^^ \\it mwrojjiai ^ 
 
 *%; 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 \, 
 
 Presented by IjT. F, U.Pc^^\;on . 
 
 BL 240 .S36 1880 
 Scientific layman 
 The^new truth and the old 
 
I 
 
THE NEW TEUTH 
 
 THE OLD FAITH. 
 
t^iAH B 1914 
 
 THE NEW TEUTH 
 
 AND 
 
 THE OLD FAITH 
 
 A SCIENTIFIC LAYMAN 
 
 LONDON 
 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 18S0 
 
(The riyhls of translation and of reproduction are reserved.) 
 
Are God aud Nature then at strife, 
 
 That Nature lends such evil dreams ? 
 
 So careful of the type she seems, 
 
 So careless of the single life ; 
 # * * * 
 
 " So careful of the type ? " but no. 
 From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
 She cries, " A thousand types are gone : 
 
 I care for nothing, all shall go. 
 
 " Thou makest thine appeal to me : 
 
 I bring to life, I bring to death : 
 
 The spirit does but mean the breath : 
 I know no more." And he, shall he, 
 
 Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair. 
 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 
 Who roU'd the psalm to wintry skies, 
 Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer. 
 
 Who trusted God was love indeed 
 
 And love Creation's final law — 
 
 Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 
 With ravine, shriek'd against his creed — 
 
 Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, 
 
 Who battled for the True, the Just, 
 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 Or seal'd within the iron hills ? 
 
 No more ? A monster then, a di'eam, 
 
 A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
 
 That tare each other in their slime, 
 Were mellow music match'd with him. 
 
 O life as futile, then, as frail ! 
 
 O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 
 
 What hope of answer, or redress ? 
 Behind the veil, behind the veil. 
 
 Tennvson, In Memoriam. 
 
 62 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 The present is an unquiet age, a period of transition, in 
 which the new truth, or what seems to be the new truth, 
 is undermining the foundations of the old faith. There 
 has been a logical scepticism in all times, but positive 
 science is a new agent in the world, an agent whose results 
 cannot be argued away; and whatsoever in the old order 
 of ideas is inconsistent with these, must of necessity fall. 
 The strength of positive science lies in the fact that Nature 
 is ever present to give it proof She has been in the past 
 a silent witness of the fancies and contentions of men; 
 but now they have learned to question her, and to every 
 appeal she answers truly. Nature cannot lie, and any 
 error in science must arise from our interpretation of her 
 oracles. Therefore, since there can be no discord between 
 physical and spiritual truth, the things that are true in 
 religion must not conflict with the things that are ti-ue 
 in science. 
 
 With the solid ground of nature to support him, the 
 hardy man of science has grown bold in his attacks upon 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 the pale priest whose citadel is built on air. Armed with 
 his objective facts and theories, the philosopher vigorously 
 assails the theologian whose weapons are merely those 
 of feeling and tradition. Free thinking and free speaking 
 were never before so rampant as they are now. Scholars 
 are casting doubts upon the authenticity of Holy Writ, and 
 even Scotch divines accept the book of Genesis as a mere 
 poem and an old-time tale. Our most learned reviews 
 appear month after month laden with atheism, infidelity, 
 and neo-paganism. The simple faith of the great naturalists 
 that have passed away, of Newton, Brewster, and Faraday, 
 who ever associated the creation with its Creator, the 
 Lawgiver with His laws, and worshipped Him with awe 
 while they set themselves to find out His handiwork, is 
 apparently a thing of the past ; for their successors have 
 banished God from His own universe, and jest at the faith 
 and reverence which is the most precious possession of the 
 human heart. They tell us that the universe is a soulless 
 mechanism governed by chance, and eternally shaping a 
 brood of automata which live because they are not yet 
 killed, and die because they cannot withstand the blind 
 forces arrayed against them. Men are no longer the 
 "children of God," nor indeed the children of anything 
 better than the fossil monsters, excavated from the rocks. 
 The Adam of Scripture is scouted as a myth; and the real 
 Adam is found to be the scion of a noble stock of apes and 
 quadrupeds, not to mention reptiles and jellyfish, so that 
 the escutcheons of our proudest families might truthfully 
 be garnished with a far greater variety of bird or beast 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 than they bear at present; and an unsuspected addition 
 to their ancestral portrait galleries be found in the bowels 
 of the earth. Man is a slavish engine, fancying himself free ; 
 a tool of flesh and blood to be worn out with use, then 
 broken and flung away. His prayers are futile, his tidings 
 of a higher world are all a flattering dream, and his hopes 
 of a life beyond the grave are vain. The divinity of Christ 
 is a fraud, and Christianity is doomed, like every other 
 superstition, to die of being found out ! 
 
 It is an age, too, which is socially unstable and corrupt. 
 We are struggling for wealth and distinction, forgetful of 
 higher things. Doing is all in all; being is lost sight of, 
 for the beauty of life does not reveal itself to us. Faithless 
 and hopeless, men, weary of the restraints of Christianity, 
 have sunk into a new paganism. Gilded vice now sneers 
 at virtue, ambition scofi*s at law, and luxury smiles at ruin. 
 
 Whether or not the scientific scepticism of the time be 
 a direct cause of this degraded state of society, it is of 
 course impossible to say. There are certain philosophers 
 who hold that materialism cannot have a pernicious effect 
 on society at large ; but since society is composed of 
 individuals, it is difficult to see how that should be. At all 
 events it will be granted that at such a time it is dangerous 
 for a young man or woman to be without a guiding faith 
 and rule of life. When winds are fickle and seas arc 
 raging, the bark should not be rudderless. Yet the present 
 writer can assure these philosophers, that the hard gospel 
 of atoms and force, which they so eloquently preach, has 
 fallen like lead upon the souls of numbers of the youth 
 
X PEEFAOE. 
 
 of this country, and shadowed many a bright young life 
 with sunless gloom. Scientific materialism preys upon 
 the very noblest natures; for they accept it seriously in 
 their devotion to the truth, although the new doctrine too 
 often blights their enthusiasm and stifles their loftiest 
 aspirations. 
 
 The writer was trained in the ways of the old faith by 
 Christian parents, but as he grew up he became a student 
 of the new truths ; and felt for years the internal warfare 
 of knowledge and belief, the shadow and the void within 
 a soul robbed of its creed. He has experienced many of 
 the doubts of the time, and has been impelled to become 
 their humble exponent; while at the same time he is 
 seeking their antidote. 
 
 Amid the multitude of polemical voices, clerical and 
 scientific, the scientific sceptic can find none which resolves 
 the difliculties of the subject in at once a masterly and simple 
 manner. If he goes into a church he hears only the old 
 dogmas preached once more, the old hymns sung, the old 
 prayers said. Yet all the while, he is harbouring a con- 
 viction that the service is a delusion and the creed a 
 mockery. The clergy are, as a rule, so deficient in scientific 
 training, that they cannot grapple with the scepticism 
 which is paralysing their efforts. They have not thought 
 out the bearing of all the new scientific doctrines on the 
 articles of the faith they teach ; and either in fear, or in 
 trust, they shut their eyes to the danger which is threaten- 
 ing, and go on blindly as they have been going. 
 
 Finding no cure for his complaint, which he believes 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 to be the complaint of thousands more young men and 
 women of the period, the writer sought, by private study 
 of the problem, to arrive at his own solution of it, and 
 if possible to recover his lost faith. He therefore undertook 
 a systematic comparison of the old faith with the new 
 truth, and what is put forth as such. The present work 
 is the result of his task. In it the leading doctrines and 
 the established laws of science are, it is hoped, clearly and 
 popularly explained, so that all readers may readily under- 
 stand them; and a comparison is drawn between them and the 
 leading articles of the Christian belief. The writer makes 
 no pretensions to that philosophic arena where pugnacious 
 professors cleverly contend in throwing intellectual javelins 
 at each other, very much for their own vainglory and the 
 amusement of their friends; the stakes at issue being 
 things no less sacred than men's Faith in Christ, and the 
 Goodness of God. His aim has been to utter to the world 
 the conflicting ideas which are floating in the minds of the 
 younger generation, and to bring them into harmony where 
 he could. Where he has failed in reconciling them he will 
 at least have shown their disagreement, and having in this 
 way stated the case, it will perhaps be easier to find the 
 remedy. 
 
 The work being a progressive study, the reader is 
 invited to suspend his judgment of it until he reaches the 
 close. 
 
 The method which has been followed consists in ex- 
 plaining and comparing the views of so-called revelation and 
 science on those great mysteries of his origin, habitation. 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 and destiny, which man is ever brooding over, and en- 
 deavouring to solve. Conformably to this plan the book is 
 divided into three distinct parts, dealing with the three 
 separate questions, Man : Whence is he ? What and 
 
 WHERE IS HE? WhITHER IS HE GOING? 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction . . . . . . xv 
 
 BOOK I.— WHENCE? 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Beginning ..... 3 
 
 II. The Period of Ancient Life . . .22 
 
 III. The Period of New Life ... 39 
 
 IV. The Creation . . . . .54 
 V. Evolution ..... 73 
 
 BOOK II.— WHAT? 
 
 I. Man and his Home . . . . .97 
 
 II. Free-will . . . . . . 121 
 
 IIL Evil . . . . . . .134 
 
 IV. God 149 
 
 V. Prayer . . . . . .169 
 
 BOOK IIL— WHITHER? 
 
 I. Immortality . . . . • 189 
 
 II. Revelation . . . . • .214 
 
 IIL Christ 227 
 
 IV. The Old Creed . . . . .244 
 
 V. The New Evangels . . . .266 
 
 Conclusion ..... 296 
 
mTRODUCTIOK 
 
 As thought by thought is piled till some great truth 
 Is loosened, and the nations echo round. 
 
 Shelley : Prometheus Unbound. 
 
 Ever since man opened his wondering eyes upon the 
 beauty of the earth, he has been searching into the causes 
 of the things around him, and seeking an answer to the 
 great problems concerning his origin, dwelling-place, and 
 destiny. His earliest facts were observed appearances, and 
 his earliest theories were the fictions of his imagination : 
 but as civilization grew, he learned that appearances 
 were deceitful, and that ideal interpretations, like those of 
 the Greek and other ancient sages, were erroneous. The 
 inductive method of Aristotle, revived by Bacon, finally 
 gave the rule of scientific progress, and since Bacon's time 
 the advance of positive science has been more and more 
 rapid and sure. The lesson of Bacon is, that a knowledge 
 of the true nature of things cannot be found out by 
 thinking alone; but has to be discovered by reasoning 
 upon the results of observation and experiment. 
 
 The first-born of the sciences was astronomy, and the 
 starry scroll of the sky was nightly watched by the 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Chaldean magi, thousands of years ago. The properties of 
 terrestrial bodies were also studied by the early alchemists, 
 and the sciences of mathematics, hydraulics, and mechanics, 
 in time arose. Facts accumulated, new instruments were 
 invented, correct theories were framed, and general laws 
 at length came to be formulated. From the heavens to the 
 earth, from matter in gross to matter in fine, the scrutiny 
 of man has been extended; he has put the sun in his 
 crucible, and the atom in his callipers. His gaze has 
 penetrated into infinite space, and seen the forging of new 
 worlds in the workshop of the Creator ; he has traced back 
 the foot-prints of infinite time and gleaned the history of 
 the earth from the waifs and strays of the rocks ; till, at the 
 present, he is striving to elucidate the very stuff" and frame- 
 work of the universe, and his mind is lost in the endless 
 vistas of being that open to his wondering view. 
 
 Ever since his birth, too, we may suppose that man has 
 endeavoured to explain the meaning and end of life, and to 
 form some idea of its Creator ; that is, of the Source from 
 Avhich the universe has emanated. The legends and mytho- 
 logies of savage and barbaric races are an expression of their 
 thoughts upon this subject; and they are all characterized 
 by a poetical tendency to personify principles, or peculiar 
 effects of nature. At first, deities were seen in almost every 
 natural thing ; then, as knowledge grew, the number of 
 gods dwindled, and monotheism arose; but still the god 
 was a natural object, such as the sun, but further removed 
 from the arena of human experience than the older gods. 
 The Jews early arrived at the conception of one invisible 
 God, almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and their ideas 
 on the creation of the world and the origin of man were 
 believed to be inspired, or specially revealed by God Him- 
 
INTEODUCTION. xvn 
 
 self to the Hebrew prophets. These ideas were united to 
 the Christian faith, and have come to be ours also. It is 
 necessary, therefore, that we should bear in mind what 
 they chiefly are. 
 
 The religious or teleological view of nature regards it as 
 the creation of an all-wise and all-powerful God, whose 
 beneficent design is everywhere apparent in it. God created 
 the world in the beginning, and now preserves it by His 
 power. He provides for all the creatures upon it, according 
 to their needs, and has formed them according to their uses. 
 His eye is over all, to guide and protect them from danger. 
 Of all these creatures, man, to whom He has given free- 
 will, has alone the privilege of asking His help and counsel ; 
 and God, on hearkening to man's prayer, sometimes inter- 
 poses and alters the regular course of nature in man's 
 behalf Man was made in the likeness of God, his duty on 
 earth is to do the will of God, and his chief end is to 
 glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever. On the other 
 hand, God has framed everything for man's happiness ; and 
 death and sin came into the world through his own fall, 
 for the first man was originally created pure and perfect. 
 
 As positive science has advanced from one great truth 
 to another, there has been a series of battles between it 
 and this religious or teleological view of nature. The aged 
 Galileo only escaped the torture-chamber of the Inquisition 
 by recanting his doctrine that the world revolved round 
 the sun, and Jiordano Bruno was brought to the stake 
 for affirming, in spite of monkish dogmas, that the earth 
 was not the centre of the universe. We know now that 
 the earth is but a dust-mote among the myriad systems 
 which throng the infinite fields of space. Again, when 
 geology opened up the buried manuscripts of the rocks and 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 read in their stony pages that the world had not been 
 created in six brief days, but had been slowly fashioned 
 during the lapse of seons, there was another sharp conflict 
 between science and the Church. A new interpretation was 
 put upon the old words in the Hebrew text of the Bible, 
 and those men of science who had faithfully propounded 
 the truth came in for no mean share of the odium theologi- 
 cimi. Time passed on, and the waves of classical disturb- 
 ance again subsided, until the Darwinian hypothesis was 
 propounded, and the origin of man derived not directly 
 from the dust of the o-roimd, but from a lonsj intermediate 
 lineage of wondrous living creatures. The storm raised 
 by this bold speculation has not yet died down ; men have 
 not reconciled themselves to their unexpected descent from 
 the brutes, and are still hoping for some loophole of escape 
 from that unpleasant connection. 
 
 The doctrine of the Conservation of Energy preceded 
 the doctrine of Evolution by a very few years : but as its 
 consequences were not so manifestly opposed to the teach- 
 ing of religion, it was allowed to pass unchallenged, and 
 even accepted by many divines. These two great principles 
 are the latest conquests of science, and it is their influence 
 upon the old faith which chiefly occasions the scepticism of 
 the day. 
 
 In order to clearly comprehend the doctrine of the 
 Conservation of Energy, we must first understand what 
 is meant by energy in a scientific sense, and for this it 
 is necessary to form an idea of matter and force. 
 
 We cannot certainly say what matter is, although we 
 can form some conceptions of it ; nor can we say what force 
 is, although we may define it. There are strong grounds for 
 believing that matter is not a continuous substance, but 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 possesses a grained structure. The stuff out of which the 
 universe is formed appears to be moulded into minute 
 blocks or atoms, and those molecular edifices which we call 
 bodies are built up of them or torn down in ruins by the 
 physical forces, in much the same way as houses of brick 
 or stone are reared and demolished. The atomic theory 
 seems to have originated with Democritus, some five hundred 
 years before Christ, and it was fully expounded by the poet- 
 philosopher Lucretius, in his great poem on the " Nature of 
 Things," which was written to dispel the fear of the gods 
 and the hope of a future state, to destroy religion, which 
 he says is the root of evil, and to raise us to the level of the 
 gods themselves by showing us how the world is made. 
 According to Lucretius there are an infinite number of 
 atoms, but only a finite number of kinds ; and these in- 
 finitely hard atoms, having primitive motion by virtue of 
 their weights, clash together, and produce vortices from 
 which the things which we see are formed. This atomic 
 theory of Lucretius, as modified by the English chemist 
 Dalton, is the working hypothesis of all modern chemistry. 
 
 It is supposed that there are certain classes of elemen- 
 tary atoms ; for example, the class of oxygen, the class of 
 gold, the class of carbon. All the atoms in each of these 
 classes are primordial, perpetual, twin. The number of classes 
 is limited, not quite seventy having yet been found on the 
 earth, but the number of individuals is probably infinite. 
 It is by the grouping of these diverse atoms together that 
 all the varied materials of the universe are composed. 
 
 Each group, or atom cluster, is called a molecule, whether 
 it comprise atoms of the same or of different kinds. Each 
 atom is believed to be very complex in construction, and 
 in a state of most intense vibration; so that each molecule, 
 
XX INTEODUCTION. 
 
 while vibrating as a whole, is also vibrating in each of its 
 atomic parts. 
 
 The best explanation of this wondrous pulsating frame, 
 the atom, is to be found in the vortex theory of Sir William 
 Thomson. We have all seen those beautiful smoke rings 
 produced by sudden jets of smoke puffed from the mouth 
 of a smoker or the funnel of a locomotive. Very perfect 
 vortex rings can also be fashioned in water, and propelled for 
 some yards through its mass. Now, it has been suggested by 
 Sir William Thomson that the atoms of matter are simply 
 similar vortex rings formed in a perfect fluid ; that is, a fluid 
 perfectly incompressible, frictionless, and yet possessing the 
 property of inertia, a property which is common to all 
 matter. All smoke rings are seen to vanish in thin air, and 
 water rings to dissolve in the water around them, by reason 
 of the internal friction of both of these fluids breaking them 
 up ; but in a perfect fluid these vortex rings once formed 
 would last for ever. 
 
 On this hypothesis, the atoms of different elements would 
 be vortex rings of different size and period of vibration, and 
 molecules would be formed by groups of these vortex rings, 
 either linked together in a lacelike fashion or huddled close 
 b y an attractive property of their vibrations. 
 
 Some idea of the actual dimensions of the atom has also 
 been given us by Sir William Thomson. He estimates that 
 if a drop of water could be magnified to the size of the 
 earth, each single atom in that drop would be as large as 
 a cricket ball. A cubic centimeter of air is also estimated 
 by Mr. Johnstone Stoney to contain one thousand trillion 
 molecules. This being so, we can never hope to see an atom 
 even with our most powerful microscopes ; only in the eye 
 of mind can they be figured, and only by the ideal rule of 
 mathematics can they be measured. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 Until quite recently it was taught by eminent men of 
 science that the elementary atoms have remained un- 
 changed since the beginning of nature, a doctrine which 
 would agree with the eternity of the atom as deduced from 
 Thomson's vortex theory. There are strong grounds, how- 
 ever, for believing with Prout and Norman Lockyer that the 
 " elements " are not really elementary at all, that oxygen or 
 carbon atoms, for instance, are formed from atoms of a 
 simpler substance by change of conditions, and that the 
 dream which fired the ancient alchemists with the hope of 
 transmuting the baser metals into gold was not so vain 
 after all. Dr. Prout observed that the atomic weights of 
 the elements are nearly all multiples of half the atomic 
 weight of hydrogen, and suggested that the atoms of the 
 so-called elements were formed by clusters of hydrogen 
 atoms. Mr. Lockyer argues that different substances 
 are produced from one primordial matter, hydrogen, by 
 differences of temperature, and that if you could take a 
 piece of coal or chalk and heat it to the required degree 
 in a furnace, you would reduce it to a mass of hydrogen 
 gas. 
 
 To support his view, this hard-working astronomer has 
 made a vast number of observations on the spectra of the 
 heavenly bodies and on terrestrial substances at different 
 temperatures. He finds that the hottest, or white stars, 
 such as Sirius, give the simplest spectra, and seem to 
 contain hydrogen only ; yellow stars, which are cooler, are 
 found to give a more complex spectrum, and to contain 
 iron and sodium, but none of the metalloids ; while orange 
 and blood-red stars furnish the spectra of metalloids, or of 
 compound substances only. The older a star is the less 
 free hydrogen is to be found in it, since it is gradually 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 being used up in the foraiation of other matter. Thus the 
 earth, being an aged star, has no free hydrogen at all. 
 
 If this hypothesis be correct, then, our inability to 
 notice any change in the so-called elements may spring- 
 entirely from our lack of means to alter them, and not from 
 their inherent fixity. 
 
 The modifying effect of temperature, which is now being 
 traced in the atoms, has long been observed in the masses 
 of matter. Recent science has shown that the three 
 physical states — the solid, liquid, and gaseous — are common 
 to all kinds of matter, and that the temperature and pres- 
 sure of the substance determines which of these states it 
 shall be in. All solids can be liquefied, and vaporized ; all 
 gases can be liquefied and solidified. Solid water, or ice, 
 becomes liquid at the zero temperature of the centigrade 
 scale under ordinary atmospheric pressure, and steam at 
 100° on that scale. But even the so-called permanent gases, 
 such as oxygen, which were deemed impossible of liquefac- 
 tion, have been not only liquefied but solidified by the Erench 
 physicists Pictet and Cailletet. Hydrogen was compressed 
 and cooled by them until it issued from their alembic in a 
 steel-blue liquid jet ; and the wandering air was frozen into 
 solid hail, which rattled as it fell upon the floor of the 
 laboratory. 
 
 That which distinguishes the solid from the liquid, and 
 the liquid from the gaseous condition, is the strength of the 
 cohesive force binding the different molecules together. In 
 solids the atoms are rigidly held in the bonds of cohesion, in 
 liquids they are fi-ee to glide over each other, while in gases 
 they are almost entirely emancipated from this restraint. 
 Temperature is the freeing force, and it would seem to have 
 the power not only of liberating the molecules of a body 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxm 
 
 from the ties of each other, but also of loosening the yoke 
 which binds the atoms together. 
 
 A fourth state of matter, beyond the gaseous and only 
 to be observed in a very highly rarefied vacuum, has 
 recently been surmised by Mr. Crookes, the inventor of 
 the radiometer. In what we understand by the gaseous 
 state, according to the kinetic theory of Clausius and 
 Maxwell, a given volume of gas contains millions of millions 
 of molecules, moving rapidly in all directions, each colliding 
 with its neio'hbours millions of times in a second. But 
 by rarefying this volume to a high degree, the free path 
 of each molecule may be lengthened out till the number 
 of hits it makes in a second are negligible as compared 
 with the number of misses, and the molecule is ordinarily free 
 to move unimpeded. When the mean free path is com- 
 parable to the size of the vessel containing the gas, the 
 properties which distinguish the gaseous state are reduced 
 to a minimum, and a new state with exalted properties is 
 brought about. In this state, for example, the corpuscular 
 theory of light seems to hold good, and the rays do not 
 always move in a straight line. This new world which 
 is revealed to us is one, however, we can never enter, and 
 we must be content, says Mr. Crookes, to watch it from 
 without. 
 
 If matter may be likened to the bricks of the universe, 
 the ether may be likened to its mortar. It is believed to 
 fill all space and to permeate the molecular interstices of 
 bodies; so that the atoms of matter are steeped in an 
 ocean of ether. We know of its existence from the light 
 and radiant heat which it bears to us from the sun, moon, 
 and stars; and from certain magnetic properties which it 
 has ; but we know even less about its real nature than 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 we know about matter. Light is known to be a tremor 
 of this ether communicated to the brain by the eye ; and 
 hence it has been supposed by some to be an elastic solid 
 like a jelly. But a more probable hypothesis gives it a 
 gaseous texture, or in other words, a volume of small 
 particles moving in all directions. 
 
 These particles may, on Thomson's theory, be vortex 
 rings of an infinitely smaller type than the atoms of 
 matter; and, indeed, the votex rings of matter may be 
 generated from the ether itself They may be clusters of 
 ether rings hanging together, or rings formed out of the 
 fluid ether, as smoke rinas are formed out of smoke. Some 
 idea of the extreme tenuity of the ether may be formed 
 from the inferior limit to its density given by Sir William 
 Thomson. Reasoning from the amount of sunlight in a 
 cubic mile of air near the earth (12,000 foot-pounds of 
 radiant solar energy), that great physicist arrived at the con- 
 clusion that the mass of ether contained in that cubic mile 
 of space could not be less, but might be greater, than one 
 thousand millionth of a pound. 
 
