THE BATTLE OF BELIEF. m A Ex Lihris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE BATTLE OF BELIEF, " We heartily commend this able, judicious, and earnest work." — Church Quarterly Review. "An excellent compendium of argument in defence of the Christian faith. .... Mr. Loraine writes well .... has read widely and mastered what he has read. His volume is a hand-book." — The Spectator. " A valuable contribution to the proper uriderstanding of the difficulties which beset present day controversies regarding belief. . . . Most readable, thoughtful, and suggestive in all its pleasant pages." — The Literary World. " The author's position is sound in religion and in philosophy, and the spirit in which he writes that of charity and courage. The book shows on every page wide reading and hard work." — The Guardian. " We trust the book will be widely studied." — The Record. "Mr. Loraine is a master of some sides of the subject. . . . The book is so full of thoughtful matter that it is by no means easy to describe it. . . . The amount of evidence gathered from the most unexpected quarters will surprise almost everyone . . . still more astounding is the consensus of authority for the need of faith to guide the life." — The Tablet. " We know few authors so armoured as Mr. Loraine. . . . We cordially recommend to our readers his lucid pages for a masterly display of argument and a competent review of the whole field of this literature." — The Theological Monthly. "A perusal of the book . . . has impressed us with a sense of the learning, the mental power, and the strong sure grasp of Mr. Loraine." — The British Weekly. " Always fair and courteous to his opponents. . . . Differs entirely from the common order of Christian apologists." — The Scotsman. " A fresh proof of the author's versatility and virility. ... As full of matter as ' an egg is full of meat.' . . . Not easy for any one to condense so much valuable matter into so small a compass, and to do so without sacrifice of style. . . . Mr. Loraine is scrupulously fair to his opponents." — Liverpool Daily Post. " We cordially commend this book, the pages of which not only describe a conflict, but set forth a triumphant argumentative victory for the faith of Christ." — The Christian. " Mr. Loraine ... is discriminating in his thought, liberal and sympathising in his spirit, and demonstrative in his conclusions. We very heartily commend his wise book." — The Independent. " Containing great thoughts." — The Inquirer. "This is a singularly bright book . . . full of weighty arguments. We really know no book like it on the subject. . . . Young men ought to buy this book and study it. There are many heads of families who ought to get it that they may read it aloud in the home circle. Ministers ought to have it, because it will show them how to handle grave themes brightly." — Guild Life and Work. "A treasury of argument and suggestion." — Methodist Times. " Mr. Loraine has read quite largely in the library of advanced thinkers. . . . The argument is very strong and the style interesting; it is a very storehouse of material and references in the matter of evidence." — The Christian Union (New York). THE BATTLE OF BELIEF. " This much I may say, that, after a life, already not a short one, spent in the study of Science and Philosophical Divinity, and living in equal intimacy with men of science and with thoughtful divines, I have learned nothing which can reasonably disturb an impartial mind, either in its conviction of the truths of Christianity, as interpreted by the more moderate sections of the Christian Church, or in its acceptance of the divine inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, not indeed as literal or punctual, but as generic and substantial. ! am equally assured that the general development of human knowledge is friendly to these considerations." — Prof. Pritchard. THE BATTLE OF BELIEF A REVIEW OF THE PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE CONFLICT BY NEVISON LORAINE, VICAR OF GROVe PARK WEST, LONDON ; Author of " The Sceptic's Creed"; "The Church and Liberties of England"; " The Voice of the Prayer Book," &c. SECOND EDITION. LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., AND NEW YORK, 15. EAST i6th STREET. 1891. \All rights reserved.'] BELOVED AND HONOURED GQbmoi^y OF OUR SON PASSED FROM MORTALITY TO LIFE. 1 5)()7r>N5) N. L. " Religion claims as its own the new light which metaphysics and science are in our day throwing upon the truth of the immanence of God : it protests only against those imperfect, because premature, syntheses, which in the interests of abstract speculation, would destroy religion. It dares to maintain that 'the Foimtain of wisdom and religion is God : and if these two streams shall turn aside from Him, both must assuredly run dry.' For human nature craves to be both religious and rational. And the life which is not both is neither." — Aubrey Moore. " The best minds of the future are to be neither religious minds defying scientific advances, nor scientific minds denying religion, but minds in which religion interprets and is interpreted by science, in whicli faith and inquiry subsist together and reinforce one another." — Charles Gnre. PREFACE. This volume is intended as an examination in popular form of the Religious Question, and of the relations existing between Christian faith and " advanced thought." Very mistaken notions, it is contended, prevail in respect of the attitude of the most cultured modern opinion towards the fundamental principles of religion. It is true that religious convictions are widely disturbed. Doubt and unbelief trouble the air, often damping the ardour of religious service, where they fail to de- stroy the force of religious belief ; but the truth ad\ ances, the faith strikes far and wide its deepen- ing roots, and there are signs of happy augur)- in the skies. It would have been easy to extend the present volume, and some of the questions raised specially tempt more lengthened discussion, but I have pre- ferred to compress the book within the narrowest limits consistent with the scope of the argument. Every side of the attack is met b}' large and X PREFACE. learned defences. They are, however, for the few. My aim is to provide a work that may be suited in style, and in size also, to the many, who have neither leisure, nor possibly present inclination to study large and recondite treatises. A small volume, on Modern Doubt, that I pub- lished a few years ago, was received with much favour, and, as I have grateful reason to know, was of service to many who were harassed with sceptical questions and opinions. The present work travels on similar lines, reproducing in a few instances substantially some of the former material, but the argument is entirely recon- structed and greatly enlarged, the opinions ex- pressed are sustained by much more varied and extensive quotations ; notes are added to assist the inquirer who may wish to prosecute his studies in different branches of the subject, and the volume is so arranged as to facilitate reference to any branch of the subject under discussion. The work has been produced amid the various and anxious demands of pulpit and parish, which, I trust, offers some apology for man}^ imperfec- tions ; but I have been at much pains to state the case under discussion fairly and clearly, to sustain my contention with ample quotations from the writings of representative men of different schools PREFACE. XI of cultured and liberal thought, and by the sug- gestive concessions of distinguished scientists and others, who, though, for the present, unfriendly to the Christian religion, have yet made admissions which materially assist the Christian argument. My anxious desire is to aid the Sceptic and to reassure the Doubter ; for whatever place they may have reached in the Creed of Negation, they hold my fraternal sympathy. I have known, alas, too keenly, the sorrowful anxieties of religious questionings and doubt : " Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco." Honest thought and earnest words, along what- ever path they travel, command my respectful consideration. Similar results are obtained by various processes ; and many roads converge on the same place. It is our encouraging hope that all sincere and patient seekers after truth will ultimately find their rest and deep content, alike for the intellect and the heart, in — " That God which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves." I sincerely trust that nothing in this work, either Xll PREFACE. in phrase or spirit, is unbecoming a disciple of the Beloved Master, who has taught us the duty and delight of loving kindness and gracious courtesy. Amid all differences of opinion we must in this be agreed, that our common aim should be to promote kinship of hearts, and " peace on earth among men of good will." N. L. Grove Park Vicarage, Chiswick, Jamiary, 189 1. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In issuing a Second Edition of this work I desire to acknowledge its very favourable reception by the Press, and to that circumstance I am sensible that it greatly owes its encouraging circulation. Several of my critics have remarked upon the numerous and very varied quotations with which I have illustrated and sustained my argument ; and some of them — notably an able reviewer in the Spectator — have been good enough to express their regret that I had not abridged the quotations and extended my own observations. It is difficult to contend against such courteous and complimentary^ criticism. But as it was one aim of my book to show the attitude of Modern Thought towards the Religious Question, it appeared to me the most fair and convincing method to summon representa- tive men in different schools of cultured thought to speak for themselves. It would not have been difficult to summarise their views according XIV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. to my own judgment, and then to ofifer my reply ; but I felt it to be more equitable to base my comments on their own distinctly expressed opinions. I confess, too, that I had a further three- fold object in the use of such varied and exact quotation, i. To bring distinctly into notice how remarkable and suggestive are the concessions of even the most hostile opinion. 2. To exhibit in their own light the striking and monitory dissen- sions that exist among the different sects of un- belief. 3. To confront and repel a vague but widely diffused and mischievous opinion that the most cultured and masculine thought of the day has outgrown religious belief My conviction is, on the contrary, that in "the Battle of Belief," Christianity, in its essential prin- ciples, not only "holds the field," but actually advances " all along the line." I was anxious, there- fore, to place beyond dispute the fairness of my " review of the present aspects of the conflict," not only in the disposition of the forces engaged, the weapons used, and the modes of attack, but also in respect of the confusion and internal strife of the opposing forces, whose only alliance is their common hostility to the Christian faith. I venture to break a lance with my accomplished critic in the Spectator, who, in his lengthened article PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XV on this work, has raised a question involving im- portant issues in the Christian argument. He gives an "example" of what he considers to be " an over- statement of uiy case," and he recommends a correction in "the second edition" of my work, w^hich he is good enough to anticipate and encou- rage. It would be pleasant to comply with the suggestion of so courteous and capable a critic ; but as the question that he has raised is one that, inejtidice, affects the permanent validity of historic testimony, he w ill, I am persuaded, not only excuse my non-compliance with his recommendation, but allow me to defend my original statement of the case. In the earlier part of the chapter (xv.), from which his " example " is taken, I have analysed with some care a remarkable statement in respect of documentary evidence, contained in Tlic Creed of Christendom ; and I have endeavoured to show (i) that supernatural events may be incontestably authenticated by documentary evidence ; (2) that such satisfactorily authenticated documents, being duly protected and transmitted, are conclusive and permanent evidence of the events which they attest for those distant, whether in space or time, from the occurrences so verified. My reviewer intimates that, in his judgment, this second part of "the XVI PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. argument is pushed too far"; and he urges that " distance of space and distance of time are not equipollent in the case of documentary evidence." But surely this observation is scarcely ad 7'em. I do not contend for the necessary equipoUence of space and time in reference to documentary evi- dence. Accidents, indeed, may affect the balance in favour either of space or of time. With our present methods of easy and rapid communication, it might be easier undoubtedly, as my critic says, " to verify an event occurring at the antipodes to-day than an event which occurred in England ten centuries ago " ; but I can equally imagine that it might have been less easy a hundred years ago to have verified a reported occurrence in New Zealand or Nankin than an event that had transpired in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. My contention, how- ever, as stated in my work, is that documentary evidence is not necessaj'ily deteriorated by time : in other words, that documents may be so satis- factorily attested and so securely transmitted as to retain all their original force, irrespective of time or distance. If this were not so, as I have further urged (p. 55), we are driven into a reduciio ad absurdwn. " If the credibility of documentary evidence necessarily diminishes in the process of years, we are compelled to acknowledge that there PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XVll must be in respect of every event, however remark- able and historically attested, a vanishing point of distance from the date of the occurrence, at which it ceases to be possible to prove the event ; that is to say, there is a date in relation to historic events at which the most veracious and accredited historic occurrences descend from the region of accredited fact to flit and fade amid the shadowy ranks of fiction." This, I contend, is neither a reasonable nor credible opinion. I am persuaded that there are documents being framed to-day that will be held to be as good evidence of the events which they attest to the generations of ten centuries hence, as they are to the present-day residents in Jerusalem or Japan. My readers will find a fuller treatment of the question at issue in cap. xv., pp. 48 — 58 of this work. An opinion, expressed by a friendly reviewer in the Guardian, invites a reply, as he aims at a point to which I have given some prominence, when he says, " The author makes too much of the fact that the ' philosophers are at war ' ; " and adds, " they do not profess to be a Church, and in natural science consensus is not demanded as a test of truth." Unquestionably that is so " in natural science." But when philosophers and scientists, leaving the region of their proper inquiry and b xviii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. research, attack the Church, and, in a superior tone, tell us that they have exploded the Christian faith, and found out a more excellent way for the higher life of man, then I contend that I am more than warranted in giving some pains to the exami- nation of their theories, and some space to exhibit their contradictions, confusions, and concessions ; that I may thus show that, however much we may and do honour their laborious research, and defer to their opinions in those matters that come within the scope of their legitimate inquiry, yet, in things spiritual, they are blind guides ; and mani- festly in such matters have no authority to teach, derived either from philosophy or science, since they contradict each other as strenuously as they contradict our holy faith. And I am strongly of opinion that, eminently at the present time, it is a lesson of no small importance to convey to those who are apt to be carried away with what is called " advanced thought," or to be fascinated with the glamour of brilliant names, that the " philosophers are at war," and the scientists as vehemently in controversy with each other, in respect of the facts and principles of the spiritual life, as they are with the ancient faith of the Church of God. N. L. September, 1891. ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. I. The religious question — Indefinite unbelief — Credulity of un- belief — Doubting Castle. II. The shelter of " Advanced Thought" — Drifting — Substance for shadow — The uncertain to-morrow. III. On Probabilities : Aristotle, Butler, Locke, Newman, Jevons — Probability the guide of life — Gladstone on the religious question. IV., V. Christianity a fact — Cumulative probabilities — What evidences wanted ? — An unwarranted conclusion. VI., VII. Modern science : its fallibility — Realism and Idealism — Philo- sophic doubt — Embarrassments of philosophy — Physical science on its trial. VIII., IX. Apostles of natural order — Science ally of religion — Every department of inquiry its own methods — Oblique attacks — Huxley on " Justification." X., XI. The physicists' methods — A professor on evidence — Moral certainty — The scientist in danger — Science and something more — Beyond the outposts of science. XX ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. XII., XIII. Popular objections — ^The creed of doubt — The supernatural — A critic on miracles. XIV. No testimony reaches the supernatural — Miracles possible : proof impossible — The possibility of an impossible God — Docu- mentary proof. XV. " The Creed of Christendom " : an examination of its contention in respect of miracles and evidence. XVI., XVII. Wanted direct evidence of the supernatural — M. Renan on the Evangelists — The validity of the Christian documents — Unbelief on testimony — An inconceivable conclusion. XVIII. Vigour of Christian activity — The fascination of Christ — Him- self the greatest of the miracles, XIX., XX. The miraculous element in the Gospels — Bishop of London and Dean Mansel on — Convinced but not persuaded — Christ is risen, or faith is folly. XXI. A defective proposition — Can facts fade into fiction? — The supernatural to order — Moral suasion. XXII., XXIII. The demand for " Logical proof" — Logic at fault — Defects of logical method — Faulty psychology — The help of the emotions — Limitation of logic — Professor Tyndall complains. ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. XXI XXIV. The Positivist answers the Physicist— Prof. Tyndall answers himself— Religion older than science— Mr. Fred. Harrison on a complete education — Buckle on the emotions. XXV., XXVI. Physicists on the wing — Scientific use of the imagination — Scientists "crossing the boundary of experimental evidence" — Is science freer than faith ? — " The picturing power of the mind." XXVII., XXVIII. M. Comte and Mr. Fred. Harrison on religion a profound necessity of life — "Expresses an Eternal Fact," Mr. Herbert Spencer — Reason and Faith — The scientists at one with us. XXIX. Huxley, Clifford, Martineau on the inspiring power of religion. XXX. Inadequacy of Culture and Ethics : Spencer, Tyndall, Amiel, Sir James Stephen, and Carlyle — Mr. Fred. Harrison's " Bricks without straw." XXXI. A consensus of "Advanced" opinion — Jno. S. Mill on religion — A lost consolation. XXXII. Prof. Huxley on "The Theological Dogma" — The problem of moral disorder — Humanity at sea — Science helpless. XXXIII., XXXIV., XXXV. Christianity to the rescue — Coleridge on proof by experiment : Conditions of — " Feeding on the east wind" — Ruskin's " Try it" — Christian apologists. XXXVI., XXXVII. Mysteries — Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley, G. H. Lewes, Darwin, Drummond — Life a mystery : what is life? XXll ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. XXXVIII., XXXIX. Modern doubt, and the origin of nature and man — Spontaneous generation: an unsustained theory — Dallinger on Haeckel — Prof. Tait on origin of life — Virchow's rebuke — Biogenesis " victorious all along the line" — A terrible dilemma — Agassiz on design — A Supreme Intelligence — Teleology — " The cup of Neptune." XL. Further testimony — Prof. Flint on Creation — The " Vortex atom" theory — The atoms witnesses for God. XLI., XLII. The doctrine of Evolution — Prof. Huxley says " Not anti- theistic "—Darwin sees the evidence of " purpose and design " — Evolution a higher light on Creation — Tyndall, Jevons, Bishop of London, Momerie, Mansel. XLIII. Materialistic concessions — Hartmann's "blind intelligence and unconscious will " — Spencer admits " An Eternal Creative Energy " — An energy we call God — Presence and action of Eternal Mind. XLIV. Philosophers and Physicists agreed — Atheism recedes as science advances — Darwin and Tyndall in evidence — A modern " Son of Zippor." XLV., XLVI. The shrine of Agnosticism— The Unknowable, Spencer on — The Unknowable known — Agnosticism pure and simple — The Incomprehensible — " In a glass darkly" — Revelation not specula- tive but regulative. '& XLVIL, XLVIIL, XLIX. God made known — An Agnostic and something more — Ag- nosticism "an abhorrent worship" — A Positivist on Agnosticism — " Intellectually untenable " — A " retrogressive religion " — " To the unknown God" — Defective diagnosis — Dawn. ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. XXIU L., LI. The altar of Positivism — An Agnostic on Positivism — Prof. Huxley on M. Comte — Sir James Stephen on Positivism — Spencer on "The Great Being Humanity." — Catechisme Positiviste — A Positivist High Priest — What is humanity ? LII. Pessimism, a sterile philosophy — Husks of discontent — Hartmann — Leopardi — Schopenhauer — " Miserable Comforters." LIII., LIV. Where shall rest be found? — A French savant v. a Hebrew seer — Mr. Fred. Harrison — A supreme intelligent will — Belief in a personal God — Cardinal Newman — Prof. Flint. LV. Death, what is it? — Man dies, and where is he ? — Annihilation the answer of unbelief — Physical science repudiates annihilation — The dead poet, where is he ? — Swinburne's answer — " No death forever" — Kant, Goethe, Buckle, Sedgwick, Huxley, Momerie on Immortality — The house not made with hands. LVI., LVII. Life for God here and now— Religion and science " twin sisters " — Christianity and culture — Liberal thought on the Christian faith — Christianity, Progress and Liberty. LVIII., LIX., LX. The Bible, a book stii generis — Bibliotheca Divina — Our debt to the Bible — S. Ambrose, Gladstone, Huxley, Geo. Eliot, a publicist and a patriot on the Bible — The theory of inspiration — No theory formulated either in the Bible or by the Church — Beware of definitions — The joy of morning. xxiv ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. LXI. Conclusion : A brother's appeal — The doubter in earnest — Through night to morning — " Hearing as the heart hears " — " The Data of Ethics " — " The recession of the theologic tide " — The poet of the future — Mortality of the Immortals— Wrecks of the receding tide — " Crossing the bar " — A Positivist to the rescue — A hopeless deliverance — "To whom will ye go?" — A nobler citizenship — A cosmopolitan kingdom — A universal king. "Truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the entiuiry of truth, which is the love-makinfr, or wooing of it — the knowledfrc of truth, which is the presence of it — and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it — is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the work of the days was the light of the sense, the last was the li^ht of reason, and His Sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of His Spirit." — Bacon. " The candid incline to surmise of late, That the Christian faith proves false, I find. I still, to suppose it true, for my part Find reasons and reasons." — Broiviiing, " To fear argument is to doubt the conclusion To call names, to accuse of sophistry, to be impetuous and overbearing, is the part of men who are alarmed for their own position, and fear to have it approached too nearly." — Cardinal Neivman. " The facts of religious feeling are to me as certain as the facts of physics No atheistic reasoning can, I hold, dislodge religion from the heart of man. . . . As an experience of consciousness, it is perfectly beyond the assaults of logic." — Professor Tyndall. " It should not be forgotten that opinions have a moral side to them." — Sir James Stephen. " Le Christianisme n'est que la rectitude de toutes les croyances univer- selle, I'axe central qui fixe le sens de toutes les deviations." — Sainte Beuiie. " No supernatural halo can heighten its spiritual beauty, and no mysticism deepen its holiness. In its perfect simplicity it is sublime, and in its profound wisdom it is eternal." — Author of Supernatural Religion. " If liberty is to be saved it will not be by the Doubters, the men of science, or the materialists ; it will be by religious conviction .... by the enfranchised children of the ancient faith of the human race." — Amiel. " Besides the particular calling for the support of this life, every one has a concern for a future life, which he is bound to look after." — Bacon. " Whether Christianity be true or false, is the most practical of all questions." —Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. " Let us put the question with all the rever- ence due to a faith and culture in which we all were cradled — a faith and culture moreover which are the undeniable historic antecedents of our present enlightenment.'' — Professor Tyndall. I. Till: religious question has man}- titles to con- sideration. The relations existini^ between the ancient faith and current opinion arc of deep prac- tical interest at all times, but at the present day they are of immediate and commanding urgency. " The religious question, whatever may be said or done, is the reigning question of the epoch." * In the present volume it is proposed to pass under review the modern aspects of religious doubt, * " Paganism in Paris." Pere Hyacinthe. Nineteenth Century, Feb., 1880. B NEBULOUS UNBELIEF to examine the current questions of sceptical inquiry; and to consider the attitude of "advanced thought," as represented by its most distinguished exponents, towards the foundational principles of revealed religion. In all grades of society religious opinions are deeply unsettled, old convictions are disturbed, new aspects of belief are advocated, many-sided doubt troubles the air, and alas, the cold shadow of a hopeless unbelief has fallen upon many hearts. Sometimes modern doubt Is sharply defined and defiantly asserted, but more commonly it exists without distinctness of apprehension or exactness of definition ; it prevails rather as a nebulous con- ception, and an indefinite quantity- — a haze in the atmosphere, but a haze that chills the fervour of devotion and slackens the hand of duty. For various reasons men shrink from giving defined shape and distinct expression to their opinions in respect of religion. But it is well for the religious doubter, whatever phase of unbelief he has reached, to give objective form and propor- tion to his confession of faith and canon of con- duct, and to look fairly in the face with calm and earnest eyes the belief or unbelief by which he determines to live and die. .\x \lti;r.\ati\1': for doubters. 3 Every thoughtful man, disturbed by the reh'gious question, should set distinctly before himself the alternative — have I a religious belief in which my convictions rest, which inspires my sense of duty, exalts my conceptions of life, and kindles the hope of immortality ? or, am I living, in every true and proper sense, without religion, without the primary convictions, the regulative principles, the imm.ortal hopes that are of the essence of religion ? If he has accepted the alternative of unbelief, he should endeavour to make clear and explicit to himself the causes that have alienated him from the ancient strongholds of the Christian faith. In making that endeavour he may possibly find that he has simply drifted into unbelief or doubt, as idle flotsam on an ebbing tide ; den)-ing or doubting, he does not know exactly wh\-, and accepting he does not know precisely what. Such an attitude of mind, in respect of a question of confessedly grave, practical importance, stands self-condemned. The unbeliever may say that " he has chosen to release himself from the difficulties and thraldom of religious belief b}' a deliberate renunciation of the Christian creed." Ikit if so, he misunder- stands his position, and misstates his case. He is still in the bonds of belief. He has onlv 4 THE CREDULITY OF UNBELIEF. changed hi.s creed. " To disbelieve is to believe."* Unbelief, so called, is only another form of belief. The unbeliever may be more credulous than the believer. The new disbelief may involve more difficulties than the old belief, and impose, on thought at least, inferior conditions of life. It is then a practical duty that the Unbeliever should state his "I^elief" in definite terms; and then ask himself, " Why has the old T'aith been supplanted by this new Creed .'' " Does he find that the new belief is founded in better reason, supported by more cogent evidence, accepted by wiser and more cultured men than the ancient religion .'* Has he assured himself that a Creed of Unbelief can solace the sorest needs or satisfy the highest aspirations of human life — in short, that it can give either a path of open progress to the intellect, or a home of quiet content to the heart ? The Sceptic's position may not be, however, that * " Bacon seized the just view respecting credulity, seeing plainly that ' to disheVieve is to believe.' If one man believes that there is a God, and another that there is no God, whichever holds the less reasonable of these two opinions is chargeable with credulity. For the only way to avoid credulity and in- credulity — the two necessarily going together — is to listen to, and yield to, the best evidence, and to believe and disbelieve on good grounds." — Essay xvi., " Whately's Annotations." DOUBTIN(; CASTLE. 5 of positive unbelief or defined denial. He may designate himself simpK' a Religious Doubter. The sunniest regions are sometimes swept with clouds. Strong faith may have its hours of enerva- tion. Doubts may occasionally come and go as the shadow of a cloud, troubling the stoutest hearts for a season, leaving them, however, with a clearer assurance. But the doubt that becomes a settled unsettled- ness of the heart, paralyses conviction, bereaves life of the highest motives of action and the purest .sources of happiness. Doubt is a condition of mental dissatisfaction and of moral hazard. Earnest life cannot sit down in it. " Douhting Castle" is no place to dwell in. It should be, it must be, for better or worse, only a temporary occupation. From its dank and dreary chambers we would fain, and with fraternal sympathy, help the Doubter to make his permanent escape. An impression finds place, and widely prevails, mainly it may be among the younger men, but the evil infection spreads, that the evidences which authenticate Christianity have been somehow ex- ploded ; that modern science has pronounced 6 THE SHELTER OF "ADVANCED THOUGHT." against the primar}- facts of the 'Christian Faith, and that the .Doubter, if not indeed the actual Unbehever, holds his position under the general shelter and encouragement of the most advanced and enlightened thought. As a consequence of this mistaken opinion, men in various ranks of society are found speaking with an easy assurance and a "light heart" of " having given up their Christian belief as part of an old world story that has passed awa}' before the progress of cultured inquir}-." In the place of the ancient faith there obtains vcr}' extensively a rule of life, sometimes openly stated, but more generally only tacitly implied, to the following effect : "The present life I know and enjoy ; of the future life I know nothing. The things seen are patent to the senses ; the invisible is the unknown, and the future is the uncertain. I live therefore for the seen, and the known present, and let the unseen and the unknown future look after themselves." Now we challenge and controvert that entire posi- tion. We deny as a matter of fact: i. The proven inadequacy of Christian evidence. 2. The destruc- tive results of scientific research. 3. The hostility of the most cultured thought. 4. Wc aver that this DKIFTIXC AWAV. Unbelieving Belief, this Creed of Doubt," " I live for the seen and tlie present, ami let the un.secn and the future look after thcnisehes," is intellectually untenable, and morally a morass. It would be an interesting investigation, yielding man\' suggestive considerations, but carrying us away from the direct line of our present purpose, to endeavour to trace the mental and moral mood, and, as far as might be practicable, the motives that sway those who reject the Christian faith for the Creed of unbelief It must be acknowledged, indeed, with tender s\-mpathy, that occasionally the melanchol)- descent is made with serious consideration, sad reluctance, and even with " Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." l^ut how often it is the mere careless drifting awa)' of life from ancient and familiar moorings into the ebbing currents of a hazardous unrestraint ; and sometimes, alas ! it is a wild impulse, " a leap in the dark," made with a frivolous egotism, or a mere sensual passion. Christianit}' has its sublime declarations, its noble ethical principles, its historical and internal corroborations ; it is a creed confessedly loftiest in thought, purest in principle, illumined with 8 SU1]STA^XE FOR SHADOW. unique splendour of immortal hope, and around it murmur yEolian airs of memory ; yet how often is it bartered, an ancient birthright for a mess of pottage ; dropped, indeed — substance for shadow — to snatch at a creed that shuts out God and immortality, and shuts up life within the precarious precincts of the present — a creed of frigid negations, alike without dignity, delight or expectation ? Such a rule of conduct as is contained in the formula, " I live alone for the present, and leave the future to take heed for itself," lies below the level of enlightened and thoughtful acceptance. It is absurd in theory ; it is impossible in practice. " We look before and after, And pine for what is not." Memory and hope, recollection and anticipation, are dominant forces in the formation of character and the guidance of conduct. No man does live, or can live, for the present alone ; he quickens the present with expectations of a future, more or less remote, in which lie stored those results and rewards of effort and joys of hope that invigorate and ennoble life. But every future is an itncertainty. No man can lay his hand upon to-morrow and say, " Thi.s, at least, is mine." That future of a few years, a few THE UN'CERTAIN TO-MORKOW. months, a few weeks hence, towards which anticipa- tions may be looking with such industrious eager- ness, or joyful hope, is not an assured possession, but only a more or less remote contingency. '■ I was notified," says Stanley, " at 2 p.m. by the Karl of Iddesleigh, that he would see me at 6 p.m., but at 3.13 p.m. the Earl died suddenly from heart disease."* The call from within the v'eil cancelled all earthly engagements. The statesman found that the future life was nearer than the setting of that day's sun. Yet the Doubter or Unbeliever talks, and acts on the supposition, of the remote uncertainty of the future life, and the assured possession of the life present. But even in respect of this life present we have no actual possession of an hour hence. Not a moment is certain to us beyond the imme- diate now. All our efforts, plans, hopes, as the\- spread themselves into the future, are justified onh- on a " balance of probabilities." Such a balance of probability, however, may be found as to warrant and encourage the most vigorous and self-denying efforts in assured expectations of future good. In cases of daily and hourly occurrence men of the most matter of fact character and practical habit give up immediate profit or present enjoyment in * Darkest Africa, i vol., p. 46. 10 "THE JJALANCK OF PROBABILITIES. assured anticipation of some future advantage ; assured, however, simply by a " balance of pro- babilities." III. It is not onl\- in matters of religion then, but in the highest, as well as in the humbler concerns of every-day life, that we permit ourselves to be governed, not merely by what Aristotle terms the T€Kfjii]pia, " proofs positive," but also b}' a reasonable estimate of probabilities; for the eiKora — the "like- lihoods," are a commanding force in determining the course and conduct of life. "It is not necessary that a judge should decide from positive proofs, but he must also (sometimes) do so from probabilities, for this is in effect ' to decide according to the best of his judgment,' and so it is not sufficient for one to prove that there is no positive proof, but one must also prove the fact that there are not an\- probabilities.'"* Possibly the religious doubter shrinks from the acceptance of the doctrines of religion, or sub- mission to its ethical control, on a " balance of pro- babilities.'' * "01/ '^b.p eV TMv a.va-yKa.i(a3V Sei auTou 'i.P., the jiidgej Kp'wen' aWa Koi 4k ruiv (lkotwW tovto -ydfi eVri rh ' •yvwfxr) ttj apiarrf icpiviLV.' ovKovv iKavhu, a.v Kvarj, on oba avayKuiov' aWa Sel Xveif, i'lTi oxjK iiKos." — Aristotle's Rhetoric, Bk. ii., Cap. xx\-. BUTLER AND LOCKE. II But this objection can only be taken, we appre- hend, by those who have not carefully considered this aspect of the question, nor realised the weight which may attach to probable evidence, and the decisive conclusions to which it may surely lead. " Probability is the very guide of life," as Bishop Butler justly observes. And in his Analogy he shows that "from the natural constitution and course of things, we must, in our temporal concerns, almost continually, and in matters of great con- sequence, act upon evidence of a like kind and degree to the evidence of religion."- " Our knowledge," says Locke, " being very narrow, and we not happy enough to find certain truth in everything which we have occasion to con- sider, most of the propositions we think, reason, dis- course, nay, act upon, are such as we cannot have undoubted knowledge of their truth. Yet some of them border so near upon certainty that we make no doubt at all about them, but assent to them as firmly, and act, according to that assent, as reso- lutely as if they were infallibly demonstrated, and that our knowledge of them was perfect and cer- tain." t * Analogy of Religion. Part ii., cap. viii. ■j- Philos. Works. Conduct of the Understanding. " Of Pro- babilities." Bk. iv., cap. XV. 12 NEWMAN AND JEVONS. In his Grai/iumr of Assent, Cardinal Newman has shown that it is not by fixed logical methods and the process of formal reasoning that we attain to certitude, but " from the constitution of the human mind, certitude is the result of arguments, which, taken in the letter, and not in their full implicit sense, are but probabilities." And, further, he contends that it is not b\- " formal logical sequence " that we become certain, but by " the cumulation of probabilities independent of each other, arising out of the nature and circumstances of the particular case which is under review ; pro- babilities too fine to avail separately, too subtle and circuitous to be convertible into syllogisms, too numerous and various for such conversions were they convertible."