
Canon Rawnsley, the Rev, J. Llewellyn Davies, D.D., the Rev,
W. Allen Whitworth, etc. Edited by the Rev. O. P. Wardell-
Yerburgh, M.A.,Vicarofthe Abbey Church of St. Mary, Tewkesbury.
Crown 8vo. 5^.
Mason.— Works by A. J. Mason, D.D., Master of Pembroke
College, Cambridge, and Canon of Canterbury.
THE MINISTRY OF CONVERSION. Croiun 8vo. as. 6d. net.
{Handbooks for the Clergy. )
PURGATORY ; THE STATE OF THE FAITHFUL DEAD ;
INVOCATION OF SAINTS. Three Lectures. Crown8vo. is.dd.net.
THE FAITH OF THE GOSPEL. A Manual of Christian Doctrine.
Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo. y. net,
THE RELATION OF CONFIRMATION TO BAPTISM. As taught
in Holy Scripture and the Fathers. Crown 8vo. js. 6d.
THE HISTORIC MARTYRS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.
8vo. 10s 6d. net.
Maturin.— Works by the Rev. B. W. Maturin.
SOME PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF THE SPIRITUAL
LIFE. Crown 8'jo. 4J. td.
PRACTICAL STUDIES ON THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD.
Crown 8vo. 51.
Medd.— THE PRIEST TO THE ALTAR ; or. Aids to the
Devout Celebration of Holy Communion, chiefly after the Ancient
English Use of Sarum. By Peter Goldsmith Medd, M.A., Canon
of St. Albans. Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged. Royal8vo. 15J.
Meyrick.— THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH OF
England on the Holy Communion Restated as a Guide at the Present
Time. By the Rev. F. MeyriCK, M.A. Crown 8vo. 45. 6rf.
Monro.— SACRED ALLEGORIES. By Rev. Edward Monro.
Complete Edition in one Volume, with Illitstralions. Crown 8vo.
y. 6d. net.
i6 A SELECTION OF WORKS
Mortimer.— Works by the Rev. A. G. Mortimer, D.D., Rector
of St. Mark's, Philadelphia.
THE CREEDS : An Historical and Doctrinal Exposition of the
Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. Crow7i Svo, 55. net
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE: An Historical and Theological
Investigation of the Sacrificial Conception of the Holy Eucharist in the
Christian Church. Crown Svo. los. 6d.
CATHOLIC FAITH AND PRACTICE : A Manual of Theology. Two
Parts. Crown Svo. Part i. js. 6d. Part 11. qs.
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION: Thirty Addresses for Good
Friday and Easter. Crown Svo. 55.
HELPS TO MEDITATION : Sketches for Every Day in the Year.
Vol. I. Advent to Trinity. Svo. js. 6d.
Vol. H. Trinity to Advent. Svo. js. 6d.
STORIES FROM GENESIS : Sermons for Children. CrownSvo. 4^.
THE LAWS OF HAPPINESS; or, The Beatitudes as teaching our
Duty to God, Self, and our Neighbour. \Smo. 25.
THE LAWS OF PENITENCE: Addresses on the Words of our Lord
from the Cross. i6mo. is. 6d.
SERMONS IN MINIATURE FOR EXTEMPORE PREACHERS:
Sketches for Every Sunday and Holy Day of the Christian Year.
Crown Svo. 6s.
NOTES ON THE SEVEN PENITENTIAL PSALMS, chiefly from
Patristic Sources. Small Svo. 2^- 6<:^-
MEDITATIONS ON THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY RE-
DEEMER. Part I. Crown Svo. 51.
THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF OUR MOST HOLY REDEEMER:
Being Meditations on some Scenes in His Passion (Meditations on
the Passion. Part 11.) Crown Svo. t,s.
LEARN OF JESUS CHRIST TO DIE : Addresses on the Words of our
Lord from the Cross, taken as teaching the way of Preparation for
Death. i6mo. 2s.
Mozley— RULING IDEAS IN EARLY AGES AND THEIR
RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT FAITH. By J. B. Mozley,
D.D., late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity
at Oxford. Svo. 6s.
My Communion : Twenty-six Short Addresses in Preparation for
Holy Communion. By the Author of ' Praeparatio. ' With Preface
by the Rev. G. Congreve, M. A. Crown Svo. 2S. 6d. net.
Newbolt. — Works by the Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt, M.A., Canon
and Chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral.