 Science is just beginning to suspect the vast importance 
 of the ether in the economy of the universe ; and it is thought 
 by many that it is the source and treasury of motion, as 
 well as the mechanism whereby material changes are eflected. 
 The ether appears to be a fountain-head from which 
 the energy which lights our fires, drives our mills, and swells 
 our veins, is drawn, and to which it is in time restored. 
 It surrounds us with an infinite stock of concealed power 
 which we should never dream of, were it not for the 
 terrific violence of the lightning flash which sometimes 
 reveals it to us. And frail as we are, we yet live in the 
 midst of it, because the powers of destruction are so finely 
 Inalanced. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxv 
 
 Matter and Ether are the vehicles of Energy. What, 
 then, is Energy ? To answer this question we shall first 
 have to consider what is Force. In common talk we speak 
 of the force of a blow, the force of circumstances, the force 
 of habit, and in popular science we hear of the physical 
 forces — gravitation, cohesion, chemical affinity, electricity, 
 magnetism, and so on. Indeed, when a new seat of energy 
 is discovered by a man of science, it has been customary 
 to style it his particular force. The strictly scientific de- 
 finition of force is something different from all these vague 
 conceptions, and was earliest given by Newton in his first 
 Law of Motion. Newton defined a force to be that power 
 which tends to compel a body to change its state of rest 
 or motion. If the body is at rest, force is that which tends 
 to set it in motion ; if it is moving, force is that which 
 tends to change its velocity or its direction of motion. 
 Hence the change of motion produced by the force is a 
 measure of the force, and is called the acceleration of the 
 motion. If the motion is increased by the force, the ac- 
 celeration is a positive quantity ; if decreased, the accelera- 
 tion is negative. For example, the acceleration brought 
 about by the force of gravity on a body falling to the earth 
 is, for the latitude of London, about 32-2 feet per second ; 
 that is, a body falling in London nears the ground faster 
 every succeeding second by some 32 feet, under the pull 
 of the earth's gravity. Gravity being a diffused molecular 
 force, acts on every particle of the mass of a body alike, and 
 therefore this acceleration is a measure of its intensity, 
 for any part of the earth's surface. In the case of other 
 forces however, whose application to a body is restricted 
 to one point, and not spread equally over the mass, we do 
 not set a true measure of the value of the force without 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 taking also into account the mass or quantity of matter 
 moved. Whether it be a ton or a grain-weight that is 
 dropping to the ground under gravity, the acceleration 
 is the same in both; but if a mechanical pressure or a 
 magnetic attraction were applied to these two masses the 
 resulting acceleration would be very different in each case. 
 Hence it is that in the science of Dynamics the intensity of 
 a force is measured by the product of the acceleration and 
 the mass. 
 
 Energy is a term restricted by science at present to the 
 work done by a force operating for some time. A body is 
 said to possess two kinds of energy; kinetic energy, by 
 virtue of its motion ; and potential energy, by virtue of its 
 position. When the force causes a mass to move through 
 a certain space, as in the instance of a man winding up the * 
 weights of a clock, the work done by the man is said to be 
 equal to the change of kinetic energy of the weights ; that 
 is, the product of the mass moved and the space it is moved 
 through. And, on the other hand, the weights, when wound 
 up and left at rest, are said to possess potential energy, 
 because their position is such that they can, if let free to 
 fall, restore the kinetic energy or work which was spent 
 upon them in raising them there. In the same way, a bent 
 spring, a boulder on a crag, a pendulum at the end of its 
 beat, and even a charge of gunpowder, is held to possess 
 potential energy, since it is in a position to yield a supply 
 of kinetic energy, and is, in fact, a latent store of power. 
 Nevertheless, it appears to the writer that there is a fallacy 
 in this term "potential energy." For how can a mass possess 
 energy by virtue of its position, which is a mere accident, 
 and no property of the body or the forces acting on it ? It 
 seems to him that the hypothesis of potential energy is only 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXVll 
 
 a mask for our ignorance of the real condition of things ; 
 that energy can only be of one kind, namely, that due to 
 matter in motion, and that no body really at rest can 
 possibly possess energy, whatever its position. If the mass- 
 would seem to be at rest, then it will probably be found 
 that the molecules are not, and that the potential energy 
 of position is the balanced kinetic energy of particles. When 
 a force is too feeble to shift a large mass, it cannot be said 
 that no motion at all is produced, although there is none 
 visible; for the mass is strained and its atoms are moved. 
 Similarly it will probably be found that the kinetic energy 
 of mass, which has apparently disappeared when a body 
 comes to rest in a potential state, as in the case of the 
 wound clock weight, has become the kinetic energy of the 
 molecules and ether particles in a state of equilibrium. 
 
 If we accept the dual hypotheses of kinetic and potential 
 energy for the nonce, however, as a convenient makeshift, 
 we shall find that all the protean forms which energy 
 assumes in the universe may be relegated to one or the 
 other class. Energy is either kinetic or potential, and the 
 working of nature consists in changing from one kind to 
 the other. The shuttle of Time's loom flies from rest 
 to motion, and from motion to rest, in eternal rhythm. 
 Even the planet swinging round the sun quickens and 
 slackens in its career at different points of its orbit ; while 
 the atom pulsates in its tiny path. And there is not only a 
 passage of energy from rest to motion or motion to rest, but 
 from one form to another. Mechanical energy becomes 
 heat, heat becomes electricity, electricity becomes magnet- 
 ism, and so on. Every quantity of energy in one form has 
 its exact equivalent in another form; and no energy ever 
 disappears from the universe — it simply alters its mode. 
 
XXVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Tlnis man may transform energy, but he can neither create 
 it nor destroy it. 
 
 These transformations evidently take place through the 
 mechanism of matter and ether interacting with each other ; 
 but it is still impossible to say how. The universe apparently 
 consists of matter and ether in motion ; but the form and 
 essence of these is an inscrutable secret. Emboldened by 
 her researches, however, Science does not hesitate to teach 
 that the sum of matter and the sum of motion, or, in other 
 words, the sum of energy in the universe, whatever its 
 transformations may be, is a constant quantity, and that 
 no fresh energy is born into nature or dies out of it. Such 
 is the well-known doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. 
 
 The principle of the conservation of energy seems, at least 
 in spirit, antagonistic to the teleological view of nature, since 
 it would establish the supremacy of law, and banish an active 
 Creator and an intervening Providence from the universe. 
 It may admit that, in the beginning, the Creator constructed 
 and set a-going the great mechanism which we call Nature ; 
 but it maintains that ever since that time He has left it 
 to operate of its own accord without His interference. And, 
 moreover, Sir William Thomson's theory of the dissipation 
 of energy, which is a corollary to the said doctrine, draws 
 the analog}^ between the universe and a machine still 
 closer. According to this theory, which is based on the 
 physical action of a heat-engine, all the energy in Nature 
 tends during its transformations to become frittered down 
 by molecular friction into heat, until, in course of time, the 
 universe will acquire a uniform temperature. But in a heat- 
 engine no work can be done unless there is a difference of 
 temperature between the boiler and condenser; and hence 
 no work will be performed in a universe whose parts are 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 all at the same temperature. Some modification of the 
 theory may be required to take into account the energy 
 which could be obtained from two different gases at the 
 same temperature diffusing into each other ; but the grand 
 deduction is in the main legitimate, that the universe is 
 running down like a clock which has been wound up, or an 
 engine whose furnace-fires have been plenished once for all, 
 and that this majestical frame of life and light which we 
 see around us will inevitably sink into a ruin of death and 
 desolation. 
 
 The doctrine of the conservation of energy, as proved by 
 Joule, Clausius, Thomson, and others, was soon followed by 
 the doctrine of evolution as completed by Darwin and 
 Wallace. The former expresses the means, and the latter 
 the way, by which the present condition of things has been 
 brought about. The one teaches that the stuff or basis of the 
 universe is a fixed amount of matter and energy, capable 
 of certain transformations ; and the other teaches that this 
 matter and energy, by the inherent properties with which 
 it is endowed, and also because of its original arrangement, 
 has developed into a certain order of material and living 
 forms, culminating in those which now exist. It also 
 teaches the factors which have operated in this process, 
 and sets forth the order in question. In fine, it endeavours 
 to tell the story of the universe from its cradle onwards. 
 
 The general theory of globe development, as enunciated 
 by Kant and Laplace, begins with the origin of solar 
 systems. The matter forming a sun, say our own, with its 
 attendant planets was once a revolving cloud of diffused 
 atoms, a fiery nebula spread out in space. These atoms, 
 under the influence of the force of gravity with which they 
 were endowed, gradually collected into solid masses, at a 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 glowing lieat, the central mass being the sun of the system, 
 and the outer ones the planets. Being in a molten state, 
 they acquired a globular form from their axial rotation, and 
 the original whirling motion of the nebula from which they 
 were thrown off. The middle orb being largest, would take 
 a much longer time to cool by radiation than the others, 
 which would in course of time grow dark and fit for life. 
 
 How life originated in these planets when they were 
 quite ready for it, is as yet a mystery. Some hold with 
 Dr. Bastian, that when the necessary conditions were ripe, 
 the first germ of life sprung spontaneously from the soil ; 
 but all experimental attempts to create life in this manner 
 have egregiously failed. Professor Helmholtz and Sir 
 William Thomson have suggested that it may have been 
 borne to them on some meteoric stone or dust, from other 
 realms of space. Others there are who look upon the begin- 
 ning of life as due to the intrusion of an unseen universe. 
 
 The modern development theory, of which Darwin is the 
 principal exponent, does not concern itself, however, with 
 the origin of planets or of life. It starts with the first 
 germs of life, and then traces out the subsequent evolution 
 of all plants and animals. There are three factors in this 
 process of evolution, namely, Heredity, Environment, and 
 Adaptation. Heredity expresses the tendency of an organ- 
 ism to grow in the likeness of its parent ; environment is 
 the sum of the physical conditions surrounding the organ- 
 ism by which it is influenced ; and adaptation expresses tlie 
 tendency of an organism to become modified into harmony 
 with its environment. This result may be accomplished 
 either by progression or retrogression on the part of tlie 
 creature ; that is, either by attaining a higher level of organ- 
 ized existence or falling back to a lower. 
 
INTiiODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 Evolution occupies itself with two classes of problems 
 which are the inverse of each other. It studies the effect 
 of environment on the organism, and also from the organism 
 deduces the nature of the environment. According to 
 Darwin, the process of adaptation is carried on by Natural 
 Selection ending in Survival of the Fittest. It is well known 
 that all the varieties of pigeon-carrier, fantail, or pouter, 
 have been bred from the wild dove, by artificial selection on 
 the part of the fancier. Darwin claims that by a similar 
 method on the part of nature, not only varieties of breed, 
 but even different species of animals and plants have been 
 produced from one original stock in the course of untold 
 ages. A curious and significant feature in selection, whether 
 human or natural, is a certain tendency to minor variations 
 from the parent, or the typical form, on the part of some 
 individuals. We cannot say how these minor variations 
 arise, but it is by taking advantage of them that the 
 breeder is able to get a new variety. The influence of 
 environment, transmitted by heredity, and this tendency 
 to minor variations, together with what is called Sexual 
 Selection, or the pairing of opposite sexes, appear to 
 make up the process of development. The controlling- 
 principle of natural selection is the survival of those 
 organisms which prove themselves best fitted for their 
 environment. By this rigorous and searching law of life 
 all that is weak is rooted out, while all that is strong is 
 perpetuated. Plants and animals are permitted to survive, 
 because they have stood the ordeal of the forces of nature 
 arrayed against them, and could not be killed away. If the 
 environment is practically constant, it follows that the later 
 organisms will be superior to the earlier ones, since they 
 are better harmonized to it. On the other hand, if the 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 environment change, the organisms may either become 
 degraded or imj)roved, or annihilated altogether; and a 
 certain change of environment is conceivable which will 
 gradually alter one species into another, if continued long 
 enough. 
 
 The test of species lies in their typical form, or in the 
 mutual fecundity of their members. All the individuals of 
 a certain species have a common peculiarity of shape, or 
 morphological characteristic. Similarly, they all possess 
 the capacity for interbreeding, and yielding offspring which 
 again can interbreed with the production of fertile offspring. 
 For example, the foals of an Arab stallion and a Norman 
 mare would be fertile with the foal of a Shetland pony, 
 for all these different breeds belong to one species. But 
 the hybrid of a horse and an ass would be barren with 
 another mule. Hence the horse and the ass are not of one 
 species. 
 
 Wide as is the differentiation of organisms into species, 
 the Darwinian theory maintains that all species and 
 varieties of flora and fauna originally sprang from one or, 
 at most, a few primordial germs by a slow accumulation of 
 slight differences. In his 'Descent of Man, Darwin points 
 to the resemblances between the structure of man and the 
 inferior animals, particularly the anthropoid apes, and to 
 certain rudimentary formations, which are useless to him, 
 as indicating his ascent from lower forms of life. 
 
 The doctrine of evolution, like the doctrine of the con- 
 servation of energy, dismisses the intelligent action of a 
 Creator to the very beginning of the universe. It does not 
 deny the existence of a supreme Being, of inscrutable 
 attributes and power, but it will not allow that He interferes 
 with the order of things established under the reign of law ; 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXlll 
 
 and hence it is antagonistic to a special Providence, and 
 what is commonly understood by the efficacy of prayer. It 
 is opposed to the Mosaic account of creation, which asserts 
 that God called suddenly into existence every living thing 
 by the word of His power, in the space of six days, some 
 six thousand years ago, and pronounced it good, or requiring 
 no improvement, then rested on the seventh day from all 
 His labour. For it teaches that each species is not inde- 
 pendent of the others, or separately created, but that all 
 species are. inter-related, branches of the same tree of life, 
 and derived from one another. It seems to confound the 
 argument for Design in nature, since it shows that the fit- 
 ness of an organism for its place is the result of natural 
 warring forces ; and that had the creature not been adapted 
 to its circumstances, it would not have been alive at all. 
 Thus, the eye has been shaped to see and the ear to hear, by 
 external nature operating on the plastic matter of life. 
 
 These two doctrines uphold the principle of continuity 
 in nature, which means that the chain of cause and effect is 
 never broken. According to this principle, the supernatural 
 must not be invoked in our explanation of nature, if the 
 operation of natural laws will suffice; and no arbitrary 
 interference with causation, such as would put the human 
 intellect to confusion, can be admitted. 
 
 Taken together, they furnish us with a meagre outline 
 of the Creator's mode of working ; a vision, dim and partial, 
 of the birth and growth of worlds, from fiery star-mist to 
 solid planets, from the irregularity of inanimate matter to 
 the symmetry of life, from rude organic forms to higher and 
 more delicate types, from the herbage of the rock to man- 
 kind, with his living soul. And further, they reveal to us 
 that the very grandest productions of Nature, her suns and 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 systems, aie equally with the tiniest submitted to the law 
 of change. The })lanet, and perhaps also the entire Cosmos, 
 develops from the nebulous embryo to full maturity, then 
 lapses to decay, even as the flower which clings to it 
 unfolds itself to fullest bloom, then slowly droops and dies. 
 
BOOK I. 
 WHENCE? 
 
 *:> 
 
 7 
 
They say 
 The solid earth whereon we troad 
 
 In tracts of fluent heat began, 
 
 And grew to seeming-random forms, 
 
 The seeming prey of cyclic storms, 
 Till at the last arose the man. 
 
 Tennysox, Li Memoriam. 
 
THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BEGINNING. 
 
 lu the beginning Got! created the heaven and the earth. 
 
 And the earth was without form and void ; and darkness was upon the 
 face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 
 
 And God said, Let there be light : and there was hght. 
 
 And God saw the light, that it was good : and God divided the light 
 from the darkness. 
 
 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And 
 the evening and the morning were the first day. 
 
 And God said. Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and 
 let it divide the waters from the waters. 
 
 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the 
 firmament from the waters which were above the firmament : and it was so. 
 
 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the 
 morning were the second day. — Genesis i. 1-8. 
 
 The Creator has not left us without a material revela- 
 tion of what has taken place on earth in the past and 
 what is now going on in the heavens. He does not, indeed, 
 furnish us with a complete record of His creation classified, 
 like a botanist's herbarium, or a biologist's museum. Man 
 must tax his ingenuity and skill over it, to read the im- 
 perfect lines. But as time unrolls and all things change, 
 there are pieces saved from the ruin of the rich and varied 
 fabric which He rears upon the bosom of immensity. 
 Shreds of fern imprint their delicate patterns on the clay, 
 
4 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 the stems of palms are buried in the sand, and the bones 
 of slaughtered carrion are coffined in the rock. These 
 stony fossils are the shattered seals in which the Creator 
 has impressed his signature, the shrunken vestiges of His 
 ancient handiwork. 
 
 Like the broken fragments of Chaldean tablets, they 
 have to be put together and patiently deciphered in order 
 that we may glean from them the true legend of creation. 
 Every scratched pebble is an engraven secret ; and as the 
 geologist's hammer breaks open the hoarded manuscripts 
 of the crags beneath, and lays bare their stony pages, so 
 does the astronomer's telescope pierce the mystery of the 
 skies, and resolve those golden orbs sown broadcast on the 
 abyss of space, into countless suns and systems of worlds, 
 in all stages of growth and decay. Every meteorite which 
 falls through the air, scattering its train of fire behind it, 
 is a messenger from space, bringing samples of cosmical 
 matter to us for our examination ; every ray of light which 
 reaches us from the remotest star is a swift courier, bearing 
 a despatch which, under the scrutiny of the prism, reveals 
 the constitution of the body which gave it birth. 
 
 By comparing the earth with other planets, and planets 
 with suns, and suns with nebulte, the astronomer is able 
 to arrive at some idea of the origin and development of 
 the earth, just as the physiologist, by a comparative study 
 of animal life, is enabled to throw some light on the origin 
 and development of man. 
 
 If we dig down into the bowels of the earth at any 
 place, whatever be the rock or clime, we pass first through 
 a series of stratified rocks, of clay, sand or chalk, con- 
 taining fossils, and bearing traces of having been deposited 
 at one time by water. But under these, we find a series 
 
THE BEGINNING. 5 
 
 of rocks, such as granite and gneiss, which are plainly old 
 stratified rocks, altered by heat and steam ; and below 
 these again, we encounter hard crystalline beds of basalt, 
 or solid lavas, which, indeed, thrust themselves up amongst 
 the overlying rocks in huge bosses and veins. These 
 fundamental rocks are similar in kind to the cold slags of 
 active volcanoes, and many of them are associated with 
 volcanoes now extinct. As we dig down, too, we find the 
 temperature of the bore rising at the rate of 1° Fahr. 
 for every 50 feet of descent, after the first hundred feet 
 have been passed. These two observations together point 
 to a high temperature inside the earth, a conclusion which 
 is supported by the existence of quick volcanoes. Whether 
 the core of the earth is fluid or not is still a moot point, 
 but it cannot be doubted that there are lakes of molten 
 matter in cavities of the interior, which sometimes over- 
 flow their banks and spout their liquid fire up to the 
 surface of the crust. Moreover, the increase of igneous 
 rocks as we pierce downwards, and the general prevalence 
 of volcanoes in past times, are proof that the earth's 
 temperature was once higher than it is now. And if we 
 add to this evidence the significant fact that the spheroidal 
 shape of the earth is just such as a fluid or plastic mass 
 would assume were it spun on its axis as the earth spins, 
 we are fairly warranted in concluding that the world 
 was once a white-hot ball of molten rock, in flne, a 
 miniature sun. 
 
 If, instead of burrowing underground, we could soar 
 away into space, and survey the universe with the piercing 
 eyes of Uriel, we should behold worlds in all stages of 
 formation. Directing our gaze first upon the sun, the 
 sovereign of our system, and sustainer of its life, we should 
 
6 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 see him no longer shorn of his glory by the glowing veil of 
 the earth's atmosphere, but clothed in all his terrible majesty, 
 —a stupendous globe in conflagration, whirling through the 
 void, no man knows whither, and bearing his girdle of 
 attendant planets with him. His dazzling atmosphere is a 
 scene of awful tumult and commotion. Thick clouds of 
 gaseous metals and mists of vaporous rock whirl them- 
 selves together and belch outrageous flames of hydrogen, 
 or are torn asunder by fearful hurricanes so as to reveal 
 through their yawning gulfs the insufierable brightness 
 of the molten nucleus within ; and his enormous oceans of 
 liquid metal, wide-weltering in fiery surges, are lashed by 
 showers of iron hail and red-hot rain. What earthly artist 
 could picture the appalling grandeur of these solar tempests, 
 their inconceivable extent and fury, the wild colours of the 
 elemental war ! A terrestrial thunderstorm with its gloomy 
 rack overwhelming the flushed sky, its blustering squalls, 
 and sheets of vivid lightning, is a theme transcending the 
 power of human pencil. But what shall we say of a storm 
 where the winds are flame, and the billows molten metal, 
 — of a cyclone raging in an atmosphere flagrant with the 
 green haze of volatilized copper, the orange glow of blazing- 
 sodium, or the lurid glare of burning zinc ! 
 
 No doubt this magnificent spectacle of cosmic riot, the 
 smelting of a sun, and forging of a world, would, if too 
 nearly regarded, appear both harsh and terrible to our 
 eyes ; but when witnessed from a proper stand-point in 
 space, it would entrance us with its loveliness, sublimity, 
 and splendour. 
 
 Nor does this crude description exhaust the sources of 
 the solar pomp. For beyond the liquid nucleus, wrapped 
 in its thick folds of glowing vapour, the eye distinguishes 
 
THE BEGINNING. 
 
 a luminous corona, encircling the solar disk like an aureole, 
 and extending far into space. On close examination, this 
 curious appearance is found to be due to countless streams 
 of meteoric stones, converging in perihelion round the sun, 
 and lit up by his beams. It is a kind of solar aurora, and 
 the beauteous hues of its electrical displays enhance and 
 radiate the glory of the orb itself. 
 
 If we turn our eyes from the sun to the moon we pass 
 from a theatre of intensest energy to a scene of utter deso- 
 lation and death. The landscape of the moon is without 
 wind or clouds, rivers or seas, tides or seasons. Vast cinder 
 plains, blistered with the craters of extinct volcanoes, and 
 crossed by yawning rifts and chasms, bask in the sun's 
 untempered heat, and weuxl crags of lava or glittering 
 basalt loom starkly in the airless light as if they would 
 topple over and fall. Everywhere there is the same ashen 
 grey hue, as of hoary age, the same wizard nearness of 
 sight, the same deathly stillness, and arid blank. Not a 
 green leaf, not a jet of sparkling water, to refresh the weary 
 eye ; not a hum of insect or a song of bu-d to charm the ear ; 
 there is no sign of life or motion anywhere around, except 
 indeed it be the dull puif of some expiring volcano, break- 
 ing the silence like the last gasp of a dying man. 
 
 Let us next take a peep at each of the planets in turn, 
 beginning with the minor planets within the zone of 
 asteroids. Mercury, which is nearest to the sun, is seen as a 
 small bright globe apparently muffled in a thick atmosphere 
 of clouds. The intensity of the sun's rays on his surface is 
 about ten times what it is on the earth, his year lasts only 
 three months, and gravity is only half as powerful as it is 
 here. It is difficult to understand how life, such as we 
 know it, can exist on Mercury, unless it be at the poles. 
 
8 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 On ]\Iercuiy the seasons only last three weeks, so that the 
 vegetation must grow at a magical rate ; and bodies are so 
 liglit that the unwieldy mammoth would skip there like 
 the mountain roe. Moonless Venus resembles the earth, 
 and is almost as large. She has a vaporous atmosphere, and 
 shores washed by tides obeying the sun. Life, whether it 
 be the " microscopic animalcules with silicious coverings," 
 fancied by Dr. Whewell, or of a higher grade, is] probably 
 confined to her polar and temperate regions. 
 
 Passing over Terra, we come to Mars, the ruddy planet 
 with its two tiny moons. Mars is really a miniature earth, 
 and affords us a glimpse of how our own world looks as it 
 rolls its lonely course on the ocean of sunlit space — a 
 dappled green and reddish ball, with white spots at the 
 poles. The greenish blue patches are seas, the reddish 
 brown patches are continents, and the bright spots at 
 opposite sides are polar snow-caps. Clouds, too, are seen 
 to obscure the surface of Mars, telling of wind and rain, 
 rivers and lakes. Mars is evidently well adapted for the 
 support of such kinds of life as are familiar to ourselves. 
 