* In his "Treatise on Logic and the Scientific Method," Professor W. Stanley Jevons says, " No inductive conclusions are more than probable, and I adopt the opinion that the theory of probability is an essential part of logical method, so that the logical value of every inductive result must be determined consciously or unconsciously according to the principles of the inverse method of proba- bility."t * Cap. viii., Inference, § 2 " Informal Inference." t The Principles of Science, Pref. vii. '• rKOBAUiLiTV Tin; (iLini: of lim:. 13 Aijain, he says, that the theory of probabihty is " tlie necessary basis of nearlj^ all the judt^mcnts aiul decisions we make in the prosecution of science or the conduct of ordinary affairs. . . . All our inferences concerning the future are merely probable, and a due appreciation of the degree of probability depends entirely upon a due compre- hension of the principles of the subject. I con- ceive that it is impossible even to expound the principles and methods of induction as applied to natural phenomena without resting them upon the theory of probability."* Further, the Professor contends, " In spite of its immense difficulty of application, and the asper- sions which have been mistakenly cast upon it, the theory of probabilities, 1 repeat, is the noblest, as it will in course of time prove perhaps the most fruitful branch of mathematical science. It is the vcr\' guide of life, antl hardly can we take a step or make a decision of an\- kind without correctK- or incorrectly making an estimation of probabilitie?. . . . The whole cogency of inductive reasoning, as applied to science, rests upon probability.+ * The Principles nf Sciejjce, Preff. vii., p. 225. + Ibid., p. 248. The scientific doubter would do well to examine carefully Prof. Jevons' able treatise, in which his purpose is to show "that Atheism and Materialism are no necessary result of scientific method." — Vol. ii., 465. 14 "Tin-: RELIGIOUS (QUESTION'." Seeing, then, that it is by "the cumulation of in- dependent probabiHties " that wc become assured and act decisively in common affairs, that " the force of inductive reasoning in scientific inquiries depends upon probability," and that " the theory of probability is an essential principle of logical method," the honest Sceptic is bound to give due place and consideration to the cumulative argument of probability in the concerns of re- ligion. An eminent statesman, regarding the subject not only with the eye of a scholar, but as one deeply versed in practical affairs, contends that the religious question " is of all other questions the one upon which those who have not a conclusion available for use arc most inexorably bound to seek for one. And, by further consequence, it is also the question to which the duty of following affirmative evidence, even although it should present to the mind no more than a probable character, and should not, ab iiiilio, or even thereafter extinguish doubt, has the closest and most stringent application."* In the following pages we hope to show not only some of the direct evidences upon which the claims of religion arc founded, and the hollowness of many * " Probability as the Guide of Conduct." Nineteenth Century, May, 1879. cnRisriAMiv A I- ACT. 15 of the objections with which it is assailed, but also to indicate the strength of the cumulative arfjument from probability in sustaining the essential claims of religion. " Let it suffice to bear in mind," says the statesman already quoted, " that there is no limit to the strength of working, as distinguished from abstract certainty, to which probable evidence mav not lead along its gently ascending paths."* IV. Christianity is indisputably a most potent fact and actuality, amid the dominant intellectual and moral forces of this age ; and eighteen centuries ago we know that it " turned the world upside down." It provoked and surmounted the embittered hostility of the early centuries. It conquered C?esar and con\-crtcd the Roman empire. It has commanded the devout homage and defensive skill, in various ages, of men of the most acute, compre- hensive, and cultured thought. It has evoked in every rank and condition of society a fire of devo- tion that many waters could not quench, and a * " Probability as the Guide of Conduct." Nineteenth Century, May, 1879. 1 6 CUMULATIVE PROBABILITIES. firmness of fidelity that many tempests could not shake. Amid the advancing movements of present-day activity it betrays no sign of abated energy or inadequate leadership. With its lofty aims and benevolent enterprises it raises the whole tone and temper of civilisation. Its disciples are among the foremost in liberal learning, and chief among those who arc ready to every good word and work. From age to age, and amid all the chances and changes of time, it preserves the grand secret of satisfying some of the profoundest yearnings of human life. It distils solace in dreariest sorrow, affords succour in gravest crises ; gives " oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness"; brightens joyful hours with a sunnier glow, and inspires with the exultant assurance of eternal life the last moments of mortality. What do these and kindred facts imply ? Are they not cumulative and commanding /)ro/mdi/i^ies that should give the Doubter pause, who boasts that he lives for " the present " — meaning by that term t/ic present lifi\ with its but momentary present and only probable future — and who, whilst labouring, storing, hoping for the probable future of the life present, \-et i I logically sets aside or WHAT EVIDENCES ARE WANTED? 17 refuses to consider the vast and \ariccl probabilities that sustain the Christian argument, and nourish the vigour of that hope whose fruition is life eternal. V. It 2s !//Xi'J, however, in language more or less explicit, that " the evidences of Christianity areinade- qnate to sustain its claims to a Divine origin and authority'' \ that "it lacks satisfactor)' and con- \incing proofs." l^ut li'Iiat does the Doubter really icant i>i the zuay of proof ^ Is he quite sure tliat he has made clear ex'cn to himself what evidence would satisfy him ? Has he a distinct conception of the proofs that he wants in order to convince his judgment and incline his will ? If he has, he ought surel}- to make known his demand in specific terms. This is due first, to himself ; second, to those whose assistance he rnay justly claim in prosecuting his reasonable and really momentous inquir}-. Further, since the Doubter may be indefinitely desiring somewhat that it is, in the \er\' nature of things, unreasonable to expect, and that on tliis C iS AX UN\VA1^:RA^'T1■:D CONCLUSION. high region of inquin' it is impossible to suppl\', it is of the first importance that he should form- ulate his demands, and thus possibly discover for liimself, or enable others to show him their inherent unreasonableness. May it not be that the J3oubter has been content to be discontent, because an indefinite and uncer- tain something has not been forthcoming? If, however, he has not determined in his own mind exactly what it is he is seeking, he cannot reason- ably be surprised if he has failed to find the object of such v'ague research. Much less can he be justified in affirming that this undefined something does not exist — a conclusion manifestly devoid of evidential confirmation ; and yet because he thinks that this uncertain somewhat is not forthcoming — though he has not asked for it in terms — he has forsaken the creed of his childhood and the faith of his fathers, and lapsed into the cheerless negations of unbelief. In adopting such a position the Sceptic con\-icts himself of the most serious inconsistenc}- ; for whilst in the act of renouncing the central principles of the Christian faith on the alleged ground of inadequate proof, he gravely adopts a destructive and hopeless speculation that is itself entirely unprovcn and even undefined. .MODERN SCIENCK. 1 9 VI. Let us take a farther step. The temper and tone of sceptical thongJit in rcdnt years have doubtless been affected to a considerable degree by the utcthods and results of uuJcrn scientific i)iquiry. There is a widely dififused but clearly inaccurate opinion, that scientific discovery is the brilliant monopoly oi modern times ; yet assuredly to earlier ages belongs the honour of ha\'ing laid broad and deep the foundations on which rises the noble superstructure of modern science ; and if those earlier ages were less fertile in results, they were even more remarkable for Inventi\e ingenuity and inquisitive observation. 1)-, t ihc quickened acti- vities of intellectual enterprise;, enjoying the freer opportunities and improved apparatus of modern times, have made more numerous excursion.^ into the regions of scientific research, and thence Iiave brought their spolia opima. The morestrikingachievementsof recent scientific adventure are popularly stated and rapid 1\- made known, by the facilities now possessed for reachino- the public ear. These achievements have been c 2 20 WHAT ARE THE FACTS ? sometimes much magnified and hastil}' miscon- strued ; consequently a feverish and unwholesome condition of popular opinion has obtained. It is by no means uncommon to find it assumed that modern discovery has undermined the ancient faith, and that religious doubt, if not indeed actual un- belief, is the settled attitude of "advanced thought." In short that with religion are old-world notions and " blind faith," whilst the allies of doubt and unbelief are science, culture, and modern enlightenment. We shall be at some pains to show, in the following pages, that this is a mischievous and misleading travest}- of actual facts. In every department of inquiry, physical, meta- physical and philosophical, masculine intelligence, mellowed thought and matured learning, are found asserting and defending the foundational verities of the Christian faith, and affirming that religion is essential to the full satisfaction and development of man. The remarkable concessions of c\-en unfriendly Scientists are also among the noteworthy and encouraging signs of the times ; whilst their mutual hostilities, exhibited sometimes in rather amusing form, illustrate the conflicting uncertainties of "advanced thought," the contradictions of philoso- THK lALLILll.nV OF PliVSICAL SCIENCK. 2 1 phic doubt, and t^^encrally the dogmatic sectarian- ism of modern unbelief. VII. It may be well, however, at this stage of our argument, at least to remind those who encourage their doubts or uphold their unbelief, under the impression that they are on the side of " irrefutable facts "and the "demonstrable conclusions of natural inquii}'," that physical science occupies no infallible chair. Its primary postulates are questioned, and its entire system is shot through and through with dispute and uncertainty. " Nor am I acquainted," says an eminent writer, "with any kind of defect to which systems of belief arc liable, under which the scientific system of belief may not properly be said to suffer."* Professor Stanley Jevons states "that serious misconceptions arc entertained by some scientific men as to the logical value of our knowledge of nature," and he expresses his conviction that " the certainty of our scientific inferences is to a great extent a delusion." f * A Defence of Philosophic Doubt. Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, M. P , P- 293- t The Principles (f Science. Pref. 22 REALISM AND IDEALISM. The whole superstructure of physical science is based on the foundation of rcalisDi ; but realism and ideaHsm are in active controversy and direct antagonism ; and Mr. Herbert Spencer admits that "should the idealist be right, the doctrine of evolu- tion is a dream." The consideration of the questions involved in the discussion between realism and idealism is quite beyond the purpose of this work ; but Doubters who, in the innocence of an undisturbed impres- sion, believe that they have a sure foundation in Nature, and that its " material facts " at any rate are indisputable ; who are, in short, dominated by scientific realism, and carried away with the bold assertion that the facts of physics alone are capable of certain verification, and that any hyper-physical beliefs may be rejected, which are not apparently in accord with the conclusions of what is courage- ously called " positive science," may be profitably awakened from their imaginary security to learn that " doubt " is as busy in the region of the " facts of nature " as in the facts of religion. In a philosophical work of firm grasp and keen insight,* the late Professor J. M. Herbert examines * The Realistic Assumptions of Modern Science Examined. London: Macmillan, 1886. A very able treatment of the whole question, and worthy of tlie careful consideration of the scientific doubter. I'lIILOSOrHIC DOUliT. the realistic assumptions of modern science, and shows that these pressed to their logical result land the physicist in preposterous conclusions, that are destructive of his own position. The distinguished author of . / Ih-feitcc of riiilo- sophical Doubt has challenged the claim of science to erect a determinate standard of belief; and with consummate abilit\- he vindicates his contention "that conformit)- with scientific teaching is not an essential condition of truth, and nonconformity with it an unanswerable proof of error." that " no such claim can be drawn from the nature of the scientific system itself," and that " a close examination of the philosophical structure of science reveals the exist- ence of almost every possible defect." He further states that " whether science be regarded from the point of view of its promises, its inferences, or the general relation of its parts, it is found defective ; and "that the ordinary proofs which philosophers and men of science have thought fit to give of its doctrines, are not only and mutually inconsistent, but are such as would convince nobody, who did not start (as, however we all do start) with an im- plicit and indestructible confidence in the truth of that which has to be proved." It is a matter of "great surprise" to which the 24 EMBARRASSMENTS OF PIIILOSOrilV. author of PhilosopJiic Doubt gives very decided ex- pression, that men of the philosophical acumen of Mr. Leslie Stephen and Professor Huxle}', should not have detected such causes of doubt respecting "the rational character of their dogmatic system," as would prevent them erecting it as a standard by which to gauge other forms of belief."* The Sceptical idealist, Hume, "that priiice of Agnostics," as Professor Huxley styles him, ad- mits the extreme embarrassments of philosophy when brought face to face with those " infallible and irresistible instincts of nature, which }-et lead to fallible and erroneous opinion " ; and he adds that "to justify this pretended philosophical s}\stcni by a chain of clear and convincing argument, or even any appearance of argument, exceeds the power of all human capacity."t We must conclude then with the author of Philosophical Doubt that the believer is at no disadvantage in respect of argument, and that "religion is at any rate no worse off than science in the matter of proof."J * Vide Def. of Philo. Doubt, " Practical Results," pp. 302, 3, 9. •(• Vide Treatise on Human Nature, iv., p. 250, ^ I. \ "Whether Realism or Idealism be true, whether either of them is consistent with science, this broad fact remains, that the world, as represented to us by science, can no more be perceived rmsicAi. sciiiNci; on its tkiai.. 25 The Sceptic thus awakened from his reverie, must cease to dream that " uncertainty dwells alone with faith," that " doubt " inhabits exclus- ively the region of religious opinion, haunting only the sphere of hyper-physical belief, or that the domain of natural science is the hapi)y home of unquestioned realities and indubitable demon- strations. Physical science, itself upon its trial, can establish no claim to adjudicate on religion and determine its authority If that were hereafter found, there- fore, which has not yet been discovered, viz., that the conclusions of natural science are averse to the fundamental teachings of religion, the spirit of re- ligious doubt might be stimulated, and new instru- ments of attack devised, with which to harass the outposts of religion ; but, as it has been proven in the works already quoted,* no weapons from the armoury of physical nature can reach, much less destroy, the citadel of our divine faith. Hume even acknowledges the existence of facts that "he or imagined than the Deity as represented to us by Theology, and that in the first case, as in the second, we must content our- selves with symbolical images, of which the thing we can most certainly say is that they are not only iriadequate but incorrect."' — Philos. Doubt, cap. \\., " Science as a Logical System." * Vide suprc^ Sec. vii. APOSTLES OK NATURAL ORDKR. cannot pretend by an\- argument of philosophy to maintain," that there arc postulates which " we must take for granted in all our reasonings," and con- ceptions which "it is impossible for mere ideas and reflections to destroy.'' MIL Slitl\(; aside, however, the subtle and long- sustained controvers}- between Realism and Idealism, and ha\ing said so much by wa\' of caution, let us accept generally the assumptions on which physical science establishes her vast empire. To those v/ho believe that the universe exhibits the handiwork, and declares the glory of a Personal Intelligence and Beneficient Will, dis- coveries in the region of natural science cannot fail to be of deep and sacred interest. The scientist is the apostle of natural order, and, b}' that Christian confederation pre-eminently which recognises the universe as a creation b)' Intelligent Fatherhcjod, the scientist should be hailed as an all\^ and succoured as a colleague — for he too is doing the wcjrk of an evangelist. Sometimes, indeed, being a man of like passions with others, he is narrow, bigoted, and intolerant ; then he must be " withstood to the face, because he SCIENCE THE ALLV OF KKI.ICION. 2/ is to be blamed " ; but, sent forth on a noble mission, to lift the veil antl penetrate to the inmost shrine of nature, to learn her divine secrets and to inter- pret them, 'his feet are beautiful upon the moun- tains, as he bringeth good tidings' of the wisdom, power, and beneficence that underlie matter, force and law. There is no disposition on the part of enlightened religious thought to regard with fear or suspicion the advances of scientific research, or to minimise their results. The patient assiduity, acute obser- vation and manifold labours of eminent physicists arc worthy of respectful acknowledgment and sin- cere gratitude. And the most eminent Christian apologists recognise and welcome the important services that are being rendered to the cause of truth by the advancement of scientific knowledge. " It is intended," says the present Bishop of London, " that religion should use the aid of .science in clearing her own conceptions. It is intended that as men ad\ance in the knowledge of God's works, and in power of handling that knowledge, thev should find themselves better able to inter- l^ret the message which they have received from the P'ather in heaven. Our knowledge of the Bible has gained, and it was intended that it should gain, 25 OWN rKUi'ER MLTliuDS. 