PRAYERS, PSALMS, AND LECTIONS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD.
Fcap. Svo. Q.S. 6d. 7iet.
APOSTLES OF THE LORD : being Six Lectures on Pastoral Theo-
logy. Crown %vo. 35. 6d. net.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. i?
Newbolt.— Works by the Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt, M.A., Canon
and Chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral. — continued.
THE CHURCH CATECHISM THE CHRISTIAN'S MANUAL.
Crown 8vo, ^s. {T/ie Oxford Library of Practical Theology.)
RELIGION. Crown Zvo. 55. {The Oxford Libraty of Practical
Theology. )
WORDS OF EXHORTATION. Sermons Preached at St. Paul's and
elsewhere. Crown %vo. 55. net,
PENITENCE AND PEACE: being Addresses ©n the sist and 23id
Psalms. Crown 8vo. zs. net.
PRIESTLY IDEALS ; being a Course of Practical Lectures delivered in
St. Paul's Cathedral. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d.
PRIESTLY BLEMISHES ; being a Second Course of Practical Lectures
delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
THE GOSPEL OF EXPERIENCE ; or, the Witness of Human Life
to the truth of Revelation. Crown 8vo. 55.
COUNSELS OF FAITH AND PRACTICE: being Sermons preached
on various occasions. Crown 8vo, $s.
SPECULUM SACERDOTUM ; or, the Divine Model of the Priestly
Life. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. Being Ten Addresses bearing on
the Spiritual Life, Crown 8vo. 2s. net.
THE PRAYER BOOK : Its Voice and Teaching. Crown 8vo. zs. net.
Newman.— Works by John Henry Newman, B.D., sometime
Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford.
LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN HENRY NEW-
MAN DURING HIS LIFE IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. With
a brief Autobiography. Edited, at Cardinal Newman's request, by
Anne Mozley. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. is.
PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN SERMONS. Eight Vols. Crown 8m
"xs. 6d. each.
SELECTION, ADAPTED TO THE SEASONS OF THE ECCLE-
SIASTICAL YEAR, from the ' Parochial and Plain Sermons.' Crown
8vo. y. €>d.
FIFTEEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY
OF OXFORD. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
SERMONS BEARING UPON SUBJECTS OF THE DAY, Crown
8vo, 2>s. 6d,
LECTURES ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. Crown
Zvo. 3s. 6d.
*,* A Complete List of Cardinal Newman's Works can be had on Application.
Old, Old Story, The, and other Verses, Being a complete
Collection of the Author's Poems, Square fcap. 8vo. 2S. 6d.
Old, Old Story, The, Large-type Edition. Fcap. 8vo. id.
Limp cloth, 6rf. Small-type Edition, i^d. Musical Edition, with
Author's Music for both Parts, 4/0. erf. Musical Leaflet. Part L
100 for IS. 6d. Broadside Sheet for Cottage Walls, zd.
i8 A SELECTION OF WORKS
Osborne. — Works by Edward Osborne, Mission Priest of the
Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford.
THE CHILDREN'S SAVIOUR. Instructions to Children on the Life
of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Illustrated. iSmo. zs. net.
THE SAVIOUR KING. Instructions to Children on Old Testament
Types and Illustrations of the Life of Christ. Illustrated. i6mo. as, net.
THE CHILDREN'S FAITH. Instructions to Children on the Apostles'
Creed. Illustrated. i6mo. zs. net.
Ottley— ASPECTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: being the
Bampton Lectures for 1897. By Robert Lawrence Ottley, M.A.,
Canon of Christ Church. %vo. 7s. 6d.
Oxford (The) Library of Practical Theology.— Edited by the
Rev. W, C. E. Newbolt, M.A., Canon and Chancellor of St. Paul's,
and the Rev. Darwell Stone, M.A., Librarian of the Pusey House,
Oxford. Crown 8vo. 51. eack.
RELIGION. By the Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt, M.A., Canon and
Chancellor of St, Paul's.
HOLY BAPTISM. By the Rev. DARWELL Stone, M.A., Librarian of
the Pusey House, Oxford.
CONFIRMATION. By the Right Rev, A. C. A. Hall, D.D., Bishop
of Vermont.
THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. By
the Rev. Leighton Pullan, M.A., Fellow of St. John Baptist's
College, Oxford.
PRAYER. By the Rev. Arthur John Worlledge, M.A., Canon and
Chancellor of Truro.