 Beyond Mars we cross the great zone of small planets, 
 which fence the minor planets from the major. Then 
 Jupiter, the giant of the system, surrounded by his four 
 satellites, engages our attention. His immense disk is 
 streaked with belts of cloud, very bright at the equator, 
 but paling through yellow, to brown, and even to grey at 
 the poles. It would seem that Jupiter is still self-luminous, 
 at least at the equator. Though probably cooled to a dark 
 crust at the poles, his central regions are apparently still 
 glowing and red hot. These unquenched internal fires must 
 give rise to boiling seas, breaking on cindery shores, and 
 eruptions of volcanic ash. Life, except in its lowest forms, 
 
THE BEGINNING. 9 
 
 can hardly yet exist on this dying sun himself, but it may 
 now flourish luxuriantly on his moons. 
 
 Saturn, with his eight satellites, and his three wondrous 
 rings, is a second Jupiter, though not quite so large ; and 
 though the beauty of his night sky, adorned as it is with 
 shining moons and luminous bows, is well worthy of in- 
 telligent appreciation, there is little reason to conclude 
 that any but the lowest types of life have yet found a home 
 upon his surface, although his satellites may be the seat of 
 a noble order of beings. 
 
 Leaving Saturn, we seek the remote arctic planets, 
 Uranus and Neptune, on the far confines of the solar 
 system, the latter being no less than thirty times farther 
 from the sun than is the earth. To the naked eye, Neptune 
 appears no other than a bright star as seen from the earth, 
 yet his diameter is 37,000 miles, or five times greater than 
 that of the earth. At Neptune, the intensity of the sun's 
 heat is only gi^ of what it is on the earth, so that unless 
 the planet is still heated by internal fires, it is probably in 
 an arctic state, and devoid of animal or veofetable life. 
 
 The solar corona revealed to us that countless flocks of 
 meteorites were circling round the sun ; Saturn's rings are 
 obviously a phenomenon of a similar kind ; and, in fine, a 
 closer scrutiny of space shows that it is literally strewn 
 with these small fragments of solid stone and iron, mixed 
 with oxygen, carbon, sulphur, sodium, nickel, tin, copper, 
 and other cosmical elements which are found to compose 
 the sun and comets equally with the earth and other planets. 
 They sweep in myriad streams through the regions of 
 space, across the track of the planets, and in the wake of 
 numerous comets which are also known to haunt the solar 
 system. Some of these comets are merely clouds of glowing 
 
10 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 vapours, others are white-hot nuclei in a solid or liquid 
 state, surrounded and followed by long trains of burning 
 gas and meteorites, while others again are simply a burning 
 nucleus. There are thus comets all tail and comets all head, 
 as well as those with the typical head and tail. They travel 
 in orbits of great eccentricity, and mostly return at long 
 intervals to the neighbourhood of the sun, if they return 
 at all. 
 
 Having now taken a panoramic view of the solar system, 
 and its visitants, let us briefly glance across the vast abyss 
 at the sidereal system, or Milky Way, of which the sun 
 himself is a single star. Here the vision is bewildered 
 among millions of stars, some of which are smaller, others 
 larger than our sun. Sirius, for example, is fourteen times 
 bigger than our luminary. We see lone stars, double stars 
 circling round each other, stars in groups of three or more, 
 stars in clusters, whorls, and streams, even stars in drift- 
 ing masses. These are of almost every magnitude, and 
 many wax and wane in splendour like the solar orb. In 
 short, they are suns too, with their coronas of meteoric 
 streams, and are composed of the same metals and minerals 
 which build up our own system. 
 
 But in addition to these suns, and the invisible planets 
 which may be presumed to wheel their courses round them, 
 we observe a third species of heavenly body, which we did 
 not find in the solar system. 
 
 If we direct our gaze to the brilliant belt of the constel- 
 lation Orion, we see one of these star-mists, or nebulae, spread 
 over the blue heavens like a veil of milky light, begemmed 
 with stars. Some of these lambent star-mists are resolv- 
 able into congeries of stars, otliers are known to be masses 
 of gloAN'ing hydrogen and nitrogen gas, millions of cubic 
 
THE BEGINNING. 11 
 
 miles in volume. But between these two extremes there 
 are intermediate kinds, gaseous nebulse showing a solid or 
 liquid nucleus, more or less developed. In fact, the various 
 species of nebulae merge into each other, and are found to 
 be different orders of one family. But, if from this view 
 of nebular varieties we are led to conclude that stars and 
 star-clusters are gradually formed by condensation of the 
 diffused nebular gases into solid nuclei, we are also fur- 
 nished with ocular evidence that the reverse process may 
 take place too ; for variable stars, such as Eta Argus, some- 
 times blaze out in brightness from the sixth to the first 
 magnitude, and a well-marked star in Cygnus recently 
 faded into nebulous haze. 
 
 These millions of stars, big and little, and the nebulae 
 associated with them, are probably aU members of the 
 sidereal galaxy to which our system belongs. To give some 
 idea of the immensity of this aggregation of worlds we have 
 only to reflect that Alpha Centauri, the nearest to us of the 
 sidereal suns, or so-called " fixed " stars, is twenty millions 
 of millions of miles distant, or two hundred and thirty 
 thousand times further from the earth than the earth is 
 from the sun. Light, which takes eight minutes to travel 
 from the sun to the earth, and four hours to speed across 
 the gulf which separates us from Neptune, takes no less 
 than three years to reach our eyes from Alpha Centauri. 
 
 The majority of the sidereal suns are apparently fix:ed 
 in space, although a slight motion in some of the nearest 
 has been detected. We cannot, therefore, be sure of their 
 distances from us, but, judging from their distribution and 
 brightness, we are not likely to be far wrong in estimating 
 that some of these are so remote that their light occupies 
 tens of thousands of years in coming to the earth. Nor can 
 
12 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 we say that our keenest telescopes have penetrated to the 
 outermost verge of the galaxy ; for, in some directions at 
 least, there is a faint glare on the sky, which a higher power 
 of vision miglit break up into stars. There is reason to be- 
 lieve, however, that the sidereal system is finite in extent, 
 for unless it be (as some experiments indicate) that rays of 
 light are by degrees extinguished in their passage through 
 space, it would follow that were the system infinite, the night 
 sky would glow with the blended beams of innumerable stars. 
 
 Although the sidereal system is perhaps limited, how- 
 evei', it does not follow that there are not other galaxies 
 clustering in infinite space, and in proportion as far removed 
 from our galaxy as the solar system is from that of Alpha 
 Centauri. There may be millions of galaxies in the Cosmos, 
 just as there are millions of stars in the galaxy ; and al- 
 though the raw material of what we call Nature is seen to 
 be common to the whole sidereal system, we cannot tell but 
 that there may be new stuffs and other Natures far beyond 
 our ken. 
 
 Having made this cursory survey of the celestial sphere, 
 it is right for us to pause and consider what it teaches us 
 of the architecture of the heavens, and the earth's place 
 therein. We have learned that space is the theatre of 
 ceaseless activity, on the most stupendous scale ; and that 
 suns and systems are still being shaped out of chaos ; that 
 the elementary matter of the visible universe is the same 
 in kind, whether it be used to form a nebula, sun, or planet; 
 that only the conditions of position and proportion under 
 which it exists are found to vary ; and that the earth is a 
 comparatively small member of a family of satellites follow- 
 ing a single star, which is one amid a myriad others of lesser 
 and of greater splendour, scattered with their retinues of 
 
THE BEGINNING. 13 
 
 worlds like specks of dust in the depths of space, but bound 
 together by the self-same law. We have seen foetal stars 
 in the act of development from nebulous haze by segre- 
 gation of particles, and passing through different stages of 
 growth ; and we cannot doubt that our sun was formed in a 
 similar way, and that the planets girdling the sun, though 
 most of them are now cold and dark, were once subsidiary 
 suns of the same star-group, formed from the same nebula. 
 We have also found analogies among the other planets, 
 to the earlier states of the earth itself The giant mass of 
 Jupiter seems to be at once the glowing ember of a star 
 and the crude core of a young world. Neptune, like the 
 moon, is evidently a planet shrunk into old age, while the 
 earth occupies the place of the golden mean, and now 
 rejoices in the fulness of her prime. 
 
 When Hugh Miller, in 1856, wrote his Testimony of the 
 Rocks, with the praiseworthy object of reconciling revealed 
 religion and geological science, he remarked that the know- 
 ledge necessary to interpret scientifically the first and 
 second days of the Mosaic account of creation had not yet 
 been gained, and contented himself with explaining the 
 third, fifth, and sixth, or true geological days, according 
 to the science of his time, leaving out the first, second, 
 and fourth days, which are astronomical. The nebula 
 hypothesis of Laplace, and the development theory of 
 Lamarck and other naturalists, were evidently regarded 
 by him as ingenious dreams. Since Miller's day, however, 
 both of these conceptions have been growing in likelihood, 
 and taking a firmer hold on the minds of men. In 1859 
 Kirchhoff found the key to the solar spectrum, and enabled 
 astronomers to analyse the heavenly bodies by means of 
 the spectroscope. Till then the letters of rainbow light 
 
1-i THE NEW TRUTH AXD THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 written on the wall had waited in vain for an interpreter. 
 But when Kirchhoff found that the light from incandescent 
 solid and liquid bodies gave a continuous riband of coloured 
 rays when passed through the prism, whereas that from 
 incandescent gases gave a spectrum of isolated bright lines, 
 
 and also that the spectrum of light from an incandescent 
 
 solid or liquid body, enveloped in an incandescent gas, was 
 robbed of some of its light by the absorption of the gas, 
 and presented only black lines where the bright lines of the 
 eras should have been, — the secret of the composition of 
 the sun, stars, and nebulse was about to be revealed by 
 the light radiating from them. In 1859, too, Darwin 
 published his Origin of Species and elaborated his theory 
 of Natural Selection. So that during the last twenty years, 
 great strides have been made by science, and its position 
 with regard to the Mosaic account of creation has been 
 marked by changes. We can now attempt to relate with 
 some degree of probability,, the earlier part of the story 
 of the earth's creation. 
 
 According to the nebular hypothesis of Kant and 
 Laplace, the solar system consisted originally of a nebula, 
 or diffused cloud of gases, extending far beyond the present 
 bounds of the planets, and probably revolving with great 
 velocity. This mass was endowed with the force of gravi- 
 tation, but being, like existing nebulae, in a glowing con- 
 dition, its tendency to contract by gravity was opposed by 
 the expansive power of heat. As the mass parted with 
 its heat, however, by radiation into the cooler regions of 
 surrounding space, gravity exerted its condensing influence, 
 and a solid nucleus began to be formed. The shrinking 
 of the mass, and the collisions of smaller nuclei on the 
 central core, would produce a high temperature in the latter, 
 
THE BEGIXNING. 15 
 
 and keep it in an incandescent state. Hence as it grew 
 in dimensions it would present the appearance of a comet's 
 head, or one of those stars which are to be seen in the 
 heart of a nebulous haze. It is conceivable also that zones 
 of vapour would be separated from the rest, at a distance 
 determined by the balancing of the inward force of gravity 
 and the outward impulse of centrifugal force due to rotation 
 of the mass. These zones would in time condense into 
 secondary nuclei, revolving round the larger central nucleus 
 in the same direction and plane of motion. In this way 
 a cluster of stars would be formed, which in course of time 
 would shape itself into the sun and planetary system ; for 
 the secondary nuclei, with their subordinate stars, would 
 cool down into planets and satellites, wheeling round the 
 central sun, which by virtue of its enormous mass would 
 rule their motions and supply them with light and heat. 
 
 This nebular hypothesis of Laplace is supported by the 
 fact that all the planets travel round the sun nearly in 
 the same plane, and that each of them spins round its own 
 axis in the same direction, namely from west to east. Such 
 traits would seem to denote a community of origin. 
 
 The examples of star-mists, comets, and star growths, 
 which are exhibited by the heavens are also in favour of 
 such a theory ; and Saturn with his zones of meteorites and 
 numerous satellites, would seem to be in himself a standing 
 model of the process. It is significant too, that Helmholtz 
 explains the origin of the sun's heat by the gradual shrink- 
 ing of his volume. 
 
 To supplement this theory of Helmholtz, which does not 
 fully account for the solar temperature during all the seons 
 of the past. Sir William Thomson has suggested that the 
 meteoric streams known to be ever converging about the 
 
16 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 sun are really trains of fuel rushing in from space under 
 the force of his attraction, and lavishly showering down 
 upon his glowing photosphere. On striking the sun the 
 energy of their motion is transformed into heat, which helps 
 to eke out the solar radiation. This notion of Sir William 
 Thomson, which, it must be confessed, suggests a very 
 likely replenisher of the sun's heat, has been expanded by 
 Mr. R. A. Proctor into a meteoric hypothesis of the origin 
 of the solar system. Acting upon the hint that meteoric 
 or falling stars are constantly coming within the sphere 
 of the earth's attraction, and dissipating themselves, by 
 the heat of friction with the air, into dust or fragments 
 which finally settle upon the earth's surface and slowly 
 add to its mass, Mr. Proctor supposes that the planets 
 have slowly grown up under the meteoric rain in a region 
 thickly traversed by these stony torrents. At present the 
 number of meteoric streams is legion, but it has probably 
 been very much greater in the past, before the sun had 
 consumed and the planets sifted them. Mr. Proctor 
 accounts for the larger size of the planets farther from the 
 sun, by the greater richness of the meteoric field at remoter 
 distances from the central attracting mass, and the 
 asteroidal belt becomes a kind of meteoric backwater 
 between the eddy of Jupiter's attraction and that of the 
 sun. 
 
 The fact that interlacing meteor-streams are associated 
 with comets, that Saturn's rings as well as the Solar corona 
 and the Zodiacal light are evidently caused by flocks of 
 these discrete bodies, is cited by Mr. Proctor in confirmation 
 of his hypothesis. But may it not be that the true process 
 of world-making involves both the nebular and meteoric 
 hypotheses ? Meteoric stones, impregnated as they are with 
 
THE BEGINNING. 17 
 
 melted globules of iron, copper, tin, and other chemicals, 
 seem to have been condensed from heated vapours by 
 cooling, and it is highly probable that they are the residue 
 of nebulae which have mainly shrunk into star-groups. As 
 time goes on, however, this scattered cosmical rubbish, or 
 star-dust, as we may call it, would be gradually absorbed 
 by the principal masses. On this view of the case the 
 nebula originates both star and star-dust, but the growth 
 of the former is assisted by the contribution of the latter. 
 Again, it must be remembered that the countless collisions 
 of meeting meteor-streams might give rise to a temperature 
 sufficient to fuse their materials into an embryonic nebula, 
 from which, by a combination of the nebular and meteoric 
 processes, the solar system might arise. 
 
 Whether it came about by one or other of these 
 mechanical processes, or by a union of both, science is 
 at least assured that the earth was once a miniature sun, 
 revolving along with several others around its gigantic 
 primary. Being in a white-hot and plastic state, it would 
 readily yield to the shaping influence of its whirling motion 
 and acquire a spheroidal form, flat at the poles and bulging 
 at the equator, where the centrifugal force due to its 
 velocity of rotation was greatest. 
 
 As it cooled down by radiation into space, and slackened 
 in its speed by ether friction, it would tend to solidify, and 
 in time a hard shell would begin to form at the poles. We 
 may be sure that many convulsions would break up this 
 incipient skin again and again, until at last it proved too 
 strong for the plutonic forces of the red-hot interior. At 
 first the temperature and the glowing surface would be 
 such that the oxygen and hydrogen of the gaseous atmo- 
 sphere enveloping the earth would be free, but by-and-by 
 
 c 
 
18 THE NEW TKUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 these would combine into the form of steam, which would 
 condense on the warm lavas and cinders of the reeking 
 crust in lakes and streams of boiling water. Finally, as 
 the earth from a hot state became merely warm, the ashes 
 and vapours which had till then obscured the atmosphere 
 would settle and the sky would clear. 
 
 Sir William Thomson has attempted to give us some 
 estimate of the date at which the superficial crust was 
 formed. His mathematical reasoning is based on the 
 secular loss of heat now experienced by the earth, and he 
 concludes that the hardening must have happened at least 
 a hundred million years ago. Quite recently, however, 
 Mr. T. Mellard Reade, C.E., in assuming that the funda- 
 mental traps and granite rocks are part of the original 
 igneous crust of the earth, has arrived at the conclusion 
 that the formation of the overlying strata of sedimentary 
 rocks must have taken some six hundred million years. 
 The estimate of Sir William Thomson has long been regarded 
 by biologists as insufficient to meet the demands of the 
 hypothesis of evolution ; but Mr. Reade's value is considered 
 ample enough to embrace all the changes which have taken 
 place in the organic world. Probably the true date lies 
 somewhere between these two results, wdiich, although very 
 diverse, are nevertheless interesting as giving an idea of the 
 enormous interval which must have elapsed since the close 
 of the lifeless period. 
 
 #*♦**» 
 
 In drawing a comparison between what is commonly called 
 the Mosaic cosmogony and the development of the earth 
 as taught by science, it is plain that we must regard the 
 Azoic, or lifeless period, as equivalent to the first and second 
 days of the scriptural account. And here it should be 
 
THE BEGINNING. 19 
 
 said that if a literal day of twenty -four hours is meant in 
 the Hebrew of Genesis, the Mosaic cosmogony cannot be 
 seriously entertained for a moment as a revealed narrative 
 of the creation of the world. No precise length of time 
 is, however, stated, and it is open to those who lean 
 towards the truth of the Mosaic description to argue, as 
 Hugh Miller did with so much eloquence and skill, that 
 the word "day" really means a long period of time, of 
 wdiich the "evening" and "morning" denote the dawn and 
 close. Let us accept this interpretation (for the sake of 
 argument) and proceed with the comparison. 
 
 Our panoramic survey of the heavens acquainted us 
 with the fact that solar systems are evidently still in course 
 of construction in the galaxy to which our sun belongs. It 
 follows, therefore, that the Beginning in which God is said 
 to have created the heavens and the earth must refer to the 
 origination of matter. Having comprehensively stated the 
 -fact of the creation of the heavens in general, the sacred 
 writer confines himself thereafter to his proper theme, the 
 formation of the world and the solar system. 
 
 He asserts that the earth was formless and void, and 
 that darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now, if the 
 earth was once in a difi:used nebulous condition, these 
 epithets, descriptive of a chaotic state, might reasonably 
 be applied, and the further allusion to the Spirit of God 
 moving on the face of the waters, or fluids, if simply 
 interpreted as a "mighty wind,"* would not be incon- 
 sistent with the raging of nebulous cyclones. But it is 
 more difficult to see how the earth could be in a state of 
 darkness, since a nebula is known to be a mass of glowing 
 
 * Of course this may also mean that the Sj^irit of God was arranging 
 the chaotic mass of material so as to dcTelop it into the habitable globe. 
 
20 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 gas. The fact is, however, that nebulie are often very 
 feebly luminous, for Dr. Huggins has estimated that the 
 intrinsic briohtness of the nebula in the constellation Draco 
 is somewhere between j^oo^^^ ^^^ 20.000^^^ ^^ ^ sperm 
 candle. In addition to this, it should be borne in mind that 
 the nebulous light is meagre in quality and deficient in rays 
 of various wave-lengths. When rifled by the prism, it is 
 found to consist usually of rays of a single or at most 
 a few colours, whereas the spectrum of pure wdiite light, 
 such as is derived from the sun or the electric arc, exhibits 
 rays of every hue. The "good" light, which God is poetically 
 said to have called into existence by a fiat, might therefore 
 be considered as a pure white light, such as would be 
 emitted by the earth herself when she had attained the 
 solid or liquid condition of a star, or by the sun when his 
 incandescent nucleus, " sphered in a radiant cloud," began 
 to illuminate space. All solid substances become luminous 
 at a temperature of 1000° Fahr. They give out only 
 red rays at that temperature, but at 1300° they yield also 
 yellow rays, while at 2000° they emit also violet rays. 
 A body raised, to 2000° Fahr. and upwards will there- 
 fore furnish all the rays of the sun, and glow with a pure 
 white light. It follows that so long as the temperature of 
 the incandescent earth remained above 2000° Fahr., such 
 a thing as night would be impossible, for the earth itself 
 would be nightly luminous. As soon as the earth's tem- 
 perature sank below 1000° Fahr., however, it would become 
 a dark body, and its shadow in the sunlight would con- 
 stitute what we term Night. 
 
 The achievement of this dark condition of the new 
 earth undoubtedly completes an important phase of terres- 
 trial development, since it implies the preparatory stage 
 
THE BEGINNING. 21 
 
 and the formation of a globular crust. In the Mosaic 
 cosmogony it marks the close of the First Day. 
 
 The great act of the Second Day, according to the 
 Mosaic narrative, was the formation of a firmament, or 
 open expanse of air, between the clouds above and the 
 waters upon the surface of the earth. Now, it cannot be 
 denied that long after the dark and solid crust had formed 
 on the earth, it would still be unfit for the reception of 
 life. Water boils at 212° Fahr.,* and until the superficial 
 temperature had fallen lower than the boiling point, the 
 thick envelope of mixed carbonic acid, steam, ashes, and 
 other impurities which would mufile the earth, as Jupiter 
 is muffled now, would barely commence to clear and rarify. 
 This process would therefore occupy a vast period of time, 
 a period attended by violent storms and volcanic eruj)tions, 
 for it involves not only the purification of the atmosphere, 
 but the deposition of the ocean. During this turbulent 
 age the sun's liglit would be excluded from the seething 
 waters, by the dense overhanging canopy of malignant 
 gases ; the earliest sedimentary rocks would . sink as dregs 
 to the bottom of the ocean, and the continued existence of 
 life would yet be an impossibility : — 
 
 " The earth was formed, but, in the womb as yet 
 Of waters embryon im.niature involved, 
 Appear'd not : over all the face of earth 
 Main ocean flowed, not idle, but, with warm 
 Prolific humour soft'ning all her globe. 
 Fermented the great mother to conceive." 
 
 * Under the normal atmospheric pressure. It would take a higher 
 temperature to make it hoil under the heavy atmosphere of this era. 
 
22 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PERIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 
 
 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together 
 unto one place, and let the dry land appear : and it was so. 
 
 And God called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering together of the 
 waters called he Seas : and God saw that it was good. 
 
 And (idd said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, 
 and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon 
 the earth : and it was so. 
 
 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, 
 and the tree' yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind : and 
 God saw that it was good. 
 
 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 
 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to 
 divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, 
 and for days, and for years : 
 
 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light 
 upon the earth : and it was so. 
 
 And God made two great lights ; the gi-eater light to rule the day, and 
 the lesser light to rule the night : he made the stars also. 
 
 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the 
 earth, 
 
 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from 
 the darkness : and God saw that it was good. 
 
 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. — Genesis i. 9-19. 
 
 According to the testimony of geology, the Azoic or life- 
 less period, when the crude material of the earth was 
 fashioned and refined into an abode fit for the support of 
 organic life, was followed by a vast era during which the 
 earliest sedimentary strata yet known to us were deposited 
 at the bottom of an illimitable ocean. These ancient rocks 
 
THE PERIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 2o 
 
 are chiefly composed of gneiss and schists, all crumpled and 
 twisted by the bending* of the young crust, and steamed or 
 roasted out of their original texture by the eruption of 
 underground fires. The existence of clay slates, baked by 
 heat and hardened by pressure, overlying these primordial 
 Laurentian and Cambrian gneisses, would seem to prove an 
 ultimate abatement of the violent conflict between fire and 
 water; and it is in the limestone zones of the Laurentian 
 series that the geologist has found the first signs of a living 
 creature. 
 
 The Eozoon Canadense, as this primordial fossil is called, 
 consists of the aggregated cases of a large foraminifer, which 
 must have flourished in these ancient oceans, much in the 
 same way as the microscopic globigerina are known to teem 
 at present throughout the waters of every existing sea, and 
 to rain their minute but delicately sculptured tenements 
 in an incessant shower, which covers the ocean bed with a 
 cushion of calcareous ooze, blended here and there perhaps 
 with particles of cosmic dust, blown from exploded meteors, 
 or the red dregs of floating pumice and wave-worn lavas. 
 The old Laurentian seas were doubtless rich in lime, dis- 
 solved from the calcium slags of the new crust by waters 
 heavily charged with carbonic acid, and these abundant 
 foraminifers may have played the part of living filters, to 
 purify the ocean from its excess of chalk and flint, just as 
 the rich vegetation of the subsequent Carboniferous era 
 absorbed the poisonous carbonic acid from the atmosphere 
 and left it pure and sweet. At any rate their cast-off" cases 
 would assist in the formation of future land-surfaces, just 
 as the clustering coccoliths and coccospheres of the Atlantic 
 of to-day are slowly forming the chalk hills of an epoch 
 vet to come. 
 