29 natural science L^cneralh', many lhiny,s bcinL( granted, ma}- be so demonstrated as necessarily to produce intellectual conviction. Denial, at this point, would be naturally impossible. But many of the facts belonging to the sphere of religious thought and inquiry are confessedly not capable of the same kind of treatment. The evidences, liowever, that sustain human trust in the Divine existence, faith in the Christ of history, and the hope of the future life, though different from those that are granted to the natural inquirer, are yet not inferior in degree, and }-ield to their possessor enlightened contentment and impregnable moral conviction. Professor Huxle\-, in a passage pertinent to this part of our incpiirx-, says, with his accustomed boldness, that for the student of natural knowledge " Scepticism is the highest of duties ; blind faith the one unpardonable sin . . . Ever)- great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith .... The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not b\- faith, but by verifi- cation."* Let us examine these sentences. They imply * Lee, The Desirableness of Improving Natttral Knowledge. 30 OBLIQUE ATIACKS. J more than t1iey express. Their plausibiHty is apt to pervert the judgment. It is scarcely possible to read the notable paragraph without feeling that the eminent Professor, apparently propounding the methods proper to the pursuit of natural knowledge, is striking a back-handed blow at religion. Such phrases as "justification b\- faith," and " unpardonable sin," do not belong to the terminology of natuial science; and by their in- opportune introduction the scientist himself " dis- turbs the pure reason," agitates the atmosphere of inquiry with controversial emotions, and overlooks the fact to which G. H. Lewes bears witness in his History of PJiilosophy^ that "the provinces of re- ligion and knowledge are se])arate." Obliquf^ attacks upon an ancient and honoured faith b\- the use c^f supercilious innuendo, and phrases having a double aitcudrc, are unworthy of those masters in natural science to whom lovers of God and truth wish to ofier the homage of grateful respect for their zealous labours and splendid achievements in the domain of their own proper research. "I'he too exclusive study of particular branches of physical science seems in some cases to generate an over confident and dogmatic spirit."* If by " scepticism " — " keenest scepticism," Pro- * Principles of Science, vol. ii., 429. Prof. Jevons. "JUSTIFICATION liV \ KRIKICATION." 3 I fessor Huxley means the spirit of earnest and even eager inquiry, there is, at this point, neither disagree- ment nor difference between religion and science ; for the spirit of frank and fearless inquir\- is as proper to the one as to the other. The cultivation of the spiritual life in liberal knowledge is an obligation of sacred imposition. The Christian knows nothing of " blind faith." 1^'aith is the far- seeing faculty ; a lens of liighcr power which brings within mortal ken " things unseen." It is the intellect without faith that is purblind ; but the spirit illuminated by this higher faculty attests " whereas I was blind, now I see." "The man of science," says J'rofessor llu.xicy, " has learned to believe in justification not by faith, but by verification," Admittedly' so ; in the in- vestigations of physical science the methods arc in- tellectual and demonstrative. This is clear and indisputable; but in the region of religious inquiry p.nd experience additional methods of verification fmd place. I'aitli is one of the active faculties in ascertaining and certifying the truth and reality of spiritual things, a\-c and of natural things too sometimes. The man of religion as well as the man of science — and the}^ are often the same man — finds justification in verified facts ; but the methods of verification in the one department of 32 THE i'HVSIClST'S METHODS. inquiry differs from those empIo\'ed in the other. The " Science of thin^i^s Divnne," and the science of things natural, have each their proper method and process of inquirx-. X. With instruments of great in\cnti\'eand construc- tive ingenuity, and by calculations of mathematical exactness, the physicist discovers and demonstrates the truth of some of the articles of his belief ; yet many of the conclusions of natural science involve h\-pothesis, the exercise of faith, and a free " use of the imagination."* The undulatory theory of light and its radiant energy, are accepted facts in the creed of science ; yet the ether itself is only a hypothesis, and the undulations are an inference. It is quite true, however, that the questions which lie properly within the region of religious inquiry must be treated by other, though not therefore necessarily less satisfactory, methods than those of ordinary physical research. The Divine existence cannot be demonstrated like the Copcrnican system or the correlation of forces. The Christian apologist, confessedly, has not at * Vide pp. 93—95. A SCIENTIST ON CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE. 33 his command such methods of proof as are at the disposal of the scientist ; yet we aver, and the testimony " of a multitude that no man can number" supports our contention, that the doc- trines of Creative Intelligence, a future life, and the central verities of the Christian faith are sus- tained by evidences quite as powerful to command the confident acceptance of enlightened trust and the loving homage of moral conviction. The Savilian Professor in the University of Oxford, in a striking and suggestive paper,* says in respect of Christian evidences, " These evidences, from the very nature of the case, cannot be mathe- matical or demonstrative or scientific ; they belong rather to that class of evidence which we call probable ; and to that class, be it observed, upon which alone we determine the conduct of our lives, for ' to us probability is the guide of life.' And though these probable evidences range greatly in degree, and although not any of them taken alone and by itself may be sufficient to command entire consent, and enforce an absolute conviction, never- theless, when taken altogether, they may — they often do — b)- their consilience from many different and independent sources, furnish the mind with the highest moral certaint}- of which it is capable." * Modn. Science and Nat. Religion. London, S.P.C.K. D 34 MORAL CERTAINTY. And as an example of " moral certainty," a dis- tinguished logician says, "the belief that there is a future life, which though not absolutely demon- strable, rests upon such grounds that it ought to influence the conduct {mores) of every man."* To demand that the profound inquiries pertain- ing to religious thought and conviction shall be conducted only according to the methods proper to the researches of natural science, is on the face of it both unphilosophical and unreasonable. Such conditions of religious research would imprison belief within the narrow confines of the material and the present ; and would exclude or put in bondage some of the most helpful faculties of the human mind at the very time that it is engaged on an investigation that should arouse and enlist every energy alike of the intellect and of the heart. Moreover, it must be remembered that the con- clusions of natural science, whilst largely founded on intellectual demonstration, are allied and sustained by other forms of evidence ; as, on the other hand, the moral convictions that mainly sustain Christian faith are liberally augmented with various kinds of intellectual corroboration and logical proof. But, indeed, this very effort to cast discredit * Outlines of the Necessary Laws of Thought. Archbishop Thomson. ^•'I-' TFIK SCIENTISTS DANGER. 35 on Other than purely scientific methods of inquiry indicates one of the dangers that beset the scientist, and that would attend a purely scientific education. " An exclusive study of science," says an eminent scientist, " tends greatly to narrow the mind, and to develop dogmatism, and a spirit most hostile to freedom. It also tends to encourage materialism to the exclusion of all hopes, beliefs, fears, and feelings which form part of our nature."* liie author oi Natural Religion also gives his testimony to the same noteworthy fact. " I find," he sa)-s, " the modern scientific 7xal sometimes narrow and fanatical. ''t The sceptic, therefore, who wishes sincerely to pursue his inquiries in the spirit of liberal, en- lightened and unprejudiced thought, must be on his guard against sectarian narrowness and dog- matic bigotry in, it may be, unexpected quarters ; for evidently they haunt the schools of science as certainly as the temples of religion. XI. In the foregoing observations there is nothing .unfriendly in spirit, nor, it is hoped, discourteous * Address. Liverpool College, by Professor Stuart, t Cap. I, " God in Nature." D 2 36 A WORD IN SEASON. in phrase, to the scientific inquirer ; but onl)- an earnest endeavour to safeguard the honest sceptic or perplexed doubter against the bias of precon- ception, or the use of unsuitable apparatus in religious inquiry — against " taking an aim at Di\'ine matters b\' luiman, which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations." Let the scientist within his own proper sphere, and by appropriate methods, pursue his investiga- tions, and continually add his valuable acquisitions to the treasures of knowledge ; the religious inquirer, however, will find his highest satisfaction not in the proven facts of demonstration, but in the indubi- table possessions of moral conviction. " There is no distrust of science. , . . Its method and its results are worthy of all praise and of all gratitude, if only we recognise their due limits. A calm consideration of them must lead to the con- clusion that there are problems set to us by our own knowledge and experience which are utterly insoluble b}^ the methods of science, as these are expounded and applied. . . . Our contention is shortly this, that the method which is sufficient when dealing with the phenomena of inorganic nature is insufficient when we enter on the sphere of organic life ; that the method which is adequate for organic life is insufficient to deal with the SCIENCE AND SOMETHING MORE. ly phenomena of conscious life ; and even the method whicli deals with conscious Hfe has to be extended and modified when it deals with the complex phenomena of personal and social life. In every higher sphere to which science comes, it must recognise the existence of new principles and new forces, added differences which cannot be merged in a lower identit\'. ... In the Materialistic ck- planations of the universe, we find that the formula of Materialism works very well until the phe- nomena of consciousness emerge, and then it breaks down."* We are further sustained in these observations by the high authorit}' of the Bishop of London. " Science," says Dr. Temple, " rests on phenomena observed by the senses. Religion is the voice that speaks directly from the other world. Science postulates uniformity, and is excluded whenever uniformity can be denied, but compels conviction within the range of its own postulate. Religion demands the submission of a free conscience, and uses no compulsion but that imposed by its own inherent dignity. Science gives warnings, and if you are capable of understanding scientific argu- * Is God Knovsable ? Iverach, cap. 5. Vide also cap. iii. " Anthropomorphism " ; and cap. v. " The Agnosticism of Science." 3S BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS OF SCIENCE. merit you will be incapable of disbelieving the warnings. Religion also gives warnings ; it assures you that the eternal moral law is supreme ; that sooner or later those who disobey will find their disobedience is exactly and justly punished ; that no experience to the contrary can be trusted. But religion will not compel you to believe, any more than science will compel you to obey."* The position maintained in the immediately preceding pages is also admirably illustrated and confirmed by an eminent investigator, who is him- self at once a " man of science " and a man of religion, and who finds no incongruity between the highest exercises of faith and the most penetrating researches into physical phenomena. " The loftiest object of human thought," says Dr. Dallinger, " is to discover how far the material universe is an expression of supreme unity, of rhythmic activity, and of rational order. But for this the mind must take a range that transcends without limit all physical sequences, laws, phenomena. Taking the broad basis of our consciousness and reasoning faculties, we must relate sequences, interpret pheno- mena, and, however remotely and imperfectly, endeavour to account for laws. But in doing this we must remember that we have<»pushed our way * The Relations bct'ween Religion and Science. Lee ii., 63, 64. SECURITY AND CONTEXT. 39 beyond the last outpost of physical research. We have passed beyond the region where ' quod erat devwnst7'andum ' is used. We have threaded our mental path into solitudes where no electrometer will be responsive, no spectroscope analytical, no lens revealing. We have come to the edge of all that we know and can demonstrate ; and then impelled by the moral and rational light within us we judge and balance all that we know, and all that we are, and we reach not a demonstration, for that cannot be, but a conviction, a moral and intel- lectual certainty, of the being of a primordial cause, which is second in its firmness and securit\- to nothing within the area of mind.'"* XII. We propose now to consider some popular objectio7is urged by current doubt against those evidences that bear their emphatic witness to the truth of Christian religion. These cumulative and " consilient evidences " have been lucidly stated and amply defended in treatises of great skill and learning ; our humbler * The Creator, and what we may know of Him. London, 1887, pp. 7, 8. 40 THE BELIEF OF UNBELIEF. aim is to bring within easy review the most famihar forms of current objection, to examine their value in words that those who run may read ; to exhibit the want of cogency and cohesion in the contra- dictory plausibiHties of different schools of modern doubt and unbelief; to bring forth some of the very suggestive concessions made by representative doubters. Further, we trust that it may be possible to show, ■even within the confines of this argument, that the Belief of Modern Unbelief — a creed without God, Christ, or the hope of immortality — life for the present without diligent thought or honest care for the future, is totally inadequate to the measure of human need, intellectually unreasonable and morally degrading ; and that it is a creed con- fronted by the most advanced science and the most cultured thought. XIII. It has been laid down in various ages and by different classes of men that "c? siipcrnatm-al revela- tion must be siippoi'ted and can only be supported by snpern a tu ral ei ndences. ' ' " Whatever meaning different theologians may TH1-: SUPERNATURAL. 4 I attach to siipernatural religion, history teaches us," says Professor Max Miillcr, " that nothinj^ is so natural as the supernatural."* The believer in the Christian religion, however, whilst recognising other than supernatural signs as confirmative of his faith, affirms that supernatural evidences have been amply supplied and satisfactoriK- attested, f We shall see for ourselves presently on what grounds this opinion rests ; but meanwhile let us appeal to the testimony of an impartial and competent witness, a distinguished scholar and liberal critic. The author of Eccc Homo says, " The fact that Christ appeared as a worker of miracles is the best attested fact in Mis whole biography, both by the * Natural Religion. "Sac. Bks.," Lee. xx. t For an exhaustive examination of the question of the super- natural, the inquirer is commended to Prebendary Reynolds' learned work, The Subernatural in Nature, " A Verification by a free use of Science." London, 1888. The volume, admirably arranged and indexed for reference, is a treasury of information and of scientific illustration. Essays on the Book entitled Supernatural Keligion, by the late Bishop of Durham (1889), is a notable volume, characterised by Dr. Lightfoot's exact scholarship and ample learning. It is a •trenchant and conclusive reply to the hostile work with which it so effectively deals. See also Nature and the Supernatural. Dr. Horace Bushnell {1877). Specially cap. ii., " Definition," &c. ; cap. ix., "The Supernatural compatible with Nature, and Subject -to Fixed Laws"; cap. xi., "Christ Performed Miracles," and <:;\p. xiii., " The world is governed supernaturally," &c. 42 A CRITIC ON MIRACLES. absolute unanimity of all the witnesses, by the confirmatorx' circumstances just mentioned, and by countless other confirmations of circumstances not likely to be invented, striking sayings insepar- abl\- C(3nnccted with them, &c., in particular cases."* And again, " Miracles are, in themselves, extremely improbable things, and cannot be admitted unless supported b}' a great concurrence of evidence. For some of the evangelical miracles there is a con- currence of evidence which, when fairly considered,, is very great indeed ; for example, for the Resur- rection, for the appearance of Christ to St. Paul, for the general fact that Christ was a miraculous healer of disease. The evidence by which these facts are supported cannot be tolerably accounted for by any hypothesis except that of their being true. And if they are once admitted, the antece- dent improbability of many miracles less strongly attested is much diminished." t Here, then, is the opinion of an acute and im- partial critic, who, standing himself outside the pale of orthodox opinion and having weighed with dispassionate care the evidences in favour of the supernatural acts in the life and work of Christ, is constrained to confess that "they cannot be toler- * Ecce Homo. Pref. to fifth edition. t Cap. II. "The Temptation." TESTIMONY AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 43 ably accounted for by an}- hypothesis except that of their being true." This noteworth}- testimony we shall sustain by ample corroboration in subsequent pages as our argument proceeds.* XIV. We now confront an opposite objection. A curious and instructive chapter might be written on the " Contradictories of Unbelief." It is stated, with some variations of phrase, that "7/^ testimony readies to the supernatural, but only to apparent sensible facts : testimony can only prove an extraordinary, and perhaps inexplicable occurrence or phenomenon, but not that it is due to supernatural causes." Again, that ^' an event may be so incredible intrinsically as to set aside any degree of testimony, the probability of mistake someivJiere being greater than the probability of the actuality of the events The contention involved in these statements is twofold. I. That even supposing supernatual interference with the operation of natural laws actually occurred, * Vide infra, pp. 69 — 79. 44 THE SUPERNATURAL NOT IN DISPUTE. man is in possession of no faculties by which he can detect and verify to himself the supernatural- ness of such intervention. 2. That if man possessed powers which qualified him for the detection and verification of the super- natural, there are no means by which he could credibh' attest the supernatural occurrence to others. The possibility of the supernatural is not then at this point in dispute : it is conceded as, at least, possible. But if the sceptic admits that " the super- natural is possible." then he admits that " God is possible," and the most advanced scientist concedes this much. Professor Huxley speaks of the " un- surpassed absurdity of the philosopher who tries to prove that there is no God." But granted the possibility of God, it must also be granted, as at least possible, that He may interrupt the usual order of antecedent and consequent in natural phenomena, and produce an event supernatural; in other \\ords, ' God may be, He may make a re- velation of His will. He may accompany that re- velation by supernatural intervention. So much is conceded ; but, according to the limitations of the theory before us, though " miracles are c separate powers and faculties having a common substratum in something which is called 'the mind ' ; nor is it possible to assert w ith respect to anv of these concrete manifestations of man's spiritual nature that it is confined to any one form of activity to the exclusion of other and cognate forms."