HOLY MATRIMONY. By the Rev. W. J. Knox Little. M.A.
Canon of Worcester.
THE INCARNATION. By the Rev. H. V. S. ECK, M.A., Rector of
St. Matthew's, Bethnal Green.
FOREIGN MISSIONS. By the Right Rev. E. T. Churton, D.D.,
formerly Bishop of Nassau.
SUNDAY. By the Rev. W. B. Trevelyan, M.A., Vicar of St.
Matthew's, Westminster,
THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION. By the Rev. Leighton Pullan,
M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford.
BOOKS OF DEVOTION. By the Rev, Charles Bodington, Canon
and Precentor of Lichfield.
CHURCH WORK. By the Rev. Bernard Reynolds, M.A.,
Prebendary of St. Paul's.
HOLY ORDERS. By the Rev. A. R. Whitham, M.A., Principal of
Culham College, Abingdon.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 19
Oxford (The) Library of Practical Theology.— conhfiu^d.
THE CHURCH CATECHISM THE CHRISTIAN'S MANUAL.
By the Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt, M.A., Joint Editor of the Series.
THE HOLY COMMUNION. By the Rev. Darwell Stone, M.A.,
Joint Editor of the Series.
CHURCH AND STATE IN ENGLAND. By the Rev. H. W.
Abraham, D.D., Vicar of St. Augustine's, Hull.
RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL. By the Rev, WALTER Howard
Frere, M.A., Superior of the Community of the Resurrection,
Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester. [In preparation .
VISITATION OF THE SICK. By the Rev. E. F. Russell, M.A.,
St. Alban's, Holborn. [In preparation.
OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. By the Very Rev. Henry Wace,
D. D. , Dean of Canterbury. [/« preparation.
NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM. By the Rev. R. J. Knowling,
D.D., Professor of New Testament Exegesis at King's College, London.
[/« preparation.
Paget.— Works by Francis Paget, D.D., Bishop of Oxford.
CHRIST THE WAY : Four Addresses given at a Meeting of School-
masters and others at Haileybury. Crown 8vo. xs. 6d. net.
STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Sermons. With an
Introductory Essay. Crown 8vo. 4s. net.
THE SPIRIT OF DISCIPLINE: Sermons. Crown 8w. 4J. net.
FACULTIES AND DIFFICULTIES FOR BELIEF AND DIS-
BELIEF. Crown Zvo. 45. net.
THE HALLOWING OF WORK. Addresses given at Eton, January
16-18, 1888. Small ivo. 2S.
Percival.— THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS. Treated Theo-
logically and Historically. By Henry R. Percival, M.A., D.D.
Crown 8vo. 5^.
Petre.— THE SOUL'S ORBIT; or, Man's Journey to God.
Compiled whh Additions, by M. D. Petre. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
Powell.— CHORALI A : a Handy-Book for Tarochial Precentors
and Choirmasters. By the Rev. James Baden Powkll, M.A.,
Precentor of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge. Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net.
Practical Reflections. By a Clergyman. With Preface by
H. P. LiDDON, D.D., D.C.L., and the Lord Bishop of Lincoln.
Crown 8vo.
The Book of Genesis. 4s. 6d. The Minor Prophets. 4s. bd.
The Psalms, sj. The Holy Gospels. 4^. 6d.
Isaiah. 41. 6rf. Acts to Revelation, bs.
20 A SELECTION OF WORKS
Praeparatio: or, Notes of Preparation for Holy Communion,
founded on the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel. With Preface by the
Rev. George Congreve, of the Society of St. John the Evangelist,
Cowley.
SlTNDAYS. Crown Svo. 6s. net.
Holy Days and Saints' Days. Crown Svtt. 6s, net.
Priest's Prayer Book (The). Containing Private Prayers and
Intercessions; Occasional, School, and Parochial Offices ; Offices for
the Visitation of the Sick, with Notes, Readings, Collects, Hymns,
Litanies, etc. With a brief Pontifical. By the late Rev. R. F.
LiTTLEDALE, LL.D., D.C.L., and Rev. J. Edward Vaux, M.A.,
F.S.A. PostSvo. 6s. 6d.
Pullan.— Works by the Rev. Leighton Pullan, M.A., Fellow
of St. John Baptist's College, Oxford.
THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
Crown 8vo. c^s. (TAe Oxford Library of Practical Theology.)
THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION. Crown 8vo. s*. (TAe Oxford
Library of Practical Theology.)
Pusey.— Works by the Rev. E. B. PusEY, D.D.
PRIVATE PRAYERS. With Preface by H. P. LiDDON, D.D.,
late Chancellor and Canon of St. Paul's. Royal 2,2mo. js,
SPIRITUAL LETTERS OF EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY,
D.D. Edited by the Rev. J. O. Johnston, M.A., Principal of the
Theological College, Cuddesdon ; and the Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt,
M. A., Canon and Chancellor of St. Paul's. Crown 8vo. y. net,
Pusey.— THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF DR. PUSEY.
By the Author of 'Charles Lowder.' With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo.
7s. 6d. net.
Randolph.— Works by B. W. Randolph, D.D., Principal of the
Theological College and Hon. Canon of Ely.
THE EXAMPLE OF THE PASSION: being Addresses given in St.
Paul's Cathedral. Small 8vo. zs. net.
THE LAW OF SINAI : Being Devotional Addresses on the Ten Com-
mandments delivered to Ordinands. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
MEDITATIONS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT for Every Day In
the Year. Crown 8vo. c^s. net.
MEDITATIONS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT for Every Day in
the Year. Crown 8vo. c^s. net.
THE THRESHOLD OF THE SANCTUARY : being Short Chapters
on the Inner Preparation for the Priesthood. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
THE VIRGIN BIRTH OFOUR LORD : a Paper read (in Substance) before
the Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity of Cambridge. CrownSvo. 2s,rut.
EMBER THOUGHTS: Addresses. Crown 8vo. 2s.net.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERA TURE.
21
RIVINGTON'S DEVOTIONAL SERIES.
\t>mo, Red Borders and gilt edges. Each zs. net.
Bickersteth's Yesterday, To-
day, AND For Ever. Gilt edges.
Chilcot's Treatise on Evil
Thoughts, Red edges.
The Christian Year. Gilt edges.
Herbert's Poems and Proverbs.
Gilt edges.
Thomas a Kempis' Of the Imita-
tion OF Christ. Gilt edges.
Lear's (H. L. Sidney) For Days
AND Years. Gilt edges.
Lyra Apostolica. Poems by
J. W. Bowden, R. II. Froude,
J. Keble, J. H. Newman,
R. I. Wilberforce, and I.
Williams ; and a Preface by
Cardinal Newman. Gilt edges.
Francis de Sales' (St.) The
Devout Life. Gilt edges.
Wilson's The Lord's Supper.
Ned edges.
♦Taylor's (Jeremy) Holy Living.
Red edges.
* Holy Dying.
Red edges.
Scudamore's Steps to the
Altar. Gilt edges.
Lyra Germanica : Hymns for
THE Sundays and Chief
Festivals of the Christian
Year. First Series. Gilt edges.
Law's Treatise on Christian
Perfection. Edited by L. H.
M. SouLSBY. Gilt edges.
Christ and His Cross: Selec-
tions FROM Samuel Ruther-
ford's Letters. Edited by
L. H. M. Soulsby. Gilt edges.
These two in one Volume, ^s.
i8mo, "without Red Borders. Each is. net.
Scudamore's Steps
Altar.
Bickersteth's Yesterday, To-
day, AND For Ever.
The Christian Year.
Thomas X Kempis' Of the Imita-
tion OF Christ.
Herbert's Poems and Proverbs.
TO the
Wilson's The Lord's Supper.
Francis de Sales' (St.) The
Devout Life.
♦Taylor's (Jeremy) Holy Living.
* Holy Dying.
* These two in one Volume, zs. 6d.
Robbing.— Works by Wilford L. Robbins, D.D., Dean of the
General Theological Seminary, New York.
AN ESSAY TOWARD FAITH. Small 8m 3^. net.
A CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC. C/oivnSvo. 2s.6d.net.
Robinson.— THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THE CLERGY.
By the Rev. A. W. RoBiNSON, D.D., Vicar of Allliallows Barking by
the Tower. Crown Qvo. 2S. 6d. net,
22 A SELECTION OF WORKS
Robinson. — Works by the Very Rev. J. Armitage Robinson,
D.D., Dean of Westminster.
SOME THOUGHTS ON INSPIRATION. Crown 8vo. Sewed, 6d.
net ; Cloth, is. net.
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED. Crown 8vo.