24 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 More important to us, however, than the knowledge of 
 this early life is the question of its origin. How did life 
 begin on the globe ? The thorough-going evolutionist 
 cannot' admit that the Creator directly intervened to pro- 
 duce it, and is forced either to suppose with Helmholtz and 
 Thomson that the first germs of life were derived from some 
 other Avorld, and borne on cosmical matter to this earth, 
 Avhere they lived and grew when the environment was 
 fa\'ourable, or to believe with Professor Haeckel that as 
 the planet cooled, certain atoms of carbon, and sulphur, 
 hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen,* would accidentally com- 
 bine to form a plastidule of albumen. This bleb of jelly 
 would become a living monera, capable of growing, moving, 
 and multiplying copies of itself, by a process so rapid that 
 erelong the whole surface of the earth would swarm witli 
 moneras, even if the happy play of chemical forces which 
 formed the first had only chanced at one spot. Engendered, 
 to begin with, in the sea, perhaps, when the temperature of 
 its water had fallen below the point at which albumen 
 curdles, these simple moneras would install themselves also 
 in the fresh-water streams and pools, or in the humid 
 earth ; and by the natural process of development, an in- 
 creasing variety of higher forms of life would, in course of 
 time, develop from them. 
 
 Although it is remarkable that the sole form of life as 
 yet discovered in the most primitive organic strata that 
 we have thus far laid bare, is so closely allied to the 
 moneras of Haeckel, and although to the ardent evolutionist 
 tlie rise of organic matter from inorganic by the interaction 
 
 * Reproductive protoplasm particles arc said to withstand a temperature 
 of 300° Fahr. Liebig's formula for the composition of albumen is C^* H"* 
 
THE PERIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 25 
 
 of the common physical forces is regarded as a certainty, 
 we must not overlook the important fact that no one has 
 ever seen or been able to cause the transformation of 
 matter dead to matter quick. There have been many 
 triumphant alarms of this mysterious metamorphosis; but 
 they have all turned out false as yet. What Dr. Bastian 
 creates, Dr. Tyndall uncreates ; and for aught that science 
 can show, the doctrine of Harvey omne vivum ex ovo, 
 although it requires to be modified so as to include pro- 
 pagation by fission, budding, and alternating generation, 
 remains substantially true in asserting the need of parent- 
 aofe for all kinds of life. Of course the mere fact that no 
 physicist has been able to generate animate matter from 
 inanimate, or to witness the germination of meteor-wafted 
 seeds, is no proof that these processes do not take place. 
 The grand alchemic secret may not yet be discovered, or 
 the terrestrial conditions may now be such as to render the 
 occurrence at best exceedingly rare. Nevertheless, positive 
 science advances by proof and can accept nothing on trust, 
 therefore the existence of abiogenesis is a matter of pure 
 faith rather than of exact knowledge. 
 
 The fact that even the living jelly lumps of Haeckel have 
 specific modes of self-propagation, does not speak in favour 
 of their spontaneous generation ; and we cannot for a 
 moment doubt that all the higher kinds of life are under 
 the law of biogenesis. A formless protoplasm, Bathyhius 
 Haechelii, lodging in the deep hollows of the ocean, was, how- 
 ever, believed by some to be a lower form of animation 
 than the monera, and to be directly formed from the 
 elements ; l)ut it is right to add that naturalists are now 
 all but agreed this living slime has really no existence. 
 
 The birth-place of terrestrial floras is at present 
 
26 THE NEW TEUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 eno-ao-inL' the attention of many naturalists. It was an 
 idea of the illustrious Buffbn,* that as the earth cooled 
 from a red-hot state, her pristine crust would commence 
 to form about the extremities of her axis, and her polar 
 areas become the seat of earliest life. 
 
 This speculation has recently been elaborated by- 
 Count Gaston de Saporta, in an interesting essay entitled 
 L'Ancienne Vegetation Polaire. Saporta assumes that 
 the Azoic period ended when the water of the earth had 
 cooled to the point at which the clotting of albumen does 
 not occur, and that organic life first made its appearance, 
 not in contact with the atmosphere, but in the water. He 
 regards the locality of its origin as being at, or near the 
 North Pole, and holds that for a long period life was active 
 only there. In evidence of this he cites the well-known 
 facts — that the rocks richest in fossils are found between 
 fifty degrees of north latitude and the Pole; that the 
 Laurentian and Silurian rocks of the Paleozoic period are 
 found in Canada, Greenland, and the North of Europe ; and 
 that the coal formations, while extending to the polar 
 islands, are extremely rare within the tropics. The dis- 
 covery of a fossil tree-fern among the arctic coal-beds, has 
 led to the conclusion that the polar climate was once warm, 
 equable, and moist all the year round. 
 
 To account for this anomaly in a region where the 
 year consists of one long day followed by a long night, 
 M. de Saporta suggests that the atmosphere was then 
 charged with fog, which wrapped the land as in a blanket, 
 checking radiation, and that the solar light was then far 
 more diffused over the whole earth, the sun not having then 
 arrived at its present state of condensation. The inherent 
 
 * Epoqves de la Nnturp. 
 
THE PERIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 27 
 
 warmth of the earth's crust would also aid the general 
 effect, and transform the soil into the hot-bed of a forcing- 
 house, in which a luxuriant vegetation would thrive and 
 batten. 
 
 All the geological formations, paleozoic, carboniferous, 
 Jurassic, cretaceous, and tertiary, are alike found within the 
 polar area, and hence it is probable that this region was 
 the centre of origination for the successive phases of plant 
 and perhaps also of animal life, which gradually overspread 
 the globe. 
 
 The first signs of the refrigeration of the polar clime 
 are afforded by the appearance of fossil conifers or pines 
 in the cretaceous rocks, following the giant cryptogams or 
 palms of the Carboniferous and Jurassic periods. After 
 the conifers come fossils of dicotyledons with deciduous 
 leaves, trees like our own beeches and elms, which indicate 
 that the polar summer and winter had at length become 
 strongly contrasted. Saporta regards the introduction of 
 these deciduous leaved trees as the greatest revolution 
 in vegetation which the world has ever seen, and he 
 conceives that after being evolved they rapidly increased 
 in variety and number from that distant epoch until the 
 present time. 
 
 In confirmation of Saporta's theory, it is remarkable that 
 the miocene rocks of the polar area exhibit a profusion of 
 genera, the majority of which have living representatives 
 which must now be sought in latitudes some 40° farther 
 south, and to which they would seem to have been driven 
 by the approaching cold of the Glacial period ; while eocene 
 flora now luxuriate in Madagascar, and Australia is still 
 peopled by the marsupials of the Secondary age. Moreover, 
 twenty years ago, Professor Asa Gray showed clearly that the 
 
28 TIIK NEW TEUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 ancestors of the United States flora had been driven from 
 high northern latitudes by the glacial cold ; and quite re- 
 cently, Mr. Thistleton Dyer, by a study of existing floras 
 and their present distribution, has traced them to a hypo- 
 thetical cradle in the northern hemisphere. 
 
 "Perhaps," says Sir Joseph Hooker, "the most novel 
 idea in Count Saporta's essay is that of the diffused sun- 
 light, which (with a densely clouded atmosphere) the author 
 assumes to have been operative in reducing the contrast 
 between the j)olar summers and winters. If it be accepted 
 it at once disposes of the difficulty of admitting that ever- 
 green trees survived a long polar winter of total darkness, 
 and summer of constant stimulation by bright sunlight; 
 and if, further, it is admitted that it is to internal heat we 
 may ascribe the tropical aspect of the former vegetation of 
 the polar region, then there is no necessity for assuming 
 that the solar system at those periods was in a warmer area 
 of stellar space, or that the position of the poles was altered, 
 to account for the high temperature of pre-glacial times in 
 high northern latitudes; or, lastly, that the main features 
 of the great continents and oceans were very different in 
 early geological times from what they now are. Count 
 Saporta's views in certain points coincide wdth those of 
 Professor Le Conte of California, who holds that the uni- 
 formity of climates during earlier conditions of the globe is 
 not explicable by changes in the position of the poles, but 
 is attributable to a higher temperature of the whole globe, 
 whether due to external or internal causes, to the great 
 amount of carbonic acid and water in the atmosphere, 
 which would shut in and accumulate the sun's heat, accord- 
 ing to the prjncii)les discovered by Tyndall and applied by 
 Sterry Hunt in explanations of geological times, and pos- 
 
THE PERIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 29 
 
 sibly to a warmer position in stellar space, a more uniform 
 distribution of surface temperature, and a different distri- 
 bution of land and water." * 
 
 Whether or not we accept the striking conclusion of 
 Saporta, it is plain that geological evidence points more and 
 more to the northern regions of the earth as being the 
 birth-place of vegetable life. It is probable that the first 
 moneras were engendered in the tepid seas which flowed 
 over the sunken continent of Eurasia f or of America. Per- 
 haps they unfolded to the day in the reeking waters which 
 are now locked in the rigid grasp of palfecrystic ice. 
 Once originated, we may infer that these moneras rapidly 
 increased and' multiplied, until they swarmed at all depths 
 in the ocean ; and that higher forms began to appear amongst 
 them as time went on. 
 
 The contraction of the earth in the act of coolino- and 
 the expansive forces of underground temperature, would, 
 as in the case of volcanoes, either violently upheave portions 
 of the young land or slowly elevate them above the level 
 of the sea. The vitrified crust, worn with wind and rain, 
 would in time crumble into a soft and virgin soil, fit for 
 the growth of seeds. Algoid germs would lodge in it and 
 take root and flourish, and just as in the sea, so on the 
 shore would the race of new-created organisms increase in 
 number and complexity. The fossil zones of the Laurentian 
 rocks prove that some kind of minute creatures were at 
 work in countless millions, secreting chalk from the ancient 
 brines $ to build their tiny caskets. The sandstones and 
 shales of the Cambrian era, which succeeded, are tolerably 
 
 * Nature, Dec. 5, 1878. t Europe-Asia. 
 
 X The pateozoic seas would be rich in the dissolved minerals of the 
 volcanic crust. 
 
30 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 prolific in the tracks of sea- worms, and the remains of 
 fucoids, trilobites, and the characteristic Oldhamia, which 
 some take to be a nullipore and others a zoophyte. The 
 Silurian era, which folloAved after that, discloses a great 
 variety of trilobites, corals, and stone lilies, nautili and 
 cuttle-fish, with sea- weeds m profusion ; while among the 
 later beds of the series, placoid fishes of the vertebrate 
 type, and terrestrial plants of the thallogen or flowerless 
 order, begin to present themselves. During the Devonian 
 or Old Red Sandstone eras, these ganoid and placoid fishes 
 reached an inordinate state of development. Armed with 
 bony plates and spines like the sturgeons of to-day, they 
 appear to have been the tyrants of the seas, which must 
 have been a scene of living strife, pain, and material turbu- 
 lence. It is worthy of note, too, that many of their forms 
 have a reptile afiinity, big with the promise of the later 
 reptiles which were ushered in before the close of the 
 epoch. 
 
 The Carboniferous era, which came next, was marked by 
 an extraordinary luxuriance of vegetation, as our coal-fields 
 can testify. It is probable that the w^orld was then muffled 
 in a thick atmosphere, rich in carbonic acid and moisture, 
 so that it became a vast greenhouse " covered with smoked 
 glass," as Hugh Miller happily expresses it, having warm 
 earth and steaming air in the interior, and a flaming sun 
 overhead. The land appears to have been flat but exten- 
 sive at this time, and the climate equable throughout the 
 year and over all the earth, — a result due perhaps to the 
 internal heat of the planet and the diffused body of the 
 sun. The luxuriant forests which sprung up and furred 
 the hills and valleys were entirely composed of cryptogams, 
 or flowerless trees. Colossal club mosses or lepidodendfons 
 
THE PEKIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 81 
 
 giant inares-tails or calamites, graceful tree-ferns, and curi- 
 ously ornate sigillaria with scaled and fluted stems, waved 
 their green and glossy crests in the breeze, under the snowy 
 clouds and soaring blue of the skies ; but their dank and 
 tangled shades were haunted by a twilight gloom, through 
 which many a strange and uncouth shape of reptile, fish, 
 and fly stole silently after its prey, by tainted stream and 
 baleful swamp. The resiny spores shed by these moss-like 
 wildernesses, mixed with the trash of fallen fronds and scaly 
 bark, have in the course of ages become carbonized into 
 the coal which blazes in our grates, thus yielding up to 
 the beings of a later time what seems to be the treasured 
 radiance of the primeval sun. 
 
 Although the principal fossils of the coal measures are 
 extended into the beds which follow next in the geological 
 series, they are not there so numerous; and despite a number 
 of characteristic forms, it is evident that the wealth of 
 vegetation, as well as the abundance of animal life, seriously 
 dwindled over the regions in which the red marls and 
 sandstones of the Permian era were deposited. The strong- 
 family likeness between the Carboniferous and Permian 
 fossils, and the marked dissimilarity between these and the 
 species which succeed them, as well as the indiscriminate 
 manner in which the later strata overlie the worn and up- 
 turned edges of all the earlier formations, have, however, 
 determined geologists to rank the Permian era as the rear 
 
 end of the Paleozoic period. 
 
 ****** 
 
 If we turn now to the Mosaic cosmogony in order to 
 contrast it with the geologic record, we shall find that, 
 although Moses (?) describes the Creator as first dividing the 
 waters from the land, and afterwards causing vegetation 
 
32 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 to spring, he yet includes both acts within the third day. 
 Geology has nothing to say against this plan, for all her 
 proof goes to show that the elevation of continents from the 
 Silurian Sea, and the rise of land floras, went on hand in 
 hand. The main agents in the upheaval of hills above the 
 waters of the ocean or the surrounding plains were the 
 volcanic forces imprisoned in the earth's interior, and the 
 shrinking of the young crust as it parted with its intrinsic 
 heat. So far, no traces of volcanic action have been found 
 in the Laurentian or Cambrian formations ; but these begin 
 to appear in the Silurian. The hills of North Wales have 
 been erected during the Lower Silurian age and those of 
 Kerry during the Upper. They are the result of lava 
 streams poured out upon dry land ; and of volcanic ash 
 mino-led with the mud and shells of the sea-bottom. 
 Volcanoes were also busy during the Devonian and Car- 
 boniferous epochs ; but what is singular, they seem to have 
 become rarer during the Permian and succeeding eras. 
 
 The evidences of frequent rise and fall of the land- 
 surfaces are abundant from the Cambrian to the Permian 
 times. Professor Ramsay has pointed out that the red 
 strata of the Devonian and Permian beds are poor in 
 fossils, and appear to have been laid in inland seas while 
 the country was rising. In fine, he regards them as a sign 
 of the gradual shallowing of the Silurian Sea. As the level 
 of the basin became higher, the waters would contract from 
 seas to lakes, and change from brackish to sweet; while 
 their shell-fish would slowly perish, and the iron rust which 
 colours the beds would deposit itself among the silt in 
 peace. In Carboniferous times oscillations of the land-level 
 were particularly numerous. Every fresh seam of coal 
 indicates a fresh movement of the ground, and in the Soutli 
 
THE PERIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 83 
 
 Wales coal-field as many as eighty distinct seams have 
 been recognized. 
 
 The Paleozoic period was therefore one of continental 
 birth. 
 
 The later formations are not only free from violent 
 volcanic disturbance, but are comparatively local in extent, 
 and if Saporta's hypothesis of a dense mist and a diffused 
 sun be true, it is highly probable, as Sir J. Hooker notes, 
 that the main features of the great continents and oceans 
 were not very different in early geological times from what 
 they are now. 
 
 The length of time occupied by the paleozoic changes 
 must have been enormous. When we remember that a coal 
 seam represents the spore-dust shaken from trees in the 
 course of centuries, and know that some of these seams are 
 twenty feet thick, and occur in scores, one above the other, 
 with layers of clay between, we may well infer with 
 Huxley * that the coal measures must have taken hundreds 
 of thousands of years to form. Mr. Reade, indeed, allows 
 two hundred million years for the formation of the Lauren- 
 tian, Cambrian, and Silurian strata, and two hundred 
 millions more for the Old Red, Carboniferous, Permian, and 
 New Red. 
 
 Moses is peculiarly silent upon the beginnings of life in 
 the world — the simple moneras and flowerless plants of a 
 low type which preceded the land plants of the third 
 day. This may be due to ignorance of the existence of 
 these elementary organisms, which have only been dis- 
 covered by modern science ; but it may also be due to a 
 literary purpose, or to the nature of the revelation. 
 
 We observe, too, that he separates plants from animals 
 
 * Huxley's Physiography. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 in the order of creation, whereas geology shows that, 
 although vegetation developed more rapidly than animal 
 life, they progressed together. It is certain that while the 
 grass, herbs, and fruit trees of Genesis grew in the soil, fish 
 swam in the waters and insects breathed the air. We 
 cannot, therefore, accept the Mosaic story in a literal sense. 
 But if we take it as dealing not in fine but in gross, with 
 groups rather than with details, we shall see that it is right 
 in the main. For the rocks tell us that terrestrial vege- 
 tation reached a climax of luxuriance during the coal 
 measures, long before animal life attained a similar con- 
 dition. 
 
 We have seen that the Carboniferous era nourished a 
 rich crop of spore-bearing trees, ferns, and naked-seeded 
 pines. " It was," says the eloquent Hugh Miller, " em- 
 phatically a period of plants," herbs yielding seed after 
 their kind. " In no other age did the world ever witness 
 such a flora : the youth of the earth was peculiarly a green 
 and umbrageous youth, of dusky and tangled forests, of 
 huge pines and stately araucarians, of the reed-like 
 calamite, the tall tree-fern, the sculptured sigiUaria, and 
 the hirsute lepidodendron. Wherever dry land, or shallow 
 lake, or running stream appeared, from where MelviUe 
 Island now spreads out its ice-wastes under the star of the 
 pole, to where the arid waters of Australia lie solitary 
 beneath the bright cross of the south, a rank and luxuriant 
 herbage covered every foot-breadth of the dank and steam- 
 ing soil ; and even to distant planets our earth may have 
 shone through the enveloping cloud with a green and 
 delicate ray." * 
 
 The "enveloping cloud" here alluded to is the dense 
 
 * Testimony of the Bocks. 
 
THE PERIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 35 
 
 vaporous afcmos[)here which probably shrouded the earth 
 at this period, and helped to maintain its tropical character, 
 even at the poles. And we may refer the reader, in passing, 
 to the " mist " spoken of in the sixth verse of the second 
 chapter of Genesis, which went up out of the earth and 
 "watered the whole face of the ground." We merely mention 
 this passage casually, because it is thought by some scholars 
 that this supplementary version in the second chapter is by 
 another author. 
 
 Hitherto we have met with no obstacle to the agree- 
 ment of the Mosaic and geologic cosmogonies which cannot 
 be removed by a liberal interpretation of the Scripture. 
 Before proceeding to discuss the fourth day, however, we 
 must point out that the first vegetation of the third day is 
 described as grass, which was followed by the herb yielding 
 seed, and that again by the tree yielding fruit, whose seed is 
 in itself. Now, the true grasses, as well as the palms and 
 angiosperms (trees whose fruit is seeded inside), did not 
 appear in the geologic record until the Cretaceous period, 
 although it is probable that the cycads and conifers (trees 
 whose fruit is seeded outside) were common in the Per- 
 mian era, as they were in the Jurassic or New Red, which 
 came next. The earth was not furnished with the grasses 
 and fruit-bearing trees, so useful as food to the larger 
 animals, until the long period betAveen the Cretaceous era 
 and the advent of man. Now, this is an interval which we 
 are compelled to deem a part of the fifth and sixth days. 
 We can, therefore, only preserve our faith in the accuracy 
 of the Mosaic narrative, by assuming either that Moses, by 
 the word " grasses " really intended spore-bearing herbage, 
 and that just as he omitted the lowlier plants which went 
 before, so he included some of the higher trees which came 
 
:]() Till': NlOW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 later than the third day, or by regarding the geologic 
 register as imperfect and misleading. The recent discovery 
 of a moth's wing in the carboniferous shales of Belgium,* 
 would seem to favour this view. The fossil vegetation 
 of this era, which has been preserved to us in the coal 
 measures, is evidently the growth of hollows or morasses, 
 and it is probable that the upland woods were tenanted by 
 o-audy moths and brilliant flies which fluttered through the 
 green shade, or hovered over many a crimson blossom. 
 
 The Fourth day of Genesis was dedicated to the com- 
 pletion of the sun, mo^g^i, and stars, which were to be lights 
 unto the earth, and to be for signs and for seasons, for days 
 and for years. 
 
 Knowing as we do that the sun, moon, and stars are 
 themselves prodigious worlds, we are forced to discard at 
 once the notion that they are mere "lights" set in the 
 firmament to give light unto the earth. The Mosaic cos- 
 mogony seems here to degenerate into a childish and petty 
 view of the awful grandeur of Nature. For all that, these 
 celestial bodies do light the earth and rule the seasons. 
 Humboldt has called the stars eternal time-keepers : but 
 is not the blot of human folly visible in the astrological 
 command that they shall also serve for " signs." If " signs " 
 are meant for omens, not astronomical objects, Ave may 
 judge that the sacred record is either garbled or not 
 purely divine, for we cannot suppose the Deity to have 
 purposely inculcated error. 
 
 It is remarkable, however, that Moses should place the 
 creation of the sun, moon, and stars so long after the 
 creation of light, knowing, as he must have done, that light 
 emanated from these bodies. Indeed, he expressly speaks 
 
 An. dc la Soc. Eutom. de Belgium, t. 18, pi. v. 
 
THE FERIOD OF ANCIENT LIFE. 37 
 
 of them as being made to illuminate the earth ; yet day and 
 night had been formed before. Perhaps he regarded them 
 as receptacles for the luminous essence, an idea which 
 Milton beautifully expresses : — 
 
 " Of light by far the greater part he took, 
 Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed 
 In the sun's orb, made porous to receive 
 And drink the liquid light, firm to retain 
 Her gathered beams, gi-eat palace now of light. 
 Hither, as to their fountain, other stars 
 Repairing, in their golden urns draw light, 
 And hence the morning planet gilds her horns." 
 
 Allowing for poetical diction, this allegorical version of 
 the finishing; of the sun bears a striking resemblance to the 
 actual process. During the Paleozoic period the sun very 
 probably was as yet a white-hot liquid nucleus, surrounded 
 by a great nimbus of flaming gas and shining meteorites. 
 On Saporta's hypothesis, this immature sun, by its diffused 
 mass, helped to keep up a torrid temperature all over the 
 northern hemisphere, and foster the shaggy vegetation of 
 the Carboniferous era. The impoverished flora which suc- 
 ceeded may have been due, at least in part, to the further 
 condensation of the sun and contraction of his bulk. It 
 was remarked by the late Principal E. Forbes, that the 
 Permian and Triassic eras were very meagre in the produc- 
 tion of generic types of life. Up to the close of the Car- 
 boniferous era, the climate over the whole northern half of 
 the world was evidently uniform ; but then ensued a period 
 of change, which some geologists have associated with a 
 glacial period. Since the Carboniferous era there have been 
 seasons, tides, and winds, very much resembling our own. 
 It may therefore be that this transition state corresponded 
 to the fourth Mosaic day; and that, for aught we know, 
 
38 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 the sun finally absorbed his enveloping nebulae, and the 
 sidereal system took its present shape during the seons 
 which succeeded to the " period of plants." The fourth day 
 may, indeed, have extended beyond the Permian era, into 
 the Jurassic, and covered the time of passage from the 
 ancient life to the new, when — 
 
 " God said, Let the waters generate, 
 Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul : 
 And let fowl fly above the earth, with wings 
 Display'd on the open firmament of heaven." 
 
 And— 
 
 " Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay 
 With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals 
 Of fish, that with their fins and shining scales 
 Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft 
 Bank the mid sea : part single, or with mate, 
 Graze the sea-weed their pasture, and through groves 
 Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance 
 Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold ; 
 Or in their pearly shells at ease attend 
 Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food 
 In jointed armour watch ; or smooth the seal 
 And bended dolphins play ; part huge of bulk, 
 Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, 
 Tempest the ocean ; there leviathan, 
 Hugest of living creatures, on the deep 
 Stretched like a promontory, sleeps, or swims 
 And seems a moving land, and at his gills 
 Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out, a sea." 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PERIOD OF NEW LIFE. 
 
 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature 
 that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament 
 of heaven. 
 
 And God created great whales, and every living creatm-e that moveth, 
 which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every 
 winged fowl after his kind : and God saw that it was good. 
 
 And God blessed them, saying. Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the 
 waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 
 
 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 
 
 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, 
 cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind : and it 
 was so. 
 