* • Introd. to The Philosophy of Religion, pp. i6i — 2. (i 2 84 THE EMOTIONS AID THE INTEELECT. The use of the emotions as aids to tlie intellect in guiding inquiry and determining opinion is not only acknowledged but urged by most accom- plished and capable thinkers ; and indeed that it is impossible to attain by purely intellectual endeavour to some of our most cherished con- victions, or to certify them by the strict methods of scientific logic. " Feeling and conscience are more than helps to logic in finding truth. They are themselves organs for the discovery of truth. . . . We are all agreed that the understanding must not be left at the mercy of the feelings, or even of the moral impulses, which, if allowed to walk unchecked, become a higher kind of sensuality. There ought to be harmony and union between conviction and emotion. . . . But this does not impose on us in the affairs of life a fixed sequence by which logical conviction must be first acquired, and the feelings duly admitted when their time comes, moderated in their behaviour by the strict demands of logical demonstration."* "There is a sense," says Principal Caird, "in which all intense feeling transcends the limits of logic, and is capable of a richness and fulness of * Man's Knowledge of Man and God. Introd. and Cap. vi., where the relations between intellect and feeling are ably discussed. See also " the Agnosticihm of Science," Cap. v. in Iverach's Is God Krio-Kuble ? LIMITATIONS OF LOGIC. 85 content, which baffle definition, and outstrip the comprehension of the hard and fast categories of the understanding. Our most exalted spiritual experiences are those which arc least capable of being expressed by precise scientific formula;."* " There are subjects of grave moment and ques- tions of primary importance," Joubert contends, " in which the governing ideas ought to spring from the sentiments : all is imperilled if they arise from other sources. To think that which wc do not feel, is to lie to oneself. Whatsoever \\e think should be thought with the whole being, body, and soul."t Yet in respect of those questions that deal with God, the historic Christ, and the future life, modern doubt asks for " logical proof," and for such evi- dences as shall command the recognition of the " pure reason," as though logic were our only "guide, philosopher, and friend," and the conclu- sions of the pure reason our onh' satisfying por- tion. Nevertheless, whilst resisting a demand so * Introd. to The Philosophy of Religion. Cap. i. t " II est de tres grkves matieres et de questions fort import- antes oil les ideas decisives doivent venir des sentiments: si elles viennent d'aiileurs tout se perdra. Penser ce que Ton ne sent pas, c'est mentir a soi-meme. Tout ce que Ton pense il faut Ic penser avec son 6tre tout entier, ame et corps.'' Pensees, vol. i., pp. 123, 124. 2d. in Man's Knowledge, &c. 86 PROFESSOR TVNDALI. COMPLAINS. manifestly unreasonable, it needs to be stated yet again and again, that such proofs, intellectual and experimental, are available as should carry con- viction to the candid and pains-taking inquirer and to the willing heart. Professor Tyndail complains that "the action of the pure reason is disturbed by the emotions." Yes ; and why not .'' Man cannot live on bread and logic. He cannot satisfy the activities and aspirations of his many-sided life with the cold and partial exercises of " the pure reason." Shall we give no heed to the hunger of the heart, or the filial cries of the life within ? Do the hopes "that wander through eternity " bring back no message to the soul ? Is there no argument in the deep and joyous content of the life of faith ? We contend that human life cannot grow into true and symmetrical proportions in the continuous cold of " the pure reason " ; but that in the genial atmosphere and balanced exercises of reason and faith,* the intellectual and moral capacities, man attains to the highest and the best, alike in know- ledge and experience. The moral and emotional faculties play of inborn necessity their mighty part in the formation of opinion, the moulding of cha- * See an able e.ssay, Reason and Faith: their claims and Conflicts. By the late Professor Rogers. TlIK POSITIVIST ANS\yERS THK PIIVSICIST. 87 racter, and in givinc^ force and aim, grace and colour to life — ..." Nur can it suit us to forget The mighty hopes tiiat make us men.'' XXIV. At this point as \vc find so often in this contro- versy, tJie professors of discrepant unbelief anszver eae/i other, and sometimes indeed conceding in brighter hours what under other conditions they have doubted or denied, they neutrahse the force of their own negations and half answer themselves. The theologian is not left alone to defend the moral sentiments as aids in the pursuit of truth, or religious emotion as an important factor in pro- moting the breadth, culture, and refinement of the personal life. The positivist replies to the ph\'- sicist. Mr. Frederic Piarrison demands to know, " why arc we to discard the irrepressible a])peal to emotion? If human life is to be warmed and guided by a high purpose and a noble affection, we must cultivate that affection, consciously appeal to it, stimulate it, give it fair play, frankly and heartil}' show our sense of the beauty of it, without shame or stint."* * " Creed of a Layman." Nineteenth Century. March, 1887. 8S PROFESSOR TVNDALT. ANSWERS HIMSIXF. Indeed, the physicists themselves, in moments of happy oblivion, forget consistency. Driven by the necessities of actuality, they concede at one tmie what they controvert at another. We overtake Professor Tyndall himself eloquently arguing that "the circle of human nature is not com- plete without the arc of feeling and emotion. The lilies of the field have a value bej^ond their botanical ones — a certain lightening of the heart accompanies the declaration that ' Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' The sound of the village bell, which comes mellowed from the valley to the traveller upon the hill, has a value beyond its acoustical one. The setting sun, when it mantles with the bloom of roses the Alpine snows, has a value beyond its optical one. The starry heavens . . . had for Immanuel Kant a value beyond their astronomical ones. Round about the intellect sweeps the horizon of emotions from which all our noblest impulses are derived."* Further, he has acknowledged that " religious feeling is as much a verity as any part of human conscious- ness, and against it, on its subjective side, the waves of science beat in vain."'!- And again, in even more suggestive terms, he says, " Feeling * Fragments of Science, v. "Address to Students." f ■' Virchow on Evolution."' Nineteenth Century, Nov., 1878. KLLKJIUN HKl-OKE SCIKNCK. ^'9 appeared in tlie world before knowledge; and thoughts, conceptions, and creeds, founded on emotion, had, before tlie dawn of science, taken root in ni.m. Such thoughts, conceptions, and creeds must liave met a deep and general want, otherwise their growth could not have been so luxuriant, nor their abiding force so strong."* Precisely so ; the moral nature was quicker in its movement than the intellectual, the emotions acted in advance of the "pure reason," instinct and intui- tion were before logic ; " before the dawn of science," a hunger of the heart impelled human life to seek after God. It is the modern scientist, then, rather than the theologian, who teaches that "a deep and general want" impelled the first prompt movements of human life towards "conceptions and creeds" founded on the emotions. And the Professor argues further, that since man is " not all intellect, but thinks and feels," science cannot be his " proper nutriment"; and he urges that even "the intel- lectual action of a complete man " is " sustained by an under-current of the emotions," that " moral motives push the intellect into action " ; whilst he acknowledges the " aid that comes from a universe * " V'irchow on Evolution.' Xineteetith Century, Nov. 187S. 90 MR. FRED. HARRISON ON KDUCATION. whicli, though it baffles the intellect, can elevate the heart."* The right use of the emotions, then, even accord- ing to the showing of the scientists, is a proper exercise of the well-developed life ; and the heart niust take its proper place in the great inquiry. " Thou criedst to me from far,"' says S. Augustine. " and I heard even so as the heart hears, a hearing which leaves no place for doubt ; and I could doubt more easily my own being than the existence of the truth."t Mr. F. Harrison tells us that "the first of all our duties is to obtain for ourselves, and procure for others, a sound, complete, real education, an educa- tion not merely scientific, but moral and emo- tional "+ With what consistency, then, can it be urged that the emotional energies which were alert "before the dawn of science," and that "religious feeling which appeared before knowledge," and that " expresses some eternal fact," be " cabin'd. cribb'd, confined," as "disturbers," whilst "the pure reason," in cold and crippled solitude, pursues * Fragments of Science, v. t " Et clamasti de longinquo : Imo vero, Ego sum qui sum. Et audivi sicut auditur in corde, et non erat prorsus unde dubitarem ; faciliusque dubitarem vivere me, quam non esse veritatem." — Confessiones, Lib. vii., Cap. x., p. i6. + "Creed of a Layman." Nineteenth Century, March, 1881. BUCKLE ON THE EMOTIONS. 9I those momentous inquiries that concern the verj' core of h'fe and mould of character? It is not thus that men act in the best and most important movements of life ; nor exercise themselves in other pursuits intimately allied with their happiness and destiny; our "advanced" adversaries them- selves being witnesses. The Scientist does not select and cement his friendships by efforts of " the pure reason " ; nor make his closest and dearest alliances in life by logical process. The affections clear their way and reach some of their noblest conclusions with- out the aid of scientific methods, or the succour of logical formulae. Buckle even, who endeavoured with so much learning to prove that iute/lectual growth is the pro- gressive force of civilisation, says, "The emotions are as much a part of us as the understanding ; they are as truthful ; thev' are as likcK- to be right. Though their view is different from that of the understanding, it is not capricious. They obe\' fi.xed laws ; thc\- follow an uniform and orderl)' course; they run in sequences; they have their logic and methods of inference." " Le coeur a ses raisons," says Pascal, ' que la raison ne connait point." The emotions then are the fitting helpmate 92 PHYSICISTS ON THE WING. of the intellect, and especially in layint^ hold of those truths and hopes of religion that purify the character, strengthen and ennoble life. "As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks," so the emo- tional energies of human nature athirst for God, may justly claim to take their place and part in seeking for Him, who is the final aim of their most eager endeavours.* " He alone believes truth v.ho feels it." XXV. Even in tJic pursuits of uatural knoivledgc the masters iti the school of material seieuee, do not eon fine themselves to "experimental cvidenee'' and " demon- strative eonelusions," nor restrain their researehes luithin the limitations of the 'fure reason, '' or loi^ieal proeess. Leaving microscope and scalpel and the region of the experimental, they adventure forth on " imagi- nation's airy wing," and in speculative thought enlarge the range and ennoble the spirit of investi- gation. Indeed the ability to pass from " the ex- periential to the ultra experiential," to perceive " something finer than mere experience," to enjoy in a high degree the power of ideal extension, are * Vide Mr. Herbert Spencer's Education : Intellectual, Moral, and Physical, Cap. i., on the reaction of feelings on the reflective powers. " Science poetic." "SCIENTIFIC USIi OF TIIF IMAGINATION. 93 considered notes of competency in physics, and dififcrentiatc " the great from the mediocre investi- gator."* " Imagination — that wonderful facuhy, said Sir Benjamin Brodie, . . . which properly controlled by experience and reflection, becomes the noblest attribute of man ; the source of poetic genius, the instrument of discovery in science, without the aid of which Newton would never have invented fluxions, nor Davy have decomposed the earths and alkalies, nor would Columbus have found another continent." t Professor Tyndall has used this ver\' passage as the motto to head an elaborate treatise on The Scientific use of tltc Iii/ai^ii/ntioi/. In that paper the Professor contends that, "I^ounded and conditioned b\- co-operant reason, imagina- tion becomes the mightiest instrument of the physical discoverer. Newton's passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was, at the outset, a leap of the imagination. When William Thom- son tries to place the ultimate particles of matter between his compass points, hapl}- to them a scale of millimetres, he is powerful!}- aided by this faculty. And in much that has been recently said * Fragments of Science. " Apology for Belfast Address." t Add. as Presdt. of the Royal Society. Nov. 1859. 94 SCIENTISTS CROSS THE BOUNDARY about protoplasm and life, \vc liave the outg'oings of the imagination, guided and controlled b)- the known analogies of science." In the same paper we read, " Two things," said l^^mmanuel Kant, "fill me with awe; the elorious heavens and the sense of moral responsibility 'in man.' And in his hours of health and strength and sanity, when the stroke of action has ceased, and the pause of reflection has set in, the scientific investigator finds himself overshadowed by the same awe. Breaking contact with the hampering details of earth, it associates him with a power which gives fullness and tone to his existence, but which he can neither analyse nor comprehend." In his famous Belfast Address Professor Tyndall makes statements even yet more noteworthy. " Believing," he says, " as I do in the continuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our micro.scopes cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye. By an intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence."* Afterwards in defend- ing himself for "crossing the boundary of the ex- perimental evidence," he says, " This, I reply, is the habitual action of the scientific mind, at least of that * Fragments of Science. Belf. Add. OF rill': KXI'ERI.MKNTAL I.VIDENCE. 95 portion of it which applies itself to physical investi- gation. Our theories of li'^'ht, heat, magnetism, and electricit)', all imply the crossing of this boundar}-. My paper on the 'Scientific use of the Imagina- tion,' and my ' Lectures (mi Light,' illustrate this point in the amplest manner ; and in the brief dis- course which follows this address I have sought incidentally to make clear that in physics the ex- periential incessantly leads to the ultra-experiential, that out of experience there always grows some- thing finer than mere experience, and that in their different powers of ideal extension consists, for the most part, the difterence between the great and the mediocre investigator. The kingdom of science, then, Cometh not by observation and experiment alone, but is completed b\- fixing the roots of obser- vation and experiment in a region inaccessible to both, and in dealing with which v.c are forced to fall back on the picturing power of the mind."* XXVI. It is conceded, then, on the highest scientific authority that the methods of research necessar}' to large and successful results in the region of physics, are closely related in some important • Frag. Sci., "Apology for Belf. Add." See also "Crystals and Molecular Fore." gO IS SCIENCE BOLDER THAN FAITH ? aspects to the methods necessary in rehgious inciuiry. The kingdom of science, Hke the king- dom of Christ, " Cometh not with observation " ; * and natural science, as truly as spiritual religion, fixes its roots in a region inaccessible both to observation and experiment. If in physics, he only is the great and suc- cessful investigator who " crosses the boundarj^^ of experimental evidence," and " supplements the vision of the eye with the vision of mind " ; on what rational ground is the inquirer in respect of those momentous subjects that belong to religious conviction to be confined within the limits of the "pure reason," or to be expected to prove the validity of his conviction by such logical methods as shall satisfy a purely intellectual requirement ? This question requires an answer. " Religious feeling," says Professor Huxley, " is the essential basis of conduct. "f That is not an accurate statement, but at least the Scientist con- cedes so much. " The facts of religious feeling," says Professor Tyndall, " are to me as certain as the facts of physics.":]: These emotional energies then that are thus * St. Luke xvii. 20. y Vide infra, pp. 210, 21 1. \ Belfast Add., Fref. remarks, i. Vide supra, pp. 82 — 92. rill', I'icrrkixc i-owkr of tiii: mind.' 97 confessedly indisputable factors in the constitution of man. and in the formation of character, must take their proper part and regulated function in the supreme inquiry of life. The Christian, as justly as the Scientist, refuses to stop abrujHl)' where the instruments of observation fail. lo<;ic halts, and the processes of the reason are at fault. For the Christian disciple a^, well as for the man of science there is " the picturing power of the mind " ; and by a necessity as deep as life and thought and feeling, he too crosses the boundar}- of experiment and ob.servation, and supplements his survey of material order and magnificence with the \-et fairer visions of that faculty, which is " the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen."* It is a law, operati\-c in the region of natural research, as well as in the sphere of spiritual appre- hension, that "he that hath not faith is condemned already."! XXVI r. Tiil: most advanced scientific thought, as ice Jiave seen, and shall further show, acknoicledges that religion is a primary movement of Jiuman life, and an undying necessity of man. * Ep. Heb., Cap. xi. i. y St. John iii. i8. n 98 M. COMTE AND MK. FRED. HARRISON. The advances of science and the progress of knowledge can make no inroads on this eternal fact — reHgion a necessity of the highest Hfe. They may correct errors in opinion, cnh'ghten interpreta- tion, and modify the aspects of rehgious thought, but religion itself is confessedly an impregnable reality. Auguste Comte, so far from agreeing with the superficial impression that religion is waning before the advancing light of knowledge, urges that *' man becomes more and more religious." Mr. Frederick Harrison, corroborating the opinion of his famous positivist chief, says, " It is the delirium of revolt which screams out to us to cast out the faculty of faith, along with the object or the form of our old faith. Besides it is cant, mere delusion to suppose it is done or can be done. Neither enthusiasm, nor discipline, nor faith, nor reverence, nor devotion to a cause, nor love for a Power greater than ourselves, are at all dying out of the world." And he adds, " away with the peevish paradox of pedants and cynics that mankind has outgrown worship."* Religion is the sine qua non of the completely developed life. Unbelief is not the native air of man. He cannot flourish in full proportions on "^ Creed of a Layman. Supra, p. 87. RELKilON A VITAL NEED. 99 the negation of God and futurity. He has in him, as constituent elements, capacities and desires that terminate only in the Eternal and Divine — a heart-hunf^cr for " the bread of God " — " the bread which comcth down from heaven "' ; that satisfies the hunger of the soul and sustains it to eternal life.