Sewed, 6d. net ; Cloth, is. net.
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE INCARNATION. Crown 8vo.
Sewed, 6d. net; Cloth, is. net.
THE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS. Crown 8vo. zs. 6d. net.
Robinson.— Works by the Rev. C. H. Robinson, M.A., Editorial
Secretary to the S.P.G. and Canon of Ripon.
STUDIES IN THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
HUMAN NATURE A REVELATION OF THE DIVINE:
A Sequel to ' Studies in the Character of Christ.' Crown 8vo, 6s. net.
Robinson.— COLLEGE AND ORDINATION ADDRESSES.
By the Rev. Forbes Robinson, M.A. Edited with an Intro-
duction by the Rev. C. H. ROBINSON, M.A. Cr. 8vo. y. 6d. net.
Romanes.— THOUGHTS ON THE COLLECTS FOR THE
TRINITY SEASON. By Ethel Romanes, Author of ' The Life
and Letters of George John Romanes.' With a Preface by the Right
Rev. the Lord Bishop of London. i8mo. as. 6d. ; gilt edges. 35. td.
Romanes.— THOUGHTS ON RELIGION By George J.
Romanes. Edited and with a Preface by the Right Rev. Charles
Gore, D.D. , Lord Bishop of Birmingham. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d.
Popular Edition. Crown 8vo, sewed, 6d. net,
Sanday.— Works by W. Sanday, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret
Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
THE ORACLES OF GOD : Nine Lectures on the Nature and Extent
of Biblical Inspiration and the Special Significance of the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures at the Present Time. Crown 8vo. 4J.
DIFFERENT CONCEPTIONS OF PRIESTHOOD AND SACRI-
FICE : a Report of a Conference held at Oxford, December 13 and
14, iSqg. Edited by W. Sanday, D.D. 8vo. 7s. 6d,
INSPIRATION : Eight Lectures on the Early History and Origin of
the Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration. Being the Bampton Lectmes
for 1893. 8vo. 7s. 6d.
Scudamore. —STEPS TO THE ALTAR: a Manual of Devotion
for the Blessed Eucharist. By the Rev, W. E. Scudamore, M.A.
Royal 22mo. is.
On toned paper, and rubricated, 2S.: The same, with Collects, Epistles, and
Gospels, 2S. 6d. ; iSmo, is. net; Demy i8mo, cloth, large type, is, 3(/. ; i6mo,
with red borders, 2s. net ; Imperial ^zmo, limp cloth, 6d.
Skrine.— PASTOR AGNORUM : a Schoolmaster's After-
thoughts. By John Huntley Skrine, sometime Warden of Glen-
almond. Crown 8vo, 5^. net.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERA TURE. 23
Simple Guides to Christian Knowledge.— Edited by Florence
Robinson, formerly of St. Hilda's Hall, Oxford.
THE STORY OF OUR LORD'S LIFE. By Mrs. H. H. Mont-
gomery. With 8 Coloured Illustrations, itmo. 2s. 6d. net.
THE EARLY STORY OF ISRAEL. By Mrs. J. S. Thomas. With
7 Full-page Plates, 13 Illustrations in the Text, and 4 Maps (2
Coloured). \6mo. 2S. 6d. net.
THE TEACHING OF THE CATECHISM. By Beatrice Ward.
With 8 Illustrations. r(>mo. 2S. 6d. net.
HOW TO USE THE PRAYER BOOK. By Mrs. G. J. Romanes.
\6mo. 2S. net.
THE WORK OF THE PROPHETS. By Rose E. Selfe. With 8
Illustrations and 2 Maps. i6mo. 2S. 6d. net,
Soulsby.— Works by L. H. M, Soulsby.
SUGGESTIONS ON PRAYER. \Mio, sewed, is. net. ; cloth, is. 6d. net.
SUGGESTIONS ON BIBLE READING, i^mo, sewed, is. net; cloth,
IS. 6d. net.
Stock.— A SHORT HANDBOOK OF MISSIONS. By
Eugene Stock, formerly one of the Secretaries of the Church Mission-
ary Society. Crown 8vo. Sewed, is. net; cloth, is. td. net.
Stone.— Works by the Rev. Darwell Stone, M.A., Librarian
of the Pusey House, Oxford.
THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS. 8w. 2s. 6d. net.
OUTLINES OF CHRISTIAN DOGMA. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
HOLY BAPTISM. Crown 8vo. ss.