 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after 
 their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind : and 
 God saw that it was good. 
 
 And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness : and 
 let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 
 and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing 
 that creepeth ujDon the earth. 
 
 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he 
 him ; male and female created he them. 
 
 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, 
 and replenish the earth, and subdue it : and have dominion over the fish of 
 the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth 
 upon the earth. 
 
 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which 
 is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of 
 a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat. 
 
 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to 
 every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have giveu 
 every green herb for meat : and it was so. 
 
40 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very 
 good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. 
 
 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. — 
 Genesis 1. 20-31 ; ii. 1. 
 
 We have seen in the last chapter that the beginning of 
 
 geological-life history is lost in the abyss of time, like the 
 
 date of a fairy tale ; but that geologists have agreed in 
 
 classing certain rocks as Primary strata formed by the 
 
 action of water during a vast cycle of ages, termed the 
 
 Paleozoic period, or period of ancient life. The antique 
 
 character of the fossils in these rocks have led to this 
 
 designation ; for it betrays a wide variation from the life 
 
 of recent times. The paleozoic rocks were succeeded by 
 
 others, termed Secondary, which were formed during the 
 
 Mesozoic period, or period of middle life, and these again by 
 
 Tertiary strata, deposited during what is called the 
 
 Kainozoic period, or period of modern life. 
 
 This division of the whole series of sedimentary rocks 
 
 is more or less an arbitrary one, geologists having agreed 
 
 to draw the lines of separation somewhere. Between the 
 
 primary and secondary rocks, indeed, there are signs of 
 
 great convulsions and terrestrial changes having taken 
 
 place, which, in Britain for example, result in the secondary 
 
 rocks being laid down upon the tilted, worn, and broken 
 
 edges of the primaries below. But between the secondary 
 
 and tertiary rocks the distinction is less marked, and the 
 
 only reason for making two classes out of these, instead of 
 
 one, is that, so far as known, the secondary rocks, although 
 
 they indicate a life liker that of the present than that of 
 
 the primary rocks, do not contain any fossil forms of 
 
 surviving species ; whereas in the tertiaries a few remains 
 
 are to be found of species which still survive. This is 
 
 clearly a very unstable boundary between the two groups 
 
THE PERIOD OF NEW LIFE. 41 
 
 of strata, since on the one hand existing species may yet be 
 traced into the secondary beds, and on the other, the few- 
 living representatives of those discovered in the tertiaries 
 may in time become extinct. It was therefore suggested 
 by Principal Forbes, the naturalist, both from paleonto- 
 logical and petrological considerations, that the chosen 
 limit between primary and secondary rocks should be 
 abolished, and all geological time divided into two periods 
 only, the Paleozoic and the Neozoic, or the periods of old 
 and new life. For the purpose of this work we shall adopt 
 the latter arrangement. 
 
 The Triassic or New Red Sandstone beds are now 
 accepted by geologists as the first rocks of the Neozoic 
 period. Formerly the Permian strata were considered as 
 part of the New Red, until Sir Roderick Murchison classed 
 them with the Paleozoic series. The sandstones, marls, 
 and conglomerates of the New Red, like those of the 
 Permian era, are not very rich in new fossil types. They 
 yield, however, a fair supply of older ferns, conifers, and 
 cycads ; fish, shells, and stone lilies, while tracks of giant 
 reptiles are prevalent in their ancient river muds. The 
 clays, marls, and pellet limestones of the Jurassic or Oolitic 
 era contain a variety of ornate shells, and sea-eggs, intricate 
 corals, fishes, insects, and a few small marsupial mammals ; 
 an abundance of prodigious crocodiles, the huge fish-lizard, 
 icthyosaurus, with its enormous eyes, the snake-necked 
 plesiosaurus, the long-snouted teleosaurus, and the dinornus, 
 a gigantic ostrich, ten feet in height. 
 
 The chalks, sands, and clays of the Cretaceous era 
 inclose many remains of land-snails and turtles, sea-shells, 
 corals, and bony fishes, together with the giant lizard 
 Iguanodon ; the anomalous pterodactyle, a flying reptile, 
 
42 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 with the head of a bird and the wings of a bat on the body 
 of a saurian ; and the skeleton of a small bird, about the size 
 of a gull, and belonging to the order of swimmers (natatores). 
 
 During these Mesozoic times, the land appears to have 
 been on the whole very flat, ^vith great rivers sluggishly 
 flowing through muddy fertile plains. Monstrous alligators 
 wallowed in the slime of these ancient floods ; gigantic 
 lizards basked on the hot earth, and terrible flying dragons 
 haunted the dusky vaults of the forest, or winnowed the 
 sunlit air on clumsy wings. It was a time of uncouth and 
 repulsive life, of loathsome worms, of horrid grifiins, of 
 huge whales, and awful sea-serpents, such as frighten the 
 imagination of a child. The mediaeval tales of tremendous 
 leviathans and " chimseras dire " are, indeed, amply justified 
 by this chapter of the earth's middle history. With these 
 representatives of a cumbrous and temporary life, however, 
 there were associated the forerunners of new and more 
 permanent kinds of beings. Small birds, and dwarf mam- 
 mals of the lower or pouched order now made their appear- 
 ance on the scene ; and innumerable insects courted the 
 flowers of wood and swamp. 
 
 That division of the great Neozoic period which offers 
 the first specimens of existing species is called, as we have 
 seen, the Tertiary or Kainozoic. The Tertiary rocks are 
 subdivided into three groups, the Eocene, Miocene, and 
 Pliocene, marked by the percentage of living molluscan 
 species which they contain. 
 
 This mode of classification has been adopted, owing to the 
 patchy distribution of these rocks, in order to indicate their 
 ascending order. The clays and sands of the Eocene, or 
 lowest beds, comprise about five per cent, of existing species 
 of molluscs. They furnish also the bones of crocodiles, cay- 
 
THE PERIOD OF NEW LIFE. 43 
 
 mans, and lesser mammals. The leaf-beds, clays, and sands 
 of the Miocene strata are remarkable for a profusion of 
 familiar flora, the palm, the vine, the oak, the laurel, and 
 the fig. Ferns, too, flourished abundantly, and lignite beds 
 formed even in Greenland bear witness to the prevalence of 
 a warm climate and a vigorous vegetation over the whole 
 northern hemisphere.* Through these rich forests roamed 
 the unwieldy megatherium, or giant ground-sloth ; the dino- 
 therium, or giant tapir ; the colossal mastodon ; the hairy 
 mammoth ; the stegodon, a link between the mastodon and 
 the elephant; the camel, ostrich, giraffe, monkey, and the deer. 
 The hippopotamus rooted on the rushy banks of the streams, 
 and there were whales, seals, and narwhals in the seas. 
 Besides the above plant-eating land animals, there were 
 also some flesh-eaters, and a gigantic tortoise, the colosso- 
 chelys atlas. 
 
 The miocene beds have only some twenty -five per cent, 
 of existing species of molluscs, whereas the overlying 
 pliocene sands and gravels possess over fifty per cent. 
 Bones of the elephant, tiger, tapir, and deer are mingled 
 with these molluscs, and likewise a profusion of beautiful 
 corals. The most notable peculiarity of the pliocene beds 
 is, however, the presence of moUuscan types, which inhabit 
 the cold seas of the north, amongst those of prior times and 
 warmer areas. These indicate the slow approach of that 
 frigid climate which culminated in the Glacial period, 
 when almost the whole northern hemisphere was locked in 
 ice, and arctic shell-fish flourished in the Mediterranean. 
 
 * The recent researches of Professor Nordenskiold, in Spitzbergen, have 
 also brought to light abundant fossil evidence of a characteristic flora there 
 during Carboniferous, Jurassic (Oolitic), Cretaceous, and Tertiary times. It 
 indicates a cooling of the climate from the tropical Carboniferous era dovyn- 
 wards ; and the oaks, planes, and cedars of the middle tertiary correspond 
 to the trees of California to-day. 
 
44 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 The Glacial, or Pleistocene * era, which succeeded the 
 Pliocene, is characterized by a series of surface deposits, in 
 which all the shells are of living species, and all the mam- 
 malia, too, except in the older beds. The southerly migra- 
 tion of pliocene molluscs on the advance of the arctic cold 
 can be demonstrated from these fossil forms. A bed of 
 sand and gravel, rich in the rubbish of an old forest, at 
 Cromer in Norfolk, has preserved, amid the leaves and mast 
 of birch, oak, and hazel trees, the remains of the mammoth, 
 the musk-ox, the bison, reindeer, and beaver. The age of 
 this bed is therefore probably pre-glacial, for though the 
 musk-ox and reindeer are denizens of the far north, these 
 other animals are natives of a temperate, or, at least, sub- 
 arctic region. 
 
 The first unmistakable signs of the Glacial era are 
 found in the " boulder clay," a stiff, confused mass of clay 
 and broken stones of all sorts and sizes, which lies over the 
 worn and scarred surfaces of the rocks beneath. Thick 
 sheets of ice, such as now cover the interior of Greenland, 
 appear to have overspread the northern continents, grinding 
 down the angles of the mountains underneath and scooping 
 out the valleys. The harder rocks of all northern countries, 
 and the " rubble " stones of the boulder clay, are found to 
 be rasped and filed by this grinding process, just as the bed 
 of a glacier and the stones of its 'moraines are striated by 
 the icy river. Solitary blocks of stone, far removed from 
 their original crags, are also found scattered over the face of 
 Europe and America. Erratic boulders, as they are called, 
 of Scandinavian granite are strewn over the plains of 
 Germany and the steppes of Russia ; the Alps and Hima- 
 
 * Post-pliocene, Post-tertiary, Quarteknary, are other terms for this 
 interval of time. 
 
THE PERIOD OF NEAV LIFE. 45 
 
 layas are grooved with ice-marks far above the present level 
 of their glaciers ; the prairies of America bear traces of polar 
 icebergs within 40° of the equator. If the rounded hum- 
 mocky forms of our hills are due to the friction of the sliding 
 ice-cap, the boulder clays and wandering blocks suggest a 
 period during which the land was under water, and floating 
 icebergs dropped their freight of mud and stones on the 
 bottom of the sea. After these beds come drifts of gravel, 
 raised beaches, and well preserved moraines, or rubbish-heaps 
 of glaciers, to attest the re-elevation of the land and the 
 continuance of the glacial cold. The alabaster cave-deposits, 
 the peat- bogs, sand hills, and alluvial deltas of existing 
 rivers declare the subsequent amelioration of the climate, 
 and complete the geological scale up to the present day. 
 
 During the Glacial era the greater part of the northern 
 hemisphere was tenanted by arctic animals exclusively, and 
 the elephants, tigers, and hippopotamuses of tropical pliocene 
 times gave place to the musk-ox, the reindeer, the woolly 
 rhinoceros, and the hairy mammoth, whose frozen carcases, 
 encased in ice, have been dug out of a Siberian cliff in so 
 fresh a state as to be relished by the wolves, and whose 
 superb tusks are largely quarried for their fossil ivory. 
 
 The cause or causes of the Glacial period are not definitely 
 known, perhaps they never shall be. It has been con- 
 jectured, however, with a good deal of plausibility, that the 
 orbit in which the earth courses round the sun was at that 
 time more eccentric — that is, more oval than now ; and that 
 the northern winter occurred when the earth was in aphelion, 
 or at its farthest distance from the sun. This would have 
 the effect of intensifying the cold, and enshrouding the land 
 in a vast load of snow and ice. Mr. Croll has also shown 
 how the Gulf Stream could be stopped, owing to the equa- 
 
46 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 torial current being deflected southward, along the east 
 coast of South America, by means of the powerful trade- 
 winds which would then blow from the icy pole to the 
 equator. An arctic severity would reign over the northern 
 hemisphere, while a warm equable temperature would pre- 
 vail in the southern. 
 
 If the true cause of the Glacial period be a cosmical one, 
 we may well inquire whether or not there were other 
 Glacial periods in remoter eras ; and geologists have put 
 forth certain rock formations as evidence of Ice ages in the 
 Permian, Old Red Sandstone, and Cretaceous eras ; but these 
 slight proofs are as yet of too vague and imperfect a nature 
 to be indisputable. Before abandoning the subject, however, 
 we may mention a still more recent explanation, to the 
 eftect that the glacial cold was due to a decrease in the 
 thickness and density of the earth's atmosphere, owing to 
 a reduction of the number of meteorites fallings into it 
 from space, and contributing their triturated substance to 
 it. Perhaps also the refining of the earth's original atmo- 
 sphere from diffused gases, such as carbonic acid and water 
 vapour, through the absorption of the crust and its living 
 denizens, or its diminution in thickness, through the same 
 cause aided by the desertion of particles into space, may have 
 had something to do with the refrigeration in question.* 
 
 However the glacial cold may have been produced, it is 
 in the deposits which follow the great Ice age that we 
 discover the earlier traces of mankind. The fragments of his 
 tools, his weapons, and utensils, as well as the rude pictures 
 
 * Such a speculation points the query whether the return of carbonic 
 acid and other gases to the atmosphere, going on through the combustion of 
 coal and other manufacturing processes, may not tend to elevate the ter- 
 restrial temperature now. 
 
THE PERIOD OF NEW LIFE. 47 
 
 of his fancy, meet us with his broken bones amid the relics 
 of those animals which flourished during the Glacial period, 
 the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the reindeer, the hyena and 
 the cave bear. These human vestiges have enabled anthro- 
 pologists to divide the infancy of the race into three 
 sections, namely, the Stone age, the Bronze age, and the 
 Iron age. According as the heads of his spears and axes, 
 or the blades of his knives were of iron, bronze, or stone, 
 so does man appear to have been in a ruder and earlier 
 condition of existence. The Stone age, however, embraces 
 so long a lapse of time that the general surface of the 
 country was modified, the climate altered, some animals 
 became extinct, and man himself became far more skilful in 
 fashioning his tools. Hence a subdivision of the Stone ao-e 
 has been adopted, and the older and rougher flint imple- 
 ments are now known as Paleolithic, while the neater and 
 more finished ones are called Neolithic. These distinctions 
 are more or less arbitrary, since paleolithic fossils are found 
 along with neolithic ones, and these again with bronze and 
 iron weapons, so that the Stone age extends even into the 
 Iron age ; but in the main they exhibit the true order of 
 human antiquity. 
 
 In tunnels and caverns of limestone rocks, buried deep 
 under layers of river mud, or sealed in solid alabaster, the 
 ancient fires and flint tools of paleolithic man are mingled 
 with the teeth and bones of the elephant and mammoth, 
 the cave-bear and hyena, the lion and buffalo, the wild 
 boar and wolf In the yellow loess of flood-loam of the 
 Ehine human bones have been found eighty feet deep ; and 
 in the old river gravels of the Somme in France, ninety feet 
 above the present level of the stream, flint weapons are 
 associated with the skeletons of extinct mammalia, and with 
 
48 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 recent land and fresh-water shells. There can therefore be 
 no doubt that man lived on the earth along with these 
 extinct mammals, long before many wide river valleys of 
 to-day had been scooped out, and while yet the waning cold 
 of the Glacial period gave to mid-Europe the severity of 
 Labrador. The owner of these rude spear-heads and axes 
 of chipped flint was a savage hunter and fisher, who slew 
 the wild boar and the mammoth, split their bones for 
 marrow, and dressed himself in skins like the Eskimo. 
 It cannot be said, however, that this primeval man was of 
 a lower type than any savage races now known to us. A 
 skull taken from the Neanderthal cave is indeed ape-like, 
 with massive brow ridges, but it has the capacity of a 
 Hottentot head; and another skull taken from the Engis 
 cave near Liege is in all respects well-formed ; so that we 
 may say, with Professor Huxley, that these ancient men 
 "could have worn boots as we do." This fact does not 
 prove, of course, that the first men were not of a lower type 
 than the moderns ; for these cave-dwellers of the Glacial 
 epoch may have been but the descendants of other races 
 which perished long before, and left no discoverable trace 
 behind. 
 
 The remains of neolithic man are usually come upon in 
 " lake dwellings," peat-bogs, alluvium, and artificial mounds, 
 or tumuli. In some of the pile-built huts of the Swiss 
 lakes, hatchets and knives of polished flint and jade are 
 found beside the bones of deer, wild boars, and bulls. In 
 others, the appearance of bronze axes and daggers proves 
 the introduction of metals, and a farther advance in pro- 
 gress is evidenced by the bones of tamed sheep and goats, 
 mixed with broken pieces of pottery, shreds of homespun 
 cloth, and grains of charred corn. In the flower-peat bogs 
 
THE PERIOD OF NEW LIFE. 49 
 
 of Denmark, along with the trunks of the Scotch fir, a tree 
 now extinct in that country, are found many stone imple- 
 ments, while in the higher mosses, which once nourished 
 the oak, are enclosed a variety of bronze utensils and 
 weapons. Amid the refuse of the Danish shell-mounds, 
 also, are buried numerous tools of stone, and horn, wood 
 and bone, but none of metal, although traces of fire and 
 fragments of pottery are frequent. 
 
 Although the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages are markedly 
 distinct from each other, there is no sign of a gap between 
 the more recent ages of stone and metal tools. But there 
 may be noted a regular progress in the art of making tools, 
 whatever the material. " The frequently found polished 
 stone celts," says Professor Geikie,* " and the neatly trimmed 
 arrow-heads of flint, show that the older and ruder stone 
 weapons gave place to others of like material, but of far 
 more cunning workmanship. It appears also that even 
 after bronze came into use, stone continued to be employed, 
 as being probably a less costly and more easily obtained 
 material. We even find proofs that the stone tools were 
 sometimes elaborately cut and polished, to imitate the form 
 of those which were cut in bronze. 
 
 "The further tracing of the history of man," continues 
 the professor, "belongs rather to a treatise on archaeology 
 than to a geological manual. In closing this outline it may 
 not be inappropriate, however, to notice some of the proofs 
 of geological changes which have been witnessed by man 
 since he became an inhabitant of Britain. Reference has 
 already been made to the evidence furnished by the ancient 
 river-gravels and cave-earths regarding great vicissitudes 
 which have passed over the surface of this country. We 
 
 * Manual of Geology, by Jukes and Geikie. 
 
 E 
 
50 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 see how valleys have been deepened and widened, so as to 
 alter the whole drainage of large districts; how the old 
 rivers have left their terraces far above the limits of the 
 present streams, and bear witness to a climate then much 
 severer than that which we now enjoy, inasmuch as it was 
 less removed from the Ice age which had preceded it ; how 
 the long extinct mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and 
 other lost mammals roamed over the country; how the 
 caverns were haunted by extinct forms of hyena, lion, and 
 bear; how of the forms of life which still survive, some, 
 like the reindeer, elk, and musk-sheep, then abundant here, 
 have now retreated to more northern latitudes, where they 
 find that congenial climate which they formerly encountered 
 in this country ; how man, at first a savage, warring with 
 rude implements of stone against the beasts around him, — 
 then a more skilled hunter, with bow of horn and arrows 
 tipped with flint, — then adding gradually to his comfort by 
 gaining a knowledge of the use of metals, of the cultivation 
 of corn, of the domestication of animals, and of the fabri- 
 cation of woven textures, advanced step by step in civiliza- 
 tion, now helped, perhaps, and now thrown back by the 
 migration of other rude human tribes from what is now 
 the mainland of Europe, until, at last, he comes within the 
 pale of history, and is brought face to face, first with the 
 civilization of Rome, and then with the humanizing and 
 elevating influences of Christianity." 
 
 Since neolithic times there has been little change in 
 the appearance of the continents, except what man has done 
 in the cultivation of the soil and the erection of great 
 cities, aqueducts and roadways. Here and there a slight 
 rise and fall of the sea-level has taken place ; a lake has 
 dried or filled up; a great flood, like that of Noah, and 
 
THE PERIOD OF NEW LIFE. 51 
 
 due, perhaps, to the melting of glacial ice or the sudden 
 sinking of a whole region, has deluged immense areas ; 
 volcanoes have burst up from the sea-bed, or vomited their 
 molten rock and cinders over the plains ; earthquakes have 
 riven the solid crust into yawning chasms, and overthrown 
 the towers and temples of man ; coral polypes have reared 
 their marble tombs over buried continents, building new 
 islets upon old mountains; and all the while, the slow, 
 secret, silent waste of rain and wind, of frost and snow, 
 has been wearing down the hills, and stormy tides have 
 been gnawing at the edges of the land. These actions 
 are still going on around. Rocks are being formed by 
 chemical union or animal growth, and destroyed by fire 
 or water ; strata are being ruptured or displaced by molten 
 lavas, and raised or sunk over great areas by unknown 
 forces, even now as they have ever been, in their degree 
 since geological history began. 
 
 ****** 
 In the foregoing outlines of stratigraphical geology we 
 have seen that it is the custom to class the Triassic or New 
 Red Sandstone formation as one of the first Neozoic series. 
 In seeking for the counterpart of the fourth Mosaic day we 
 shall find it best to adopt this plan, and include the New 
 Red with the Permian formation, that is, with the last of 
 the Paleozoic series. The Permian and New Red beds are, 
 as we have already said, distinguished, both from the Car- 
 boniferous, which precede, and the Cretaceous, which follow 
 them, by a paucity of new types. If we agree, then, to 
 class the New Red with the Permian as corresponding 
 to the day in which the heavenly bodies attained to nearly 
 their present configuration, we must look for the fifth day 
 in the Oolitic and Cretaceous eras. The earth herself tells 
 
52 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 US that this was a period of prodigious sea-monsters and 
 winged dragons; and if by these we may interpret the 
 words " whales " and " winged fowls " of Scripture, we 
 cannot but wonder at the general accord of the two testi- 
 monies. Birds, or true fowls, do not appear to have been 
 plentiful, however, during these middle ages, if we may 
 judge by the scanty remnants of them which are to be 
 found. Nevertheless they did exist at that time, and 
 peopled the air along with huge bats and pterodactyles. 
 
 The terrestrial ages which properly fulfil the fifth 
 Mosaic day were ages of egg-bearing animals — lizards, 
 crocodiles, and dragons ; snakes, birds, and insects. Ere 
 the close of the Cretaceous period, however, some small 
 marsupial mammals had appeared to herald the advent of 
 higher forms. These were ushered in with the Eocene, 
 Miocene, and Pliocene eras of the Tertiary period, when the 
 " beasts of the earth," and other " creeping things " of the 
 sixth Mosaic day, were represented by the mastodon, mam- 
 moth, lion, tiger, and other large quadrupeds. 
 
 From the earlier geolosical times until near the close of 
 the Pliocene era there appears to have been a striking 
 uniformity among the plants and animals inhabiting the 
 various regions of the earth. With the approach of the 
 glacial cold, however, this balance seems to have been 
 disturbed, and well-marked zones of climate girdled the 
 earth, causing; a wide divero-ence of its flora and fauna. 
 
 The Glacial period seems to have caused a great change 
 in those land animals restricted to comparatively slow loco- 
 motion. The fishes and birds of that time are now to be 
 found in the arctic regions ; but all the mammals are now 
 extinct, although they have bequeathed to us some living 
 representatives. The wild cattle, goats, and sheep, useful 
 
THE PERIOD OF NEW LIFE. 53 
 
 to man, appear to have come into being in post-glacial 
 times, about the epoch when man himself was born.* 
 
 All estimates of the actual length of the Neozoic period 
 are necessarily a kind of rational guess-work, but the value 
 chosen by Mr. Reade, from a study of the various strata 
 and the time required to form them, is two hundred 
 thousand years, dating from the beginning of the Jurassic 
 to the end of the Pleistocene era. From that era to the 
 present time, or, in other words, the period since the birth 
 of man, is estimated by Professor Mudge, from certain 
 American strata, to be also two hundred thousand years. 
 
 The world was now well stocked with tenants of earth, 
 air, and sea, mammals and reptiles, birds and insects, fishes 
 and molluscs; a luxuriant garden, ready for the creature 
 who should rule the whole, and introduce order where all 
 was yet strife. 
 
 " Now heav'n in all her glory shone, and roll'd 
 Her motions, as the great First Mover's hand 
 First wheel'd their course : earth in her rich attire 
 Consummate lovely smiled ; air, water, earth, 
 By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum, was walk'd 
 Frequent : and of the sixth day yet remain'd : 
 There wanted yet the master work, the end 
 Of all yet done; a creature, who, not prone 
 And brute as other creatures, but indued 
 With sanctity of reason, might erect 
 His stature, and upright with front serene 
 Govern the rest, self-knowing ; and from thence 
 Magnanimous to correspond with heaven." 
 
 * Since Book I. was written, evidence of a Miocene (or pre.glacial) man 
 lias appeared. Compare p. 76. 
 