* Capacity implies opportunity ; appetite, satis- faction ; function, use. The exquisite structural arrangements of the organs of sight and hearing imply vision and sound. The functions of respira- tion signify an atmosphere. The scientific naturalist,, disinterring the fragments of pre-historic fauna, infers, from the structure of their remains, what were the elements in which these living creatures existed and the aliment on which they were nourished. The psychologist finds faculty and potentiality in the spiritual nature of man ; and these the student of human history discovers, working them- selves out in "strong" and "luxuriant" religious growths : " conceptions and creeds," the inborn life of man, feeling after God, as plants feel after light. What is this but human consciousness interpret- ing its own inbred need ? It is psychology and history together bearing their united testimony that man needs God and the hopes of religion, as » * Vi' from the earth. But the storms which have already in the course of ages spent their force against Theism with no other effect than to make its strength more conspicuous, and to carry awa\- what would have weakened or deformed it, are sufficient to show us that it has been built on eternal truth by the finite human reasons which have been enlightened by Infinite and Divine Reason."* * Theism. Prof. Flint. Lee. iii., pp. 83 — 85. 102 THE SCIENTIST AT ONE WITH US. Reason, of course, has an important part to play, Avithin its own limits, in the inquiry after truth, appropriately uses its most skilful apparatus, and every branch of science contributes its valuable aid in the great inquiry. But it is alike beyond the scope of science and the prerogatives of logic to pass within the hallowed orecincts of religious feeling, ~and determine its measure or regulate its activities. In the court of reason science may submit its facts and logic indulge its serviceable methods ; but the chords of religious emotion vibrate to a subtler touch. That Divine breath which bloweth where it listeth, can alone awaken the yEolian music. The heart, like the head,' has methods of its own. The physical sc'uvitists arc again at one zcilh us. Professor Tyndall says, " No atheistic reasoning can, I hold, dislodge religion from the heart of man. Logic cannot deprive us of life, and religion is life to the religious. As an experience of con- sciousness it is perfectly beyond the assaults of logic." * And Professor Huxley, in acknowledging " religious feeling as the essential basis of conduct," confesses himself perplexed to know how it is to be * Belf. Add. Pref. Remarks, ii. I'ROFESSOR HUXLKV AND RELIGIOUS HOPE. lOJ maintained "without the use of the IJiblc."* W'c welcome his confession an;l appreciate his per- plex itw It is most true that the need of authoritative guidance in affairs pertainin;^ to the spiritual life is clear and manifest ; but in ascertaining that guid- ance and verifying its^authority there is certainly legitimate scope and ample opportunitv- for the exercise alike of the intellectual and emotional functions. Both of these have their place, and proper methods of activit)-, but we find our best securit)-, in religious research, b\- their combined endeavours. XXIX. Ix controverting the creed of Life for the present, alike uninspired, and unrestrained b)" considerations of a life in the future, as logically untenable an<.i morally degrading, we have urged onl)- those central verities of the Christian faith which confessedK' on all hands exalt the thought, purif)' the affections, and give dignity to human life. Against these science has no record, and advanced thought no plea. Professor Huxley shall again give us his wel- ♦ Vide infra, pp. 2IO, 211. 104 CLIFFORD AND MARTINEAU. come support, " The lover of moral beauty," says lie, " struggling through a world full of sorrow and sin is surely as much stronger for believing that sooner or later a vision of perfect peace and good- ness will burst upon him, as the toiler up a moun- tain for the belief that beyond crag and snow lies home and rest."* Professor Clifford acknowledged that " belief in God and a future life is a source of refined and elevated pleasure to those who can hold it.'"-f "To believe in an ever living and perfect Mind, supreme over the universe," says a distinguished writer, " is to invest moral distinctions with im- mensity and eternity, and lift them from the pro- vincial stage of human society to the imperishable theatre of all being. When planted thus in the very substance of things, they justify and support the ideal estimates of the conscience ; they deepen every guilty shame; they guarantee every righteous hope ; and they help the will with a Divine casting vote in every balance of temptation. "| ConfessedK', then, faith in God, and the antici- pations of immortality, adorn and enrich life, * "A Modern Symposium." Nineteenth Century, May, 1877. t Same "Symposium." For an examination of Professor Clifford's atheistic theories, see Mallock's Atheism and the value of Life. " The Professor in the Pulpit." \ Martineau, same " Symposium." Kl-i'ECT 01" Ki:i.Iy EXI'ERIMKNT. II5 A drowning sailor, however, with evidence enough in Ills desperate need, docs not wait for " logical proof" of the sufficient buoyancy of the "hen-coop," but hopefully clutches at it — " drowning men catch r7'(V/ at strav.-s" — like those seamen and prisoners, in a famous shipwreck off the coast of Mclita, ^vh(J seized what the perilous occasion offered, and " some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship . . . escaped all safe to land."* Is it not simply reasonable, therefore, for the Sceptic to prove the Christian " dogma " by trying it ? Proof by ex- periment is surely most agreeable with scientific, method. XXXIII. Christianity is no broken fragment, no waif on- the waves of time. It is a life-line thrown by a strong yet gentle hand to wrecked and struggling souls ; and from the shores rises a great shout of thousands of already rescued men, encouraging the " drowning sailors," to trust and try the life-line ; and myriads more that arc gone for ever from the perilous coasts of time, having passed bcN'ond the region of gloom and storm and tempest, have left their * Acts xxvii. .^4. I 2 Il6 S. T. COLERIDGE S "TRY IT. testimony behind that that lifcHne is " mighty to save," " even to tJic uttermost." "Try it," said that profound student of human life, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Try it. It has been eighteen hundred years in existence, and has one individual left a record lilce the following.'' ... I have given Christianity a fair trial. I was aware that its promises were made only condition- all}'. I^ui my heart bears me witness, that to the utmost of my power, I have complied with these conditions. Both outwardly and in the discipline of my inward acts and affections, I have performed the duties which it enjoins, and I have used the means which it prescribes. Yet my assurance of its truth has received no increase. Its promises have not been fulfilled ; and I repent me of my delusion. If neither your own experience nor the history of almost two thousand years has presented a single testimony to this purport ; and if }'ou have read and heard of many who have lived and died bearing witness to the contrary ; and if you yourself have met with some one, in whom on an}* other point you would- place unqualified trust, who has on his own experience made report to }'0u that * He is faithful who promised, and what lie pro- mised He has proved Himself able to perform ' : is it bigotry if I fear that the Unbelief, which pre- CONDITIONS OF TIIK EXPERIMENT. II/ judj^cs and prevents the experiment, has its source elsewhere than in the uncorrupted judgment ; that not the strong, free mind, but the enslaved will, is the true oricrinal infidel in this instance?"* 'fc>' XXXIV, ClIRISTIAMTV sJiould bc tried, if tried at all, according to its oivii prescribed methods. It is no honest test that disregards the conditions distinctly set down as necessary in order to conduct the experiment successfully. Dr. Tyndall, in a rcmarkahle paper on "Spon- taneous Generation," gave an account of a series of experiments and their conclusive results. It is competent to any other scientific inquiry to demonstrate the same conclusions ; but he must be willing to conduct his experiment with like labour, patience, and accuracy of observation. If, however, he permits defects in his apparatus, impa- tience or inexactness in his observations, he will fail in his results ; but he can have no right to impugn Dr. Tyndall's conclusion, till he has accu- rately followed his experiment Now the Founder of Christianity said, "If any man willcth to do His will — lav ra OiXrjro 6e\r)/ia * Aids to Reflection, Aphor. civ. IlS FEEDING OX THE EAST WIND. auTov iroielv — he shall know of the doctrine."* He demands, then, " the willing- mind," the friendly disposition, the experiment of docile obedience. Prejudice and hostile preconceptions are obstructive elements to the ingress of spiritual light and moral conviction. The perceptions must be clarified by the s\'mpathctic will :— ". . . . Then purg'd with euphrasy and rue The visual nerve " shall have revelations bright, definite and clear — reaching " Even to the inmost seat of mental sight.'' The Doubter, however, who, as Descartes sa}-s, "doubts only that he may doubt, and seeks nothing but uncertainty itself; feeding his heart on the east wind of a cheerless unbelief," who is always ready to fling his gibe at "the faith of our fathers," who hails with delight every new objection to Christianity that glides over the currents of human opinion, and is eager to shake hands with the latest "difficulty of belief," is self-disqualified for the experimental inquiry. " There be," says Bacon, " that delight in giddincs.s, and count it bondage to fix a belief." f The heart that is at inward war A\ith good, or the life that is simply too busy with self and time * St. Jno., vii. 17. t Essays, "Truth." DIXLIMNC. Till-: EXPERIMENT. I I9 — the things seen that arc temporal — to engage in an}- serious search after God, or too impatient of control to bear the restraints of religion, is in no fitting mood to try fairly the Christian experiment ; and is assuredly as little entitled to pass judgment on the grave issues invoh^ed as the careless and prejudiced experimentalist would be warranted in denying the results of Dr. Tyndall's elaborate experi- ments in respect of " spontaneous generation." The Christian has satisfied himself b}- experi- ment that the results promised are attainable. To him belong the forces of inward conviction ; but if the Sceptic will not prosecute the inquiry on scientific principles and by scientific methods, that is to saw on such exact conditions as can alone give a true result, he has no right to deny the conclusion. The Sceptic may sa}-, " I decline to make this experiment." If so — win- ? luther because he is not anxious in respect of the question, or he is unwilling to reach the foretold conclusion. But this indifference or unwillingness, whichever it may be, " makes his judgment blind " on the whole question, and discovers at work within himself causes that ma\-, at least as probabl}-, be the secret I20 THE EXPERIMEiXT OR SILENCE. of his unbelief, as any presumed inadequacy of Christian evidences. The earnest Sceptic is assuredly bound either to adopt the test of practical experimcnl, or failing carefully to prosecute the grave inquiry, to pre- serve at least a respectful silence on the important question that, under the circumstances, he is not qualified to discuss. We seem to hear from Doubters and Unbelievers a murmur of reply, " We fear to believe in the Unseen, to trust the Unknown ; we want some evidential facts that will hush intellectual cavil ; we want a feeling of certainty : " ' Could we but know The land that ends our dark uncertain travel, Where lie those happier hills and meadows low,— Ah, if beyond the spirit's inmost cavil, Aught of that country could we surely know, Who would not go? " ' Might we but hear The hovering angels' high imagined chorus, Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear One radiant vista of the realm before us, — With one rapt moment given to see and hear, Ah, who would fear? a I Were we quite sure To find the peerless friend who left us lonely, Or there by some celestial stream as pure, To gaze in eyes that here were love-lit only, — This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure, Who would endure ? '" * Latier Day Lyrics. E. D. Stedman. RUSKIN S VIEW. 121 W'c contcml that, b)' -.ui inward sense, surety is attainable, a confidence ma)- be gained that casts out fear, an assurance that "calms the spirit's inmost cavil." There must, however, be first a willingness to do His will : the ready heart. As the "drowning sailor" struggles with desperate endeavour to "clutch the hen-coop," so the Sceptic in earnest to find deliverance and sure rescue must *' lay hold upon the hope set before Jiim ... an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast."* " There is but one chance of life," sa}-s Professor Ruskin, " in admitting so far the possibility of the Christian A-erit\', as to tr\- it on its own terms. There is not the slightest possibility of finding whether it be true or not first. ' Show me a sign first, and I will come,' }-ou say. ' No,' answers God, 'come first, and then }-ou shall see a sign.' "f XXXV. The disciple of iitodeni doidJt or unbelief, however, is not required to adopt a faith nnsustained by out- ward evidenec. There are external, internal, and collateral evi- * Heb. vi. i8, 19. t An Oxford Lecture. Nineteenth Century, Jan., 1878. 122 CFIRTSTIAX APOLOr.ISTS. dences in ample and v^aricd abundance to commend and confirm tlie Christian faith. Possibly, the Doubter max' reply, " I cannot accept these evi- dences as sufficient to authenticate the Divine origin and historic truth of Christianit}'." The evidences that sustain the Christian religion satisfied the philosophic insight, the acute research, the ample learning, the keen cross- examination of the great apologists of Chris- tianitv. Augustine and Anselm, Pascal and Grotius, Newton and Locke, Watson and Paley and many others — some of whom " are not," and others remain with us to this present — not in- ferior to any Sceptic in masculine grasp of thought, extent of learning, or earnestness of inquir}-, have recof?nised the irrefutable force of tlie Christian argument, have added the weight of their devout conviction, and have yielded the homage of their life to its authorit)'. This is not the place to examine or even to state the Christian evidences ; but the fact of their thorough acceptance b\- men of the highest probity, keenest intellect, and ripest culture, lends, at least, a high degree q{ probability^'- to their strength and sufficiency, and proves, at any rate, that they are * Vide supra, pp. lo — 15. MYSTERIES. 1 23 worth)- of the most careful and respectful con sidcration by the earnest-minded inquirer. They cannot be ignored b\- aii)- honest seeker after truth. " What I mean," sa}'s a philosophic inquirer, " b\- the rationality of a belief in an\' h\-pothesis is its fitness to be accepted and acted upon because it has in its favour the strongest probabilities of the case so far as we can grasp these probabilities. I know of no other foundation for a belief in an\-- thing ; for belief is the acceptance b\' the mind of some proposition, statement, or supposed fact, the truth of which depends upon evidence addressed to our senses, or to our intellectual perceptions, or to both."* XXX\I. Tnr. Sceptic confroNts ?/s new with auotJur " difficulty of belief ^^ viz., that the Christ ia)i religion involves i^iexplicablc mysteries. Granted ; but the Christian is not moving alone amid the shadows of the inexplicable. " We are all," said Goethe, "groping amid mysteries and won- * Creation or Evolution. Geo. Ticknor Curtis. New York. Cap. i., " Foundn. of Belief.'' A very careful and elaborate e.\- amination of the Spencerian and Darwinian Philosophy. I'idc also, stipra, pp. 10 — 15, on Probability. 124 SPENCER, TYNDAI^L, HUXLEY. ders." ]\Iysteries shadow life on every side. " Now men sec not the bright light that is in the clouds."* The disciples of physical science, as well as the disciples of Christianity, are confronted with the incomprehensible and the mysterious. Mr. Herbert Spencer warns us that " those who think that science is dissipating religious beliefs and sentiments seem unaware that whatever of mystery is taken from the old interpretation is added to the new. Or rather, we may say that transference from the one to the other is accom- panied by increase ; since, for an explanation which has a seeming feasibility, science substitutes an explanation which carrying us back only a certain distance, there leaves us in the presence of the avowedly inexplicable." t Professor Tyndall says that having " exhausted physics and reached its very rim, the mighty mystery still looms beyond us. I have, in fact, made no step towards its solution;" and, again, he speaks of being in the presence of " two Incom- prehensibles instead of one Incomprehensible." J Professor Huxley says : " From the region of disorderly mystery, which is the domain of ignor- * Job xxxvii. 21. t Nineteenth Century. Jan., 1S84, .'\rt. "Retrospect and Pro- spect." \ Nineteenth Century, Nov., 1878, GEO. H. LEWKS, DARWIN DRUMMOXD. 125 ancc, another vast pvov'incc has been added to science, the region of orderly mystery."* Mr. Geo. M. LewcG .said, concerning the problems of p.s}-chology, " Those mysteries will most probably remain for ever unsolved."! "The known is finite," said Darwin, "the un- known is infinite ; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of in- explicability.";}: It must be admitted that "a Science without mystery is unknown ; a Religion without mystery is absurd." § The scientist, then, and the p.sychologist bear testimony to the presence of m}'stery both in material phenomena and in the laws of mind, l^y forsaking religion, therefore, the perplexed Doubter finds no relief from the darkness of mystery and the doctrine of the inexplicable. Into the temple of Science the ghostly shadow follows him ; and c\en in that sanctuary of the reason he finds that the articles of belief still include "the doctrine of the incomprehensible." * Quoted by Lewes, Physiology of Common Life, vol. ii., c. S. t 7bid. % Life and Letters. Cap. v. '' On the Reception of the Origin of Species." $ Natural Law in the Spiritual IT'c^r/t/, p. 4S. JV;/^ also cap. " Biogenesis," pp. 91, 92. 126 LIFE A MYSTERY XXXVI r. Life itself is a mystery. What is life ? No man has grasped, or even seen, the subtle entity. Hinting in a throb, a movement, a perfume, the nearness of its hiding- place ; it yet mocks the seeker. It evades the edge of the keenest scalpel. Across the field of the microscope it flutters a fringe of its delicate robe, but no eye has ever caught a glimpse of the unveiled mystery. The eager scientist admits that " it trembles all along the line " of his research, }'et it ever eludes his approach ; like the fabled chalice, that lies where the rainbow touches the earth, but as the seeker advances the phantom > arch recedes. So the mystery — life, evades the keenest inquisitor, and shrinks from the advances of the most eager devotee. If the physical universe, then, involves the incom- prehensible, and life itself is a myster}', with what reason does the Doubter stagger at religion be- cause of its mysteries, or reject Christian dogma because it propounds the incomprehensible ? A religion without m\^stcry would be a religion alike without nature and God. Both are robed in mystery as in a garment. Nature veils many r'lFF'irri.TiF.s of I'xiift.iff. \2-j " secret things." And •' He maketh darkness pavilions round about Him."