THE HOLY COMMUNION. Crown 8vo. 55.
Strong.— Works by Thomas B. Strong, D.D., Dean of Christ
Church, Oxford.
CHRISTIAN ETHICS : being the Bampton Lectures for 1895. 8vo. ns. 6d.
GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. tiet.
AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH. Crown 8vo. 2S. 6d. net.
Stubbs.— Works by the Right Rev. W. Stubbs, D.D., late Lord
Bishop of Oxford.
ORDINATION ADDRESSES. Crown 8vo. y. bd. net.
VISITATION CHARGES. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
Swainson.— BIBLE WORK AND WARFARE: Being a
Practical Manual of Bible Class Work. By the Rev. Frank Swain-
son. Crown 8vo. 2S. net.
Taylor.— JEREMY TAYLOR : a Sketch of his Life and Times,
with a Popular Exposition of his works. By George Worley,
Dioces. Roft'en. Lector. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d, net.
Taylor.— MINISTERS OF THE WORD AND SACRA-
MENTS. Lectures on Pastoral Theology. By the Ven. S. M.
Taylor, M. A.. Archdeacon of Southwark. Crown 8vo. j^s. 6d. net.
24 A SELECT/ON OF THEOLOGICAL WORKS.
Waggett.— Works by the Rev. P. N. Waggett, M.A.
THE AGE OF DECISION. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
RELIGION AND SCIENCE: some Suggestions for the Study of the
Relations between them. Crown 8vo. zs. 6d. net
Wirgman.— Works by A. Theodore Wirgman, D.D., D.C.L.,
Canon of Grahamstown.
THE DOCTRINE OF CONFIRMATION. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d
THE CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY OF BISHOPS IN THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH. Illustrated by the History and Canon Law
of the Undivided Church from the Apostolic Age to the Council of
Chalcedon, A.D. 451. Crown 8vo. 6s.
Wordsworth.— Works by Christopher Wordsworth, D.D.,
sometime Bishop of Lincoln.
THE HOLY BIBLE (the Old Testament). With Notes. Introductions,
and Index. Imperial 8vo.
Vol. I. The Pentateuch. 25^. VoL II. Joshua to Samuel. 151.
Vol. III. Kings to Esther. 15J. Vol. IV. Job to Song of
Solomon. 25J. Vol. V. Isaiah to Ezekiel. 25^. Vol. VI.
Daniel, Minor Prophets, and Index. 15J.
Also supplied in 13 Parts. Sold separately.
THE NEW TESTAMENT, in the Original Greek. With Notes, Intro-
ductions, and Indices. Imperial 8vo.
Vol. I. Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. 235. Vol. II.
Epistles, Apocalypse, and Indices. 37.f.
Also supplied in 4 Parts. Sold separately,
CHURCH HISTORY TO A.D. 451. Four Vols. Crown 8vo.
Vol. I. To the Council of Nic^ea, a.d. 325. 8s. 6d. -Vol. II.
From the Council of Nic^a to that of Constantinople.
6/. Vol. III. Continuation. 6s, Vol. IV. Conclusion, To
the Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451. 6s.
THEOPHILUS ANGLICANUS: a Manual of Instruction on the
Church and the Anglican Branch of it. i2mo. 2s. 6d.
ELEMENTS OF INSTRUCTION ON THE CHURCH. i6mo.
IS. cloth. 6d. sewed.
THE HOLY YEAR : Original Hymns. \6mo. 2s. 6d. and is. Limp,6d.
,, ,, WithMusic. Edited by W. H. Monk. Square8vo. 4S.6d.
ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE OF THE SOUL. 32^0, is.
Wordsworth.— Works by John Wordsworth, D.D., Lord
Bishop of Salisbury.
THE MINISTRY OF GRACE : Studies in Early Church History, with
reference to Present Problems. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. iiet.
THE HOLY COMMUNION: Four Addresses. 1891. Cr. 8vo. 3^. 6d.
THE ONE RELIGION : Truth, Holiness, and Peace desired by the
Nations, and revealed by Jesus Christ, Eight Lectures delivered before
the University of Oxford in 1881. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d.
UNIVERSITY SERMONS ON GOSPEL SUBJECTS. Sm. Svo. 2S. 6d,
PRAYERS FOR USE IN COLLEGE. i6mo. is.
10,000/6/os
Edinburgh : T. and A. Constablb, Printers to His Majesty,