54 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CREATION. 
 
 Wliere wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? declare, if 
 thou hast understanding. 
 
 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? or who hath 
 stretched the line upon it ? 
 
 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened ? or who laid the corner 
 stone thereof ? 
 
 AVhen the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted 
 for joy. — Job xxxviii. 4-7. 
 
 Before summing up the evidence for or against the truth 
 of the Mosaic cosmogony, let us briefly review .the past 
 history of the earth as revealed to us by the facts of science 
 and the spirit of evolution. In the beginning, we picture 
 to ourselves a nebulous fiery haze brooding in the vast 
 abyss of space, an embryon world, formless as yet and void 
 of life; but fervent with creative forces. After aions of 
 time, these warring atoms range into order, and unite into 
 a concrete globe, the harmony which underlay their primi- 
 tive strife discovering itself at first in symmetry of shape. 
 This glowing ingot of slag, this miniature sun, wrought on 
 the invisible anvil of God, contained in its red-hot entrails 
 all the lovely flowers and crystals, all the classic groves and 
 tem]iles which have adorned the later continents : and. 
 
THE CREATION. 55 
 
 according to^tlie materialist, the commingled elements of 
 all animal life, the beauty of mankind, the soul of Plato, 
 the genius of Shakespeare, and the heart of Jesus. 
 
 As the molten mass parted with its heat, it became 
 covered with a solid crust of vitrified rock and ore. Upon 
 this the wind blew and the rain fell till it crumbled into 
 soil fit for the nourishment of life. Algoid films then beoan 
 to stain the warm primeval pools ; humid fungi rose out of 
 the mould, like vapours, and mosses cast their verdure over 
 the clods. A glossy green and wildly luxuriant vegetation 
 battened on the rich red earth and steaming air, from the 
 tropics to the pole. Fishes thronged the waters of the 
 lakes, and crocodiles wallowed in the slime. The life which 
 had originally sprung into existence gradually developed 
 into higher and more diverse forms, so that every region 
 which the earth ofiered, be it ocean, land, or air, was peopled. 
 The sea-floor became the seat of strange weeds, fragile corals, 
 and enamelled shells, whose loveliness of tint and delicacy 
 of architecture increased as time went on. The forests 
 harboured innumerable kinds of animals, first reptiles, then 
 mammals : the air was filled with insects, flying dragons, 
 and then birds. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods 
 and storms devastated the surface of the ripening planet ; 
 but their effects were ever local and transient. Races of 
 animals were born of other races, to flourish for a while, and 
 perish when 'the conditions which had called them forth 
 had passed away. The climate, too, changed as millions of 
 years went by ; and the polar areas became so cold that the 
 tropical jungle which once ran riot there gave place to wastes 
 of ice and snow, and a variety of weather came into play. 
 At length man himself appeared to crown the fabric of ter- 
 restrial life, and complete the grand scheme of terrestrial 
 
56 THE NEW TltUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 growth. The passionate childhood and the crude youth of 
 the world now culminated in its reasonable prime. 
 
 How long that golden prime will last we know not, but 
 it cannot endure for ever. As surely as the earth had a 
 period of youth so will she fall into a period of old age ; as 
 surely as she was once a luminous sun, so will she yet 
 become a desolate moon, unless, indeed, some unforeseen 
 event, perchance collision with a comet, should check the 
 ordinary course of nature. The sun is gradually cooling, 
 and therefore the climate of the earth must inevitably get 
 colder. This process will, however, be very slow, and per- 
 haps retarded by a compensating approach of the earth to 
 the sun. There will be time for new varieties of creature 
 to develop into harmony with altered circumstances; and 
 who knows but the novel animal tribes which will inherit 
 the world in its decline may be as multifarious as those 
 which jflourished in its youth ? 
 
 Whether or not man will survive his fellow-creatures on 
 the planet is, perhaps, an idle speculation ; and whether or 
 not a higher being than man will yet succeed him is equally 
 of little moment to us now. It is certain that new centres 
 of civilization will arise and old ones vanish, as the resources 
 of different portions of the earth are utilized or exhausted. 
 The polar snows will insensibly steal southward, lessening 
 by degrees the habitable zones, until at last every particle 
 of water will assume the form of ice, and the very oceans 
 will be frozen to their depths. Even the air may solidify 
 and fall in crystals on the rocks and glaciers. Long ere 
 the advent of this dread epoch, all mortal life will perish 
 from the surface of the planet ; and every monument of man 
 will crumble into dust. 
 
 Begun in a diffuse chaotic cloud, the world will end its 
 
THE CREATION. 57 
 
 days as an inert mass, a rigid corpse, rolling stark and bare 
 through the blank fields of ether, its fires extinguished, its 
 beautiful fabrics decayed, its noblest piles in ruin, its raw 
 materials wasted, and its fund of energy outspent : — 
 
 " I had a dream which was not all a dream, 
 The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 
 Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 
 Eayless and pathless, and the icy earth 
 Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air ; 
 
 The world was void. 
 The populous and the powerful was a lump : 
 Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless — 
 A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. 
 The rivers, lakes, and oceans, all stood still 
 And nothing stirred within their silent depths ; 
 Ships sailorless lay rolling on the sea, 
 And their masts fell down piecemeal ; as they dropp'd 
 They slept on the abyss without a surge — 
 The waves were dead : the tides were in their grave ; 
 The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; 
 The winds were withered in the stagnant air 
 And the clouds perished ! Darkness had no need 
 Of aid from them — She was the Universe ! * 
 
 Our retrospect of the history of the earth takes us no 
 farther than the primitive nebula. But this glowing 
 nebulous haze, this fiery spawn of worlds floating in the 
 dark womb of space, whence is it engendered ? 
 
 The experiments of Lockyer tend to prove that as the 
 temperature of the discrete atoms forming a nebula or mist 
 of matter visible or invisible is diminished, they meet in 
 ever-growing clusters, and finally group themselves into solar 
 masses. The primitive nebula may be formed therefore of a 
 single primitive substance at a very high temperature, or 
 in other words, having its atoms in a state of fervent vibra- 
 tion. But from whence does this primitive matter come ? 
 Is it created there and then by God, and have we at length 
 
 * Byron : Darkness. 
 
58 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 found out His working-place? Is it developed out of an 
 unseen universe, according to some recent thinkers ? Ai'e 
 there mines of matter and fountains of force on the confines 
 of the visible ? Is there a legion of physical demons busily- 
 engaged in shaping vortex rings from the matter of another 
 nature ? Or is it the ruin of former worlds, the dust and 
 wreck which bestrews the Cosmos, burned over again that 
 a new creation may arise from out its ashes like the 
 phoenix ? To such questions as these, positive science can- 
 not give a definite reply ; but, nevertheless, she favours the 
 latter theory, and conceives that worlds and systems come 
 into collision with each other, and thereby generate heat 
 enough to dissipate their particles anew into a gaseous 
 nebula. Indeed, the star in Cygnus which recently changed 
 from a sun into a nebula, would seem to be an example 
 of this renovating action. The doctrine of the Conserva- 
 tion of Energy denies that either matter or force is ever 
 added to the stock already in the visible universe. 
 
 The Thomsonian theory of the Dissipation of Energy 
 teaches that in process of time the whole visible universe 
 will come to a standstill, like a clock run down, or an 
 engine whose fires have gone out. Mechanical work can 
 only be obtained from heat by means of an engine when 
 the temperature of the boiler is higher than the tempera- 
 ture of the condenser ; and only a portion of the whole 
 available heat of the boiler can be transmuted into work 
 unless the condenser be at the " absolute zero " of tempera- 
 ture, or 274° below the freezing point, a totally unrealizable 
 condition. Hence it is that, although a given amount of 
 mechanical work can yield its full equivalent of heat, 
 heat cannot be made to restore again the original sum of 
 work from which it was venerated. The action is not 
 
THE CREATION. 59 
 
 strictly reversible, and whenever work is transformed into 
 heat in nature, there is a waste of power, " a degradation 
 of energy " to the form of heat which cannot be reclaimed. 
 It would follow, then, that only time is wanting to reduce 
 the whole visible universe to an inert and uniformly heated 
 lump of matter. 
 
 On this hypothesis we may compare the solar system 
 to a heat-engine, with the central sun for its furnace, and 
 the encircling planets for its condenser. The sunshine 
 poured upon the cooler earth gives birth to a thousand 
 forms of mechanical work, in each of which it is in part 
 degraded to a state from which it can never rise again. As 
 the sun burns out the activity, the planet will become 
 feebler, just as an engine goes slower when the fire is low ; 
 but it is probable that the friction of each planet against 
 the ether in its orbital motion tends to slacken its speed 
 and drive it into the sun. The energy of collision between 
 the solar mass and a planet would thus be converted into 
 heat, thereby restoring his expiring radiation. By con- 
 suming his own satellite as fuel, the sun would thus remain 
 a source of heat for an indefinite period ; but at the last he, 
 too, would blacken into a cinder star of vast dimensions. 
 
 He might then either blossom into a magnificent planet 
 revolving round a greater star of the sidereal maze, or, 
 rolling dark in space, crash into a similar defunct sun and 
 breed another nebula from which new worlds would spring. 
 
 According to the Thomsonian theory, a process like this, 
 although requiring enormous jeons of time, must finally lead 
 to a state of things in which all the matter of the universe 
 is rolled into one tremendous mass, from which all motion 
 has departed. Every new system that burst from the 
 ruins of the old would, in its turn, be ephemeral, and only 
 
60 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 for a time delay the approach of that last day in which 
 a universal Death would reign. 
 
 There is something revolting to our minds in the con- 
 templation of such a state of cosmic inanition; and we 
 may well ask if it is not a mere spectre of the imagination. 
 Can it be possible that the sublime creation which we see 
 around us, blooming with beauty and throbbing with 
 intensest life, is not eternal, and must inevitably shrink into 
 a hideous material corpse ? We are fain to think not. 
 Humboldt believed in a revival of the universe ; and later 
 thinkers, shocked by the Thomsonian conclusion, have 
 sought for an avenue of escape from it. " Cannot the dead 
 universe bury its dead ? " ask the authors of the Unseen 
 Universe, and then proceed to argue from the very 
 principle of continuity which indicates the universal dead- 
 lock, that just as in the beginning the visible universe grew 
 out of the unseen, so in the end the visible will lapse again 
 into the unseen. " In fine," say they, " we do not hesitate 
 to assert that the visible universe cannot comprehend the 
 whole works of God, because it had its beginning in time 
 and will also come to an end. Perhaps, indeed, it forms 
 only an infinitesimal portion of that stupendous whole 
 which is alone entitled to be called the Unseen Universe." 
 
 It seems to us, however, that the writers of that remark- 
 able book are somewhat prone to banish God in order to 
 save their principle of continuity. They prefer to reject a 
 living Creator rather than part with an alDstract law ; and 
 in order to avoid the simple idea that God made the 
 heavens and the earth in the beginning, they take refuge 
 in an endless vista of unseen universes of their own inven- 
 tion. After all, they must have a Creator at the far end of 
 their gloomy prospect, and looking a good deal smaller 
 
THE CKEATION. 61 
 
 perhaps for the perspective. Their principle of continuity, 
 too, is merely a human concept ; and may apply only to 
 the course of nature, such as we know it, from its beginning 
 to its end in time. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is our duty to discover, if we can, 
 whether or not the universe is eternal, and can renew itself 
 without a new act of creation. If it be, the process will 
 take place in one of two modes : either the dead frame of 
 the old heavens will dissolve asunder, and take on a new 
 shape, or the boundless cosmos will remain alive as a whole, 
 though all its parts are ever changing from quick to dead, 
 and from dead to quick. In the one case we should have 
 cycles on cycles of universes ; in the other, cycles on cycles 
 of worlds. A young but profound thinker, Mr. S. Tolver 
 Preston, has recently been arguing powerfully in favour of 
 the latter view ; and likening the universe to a gas which 
 is in equilibrium as a whole, although there may be a great 
 diversity of conditions in its portions. In truth, we cannot 
 tell what will be the ultimate end of aU things, and how 
 the universal mechanism is contrived to work. We only 
 see it for a moment as it were, and can but gauge its action 
 for a day. Who knows what hidden springs may lurk 
 within it, to stop or start its motion ? 
 
 Some day mayhap we shall know. We are learning to 
 open our eyes and see. To the mediaeval monk, the world 
 was a large plain, enclosed by mountains which supported 
 a crystal canopy fretted with golden points : to us, it is a 
 planet in its prime, one satellite of an enormous sun, which 
 is but a small member of the starry system. To the monk, 
 the earth was the head and centre of the creation : to us, it 
 is a mere gilded mote, floating on the bosom of immensity. 
 But if our estimate of the earth's place in nature is infinitely 
 
62 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 smaller than the monk's, our conception of the grandeur of 
 the universe is infinitely greater. We know that we are 
 surrounded by limitless space filled with innumerable 
 living suns and planets ; and whether we look backward 
 or forward, we can be sure of no absolute end to time 
 and nature. The present earth, it is true, began in an 
 embryon, but from whence did it come ? An egg is the 
 product of a line of progenitors ; and who shall say that the 
 terrestrial egg is not the offspring of other and stranger 
 parent worlds ? All that we can be certain of is the 
 existence of change, and that the universe is for ever falling 
 into new forms of beauty like the gorgeous clouds of evening. 
 
 In all ages and under all climes man has craved to know 
 how and from whence he came to be, and so we find that 
 every race has its traditional cosmogony, or history of the 
 origin of the world. Amid a great deal of mythical dross 
 in these accounts, we meet with some remarkable grains of 
 truth, which make us wonder if they are not the product 
 of a natural revelation. 
 
 For example, the Chinese version of creation begins 
 with the Tai-khit, or primitive eternal substance, the 
 absolute and last extreme. "It holds that all matter is 
 contained in the Tai-khit, under the two species of Yang 
 and Yin ; that Yang is the active mobile male principle, or 
 primitive force ; that Yin is the yjasslve immobile female 
 principle, or primitive matter ; and finally, that the elements 
 of which the universe is formed are the result of the 
 particles Yang and the particles Yin, which have issued 
 from the Tai-khit and combined together. In the depths 
 of the Chaotic period a divine trinity brought about the 
 separation of heaven and earth by its creative will." * 
 
 * Ja/pan and the Japanese, by the Abbe Humbert (translated by Mi-s. 
 Cashel Hoey). 
 
THE CREATION. 63 
 
 The rest of the story is a beautiful but childish legend 
 of celestial dynasties and genii. Shento-ism, or the old 
 religion of Japan, also teaches that in the beginning there 
 was neither heaven nor earth, the male and female prin- 
 ciples not yet being divorced from one another. "The 
 elements of all things formed a liquid, troubled mass, like 
 that which is contained in the embryo egg, where the yellow 
 and the white are still mingled. In the infinite space filled 
 by the chaos a god uprose, a god called the suprem e being 
 whose throne is in the middle of the heavens. Afterwards 
 came the creator god, raised high above creation ; then the 
 creator god, who is the holy spirit. Each of these three 
 primitive gods had its oAvn existence, but they were not yet 
 revealed outside the spiritual nature. Then by degrees the 
 work of creation was wrought in chaos. Subtle atoms 
 rolling away in different directions, formed the heavens ; 
 solid atoms, attracting and adhering to each other, produced 
 the earth. The subtle atoms rapidly constituted the rounded 
 celestial vault above our heads. The solid atoms aa-Q-reffated 
 themselves more slowly into a compact body : the earth was 
 not made until long after the heavens." * Here, again, the 
 story degenerates as it proceeds. Gods and goddesses, 
 typifying the virtues of water, fire, wood, metal, etc., arose, 
 and the Archipelago of Japan was created by one of these 
 in plunging the diamond point of his javelin into the waters 
 of the earth, as he sat with his spouse one day on the bridge 
 of heaven. The vegetation of the islands was produced by 
 millions of genii who swooped down upon them for the 
 purpose; and men were the children of the god and his 
 celestial wife. 
 
 In the ancient Vedic hymns of India, which date back 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
64 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 for thousands of years before Christ, we likewise find some 
 curious aUusions to the primal fluid and the embryo of the 
 world. Thus, in the hymn to Visvakarmau, maker and 
 ruler of all things, there is the sadly beautiful passage : 
 " The waters bore that first germ, in which all gods came 
 together. That one thinsr, in which all creatures rested, 
 was placed in the lap of the unborn (Visvakarmau). You 
 will never know, however, who created these things : some- 
 thing else stands between you and him. Enveloped in 
 mist, and with faltering voice, the poets walk along, 
 rejoicing in life." * Again, in a hymn to the god Pragapati, 
 the lord of creatures, he is called the Hiranyagarbha, the 
 golden germ or golden egg, who arose in the beginning and 
 established the earth and sky. "When the great waters 
 went everywhere, holding the seed and generating the fire, 
 thence arose he who is the sole life of the gods. Who is 
 the god to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? He who by 
 his might looked even over the waters which held power, 
 and generated the sacrificial fire — he who alone is God above 
 all gods." 
 
 The cosmogony of Brahma teaches that there are ten 
 worlds, in tiers one over another, the earth being the eighth 
 of the series. Each is like a lily leaf in shape, and contains 
 oceans of salt and sweet water, cane juice, rum, butter, and 
 curds, while a hoop of gold is said to encircle all. Every 
 four million years Brahma, the supreme soul, goes to sleep, 
 and the universe is destroyed by a deluge. Then the god 
 awakes, and builds a new pile of worlds. 
 
 The system of Buddha is, on the whole, a more rational 
 one, though its details are manifestly erroneous. It does 
 not attempt to account for the ultimate origin of the 
 
 * Max Miillei-'s Oriqin of Pelir/ion. 
 
THE CREATION. 65 
 
 Cosmos, but confines itself to the fact of a material world 
 with conscious beings living in it, and holds that everything 
 is subject to the laiu of cause ctncl effect, and is constantly 
 though imperceptibly changing. It asserts the existence of 
 innumerable separate systems of worlds scattered through 
 space. Each system consists of three circular worlds 
 exactly similar to our own; that is, in the form of discs, 
 in the centre of which rises an enormous mountain, sur- 
 rounded by seven concentric zones of rock. Above the 
 mountain are the twenty-four heavens, and beneath it the 
 eight great hills. Between the mountain and outermost 
 system of rocks the sun, moon, and stars revolve. Each of 
 these worlds is periodically destroyed by fire, water, or 
 wind, but the sum of the demerits of the beings (man, 
 animals, and angels) who have lived within it produces 
 each time a new world, which is in turn destroyed.* 
 
 The Hebrew narrative of the creation is the only sacred 
 cosmogony which will yet bear a serious examination ; and 
 we have now to see if it can stand the crucial test of 
 modern science. It is still cherished by many millions 
 of the human race in association with the Christian faith, 
 and we cannot lightly cast it aside as a mere cosmic myth 
 unworthy of our grave study. " The student of science," 
 says Professor Huxley, " will no longer trouble himself with 
 these theologies;" but the student of religion may be par- 
 doned for refusing to forsake them as promptly. 
 
 Since God does not withhold from us a physical revela- 
 tion of the creation, we may well ask why a spiritual one 
 should ever have been made ? Since we can find out for 
 ourselves how the world came to be made by exerting our 
 powers in the interpretation of nature, is it likely that He 
 
 * See Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., art. ■' Baddlia." 
 
66 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 would reveal the secret to us by direct inspiration, and save 
 us labour which is good for us, and trouble we are framed 
 to take ? To this it might be answered that, in order to 
 satisfy the yearning of man's heart to know these mysteries, 
 until he is able to discover them for himself, God may have 
 vouchsafed a partial revelation, a simple tale, such as a father 
 pleases his child with for the time. There would not be, 
 however, in this tale, anything at variance with final truth. 
 
 The epic of the creation contained in the opening of 
 Genesis is thought by scholars to be the work of at least two 
 different writers. The second version begins at the fourth 
 verse of the second chapter ; and as it is manifestly inferior 
 in purity and truth to the first, we will confine our criticism 
 entirely to the latter. Who was the author of that sublime 
 production, or on what it is based, we cannot yet tell, but 
 it is commonly attributed to Moses, and we have continued 
 for the nonce to call it by his name, although it may only 
 have been preserved by him from earlier times. 
 
 The preceding chapters of this book have shown us thut 
 the Mosaic narrative cannot, in a literal sense, be true. 
 How then are we to regard it ? Shall we take it as a 
 simple allegory vouchsafed by God, and miraculously pre- 
 served, to the children of men, until experience should give 
 them fuller knowledge ? Is it a vision disclosed to the 
 imagination of a Hebrew seer, or a cunning scheme, or a 
 profound divination ? For ignorant conception it cannot 
 be. Though deemed at first sight an idle dream, it will be 
 found on closer scrutiny to exhibit a remarkable method. 
 
 The keynote of the whole is struck in the first verse, 
 which implies " a beginning " and a Creator. Now, positive, 
 science likewise points to a beginning for the visible 
 universe at least, and a Power which made all things. In 
 
THE CREATION. 67 
 
 his admirable essay on " Molecules," Professor Clerk Max- 
 well says that " none of the processes of nature, since the 
 time when nature began, have produced the slightest 
 difference in any molecule. ... On the other hand, the 
 exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same 
 kind, gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the 
 essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes 
 the idea of its being self-eternal and self-existent." Al- 
 though Professor Maxwell can only speak from our limited 
 observation of molecules, under chemical processes, and in 
 the spectroscope, and although we cannot tell what may 
 happen to atoms under extremes of heat or cold, any more 
 than an Indian of the Amazon woods could tell that rain 
 would turn into snow, still we must abide by our know- 
 ledge such as it is ; and in the stability of the fundamental 
 atoms we seem to have sure ground amid the shifting and 
 evanescent forms which are constructed out of them. 
 
 Again, the authors of the Unseen Universe inform us 
 that, "What the principle of continuity demands is an end- 
 less development of the conditioned. We claim it as the 
 heritage of intelligence that there shall be an endless vista, 
 reaching from eternity to eternity, in each link of which we 
 shall be led only from one form of the conditioned to 
 another, never from the conditioned to the unconditioned or 
 absolute, which would be no better than an impenetrable 
 intellectual barrier. It has also been seen that in this 
 endless chain of conditioned existence we cannot be satisfied 
 with a make-believe universe, or one consisting only of 
 dead matter, but prefer a living intelligent universe, in 
 other words, one fully conditioned. Finally, our argument 
 has led us to regard the production of the visible universe 
 as brought about by an intelligent agency residing in the 
 unseen." 
 
68 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of this " endless chain " of 
 universes developing one from the other, atom out of atom 
 to infinity, this Mumbo Jumbo of structural complexity 
 which these authors have imagined in order to satisfy their 
 notions of continuity, it is refreshing to find them protesting 
 against materialism, and asserting the existence of a Creator. 
 Their God is further from us than the God of Genesis ; His 
 voice is lost in a maze of metaphysical jargon, and His form 
 is hid in infinite recesses of atomic frameM^ork ; but it is 
 something, in these days, to know that He is still some- 
 where. 
 
 Whether or not, the visible universe began in time and 
 will come to an end in time, or will endure to all eternity 
 in cycles of change, we are forced to recognize the existence 
 of an Originator, an Uncreated from which the created 
 sprang. 
 
 Evolution, according to the spirit, if not the letter, of 
 modern science, is the process of this creation, the mode in 
 which the Creator works. The "laws of nature," as we 
 term them, are formulas expressing the invariable relation 
 between certain conditions taken as a cause, and the effect 
 which follows as a consequence. The illustrious Danish 
 philosopher. Oersted, has named them the thoughts of God : 
 but they are rather man's imperfect record of the thoughts 
 of God. Evolution means the resultant co-operation of these 
 laws, in the production of natural phenomena ; and by 
 evolution all things in the world, inorganic, vital, sentient, 
 and rational, have, we are instructed, developed out of each 
 other by the simple process of cause and effect. The strict 
 evolutionist sees the rational, sentient, and vital dwelling 
 potentially in the material ; and the more moderate Dar- 
 winism regards them as interacting naturally with the 
 
THE CREATION. 69 
 
 material, if not inherent in it. In either case the process 
 has been a slow and gradual one, without any break in the 
 line of continuity. 
 