* Tlic ostricli, when hard pressed with pursuit, is said to thrust its head into the sand or bush, and thenceforth sees no danger ; but the inteUigent inquirer does not imagine that by thrusting his liead^ — where his /^rart cannot follow — into a creed without God, Christ, or immortality, that he has got rid of m\-steries, and .settled all "difficulties of be- lief,"' save indeed as the ostrich has settled its danger by refusing to see it. This, is, however, no settlement of tlie difficult}'. The Sceptic is an inquirer. Let us remind him of some of the problems, from the urgency and difficulty of w hich, his rejection of revealed religion, gives him no release. He must confront " //r difficulties of II )i be/ iff." And, as Dr. Arnold truly said, "the difficulties of unbelief are intellectually far greater" than those implied in belief.t But how does the Doubter propose to settle them ? xxxvm. What austvcr fias modem doubt to give to the great question in respect of the origin of nature and man ? * Ps. xviii. 1 1. ■\ Life and Correspondence. Letter 45. See also 207. 128 "THE FORTUITOUS CONCOURSE OF ATOMS." Whence proceeded the ph}'.sical universe, and b\- wliat power is it sustained, with its magni- ficent structural arrangements, the continued action of forces, the exact and admirable system of laws, according to which, not by which it is governed ? "The fortuitous concourse of atoms" theory was recognised as preposterous ev'cn by a pagan philo- sopher. To put Cicero's argument in modern form : as well indeed imagine that the ]3odleian Library, Avith all its treasures of thought, was the product of a series of happ)' accidents, or that the railway system of Great Britain, with its stupendous work, elaborate organisation, and constant activity, is the outcome of most fortunate chances, as believe that the magnificent order of the universe originated and is sustained without a creative intelligence and a governing will.* What account has the Doubter to offer of the origin of that complex personality — himself.' W^ith a physical structure "fearfully and wonderfully made ;" with a mental and moral organisation that enables him to reason and resolve, to conceive an * " Hoc qui existimat fieri potuisse, non intelligo, cur non idem putet, si innumerabiles unius et viginti forma; literarum, vel aurea; vel quales libet, aliquo conjiciantur, posse ex his in terram excussis annales Ennii, ut deinceps legi possint, effici." — De Naturn Deorum., lib. ii. 37. SPONTAMiOUS GEXERATIOX. 1 29 Infinite Benevolence, to anticipate an immortal life, to love the one with a profound homage, and to ex- pect the other with a joyful hope ; how has this being — Man come to be ? * Has the Doubter the hardihood to assert, in contravention of the highest scientific opinion, that man is the result of " spontaneous generation," that he is " evolved from protoplasm," or *' an out- come of organisation ?" These and similar phrases are very familiar, yet they are controverted b\- the highest authorities in science, as we shall proceed in the following pages to show. " Men of science," said Professor Tyndall in his Belfast address, "will frankly admit their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can be developed save from demonstrable ante- cedent life." Professor Huxley acknowledges that " life precedes organisation " ; but the effect cannot precede the cause; life, therefore, is not a result of organisation. The Doubter will scarcely, we presume, accept the odd theory of an eminent scientific speculator, who surmises that "the first forms of life were carried from some other planet to this earth on an — aerolite ! "' Even that fanciful invention does not * "lam vero aiiimiim ipsuiii, mciitcmque hcminis, rationem, consilium, prudentiam, qui non divin-l curA perfecta esse perspicit, is ipsis rebus mihi videtur carere." Dt Nat. Deo. Lib. ii. 59. K I30 DALLINGER ON IIAECKEL. remove but onl}' tlirusts back the difficulty of the origin of life one stage. Or will the Sceptic trace his ancestry to the iiioiicni of the deep-sea slime, where "the oldest monera originated," as Haeckel says, "just as crystals form in the matrix ? "* Science has its later answer to the impossible theory ; and wc claim the Doubter's attention to this repl}'. " It is in vain," says an eminent microscopist, "for Haeckel to call the simplest moneron that lives 'primeval slime,' or to call numbers of them * individualised lumps of albumen.' It is a travesty. Under the same lens place 'a lump of albumen,' and the lowest living infusorian. and a voiceless contradiction of Haeckel's phrase which none can ever question is indubitably given. The infusorian lives, the albumen is dead. The infusorian con- structs the vital matter of its own body from the heterogeneous matter in which it lives ; the albu- men decomposes as it lies there. The infusorian has soon multiplied by millions, while the albumen disappears by decadence. To write of livincr monera as 'albumen,' or of 'complex molecules' with nothing more than complexity, as living, is to contradict, in the name, the essential and distin- guishing qualities of both. "f * The Evolution of Man, vol. ii., Cap. xv. t The Creator, &c. Dr. Dallinger, pp. 3^, 35. TROFESSOR TAIT ON " ORIGIN' OF LIFE." 1^1 " Let no one imagine," says Professor Tait, "that, should we ever penetrate this mystery (of hfe), \vc shall thereby be enabled to produce, except from life, even the lowest form of life. Sir W. Thomson's splendid suggestion of xortcx atoms, if it be correct, will make us thoroughly to understand matter and mathematically to investigate all its properties. Yet its very basis implies the absolute necessity of an intervention of Creative Power to form or to destroy one atom of even dead matter." And the Professor concludes his lecture by the quota- tion of memorable words addressed to the British Association by Professor Stokes, " When from the phenomena of life we pass on to those of mind, we enter a region still more profoundly mysterious. . . . Science can be expected to do but little to aid us here, since the instrument of research is itself the object of investigation. It can but enlighten us as to the depth of our ignorance and lead us to look to a higher aid for that which most nearly con- cerns our well-being."* " Fare onward to the end, jince from a source Thou art, which doth transcend and doth determine force! Fare onward to the end ; not from force, dead and blind, Thou earnest, but from the depth of the Creative Mind."t * Lectures on Physl. Science. Lect. i. t Songs Unsung. "The New Creed." Lewis Morris. On the genesis and development of Man, see Preb. Revnolds The Supernatl. in Nature, Cap. xvii., " Man — Origin, Nature, Language," Cap. x\iii., "Human Nature — Personality, Individu- ality, Speciality." K 2 132 AN UNSUSTAINED THEORY. XXXIX. The Theory of '' sponta}icous generation'' is entirely unsustaincd by scientific experiment. Haeckel even admits that "the theory of spon- taneous generation cannot be experimentally pro\'ed unless great difficulties be overcome." Then he candidly adds, that " he who does not assume a spontaneous generation of monera ... to explain the first origin of life upon our earth, has no other resource but to believe in a supernatural miracle." Hence to avoid this imminent but distasteful alter- native, the scientist counsels the acceptance of an unsustained assumption ! This is speculation, not science. Virchow has himself rebuked the introduction of this gratuitous hypothesis. He says, " No one can adduce a single positive fact in evidence that such spontaneous generation ever took place, and that an inorganic mass, even of this firm of Carbon & Co., was ever transformed into an organic mass. Nevertheless, I admit that if we propose to imagine to ourselves how the first organic being could have originated, there is no alternative but spontaneous generation, unless we recur to creation. Tcrtiuni non dafur. OOGENESIS "VICTORIOUS ALONG THE LINE." I 33 liut spontaneous generation is not demonstrated, and v.c shall be wise to wait for its demonstration. W'c remember how completely all attempts have failed to find a place for it in tracing' the passage of tlie most elementary forms from the inorganic to the organic kingdom. Hacckel will never be able to explain to us how from the midst of this in- organic world, in which nothing changes, life can come forth. The lapse of time makes no change in mechanical laws ; and if we go back to the periods of incandescence in the history of our planet, we may fairly be reminded that intense heat is far more destructive than productive of life.* " So far as science can settle an\-thing, this question is settled. The attempt to get the living out of the dead has failed. Spontaneous genera- lion has had to be given up. And it is now recog- nised on every hand tiiat life can onl\- come from the touch of life Huxley categorically announces that the doctrine of biogenesis, or life onl)' from life, is 'victorious along the whole line at the pre- .sent day.' And even whilst confessing that he wishes the evidence were the other way, Tjmdall is compelled to say, ' I affirm that no shred of trust- * Revue Scientif que. Dec. 8th, 1877. I'ide A Study of Origins. M. de Pressense, bk., II., Cap. iv. See also Dr. Bree's Fallacies of Daminism. 134 A ri.RRir.Li': dilemma. worthy experimental testimony exists to prove that life in our day has ever appeared independently of antecedent life.' "'^■ Yet we find that upon this theory, unsustained " by a single positive fact in evidence that spontaneous generation ever took place " — a spon- taneous evolution of life from any primordial forms — willing doubters fall back v.ith every in- genuity of suggestion and variety of iteration ; for if this theory fails them, then they have, by their own confession, " no other resource but to believe in a supernatural miracle," " no alternative but to recur to creation." Terrible dilemma I They stand alone, without scientific retreat, confronted with the Christian dogma of life created by an intelligent Will. " The physical laws may explain the inorganic world, the biological laws may account for the de- velopment of the organic ; but of the point where they meet, of that strange borderland between the dead and the living, science is silent. It is as if God had placed everthing in earth and heaven in the hands of nature, but reserved a. point at the genesis of life for His direct appearing."! * Natural Law in the Spiritual World (Drummond) : " Bio- genesis." t Ibid. AGASSIZ OX DESIGN. 135 Let us, for the satisfaction of the earnest Sceptic, confirm our contention by further scientific evi- dence. The renowned Agassiz gives the weight of his scientific name and authority to the following notable testimony : " In my view, nothing shows more directly and absolutely the operation of a reflecting mind, than all these categories, upon which the different species, genera, families, orders, classes are based in nature ; nothing more clearly indicates a deliberate consideration of the subject than the real and material manifestation of all these characteristics by a succession of individuals whose life is limited to a duration comparatively very short. The great marvel of all these relations con- sists in the fugitive character of all the parts of this great harmon\'. While the species is persistent during long periods, the individuals which re- present it change constantly and die, one after the other in rapid succession. Nothing in the ..organic kingdom is calculated to impress us so strongly as the unit\- of plan \\hich is apparent in the structure of the most various types. "From pole to pole, under all meridians, the mammalia, birds, reptiles, fishes, exhibit one and the same structural plan. The plan denotes abstract conceptions of the most elevated order ; it far sur- 136 EVIDENCES OF A SUPREME INTELLIGENCE. passes the broadest generalisations of the mind of man, and it required the most laborious research to enable man to arriv^e at any adequate idea at all of it. Other plans not less marvellous disclose them- selves in the articulata, the molluscs, the radiata, and the various types of plants. And yet this logical relation, this admirable harmony, this infinite variety in unity represent, wc are told, the result of forces devoid of the least particle of intelligence, of the faculty of thought, the power of combination, or the conception of space. " If anything in nature can place man above the other animals, it is just the possession of these noble powers. Without these gifts, carried to a high degree of excellence and perfection, none of the general marks of relationship which connect the great types of the vegetable and animal kingdom could be perceived or understood. How then could these relations have been conceived, but by the aid of analogous faculties .' If all these relations are beyond man's intellectual power to grasp, if man himself is but a part or fragment of the wiiole system, how could this system have been called into being if there were not a supreme intelligence, the Author of all things.'"* * Address co the Univ. of ]Vli- made more impossible by science itself."* Yes, this is emphatically so. The progress of physical science so far from disturbing the funda- mental principles of religious belief, is adding to their stability, and rendering impossible to en- lightened conviction, in its happiest and strongest hours, the adoption of the cheerless negations of atheism. The author of the Creed of Science contends that the recognition of a rational purpose, a Final Cause in creation, is not confined to the common sense of * Natural Religion. By the author of Ecce Homo. Cap. ii., 1882. 15S DARWIN AND TYNDALL. mankind, but lias been acknowledged by the masters of thought who have considered most carefully the question.* Philosophers, from Aristotle and Plato to Hegel and even Hartmann, have traced purpose in the evolution of the universe. Apart indeed from the support of philosophic testimony, it is almost impossible to doubt that human conscious- ness was designed as a result of the evolutionary process ; and our ultimate analysis brings us face to face with the doctrine of creation. Professor Tyndall confesses with honest candour, not only in the famous passage in the preface to his Belfast Address, but also elsewhere, how utterly inadequate are all atheistic theories to .satisfy the inquiring mind and give contentment to the thought. "Often in the spring time," he says, " when looking with delight on the springing foliage, ' considering the lilies of the field,' and sharing the general joy of opening life, I have asked myself whether there is no power, being, or thing, in the universe whose knowledge of that of which I am so ignorant is greater than mine. I have said to my- self. Can man's knowledge be the greatest knowledge — and man's life the highest life .' My friends, the profession of Atheism, with which I am so lightly * Cip. i., " On the Creation and God." A MODERN "SON OI- ZIITOK. 1 59 charged, would, in my case, be an impossible answer to the cjucstion/"* What then has the modern unbeHever, who boasts that he Hves for the present and the seen, and rejects the supernatural, who comforts and flatters himself that, in some way, \\hich he does not always quite understand, he is guarded by the sheltering ce^i^is of science, and that he is, as he proudly phrases it, "a disciple of advanced thought" — li'hat has he to say to these " latest eonclitsions " anel ''grandest revelations of seienee and philosophy " ? Does he pass them by with averted eyes ? or does he venture deliberately to reject the testimony' of the very witnesses, that he, at least, is bound to consider the most competent ? But if so, in what intellectual retreat does lie hope to find fellowship and security? or with what weapons of " loi^ic." and by what process of "pure reason " does he j)ropose to confront the j^hysicist and hold the metaphysician at bay ? Like that unhappy " son of Zippor," who having summoned a seer to curse his enemies, found the prophetic utterance to abound in blessing ; so the * Fragments of Science. "Crystals and Molecular Force." See also Atheism and the Va'ue of Life. Mallock. i. 'An Examination of Professor Clifford's Lectures and Essays." l6o THE SHRINl". OF AGNOSTICISM. modern unbeliever is raked by the fire of the very allies whose aid he has invoked. "A little philosophy," said Bacon, " inclineth men's minds to atheism ; but depth in philosoph}' brincjeth men's minds about to relifjion."* XLV. Possibly, however, perplexed with the confusions of contradictory science and the difficulties of doubt, the Sceptic may have fled for refuge to tJic modern and coininodioiis s/iri>ic of AgJiosth'isui, hoping to find there the serenity of untroubled thought. Alas, that the doom of a heavy disappointment awaits him. Agnosticisjn, represented by its most distinguished apostle, Mr. Herbert Spencer, declares God to be t/ie Unknozuablc. Many difficulties, however, beset, and many contradictions harass a creed which ventures to set the bounds of human capacity, and to determine the possibilities of Divine power. The horizon of human progress is an ever-widen- ing sphere ; and indeed the steady and successful occupation of natural science is the translation of the unknown, and of the often apparently unknow- able, into facts of knowledge. In the movements * Essays, xvi., "Atheism." THE UNKNOWABLE. l6l of aggressive thought the impossibles of yesterday become the achievements of to-day. Further, if the possibilities of human capacity were within the range of our exact determination, what instruments can man have in his possession with which to gauge the resources of an Infinite, that he has already declared to be the Unknowable ? TJie Unknowable must be at any rate the unknown ; but \\ith what logical consistency can anything be predicated concerning the unknown ? We can have no data on which to arrive at any determi- nate conclusion concerning that which is unknown even to the extent of saying that it is unknowable. Of the unknown it is incompetent to say that there are no possible conditions in which it may become knozvablc, and ultimately actually known. Mr. Herbert Spencer contends that " the absolute cannot in any manner or degree be known in the strict sense of knowing, yet," he adds, " we find that its positive existence is a necessary datum of con- sciousness, and that as long as consciousness con- tinues we cannot for an instant get rid of this datum."