 Creation by evolution is plainly incompatible with the 
 Creation by fits and starts understood in Genesis. We could 
 only harmonize the two by a trick of the fancy, in cramping 
 the seons of time during which the world grew into a single 
 moment, so that protracted development would become 
 instant creation, and man indeed appear to start up from 
 the dust. But this device, however interesting in a meta- 
 physical sense, is hardly allowable for our present purpose. 
 The Miltonic interpretation of the Mosaic cosmogony must 
 therefore be abandoned : — 
 
 " Out of the ground uprose, 
 As from his laii", the wild beast, where he wons 
 In forest wild, in thicket, brake or den ; 
 Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walk'd ; 
 The cattle in the fields and meadows green : 
 Those rare and solitary, these in flocks 
 Pasturing at once, and in broad herds npsprang. 
 The grassy clods now calved ; now half appear'd 
 The tawny lion, pawing to get free 
 His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds, 
 And rampant shakes his brinded mane ; the ounce. 
 The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole 
 Eising, the crumbled earth above them threw 
 In hillocks ; the swift stag from underground 
 Bore up his branching head ; scarce from his mould 
 Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved 
 His vastness." 
 
 Read by the superior light of evolution, this sudden birth 
 of entire animals out of the ground provokes a smile on the 
 lips of men of science ; but, after all, it is not so far wrong, 
 and as a poetic epitome of development it is for ever 
 beautiful. The fable which once was held for literal truth, 
 will still survive as imagery. 
 
70 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 But the Mosaic account implies more than a Creator and 
 a beginning, it implies a sequence of events ; and what is 
 more remarkable, this sequence agrees fairly well on the 
 whole with the main clauses of the imperfect geological 
 record. In strictness Moses (?) does not enunciate processes, 
 but relates complete results. Every statement of his 
 declares a culminating fact of the world's growth, and 
 includes a period of time, whose length is not absolutely 
 fixed, for the Mosaic " day " may not mean a literal twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 First he describes the formless condition of the embryo 
 planet, then the creation of " good " or perfect light, the 
 darkening of the world, the cleansing of its atmosphere 
 from virulent fumes, and the attainment of a pure expanse 
 of air, followed by the separation of sea and land. After 
 this he records the formation of vegetable life, of the sun 
 and moon, of living creatures that swim in water, and fly in 
 air, and, lastly, of living creatures that walk or " creep " on 
 the dry land. 
 
 In reality the division of the waters may have gone on, 
 in part at least, simultaneously with the purging of the 
 atmosphere, and animal life may have grown up side by side 
 with vegetable life ; but few will doubt that the purification 
 of the atmosphere was completed before the general balance 
 of land and sea was effected, or that the earth's flora reached 
 a climax of development long before its fauna did. 
 
 In the interests of clearness and order, Moses would 
 therefore be right in separating the different phases of the 
 world's preparatory life. With tlie instinct of an artist, he 
 has shaped the history of creation into scenes, each depict- 
 ing a great act of the world's growth, and rendering in a 
 dramatic form some great end of evolution. 
 
THE CREATION. 71 
 
 None of the old cosmogonies can for a moment be com- 
 pared to that of Genesis in purity and grandeur ; and none 
 embody so little error as to stand, like it, for a poetic version 
 of development. While other nations looked for God in the 
 blue sky, the sun, in rivers or mountains, the Hebrew faith 
 asserted each and all of these to be the work of one God ; 
 and even told the order of Creation in a simple but sublime 
 manner. Its freedom from human error and vagrant fancies 
 is indeed remarkable ; and when we think of all the strange 
 fantastic things its author might have said, we are lost in 
 wonder that he wi'ote as he has done. Like every great 
 writer, too, his silence is most eloquent. 
 
 The great and immortal merit of the cosmogony of 
 Genesis Kes, however, in its religious beauty, and spiritual 
 insight into the divine meaning of the world and human 
 life. We cannot accept it as a rigid scientific treatise, else 
 our faith and knowledge will inevitably conflict. As a 
 testimony of the world's origin it has served its day ; and 
 satisfied the youth of mankind until the larger revelation of 
 positive science was achieved. The hypothesis of evolution, 
 loyally worked out by man himself, in a manner acceptable 
 to the Creator, is a further revelation which may in turn 
 give place to a fuller and more perfect one. The ultimate 
 truth comprehends what is true in all speculations, and 
 excludes only what is false. 
 
 Though it may have given rise to an erroneous notion of 
 sudden creation, there is perhaps nothing strictly false in 
 the Mosaic cosmogony ; but if evolution be true, it does not 
 express the whole truth, as we now know it. It requires to 
 be supplemented by an ampler interpretation of the Maker's 
 method. The new science presents a grander theme to the 
 imagination than the ancient tale, whose simple pictures we 
 
72 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 may well exchange for the splendid pageants of life and 
 endless avenues of time which evolution opens to our view. 
 
 Nor need we totally abandon the Mosaic story, since it 
 would seem to be correct so far as it goes. Like a story, 
 which the child trusts, and the man sees in its true 
 character, it may yet be read with profit alike for its truth 
 and beauty. There is no deception in the process by which 
 experience takes the place of allegory. The Mosaic cos- 
 mogony was suited to the world's youth ; it proclaimed 
 those general truths which were important for the times, 
 and there was no call to charge it with specific details, 
 which would be discovered in the future by dint of thought 
 and toil. 
 
 It is always painful to have to put aside an article of 
 faith endeared to us by a thousand associations, and bred 
 into our very souls by the teaching of childhood. Happily, 
 therefore, the Mosaic cosmogony need neither be rejected 
 as a lie, nor held up as a laughing-stock ; but may possess 
 our memories and claim our reverence, as a sublime and 
 sacred poem of creation. 
 
( 73 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and 
 curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 
 
 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect ; and in thy book 
 all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when 
 as yet there was none of them. — Psalm cxxxix. 15, 16. 
 
 The more we study the supposed antagonism of the new 
 truth and the old faith, it is seen to resolve itself more 
 clearly into the bearing of the doctrine of evolution on the 
 canons of our creed. This doctrine is so plausible, so widely 
 accepted^ and, indeed, so rational, that although complete 
 proof of it is still wanting, and ever may be wanting, it 
 behoves us to assume its accuracy, and to consider how it 
 touches the vital parts of our religion. 
 
 Evolution seems to be a general principle, or mode of 
 working in all kinds of existence, material, vital, spiritual, 
 and the old idea of progress is merely an expression of its 
 outcome. The Creator is the cause, evolution the process, 
 and progress the issue. 
 
 The moderate evolutionist does not demand spontaneous 
 generation of life from dead matter ; but contents himself 
 with a primal germ as the source of all the variety of living 
 beings which have lived, and still live, upon the earth. 
 
74 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 There has always been, according to him, a perfect adapta- 
 tion of the type to its habitat ; but as time went on, there 
 was an increasing specialization of function. The earlier 
 animals were both more complex and simpler than those of 
 the present : complexer, inasmuch as they contained the 
 potentialities of details which were developed in later 
 tribes ; and simpler, because they had no refined special 
 organs. 
 
 It is curious to note that evolution was foreshadowed 
 long before it came to be a theory of naturalists. The 
 famous Agassiz early observed that the Old Red Sandstone 
 fishes, the only vertebrates then existing in the world, were 
 " invested with the characters of a higher order, embodying 
 as it were a prospective view of a higher develoj)ment in 
 another class which was introduced as a distinct type only 
 at a later period ; " and from the time that this new form 
 appeared, the older fishes gradually returned to their more 
 permanent shape, which is in striking contrast to that of 
 the reptiles. Paleontology, in fact, shows us fossil forms, 
 waxing big with a higher type ; and it is remarkable that 
 when once the new comer is delivered into the world, a like 
 birth is never repeated, and the original stock wanes again, 
 soon to widen the gulf between it and its offspring. When 
 the parents of a species are moulded, as Sir Charles Lyell 
 has well said, Nature breaks the die in which they were 
 cast. 
 
 Skilled naturalists recognize these pregnant waves of 
 life among the broken fossils of the past, and tell us that 
 the forecast of mammals is very plain in the cartilaginous 
 fishes of the Old Red Sandstone era, and still plainer in the 
 reptiles of the New Red Sandstone age. These reptilian 
 forefathers brought down all the materials meet for the 
 
EVOLUTION. . 75 
 
 framing of a mammal, cartilages from the Old Red fishes, 
 with boues from the ganoids of the carboniferous lakes, 
 and united them into a new and nobler structure, destined 
 to be the progenitor of still loftier creatures. 
 
 But it is not merely on this meagre evidence that the 
 doctrine of evolution rests. Specific variations of diatoms 
 have been actually seen to take place under the microscope ; 
 and some common rabbits, left by a Spanish ship, 460 years 
 ago, on the island of Porto Santo, are now so altered by the 
 influences of climate and soil as not to pair with the same 
 European breed from which they sprung. The Mexican 
 axolotl has been artificially nursed from a water dweller 
 to a true land salamander, its gills developing into air- 
 breathing lungs. Certain animals, too, are found to have 
 imperfect and rudimentary organs, which indicate their 
 passage from one form to another. Thus the eyes of the 
 unborn mole are as perfect as those of a young mouse until 
 the skull closes on them and shuts ofi" the brain, when they 
 shrivel up. The dugong has a horny plate covering up its 
 teeth, and uses it instead of the latter ; the wisdom teeth of 
 man himself are really superflvious and gradually being 
 absorbed. Some of these imperfect features are growing, 
 others are dwindling, while a third class have settled into 
 permanent features, and now serve rather for show than 
 use. The growth of the young animal in the womb is also 
 felt to be a silent argument in favour of evolution. A 
 human foetus from the embryo to babyhood passes through 
 several phases of lower life, and exhibits in epitome the life- 
 history of its race. As for those missing links in the chain 
 of descent which have been clung to so tenaciously by 
 people who were fain to keep their old faith in the biblical 
 account of man's origin, they are slowly being one by one 
 
7G THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 discovered. Already the pedigree of the horse is fully 
 made out, we are told ; and recently, in America, they 
 exhumed a fossil bird with teeth — a relic which helps to 
 fill the gap remaining between birds and reptiles. 
 
 The doctrine of evolution is, of course, chiefly important 
 to us in tracing the descent of man from the lower animals. 
 We are asked to believe that, just as the batrachians were 
 the progeny of the earlier ganoid and selachian fishes, and 
 became the progenitor of the apes, so in turn the apes 
 became the parents of mankind. It has been shown by 
 Professor Mivart that man is related almost equally to the 
 orang-outang, chimpanzee, gorilla, and gibbon; hence,- by 
 the evolution hypothesis, he is not descended from any one 
 of these, but from an extinct and as yet missing type, which 
 must have branched off" at a very early date from the 
 common stock. Apes allied to these are found in Miocene 
 rocks, so that in all probability the line leading up to man 
 separated from the general ancestry at a still earlier period, 
 perhaps the Eocene. 
 
 It appears to the writer that this great epoch in the 
 world's history — the birthday of man — was probably co- 
 incident with the break-up of the terrestrial climates. A 
 uniform and warm temperature could not be conducive to 
 the development of a creature like man, and the rigours 
 of the Glacial period may have given a powerful impetus 
 to his faculties. It is somewhat remarkable that, although 
 many missing links in the genealogy of lower animals have 
 been found, no relic of this anthropoid founder of our race 
 has yet been laid bare. It may be that the world is not 
 sufiiciently explored yet, and that the recesses of some 
 African forest or Indian jungle contain at this moment the 
 sacred vestiges of our simian sire. One day, perhaps, an 
 
EVOLUTION. 77 
 
 Owen will be able to reconstruct our reverend forefather, 
 and paint for us the sad but interesting visage, " all sicklied 
 o'er with the pale cast of thought," and shaded by the hoary 
 hairs of our much-abused and long-lost relative. On the 
 other hand, it is highly probable that the first man speedily 
 gave proof of his superiority, and displayed a characteristic 
 trait of human nature by exterminating all his poor relations, 
 and thus obliterating every trace of his low origin. A third 
 and more agreeable explanation of the dearth of these 
 remains lies, however, in the probable relapse of the ape line 
 pregnant with man back again to the ordinary anthropoid 
 form as soon as the new type was thrown off. 
 
 Whatever his immediate genesis, whether by slow evo- 
 lution from a widely spread ape, or by a freak of nature 
 from a narrow branch which ripened rapidly with his form, 
 it is likely that, under the higher influences to which the 
 intelligence of man subjected him, his progress was much 
 faster than that of the beings which had hitherto shared 
 the world; and, while his ancestors possibly retrograded, 
 he had advanced until the gulf between their capacities and 
 his became immense. If we compare his most material 
 part, the calcic skeleton, with the same framework of the 
 monkey, we shall not indeed observe much difference be- 
 tween them ; but in the mould of form, and still more in 
 the sphere of spirit, the comparison can only provoke a 
 sense of sacrilege or a smile. 
 
 It would be either ludicrous or pitiful to compare Pongo 
 with the Apollo Belvidere, ludicrous for the daring naturalist 
 who should do it, and pitiful for poor Pongo. But it would 
 be more absurd to place the petty antics of an ape and the 
 bestial comforts of his lair beside the towered cities, the 
 splendid palaces, and innumerable works of human art. 
 
78 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Though there is no absolute proof of evolution, it must 
 be admitted that the accumulative evidence gives it a high 
 degree of probability. But if we take it for granted that 
 evolution is a living process on the earth, we have still to 
 discover the several agents in the process, in how far they 
 operate or have operated, and if they are competent to 
 account alone for the past and present state of things. 
 
 Evolution, broadly defined, is the interaction of the living- 
 organism and its environment, aided by heredity ; but the 
 elements of this interaction and heredity require to be 
 known, and there would seem to be a diversity of opinion 
 about them among men of science. Darwin at first sug- 
 gested that the origin of species took place solely by natural 
 selection, or the influence of external nature on the organism 
 leading to the survival of the fittest. But there are weak 
 points in this hypothesis; for example, men cannot by 
 artificial selection produce animals having the specific 
 difierence of infertile hybrid offspring, and it would 
 therefore seem too much to claim that a natural selec- 
 tion could accomplish this. Mr. Darwin now, however, 
 supplements natural selection by sexual selection, a term 
 expressing the mating of animals through mystical admira- 
 tion. He has been driven to this adoption in order to 
 account for the male and female decorations of birds and 
 other creatures, such as the iridescent tail of the peacock 
 and the blazing breasts of humming-birds. The sexual taste, 
 which is the motive of this selection, is in our present 
 ignorance put down to caprice ; and this caprice is believed 
 to check and undo the rigid law of natural selection. But 
 whence comes this caprice ? 
 
 Mr. Clarence King, an American geologist of repute, 
 who has studied the tertiary formations of the Far West, 
 
EVOLUTION. 79 
 
 from which the missing links in the descent of the horse 
 have been dug up, differs from the Darwinians on that 
 subject. Professors Huxley and Marsh assert that the 
 American genealogy of the horse is the most perfect de- 
 monstrative proof of derivative genesis ever presented ; but 
 Mr. King thinks that between the two successive forms 
 of horse there was a catastrophe which seriously altered 
 the climate and configuration of the whole region in which 
 these animals lived and modified themselves. His opinion, 
 therefore, is that the " evolution of environment " has been 
 the major cause of the evolution of life ; that a mere 
 Malthusian struggle for existence is not the sole cause, but 
 that powers of development by change were also bestowed 
 on animals, so that epochs of catastrophe became moments 
 of creation, "when out of the plastic organism something 
 nearer and nobler " was called into life. According to this 
 theory, plasticity is the principle of salvation ; but it seems 
 to us that the Darwinian theory also implies some amount 
 of plasticity on the part of the animal, if not so much, 
 else how could it survive any change in its habitat at all ? 
 That theory mainly, however, relies on slight modifications 
 of the organism, propagated by heredity, through countless 
 uniform ages, whereas King's theory involves important 
 changes in the organism during disturbed periods. Darwin's 
 theory reckons the animal as a mere machine with feeble 
 powers of adjustment, King's implies a strong inherent 
 capacity for adapting itself to new physical conditions 
 suddenly enforced. It should be added that Professor Cope 
 rejects the theory of Mr. King, and ascribes the appearance 
 of altered types, after a catastrophe has taken place, to 
 immigration from other regions. But it is just possible 
 that all three hypothesis are tenable ; and there is room 
 enough and to spare for them in Evolution. 
 
80 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 The inadequacy of the Darwinian theory, even when 
 eked out by sexual selection, is becoming more and more 
 manifest on closer scrutiny. On this theory, Heredity or 
 Descent is the vehicle by which the lessons of experience, 
 impressed on the parent by means of the struggle for 
 existence, are transmitted to the offspring. This is un- 
 doubtedly a factor in evolution. But besides heredity, there 
 are certain tendencies to minor variations which take effect 
 in what are called "freaks of nature." The function of 
 Natural Selection is to sift these minor variations, or 
 " sports " of life, checking those which are out of place, but 
 perpetuating and accumulating those which are advan- 
 tageous to the creature. 
 
 This great controlling agency, or arbiter of existence, 
 the law of natural selection, is regarded by Darwin and 
 Wallace as the main cause or means by which the origin 
 of species has been brought about. Yet it may well be 
 asked if these high authorities are not claiming too great 
 an importance for the influence of natural selection in 
 evolution. Are they not giving to that portion of the 
 process which, although clearly expressed by Patrick 
 Matthew in 1831, was first fully worked out by them, 
 an altogether undue prominence ? Until we can explain 
 these tendencies to minor variations, which natural selection 
 operates upon, we cannot surely call the latter the " means " 
 by which evolution of species has been effected. To do 
 80 would be to ignore the living force, in favour of the 
 mechanical check ; to exalt discipline at the expense of 
 nature. Whatever organic life may be, it is a world dis- 
 tinct from the inorganic, possessing its own potentialities. 
 The inorganic world may limit and select these, but we 
 doubt if it can breed them. Are we to believe, for instance, 
 
EVOLUTION. 81 
 
 that the dead forces of matter, heat, cold, earth, wind, and 
 rain, by merely acting upon them for ages, could raise the 
 lizard or the ape into a Shakespeare ? Or are we to 
 acknowledge that there was an inherent tendency toward 
 the human type in the lower forms of animal life, and that 
 external nature but revealed the secret pattern of mankind 
 inwoven in the tissue of the ape and lizard. 
 
 There are signs that a mysterious potency of life, 
 independent of the course of external nature, will yet be 
 fully recognized and studied. It is true that the organic 
 part of the planet is designed to interact with the inorganic 
 part, and to keep in harmony with it, hence the need of 
 an adjusting check such as the survival of the fittest ; but 
 although animate and inanimate things modify one another, 
 they each obey their own peculiar laws, and though they 
 meet yet they are separate. What are these tendencies to 
 minor variations with which natural selection deals ? Are 
 they not signs of an intrinsic vital power seeking to grow 
 in a particular way ? And until we have gauged this 
 power on an ample scale, and traced it to its derivation, 
 can we certainly affirm the survival of the fittest to be the 
 main cause of development ? Professor Hoffmann, a German 
 naturalist, after twenty years of labour in modifying plants 
 by interference with their external conditions, has come to 
 the conclusion that the cause of the evolution of new 
 species lies not, as Darwin supposes, in outward influences, 
 but in internal organic laws at present concealed. Of late 
 the outer mechanical influences have been put prominently 
 forward and investigated ; but ere long we may hope to see 
 the inner vital impulses done justice to. It may ultimately 
 be shown that there has been a constant, and perhaps 
 inexplicable, tendency to minor variations in the direction 
 
 G 
 
82 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 of higher types of animal; and that "jumps"* in develop- 
 ment, corresponding to certain " missing " links, have duly 
 taken place. Genius, which is the spiritual evolution of a 
 new type of mind, is itself an instance of this kind; for 
 although we may range men from the genius to the fool, 
 so as to get a gradual variation between them, yet this 
 would not be the order of actual variation, since a genius 
 is sometimes born of weak-minded parents. 
 
 Biologists now talk of waves of "morphological force," 
 in which the current of life seems to have swelled with a 
 new being, and to have sunk again after the birth was 
 over, into a period of quiet; just as we sometimes see a 
 family advance until it produces a great man, then recede 
 to mediocrity again. 
 
 The great gaps between living and dead matter, between 
 living and feeling creatures, between rational man and the 
 lower animals, are still themes for a great deal of specula- 
 tion among evolutionists, who are by no means of one 
 opinion on the subject. Some believe that further research 
 will bring to light proofs which will completely bridge over 
 them, while others regard them as the portals of so many 
 avenues leading to the " unseen universe." But, after all, it 
 may turn out that the true nexus will be found in the 
 virtual potency with which life is endowed. 
 
 Another argument against the adequacy of the Dar- 
 winian theory is furnished by Sir William Thomson's 
 estimate of the time which has elapsed since the earth 
 became cool enough to support life. " The limitation of 
 geological periods imposed by science," says that great 
 physicist, "cannot, of course, disprove the hypothesis of 
 
 * Strides, oi- jumps, as an agent in development, wei'e suggested by the 
 authors of the Vestiges of Creation (1844). 
 
EVOLUTION. 83 
 
 transmutation of species. But it does seem sufficient to 
 disprove the doctrine that transmutation has taken place 
 through descent, with modification by natural selection." * 
 On the other hand, however, we must add that Mr. Reade 
 considers his value of six hundred million years for the age 
 of the sedimentary strata as being ample time for the 
 operation of the Darwinian process. 
 
 It would appear then that the doctrine of evolution 
 by natural selection is admittedly^ incomplete, and that 
 Mr. Darwin himself, while still deeming it the principal 
 means of modification of species, does not consider it the 
 exclusive one. 
 
 What these other means are we can only conjecture ; 
 the higher the animal, the more complex they become. 
 When that great naturalist first expounded his scheme to the 
 world some twenty-one years ago, it looked as if the whole 
 machinery of development had been laid bare by his keen 
 intellect, and men shrank from the pitiless facts to which he 
 had awakened them. A sense of disillusion ran through the 
 human race, and a spirit of rebellion succeeded to the first 
 misgiving of their hearts. They who believed themselves 
 the sons of God, the image of the Creator, rejected that hard 
 logic which substantiated their descent from brutes, perhaps 
 even from the worm on which they tread, and put to scorn 
 the statistics which attributed their origin to the working 
 of a cruel mechanical law. They grieved to see their loving 
 Father set aside, and a huge Moloch of wheels and moving 
 beams, a monstrous engine of destruction, put in His place. 
 They yearned for mystery in which was a gentle faith, rather 
 than for knowledge in which was a harsh truth. Perhaps 
 their instinct was right after all ? Perhaps there is mystery 
 
 * Geological Lhinamics. 
 
84 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 still in their origin, and the tender care of a beneficent 
 Creator. We have more to learn. " It is a pity," said the 
 aged Darwin recently, to a stranger who visited him — " it 
 is a pity to leave the world while there are so many more 
 thino-s to be done. As I advance in the study of nature, I 
 discover vaster horizons, and I feel that I shall not have 
 time to reach them." 
 
 The doctrine of natural selection shocks us by striking 
 a blow at the root of design in nature. For since only the 
 fittest things survive, it follows that we exist only because 
 the hostile forces of nature could not kill us, and it is 
 perhaps an accident that some other being did not live to 
 usurp the place of man. The fall of a nut from the forest 
 tree which cradled the first new-born babe might, indeed, 
 have nipped the bud of the whole human race, and 
 delivered up the world for ever to the sovereigTity of apes 
 and tigers. The Creator, too, is struck out from His own 
 universe, which presents itself to the mind as a blank con- 
 course of atoms. There is no longer any trust in a kind 
 Providence, for even if there be a God, he cares nothing 
 for the individual, if indeed he cares for the tribe. Love 
 becomes a mere animal instinct, beaten into men by in- 
 exorable Nature for her own prudent ends. Our hearts are 
 paralysed and desolated by such thoughts as these, and a 
 havoc made of our finest sentiments. We feel abandoned 
 on the earth when we realize that our origin is due to the 
 hap-hazard play of a soulless mechanism, and not to the 
 Creator's strict intent; our souls sicken under the ghastly 
 fear that we are bastards of Chance, not heirs of God. 
 
 Is there, then, no room for Design in Evolution ? Rather, 
 we should say that Evolution is itself one great Design, so 
 great that it seems at first sight to be chance. It seems to 
 
EVOLUTION. ^0 
 
 US that if we fully reflect upon this subject, we shall be 
 forced to admit that Evolution is God's mode of working, 
 according to His own infinite Design. Natural selection 
 explains a part of this divine process; sexual selection 
 expresses another part : but who planted the caprice, desire, 
 or impulse in the male or female ? What is the mysterious 
 tendency to minor variations from the special type in 
 individual animals — what but the inherent and God-given 
 propensity of the organism to strike out a new form, or to 
 adjust itself to its environment ? Together with selection 
 it constitutes the governing device which enables life to 
 gear well with matter, in their parallel development, so as 
 to prevent a rigid species from perishing by its own inertia 
 in a surrounding world of change. 
 