* But surely it is incompetent to admit the relativity of thought and to affirm that we are cognisant of the absolute. If human capacity is • First Principles, p. 29. M l62 THE UNKNOWABLE — KNOWN. limited to the finite, the infinite must be beyond all human cognition. In maintaining the unknowable- ness of the absolute Mr. Herbert Spencer defines it as "that which has no relation to thought" ; but if this be so, it is to human capacity non-existent ; if, however, as a positive existence it is, as he says, a "necessary datum of consciousness," then the infi- nite, as truly as the finite, is the subject of positive, though inexhaustible thought. In his History of Philosophy, G. H. Lewes very justly observes, " Men are constantly affirming certain existences to be unknown and unknowable, yet in the same breath affirming relations of them which presuppose knowledge." Mr. Herbert Spencer himself indeed actually knows so much of the Unknowable as to describe it as the All-Being, the Ultimate Reality, the Sole- Existence ; and yet even more fully, as we have seen, as " the Eternal Energy by which all things are created and sustained." * It is not surprising that such a concession as this alarms Mr. Frederic Harrison, who designates it an " equivocal reversion to the theological type " ; but we welcome the advance, and rejoice that the chief priest of the Unknowable confesses himself within the dread shadow of the mysterious Presence, * "Some Infirmities of Thought," xciv. AGNOSTICISM — I'URK AND SIMPLK. iGj and recognises, though it is but dimly, the per- vading " energy " of the Supreme Author and Sustainer of all being. For Mr. Spencer further says, " our lives, alil'et, by the happy advances of sincere and patient inquiry know more. Talents multiply by use, faculties strengthen by effort, and hearts have a tendency to grow in the direction of their earnest desires. Wc contend that the agnostic diagnosis is at fault ; that there is no inherent and essential incapacity in the nature and constitution of man, which makes the knowledge of the " All-Being " impossible. On the contrary, we affirm that it has been proved to a moral demonstration, in the experience of a multitude that no man can num- ber, that God is knowablc and known. Even the asrnostic has discovered and confesses the existence of a " Power from which all things proceed and which works through all ";* and in the fuller know- ledge of His perfections, the revelation of His Eatherhood, the filial hunger of the human soul finds its eternal content. * Vide supra., pp. 152, 153. THE ALTAR OF POSITIVISM. 1/5 Let it be remembered, however, that with some there ma)- be a moral aiul spiritual obliquity of vision making dim the eternal lit^ht. The law of li An invalid mother said one day to her child^ standing b}- the foot of her couch, and apparently dehghted with some bonbons, " Do }-ou love them, darling ? " For a moment there was a perplexed look on the bright little face, and then the child replied, "No; I cannot love them, they have no face." Deeper wisdom oi the innocent life ! "Inanimate things,'' says Cardinal Newman^ "cannot stir our affections; these are correlative with persons." Love imi)lies intelligent sympathy and responsive affection ; but there can be no true, ennobling worship without love ! Man may admire the universe, and gaze with wonder and rapt de- light at the starry glory of the midnight skies ; but he cannot love them. "They have no face" — no personality ; and the personal life of man demands^ as the object of a real and loyal worship, the per- sonal God. There can be no ^rue worship of an absolute mystery, no love for an " All-Being " of which nothing is known save that it is the ever Unknozvable. Humanity in its eventful history touches deeply and touches many chords of thought, feeling and sympathy ; but, whether considered as an " abstrac- tion " or an "aggregate," Humanity has no "cor- porate consciousness "' by which it can receive worship, nor any "conscious action" by which it A SUPREME INTELLIGENT WILL. 1 8/ can refrcsli the worshipper. " I would rather wor- ship a stone idol," says Mr. Goldwin Smith. But if there can be found in humanity One who is the human ideal, albeit illumined with some splendours of a higher glory, is He not truly the more fitting object of human love and homage? However that may be, most certain it is that the filial longing within the human soul cannot be satis- fied by enkindling the sentiments of wonder, awe, or admiration. It wants fellowship — Fatherland. " Show us the Father, and it sufificeth us."* That great human cry has not been left w ithout response. One has declared Himself to be the revealer of God, Who brings the Divine within the range of human apprehension. " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."* " Come unto Me . . . and I will give you rest."t LIV. Possibly the Doubter may admit the existence of a " Supreme Intelligent Will," " the One Abso- lute and Fverlasting Mind." Then indeed he must prefix a momentous article to his creed, viz., " I believe in God " ; but in doing so he concedes half " the Christian dogma." On * St. John xiv. 9. t St. Matt. .\i. 2S. iSS A PRACTICAL QUESTION. what evidence however does he make this large con- cession ? What is the proof that commands his assent to this supernatural doctrine — a doctrine so stupendous in itself, and fraught with such im- portant issues ? In kind or degree, is the proof in this case superior to that which is offered in confir- mation of other essential verities of the Christian faith ? It is sin-ely only the first grand link of a series, by which we are " Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." Here however arises a grave, practical question. If the Doubter acknowledges the Supreme Intel- ligence, then what is his relation to Him ? what effort is he making to learn the Divine character, and to do His will } Surely a mere pagan living for the present and the seen, without consideration for the future or reverence for the unseen, can be no proper result of an honest acceptance of that first and fundamental article of the Christian creed — belief in an august and benevolent Will — a personal God. Professor Francis A. Newman says : " The claim of retaining a belief in God, while rejecting a personal God, I do not know how to treat with respect. . . . To deny personality to God denies that mind and morality are part of His essence, BELIEF I\ A I'ERSOXAI. (;oU. 1 89 and denies everything that can distinguish God from bHnd force or bh'nd fate. Such an appli- cation of the word ' God ' is delusive and evasive. An atheist may thus profess to believe in God." An honest belief in a [)ersonal God should manifestly work itself through the conxictions into the character and out into the life. Granted the existence of Cnui, it cannot be reasonable to ex- clude the thought of Him from the aims and acts and hopes. Indeed He must be the fir.st object of thought, and His will life's imperative law. " If there be a (jod, the virtue which takes no account of Him, even if it were otherwise faultless, must be most defective. The performance of per- sonal and social dut}- can in that case no more compensate for the want of piety than justice can excuse intemperance, or benevolence, licentious- ness. * The Doubter's position therefore, whose creed is, " I believe in God, but I yield Him no place in ni)- thoughts or affections ; for I live for the pre- sent and let the future take care of itself," is as irrational as it is immoral. Indeed unbelief or doubt under such conditions is no longer so much a matter of mental difficulty as of moral di.sinclina- * Vide Prof. Flint's Theism. Cap. i., " Moral Issues," p. 9, et seq. And Prof. Momerie's Belief in God. 19^ "IF A MAN DIE SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN ?" tioii ; it is less a question of the intellect than of the conscience and the will. LV. Another question, and one of the most urgent importance, blocks the Sceptic's path, and demands his most serious consideration. " If a man die shall he live again .^"* What is death — a gate or a teniiimis / In other words, what happens to the personal life at what is called death ? There is a crisis in life at which a oreat chance takes place. That change may be wrought in a moment, " in the twinkling of an eye," without forewarning, or it may come by slow and steady stages, and with many heralds of its advent. It may come in the fresh and hopeful morning of life, when glory lights the hills, or it may come at eventide when — " The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of night." It is a change not at first in any material mea- surements of the physical frame, but in the passing away of an imponderable, intangible, invisible somewhat, the mysterious centre of the vital ■energies, of the reason and affections, of the under- * job xiv. 14. MAN DIES, AND WHERE IS HE? 19I Standing and the will, of thought, desire, and con- science — all that constitutes the ego, the personal self. At death it disappears — is gone. Whither ? The instrument "fearfully and wonderfully made " is still there in its material entirety, in weight and measurement uf substance undiminished ; but the master minstrel who awoke the music of its temporal life, where is he } Possibly he was so great in song that Time has taken his music into cherished pos- session, and will never let it perish ; perchance he was only so beloved that his exodus has left the world dark for some true and tender hearts ; but where is he? What has become of him } "Man dieth and wasteth away, yea man giveth up the o-host, and where is he?"* What has become of the mysterious energy that set the prostrate figure on ilts feet, that brightened the eye, taught the lips language, and gave all thought and love and volition to the personal life .-* Has unbelief any solution of that problem .' Has it any message of strength or word of promise for the life that stands face to face with death ? Can unbelief kindle any light of hope in the dark chamber of the dead, or breathe any whisper of consolation to hearts wounded with the keen agony of bereavement ? No. • Job xiv. 10. 192 POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN HOPE. Mr. John S. Mill and Mr, F. Harrison acknow- ledge the benicjn power of the Christian hope ; and confess that in their faith or unfaith they have no equivalent, nor any inspiring word.* Their fune- real creed ends in night, gloom, and nothingness. " Dust to dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes." Life is but — " A moment's halt — a momentary taste Of being from the well amid the waste — And lo ! the phantom caravan has reach'd The nothing it set out from." f So the profound question arises, "What is death to the personal life, of thought, emotion, will?" " The New Creed "J and the unbelieving schools of "advanced thought" venture to offer as their curt reply to the immortal question, the gloomy poly- syllable anniJiilation, with its maximum of syllabic measurement and its minimum of meaning ; and " With the body make the spirit die." Science knows nothing of this dark pretender annihilation. Science speaks of " the conservation of energy" ; of matter as changeable in form, but indestructible in fact. Are we then invited to believe that the corporal * Vide supra, pp. 109 — 1 12. f Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. % See an able examination of its gloomy and impossible theories in A Century of Retwlution, W. S. Lilly, specially cap. iii., "The Revolution and Religion." SCIENCE KNOWS NOTHING OF ANNIHILATION. I93 frame, the " dust which returns to the dust as it was," is an indestructible quantity, changeable indeed, yet imperishable, but that the inner life of human personality, that " no man hath seen at any time," whose vital energies have framed the sciences, achieved the arts, created the litera- ture of all lands, and, in a hundred languages, have interpreted the hopes and fears of this hidden individuality, its filial cry for God, its passionate yearning for immortality— this life of life, "dim miniature of greatness absolute," falls before the arrow of the archer Death, into the dark abyss of nothingness ? That has been an impossible thought to earnest souls from the days of Pythagoras to the present. A great poet has recently passed from human sight, and sings on earth no more. " The clearest eyes in all the world they read With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed, As they the light of ages quick and dead, Closed now, forsake us : yet the shaft that slew Can slay not one of all the works we knew. Nor death discrown that many-laurelled head. The works of words whose life seems lightning wrought, And moulded of unconquerable thought, And quickened with imperishable flame, Stand fast and shine and smile, assured that nought May fade of all their myriad-moulded fame, Nor England's memory clasp not Browning's name." O 194 THE DEAD POET — WHERE IS HE? But the man himself, where is he? His 'works of words moulded of unconquerable thought,' are imperishable ; has annihilation overtaken the worker? His fame lives triumphant ; is he himself no more ? * " Death, what hast thou to do with one for whom Time is not lord but servant: What least part Of all the fire that fed his living heart, Of all the light more keen than sundawn's bloom That lit and led his spirit, strong as doom And bright as hope, can aught thy breath may dart Quench ? Nay, thou knowest he knew thee what thou art, A shadow born of terror's barren womb, That brings not forth save shadows. What art thou, To dream, albeit thou breathe upon his brow. That power on him is given thee, — that thy breath Can make him less than love acclaims him now. And hears all time sound back the word it saith ? What part hast thou then in his glory, Death? " He . . . stands now on death's triumphant steep. Awakened out of life wherein we sleep And dream of what he knows and sees, being dead.'' Nor weep nor doubt that still the spirit is whole And life and death but shadows of the soul."t * " Ita quidquid est illud, quod sentit, quod sapit, quod vult, quod viget, coeleste et divinum est : ab eamque rem aeternum sit necesse est." — Tusc. Quest. Lib. i. 27. •f A Sequence of Sonnets on the Death of Robert Browtiing. Swinburne. "NO DEATH FOR EVER. I95 Deep in human life, when brought face to face with this grand question, Hes the conviction that at death the dust shall " return to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."* Beneath all surface disturbances of doubt, stronger than all plausibilities of unbelieving argument, implanted in the heart of man is that longing and anticipation of life beyond life to which Christianity has given definite response and divine assurance. For "our Saviour Jesus Christ hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light througli the gospel." t " Death ! there is not any death ; only infinite change, Only a place of life which is novel and strange. Shall I fear that I shall be changed, and no more shall be I ? I who know not what 'tis that I am, to live or to die ? Nay, while God is, I too must be, else too weak were His hand. The created is part of His essence, — how else could the Maker stand ? There is no death for ever I " i " No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death. 'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, O life, not death, for which we pant : More life, and fuller, that I want."§ * Eccles. xii. 7. f 2 Tim. i. 10. I The Ode of Life. " The Ode of Change. " f The Two Voices. Tennyson. O 2 196 KANT, CiOETHE, Kant asserted that " a future life is a necessary postulate of the practical reason." " At the age of seventy-five," says Goethe, " one must of course think sometimes of death. But the thought never gives me the least uneasiness, for I am fully convinced that our spirit is a being of a nature quite indestructible, and that its activity continues from eternity to eternity. It is like the sun, which seems to set only to our earthly eyes, but which in reality never sets, but shines on unceasingly."* Buckle tells us that the iuunoi'tality of the soul is " a doctrine that he cherished above all other doctrines." Appealing to the *' moral sentiments which adorn and elevate human character," he says, " the instinct of affection is surely the most lovely, the most powerful and the most general," and this, he argues, in every age and clime bears witness to immortality. In a passage of great tenderness and beauty, picturing the loss of a beloved life, he says— "When the very signs of life are mute; when the last faint tic is severed, and there lies before us nought save the shell and husk of what we loved too well, then truly, if we believed the separation were final, how could we stand up and live .'*... * Conversations --Jiith Eckermann and Sorel, vol. i. p. 161. HUCKLK, SEDGWICK, 1 97 Tlicn, when \vc h;ivc i^arncrcd up our hearts, and where our treasure is thieves break in and steal, methinks that in that moment of desolation, the best of us would succumb, but for the deep con- viction, that all is not really over ; that we have as yet only seen in part ; and that something remains behind. Something behind ; something which the eye of reason cannot discern, but on which the eye of affection is fixed. What is that, which, passing over us like a shadow, strains the aching vision as we gaze at it? Why is it that at these times our minds are thrown back on themselves, and. beincr so thrown, have a forecast of another and a higher state? If this be a delusion, it is one which the affections have themselves created, and we must believe that the purest ami noblest elements of our nature conspire to deceive us. So surely as we lose what we love, so surely does hope mingle with grief."* " I have visions of the future,'" said Professor Sedgwick. " They are as much a part of myself as my stomach and nn- heart ; these visions are to have their antit}'pe in solid fruition of what is best and greatest, l^ut on one condition onl\-, that I humbly accept God's revelation of Himself both * Miscellanraus and Posthumous Works. Art., " Mill on Liberty." 198 IIUXLLV, M(3MERIK, in I lis works and in His Word, and do ni}- best to act in conformity w ith that knowledge which He only can give inc, and He only can sustain me in doing. If you and I do all this, we shall meet in heaven."* " Huxley says that life is the cause of organ- isation, not organisation the cause of life. . . . Well, if life is the cause of organisation, probably it is safe to say the cause must exist before the effect. At least that is nature's logic. But if life may exist before the organisatioji, zvhy 7iot after it ? I affirm that the mieroscope begiiis to have visions of immortality.' '\ " Immorlalit}' — that is, the preservation of the individual — may be considered," says Professor Momerie, "the highest possible end, and for a reason which even physical science to some extent justi- fies. The reason is this : the development and preservation of the individual would seem to be the end which all along has been aimed at in the process of evolution. According to Herbert Spencer, evolution means a change from homo- * Letter to Darwin in Life and Letters. t Vide Boston Monday Lectures, U.S., by Rev. Jos. Cooke. 2nd series. " The Microscope and Materialism." This is a remarkable series of volumes that, in their own style, contribute many masterly arguments in defence of the Christian faith. ON IMMOKTAI 11 V. 1 99 gciicity to hctcrogcneit}', and this liighcst form of heterogeneity is what we call indi\icluality. As Miss Cobb says, ' The ad\ance through inorganic, vegetatixe, animated, and self-conscious existence, and again from the lowest savage to the loftiest philosopher, is all in the direction of a more and more perfect, complete, and definite personalit}'. .... To suppose that there is a height in the range of being, whereto having attained, this slow 1}^ evolved personality suddenly collapses like a volcanic island and subsides into the ocean of im- personal being, is to suppose that the whole scheme of things is self-stultifying, a great much ado about nothing, the building up of a tower which should reach to heaven, but which, like a child's house of cards, as soon as it is finished will be again swept flat.' From the point of \'icw of evolution, there- fore, it follows that an\- end attained throufjh our extinction would be not high but low — so ridicul- ously low as to make the process which led to it utterly beneath contem[)t. If the destruction of personality be the final end of evolution, then the history of the universe is but a gigantic farce. We have a right to immortalit}', wliich there arc no reasonable grounds for disputing. In the name of all that is high ami noble, we demand eternal 200 "A HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS. life. Unless there be injustice and irrationality at the heart of things it cannot be denied us."* " Nothing is lost, nor can be : change alone, Unceasing, never done. Shapes all the forms of things and i