 The history of evolution can be accurately deciphered 
 only by a joint study of globe and life development ; for 
 there is a correlation of their growth. Life and matter are 
 framed to suit each other, but though they interact, they 
 are manifestly distinct, and obey different laws. The solid 
 globe has its phases of development, and so also should the 
 plastic life which dwells upon it. Is it not therefore a proof 
 of design that we find life to have such phases? Dead 
 matter moulds life and checks its growth, but God created 
 both and placed them in adjustment to each other. To say 
 that matter regulates life like an insensate machine, and 
 that there is no Divine providence, is like saying that the 
 governor of a steam-engine controls the work, and that 
 there was never such a being as James Watt. Until man 
 appeared, all animal life was guided by instinct, therefore 
 there could not be any chance action, if the lower animals 
 are automata. The development of the early organic world 
 would be as strictly according to law as the development of 
 
86 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 the inorganic, and a tree or a bird would grow in the same 
 sense as a cloud or a crystal. Hence there need be no 
 interference with original design so far. It is only when 
 man comes on the scene with his faculty of free-will that 
 we may begin to question the absolute reign of law. He 
 came when the living world had passed through its pre- 
 paratory stages and reached its prime. Till then it had 
 been kept in leading strings, growing and learning by stern 
 experience. 
 
 In this laro-e view of the evolution of the world there is 
 nothing to destroy our faith in Design. It only shifts the 
 original plan further back, and dates the Creator's invention 
 from the era of the primordial nebula, or, mayhap, from all 
 eternity. It only reveals to our dull vision the shape hid 
 in the marble, the mystic lines of life permeating the deeps 
 of the formless egg, the secret pattern of all things imprinted 
 on the flaming winds of chaos. If, then, we are told that 
 the fervent haze of atoms composing the primitive nebula 
 must have contained the " promise and potency " of all ter- 
 restrial life ; and that the hand of the Creator has not mani- 
 fested itself in any of the phases of the planet's growth; 
 we are still face to face w^ith a vast design : and even 
 if we are asked to believe that the red-hot earth was but a 
 spark from the wreck of prior suns and planets, we can 
 only marvel the more at the vaster plan which takes in the 
 whole of the universe, and bids the seed of new worlds to 
 issue from the ruin of the old. There is room enough for 
 such a process in infinite space, time enough in infinite 
 time, and power enough in the Almighty. 
 
 It is the great task of the evolutionists of the future to 
 trace out the development of life on the earth, and show 
 how it extended its empire through water, land, and air in 
 
EVOLUTION. 87 
 
 every clime and habitable region. At present the evidence 
 collected is so fragmentary, uncertain, and eked out by 
 guesses that an attempt to do so would draw largely on the 
 imagination. 
 
 Let us look, however, a little closer at some of the main 
 traits of design in the framing of the world, to see if we can 
 discover in them any clue to a Divine beneficence. 
 
 The four great stages of being in the history of the 
 world are the inorganic, the vital, the sentient, and the 
 rational, and these succeed each other in the order given. 
 First, there was a time when no life existed on the earth, for 
 no life was possible, owing to the material tumult prevailing 
 there while the habitable crust was forming. The earliest 
 life was a vegetable growth, having no powers of feeling ; 
 a fact which may argue the Creator's clemency, for it would 
 have been needless cruelty to have endowed creatures living 
 in the midst of storms, earthquakes, and all manner of 
 volcanic outburst, with keen organs of sense. As these 
 physical catastrophes became fewer and the surface of the 
 earth more tranquil, still higher kinds of life made their 
 appearance, the organic development proceeding hand in 
 hand with the inorganic in what seems to be a pre-arranged 
 harmony. The newly introduced flora fed on the inorganic 
 world and purified the foul atmosphere ; while a fauna came 
 after, to feed, in its turn, on the vegetation, and breathe the 
 purer air. Plants inhale carbonic acid from the air and ex- 
 hale oxygen, animals inhale oxygen from the air and exhale 
 carbonic acid ; plants build up minerals into protoplasm, 
 animals consume protoplasm and reduce it again to mineral 
 matter : thus the two divisions of the organic world tend to 
 balance one another in their action on the inorganic world ; 
 and each might not now exist without the other, for plants 
 
88 THE NEW TKUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 alone would in course of time extract all the carbon neces- 
 sary for their existence from the air, and animals alone 
 would charge it too heavily with carbonic acid. 
 
 The sea appears to have been the place first thronged 
 with animal forms ; nor is this to be wondered at, when we 
 reflect that it was the safest medium in the disturbed state 
 of the early world. The water would act as a kind of 
 cushion to beings living in its depths, and its temperature 
 would be kept generally equable. Next to the sea, the 
 atmosphere would perhaps be the safest abode, and herein 
 flying creatures would develop, possessing powers of rapid 
 locomotion. The land would, for a long period, be the 
 most hazardous place of all to inhabit, especially for slow- 
 moving quadrupeds, which lived entirely upon it, and 
 sought refuge in the water, or in burrows underground ; ' 
 hence it is that the larger true mammalia, with their helpless 
 young, inherited the earth long after the amphibious 
 reptiles, the pouch-bearing marsupials, and the smaller 
 mammals. 
 
 At last, after the rough and ready energies of the planet 
 were beginning to be spent, man himself entered upon the 
 scene. Such a being could only be happy under conditions 
 practically stable, or changing only by imperceptible degrees. 
 Only then would his knowledge and experience be of use 
 to him, for were sudden cataclysms of nature too rife 
 around him, his fine faculties would become blunted, his 
 thoughts of God blackened, and his invention hopelessly 
 thwarted. 
 
 Man is capable of living both on the flora and the fauna 
 which preceded him ; and it is remarkable that the family 
 of grasses, which yield him his bread ; the Rosacese, to 
 which his common fruit trees, the apple, pear, plum, and 
 
EVOLUTION. 89 
 
 peach; belong ; the Labiatse, which furnish him with such 
 fragrant and medicinal herbs as lavender, mint, rosemary, 
 and marjoram ; the forest trees, which provide him with 
 timber; the tribe of codfishes, of goats, oxen, and sheep, 
 only preceded man on the earth by a comparatively short 
 geological interval. 
 
 We see, then, that there has been a kind and orderly 
 progress in the development of terrestrial life, from the first 
 germ of vitality to the appearance of man, the free moral 
 agent, and fellow-worker of God. The world had been 
 slowly matured into a garden, a Paradise, for him. He was 
 the crownino; result of a lone; series of intermediate forms 
 which, while they lived for themselves, were yet so many 
 experiments leading up to him, as the final and permanent 
 shape. His mission is to utilize the products of the past, 
 and the potentialities of nature with as little waste as 
 possible, to understand her laws, and obey them, to enjoy 
 her beauty, to revere and obey her Creator. By his mental 
 powers, he can unlock the latent energies of matter and 
 organic life, invent new engines, and extirpate cruelty and 
 ugliness, figure ideal t3^pes, and foster love and beauty. He 
 can put plants and animals in tracts suited to them, or 
 modify them to his uses by artificial selection. As regent 
 of God and ruler of the planet, subduing and replenishing it, 
 according to His will ; as constructor of things and agent of 
 processes resembling His work, well might the sacred poet 
 declare that man was created in the likeness of his Maker. 
 
 The descent of man from the lower animals is at first 
 a repulsive idea to our human instincts ; but after a while 
 we gradually become accustomed to it, and entertain it 
 without aversion. In some, this mental state is the result 
 of apathy, or calm abstention from probing into the subject; 
 
90 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 in others, it is due to the mystery veiling the process of 
 descent, or to a recognition that, after all, evolution is but 
 the Divine mode of working. It is probable, then, that 
 though the new doctrine may cause great travail of spirit, 
 and the ruin of many individuals, it will not permanently 
 affect our relations to each other, even if it should ulti- 
 mately come to be accepted by everybody. Our race has 
 now come of age, and the family secret has been confided 
 to us, not however until a long and severe discipline has 
 strengthened our nature, and firmly established our position 
 on the planet, so that our self-respect will not be fatally 
 wounded. The gulf between us and the lower animals has 
 become a wide and impassable one, ever growing wider ; 
 and we have, to begin with at least, been spared the shock 
 of an actual sight of our simian progenitor. The real link 
 is thus far missing, and can only be seen in the dim light of 
 the imagination. To know the process of our birth cannot 
 of itself alter our intrinsic worth for good or evil, although 
 it may temporarily put our pride to shame, and shake our 
 faith in ancient creeds. 
 
 In seeking for some palliative of this bitter truth, we 
 shall find it in the thought that what is termed the descent 
 of man from the lower animals is in reality the ascent of 
 the lower animals to man ; that the germ of man lay in 
 animal life from the beginning, awaiting its development ; 
 and that the lower creatures, however fit and beautiful in 
 themselves, are but the cruder and mediate phases of a 
 rising lineage whose full perfection was attained in man. 
 Man may be regarded as the end and aim of evolution, not 
 its chance product. The animal world is a connected whole, 
 crowned by man, each type of creature in the human 
 pedigree sufficing for itself and adapted to its own sphere. 
 
EVOLUTION. 91 
 
 but, at the same time, the unconscious ancestor of a more 
 complex being, with nobler faculties and a vaster field. Is 
 not this a grander and more natural view of the creation 
 than the sudden upstart of a set of isolated masterpieces ? 
 Indeed, when the mind is once familiarized with the loftier 
 side of genesis by descent, it repudiates the need of separate 
 origin and interference with the order of evolution. If a 
 body suitable for men could be inherited from a lower 
 animal, why create a fresh one ? if the human brain could 
 develop out of an ape's, why mould it out of raw clay ? 
 Evolution, as God's mode of working, should be sacred to 
 us, whatever the means employed. Who are we, that we 
 should be ashamed of how the Almighty wrought ? Surely, 
 He knows His business best. And if this idea of evolution 
 seems to put God far from us, we have only to remember 
 that time and space are nought to Him. Whether we 
 sprang in a single moment from the dust, or in " con- 
 tinuance were fashioned" through long seons of time, it 
 matters not so far as He is concerned, for millions of years 
 are but as a moment to Him. We are not surely any 
 cheaper in His sight because of our sorry pedigree. Does 
 a man value his dog less because he knows it is descended 
 from a wolf, and thinks of all the iron training which has 
 gone to soften that gentle eye and tame that fierce strength ? 
 By a long wrestle with circumstances we have been shaped 
 as we are ; every fibre in our frame has stood the test of a 
 stern but beneficent law, which condemns all that is weak 
 and unfitting to die out. The form and texture of a human 
 muscle, the thickness of a human bone, have been slowly 
 perfected in pain and travail through a thousand pioneer 
 beings — fish, reptile, and beast — by the inexorable strokes 
 of doom. Verily, it is a stupendous thought that all the 
 
92 THE NEW TKUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 prior conditions of the universe have combined to nioidd 
 and make us what we are ! 
 
 " I am the child of earth and air and sea ! 
 My lullaby by hoarse Silurian storms 
 Was chanted ; and, through endless changing forms 
 Of plant and bird and beast, unceasingly 
 The toiling ages wrought to fashion me. 
 Lo, these large ancestors have left a breath 
 Of their strong souls in mine, defying death 
 And change. I grow and blossom as the tree, 
 And ever feel deep-delving, earthy roots 
 Binding me daily to the common clay. 
 But with its airy impulse upwards shoots 
 My life into the realms of light and day ; 
 And thou, Sea, stern mother of my soul. 
 Thy tempests sing in me, thy billows roll." 
 
 Hjalmar Hjoeth Boyesen. 
 
 The doctrine of evolution Icnits us closer to the lower 
 animals, for it teaches us that they are our own kin and 
 that we are of the same blood. Ought we not, therefore, 
 to take a higher view of them than we are apt to do, and 
 to treat them with greater kindness and sympathy than is 
 our wont ? It is a keen blow to our pride to learn that we 
 belong to the same family tree as those dumb creatures 
 we have hitherto despised; but the lesson will not be in 
 vain if it teach us to be gentle and loving to these less- 
 favoured relatives of ours, whose forefathers bore the dints 
 of time and matter which helped to build up Man. 
 
 It seems to the writer, then, that evolution does not 
 preclude Design in the structure of the world, but only 
 makes it vaster and more marvellous. Neither does it 
 banish faith in the Creator's goodness ; and although it 
 would appear as though He cared nothing for the individual 
 if the race is spared, it will be found that the good of the 
 race can only be secured through the good of the individual. 
 The opponents of Design may say that, had a thing not 
 
EVOLUTION. 0:J 
 
 been fitted for its environment, it would not liave survived, 
 and that there may be fossil martyrs to a premature 
 existence; but we have a right to retort that the very 
 means whereby this law of survival was effected constituted 
 the Design we maintain. Geologists affirm that all the 
 known fossils, even the trilobites and stone lilies of the 
 Silurian period, though of simpler form than those of later 
 strata, are marvels of means to end, and so perfectly fitted 
 in keeping with the laws of construction and strength of 
 materials as to excite the admiration of the ablest engineers. 
 And it is rational to conclude that all that harmony was 
 produced, in the past as it is in the present, slowly and 
 regularly by law, not by accident. 
 
 What the inner process is by which things were de- 
 veloped is not fully known to us yet. The evidences of 
 it are all about us, the products of the art are revealed 
 on every side, and we even see them growing to completion 
 before our eyes ; but the divine Artist himself is ever hid. 
 Where does He reside ? Is it in the opening bud or the 
 varying race ? That is still an " open " secret. 
 
 Evolution leads us to take an infinitely grander though 
 more visionary view of the universe than Genesis reveals. 
 Instead of a series of separate pictures, it presents us with 
 a continuous panorama of creation. It shows us Nature as 
 an intimate union of beauty and fitness, a pageant to the 
 sense, a mechanism to the intellect ; and in striving to survey 
 this mighty plan the imagination seems to get a glimpse of 
 the sublime truth that Cosmos realizes the poetic dream, the 
 transitory Art of God. 
 
BOOK II. 
 WHAT? 
 
Who throve and branch' d from clime to clime, 
 
 The herald of a higher race, 
 
 And of himself in higher place. 
 If so he type this work of time 
 
 Within himself, from more to more ; 
 Or crown'd with attributes of woe 
 Like glories, move his course, and show 
 
 That life is not as idle ore. 
 
 But iron dug from central gloom, 
 
 And heated hot with burning fears, 
 
 And dipt in baths of hissing tears. 
 And batter'd with the shocks of doom 
 
 To shape and use. Arise and &j 
 
 The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
 
 Move upward, working out the beast, 
 And let the ape and tiger die. 
 
 Tennyson, In Memoriam. 
 
( 97 ) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MAN AND HIS HOME. 
 
 The mad primeval discord is hashed; the rudely -jumbled coaflicting 
 elements bind themselves into separate firmaments ; deep silent rock 
 foundations are built beneath ; and the skyey vault with its everlasting 
 luminaries above ; instead of a dark, wasteful chaos, we have a blooming, 
 fertile, heaven-encompassed world. — Carlyle, Sartor Resartus. 
 
 What a piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason ! how infinite in 
 faculties ! in form and moving, how express and admirable ! in action, how 
 like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! 
 the paragon of animals ! — Hmnlet. 
 
 Before considering the nature of man himself, let us hear 
 what science has to tell us of the earth, that planet which 
 has been assigned to him as his dwelling-place. 
 
 The earth is known to be a great ball of solid or partly- 
 solid matter, some 8000 miles in diameter, spinning rapidly 
 round its own axis, and at the same time pursuing an oval 
 course round the sun. 
 
 The sun is a single star of the sidereal system, some- 
 what aloof from the rest, and moving with its retinue of 
 planets towards a certain point in space. He is the central 
 fire and lamp of the planets which revolve around him. 
 They bask in the flood of light and heat which issues from 
 his fervent mass and illumines the surrounding fields of 
 space, turning themselves gently in his rays, so as to be 
 warmed on every side, as they advance in their orbits. 
 
 If we look at one of these planets through a telescope, 
 
 H 
 
98 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 we see one half of it gilded with his beams, the other being 
 lost in shadow ; and we know that over the visible crescent 
 it is day, while over the dark portion it is night. Day, 
 then, is the direct glare of the sun on that part of the world 
 turned to the sun ; night is the shadow of the world, and 
 reigns over regions opposite to those enjoying day. 
 
 The sun is not situated in the centre of the oval orbit 
 which the earth describes in her motion round him, and 
 therefore it happens that the earth is sometimes further off 
 the sun than at other times during her yearly round. 
 Again, the earth slowly rocks or oscillates in her whirling 
 motion, so as to sway her poles to and from the sun ; hence 
 the share of sunlight which each portion of the earth, except 
 the equatorial belt, receives is caused to vary during the 
 year, and hence the climate of northerly and southerly 
 regions is divided into seasons. When the northern pole 
 is bent towards the sun it is summer with us, and when it 
 is bent away from the sun, it is our winter ; and the severity 
 of our Christmas is probably mitigated by the fact that 
 winter takes place when the earth is in perihelion, that is, 
 when she is in that part of her orbit nearest to the sun. 
 
 The earth is the third planet from the sun, which is 
 about ninety-three millions of miles distant. 
 
 She belongs to the inferior group of planets, consisting 
 of Venus, Mercury, the Earth, and Mars. These are small 
 bodies compared to the superior planets, Jupiter, Saturn, 
 Uranus, Neptune, which are further away from the sun ; 
 Neptune being the outer member of the system and nearly 
 three trillion miles from the central luminary. The inferior 
 and superior planets are separated from each other by a 
 zone of asteroids, or petty planets, which can be numbered 
 by thousands, and are believed by some astronomers to be 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 99 
 
 the ruins of larger masses. Certain of the superior planets, 
 such as Jupiter and Saturn, still appear to be smouldering 
 hot cinder suns muffled in dense vapours, and not yet cool 
 enough for the support of high and varied forms of life. 
 The inferior planets, on the other hand, seem to be well 
 advanced in age, the dappled blue and ruddy surface of 
 Mars, with its polar snow-caps, proclaiming it in twin con- 
 dition to the earth, now in her golden prime. 
 
 All these planets have their own conditions of move- 
 ment, day, night, and seasons. Like the earth, they are 
 probably great globular magnets, surrounded by magnetic 
 and electric forces ; but though tied together by the im- 
 palpable bonds of gravitation into one system with the sun, 
 they are practically isolated from each other by the ether 
 of space, which permits the waves of light and heat or the 
 wandering meteorite to traverse it, but neither sound nor 
 living thing. The roar of vast conflagrations, the boom of 
 stupendous explosions on sun or stars, never comes across 
 the silent ether to startle the inhabitants of the world ; and 
 each planet, though dependent on the sun for energy, and 
 assisting to balance the others in the great frame of the 
 universe, is, for the rest, left isolated and self-sufficient. 
 
 The earth consists of a solid core of rocks and metals, 
 partially overlaid with a liquid covering of water, and wholly 
 wrapped in a gaseous envelope of air. It is known that 
 the earth has cooled down from a red-hot state, and it was 
 formerly thought to be merely a hard thin shell holding a 
 molten fluid inside, but the eminent mathematician Hopkins 
 showed that the crust had need to be at least one thousand 
 miles thick ; and latterly, Sir William Thomson has proved 
 the entire globe to be solid, or nearly so, throughout, and 
 more rigid than glass or even steel. 
 
100 THE NEW TRUTH AXD THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 The solid core, then, is probably a globe of chilled ores, 
 chiefly iron, for its magnetic qualities would also warrant 
 the existence of large masses of iron, and as it cooled the 
 weio-htier materials would sink towards the centre, whereas 
 the lighter would rise to the surface. Shrinkage from loss 
 of temperature, outbursts of gas and steam imprisoned in 
 hot cavities, elastic tides caused by the combined attractions 
 of the sun and moon on the yielding semiplastic mass, would 
 rend, twist, upheave, and A\Tinkle the incipient crust, pro- 
 ducing rupture and displacement of the strata, mountain 
 chains, river valleys, and ocean-beds. 
 
 The crust of the earth is composed of about seventy 
 elements in all, but by far the greater portion is made up of six 
 of these, namely, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, sulphur, 
 and phosphorus. The elements are rarely found in a pure 
 state, however, being generally in combination with each 
 other, forming a marvellous variety of mineral and organic 
 bodies. Oxygen especially is very prevalent. It occurs in 
 air, water, and the solid earth in such quantities as to make 
 up nearly half the weight of the planet. The crystals of 
 the deepest volcanic rocks contain a large proportion of 
 oxygen, and it unites with silicon, calcium, and aluminum, 
 to form the quartz, lime, and clay of the surface. Veins of 
 gold, silver, iron, copper, lead, and tin permeate the ancient 
 molten slags : and beds of coal, marble, and slate inlay the 
 upper deposits ; encircling the earth with mines of material 
 which man can turn to his advantage. 
 
 Watei" is to be found everywhere on the earth. It 
 diffuses itself in the atmosphere, soaks through the soil, and 
 permeates even the densest rock. It consists chemically 
 of hydrogen and oxygen, but it is rarely or never met 
 with in its purity, being always tainted with gas or mineral 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 101 
 
 solutions. The ocean, indeed, is but a great brine vat, or 
 receptacle for the saline washings of the land ; and rivers 
 are the drains which discharge themselves into it. This 
 vast reservoir is kept fresh by currents, winds, and tide, 
 stirring it up and exposing it in waves to the oxidizing action 
 of the air. The tides, as is well-known, are caused by the 
 joint attraction of the sun and moon, but mainly by that of 
 the moon, which is far more serviceable to the earth as a 
 tide-maker than a light-giver. 
 
 The sea may be regarded as the earth's womb, for it was 
 very likely there that life first originated ; and, moreover, 
 the chief function of water is to fertilize the soil, and sustain 
 organic life. 
 
 The atmosphere surrounding the whole globe is com- 
 posed of air, and a small proportion of water vapour, carbonic 
 acid gas, and ammonia. Air consists of a mechanical 
 mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. Oxygen is a substance 
 eager to unite with other elements, such as the metals, and 
 reduce them to rust ; while nitrogen is very inert, and when 
 it does combine with other atoms it forms very unstable 
 compounds. The nitrogen of air is not incorporated by 
 animals or plants in breathing, and it is probable, therefore, 
 that it is diluted with the oxygen to weaken the oxydizing 
 power of the latter. Oxygen is inhaled by animals in order 
 that it may oxydize their blood and renovate it ; while 
 carbonic acid (COg), a compound of carbon and oxygen, is 
 exhaled. On the other hand, plants absorb carbonic acid 
 into their leaves, which are vegetable lungs, and give back 
 oxygen, while retaining carbon to build up their tissues. 
 It is apparently the ammonia (NH3) of the atmosphere 
 which supplies the vegetable kingdom with the nitrogen it 
 requires to form its fruit and flowers. 
 
102 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 The atmosphere is kept in a pure condition by the silent 
 diffusion of its gases for ever going on; by winds which 
 blend it, rains which filter it, and lightnings which condense 
 its oxygen to nascent ozone, a quick destroyer of all corrup- 
 tion. The gaseous ocean, at the bottom of which we live and 
 move, is an aerial veil which wraps the earth, and softens the 
 severity of space. It diffuses the direct beams of the sun 
 into a soft general radiance, and shades the earth with 
 clouds. Were the atmosphere taken away, there would be 
 no luminous blue sky, flecked with snowy clouds, but only 
 a dark vault, irradiated with the flaming disks of suns and 
 stars. Moreover, it protects us like a cushion from the 
 bombardment of countless meteoric stones, which pour in 
 torrents across the planetary orbits. The friction of their 
 passage through the air dissipates them into vapour, and 
 only one or two of them ever strike the ground. Its prin- 
 cipal use, however, as a terrestrial member is to temper 
 climes, to deal out fertilizing showers, to mould the contour 
 of the earth, and furnish breath to living creatures. 
 
 The air and water of the earth are continually under- 
 going a cycle of change. The sun darts his burning rays 
 full on the tropical zone of the earth all the year round, and 
 currents of heated air, laden with the vapour of the ocean, 
 rise into the upper regions of the atmosphere. To supply 
 the place of this rarer air, a cool draught sets in from the 
 frozen poles towards the hot equator, and a perpetual cir- 
 culation of the atmosphere is thereby set up, the equatorial 
 winds carrying heat in the direction of the poles, and the 
 polar winds carrying cold towards the tropics. The moisture 
 which is lifted from the tropical seas, and borne northward 
 or southward by the warm upper winds, is condensed in 
 colder regions and falls to the surface in the form of rain or 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 103 
 
 snow. Finally, it streams over the land in a thousand 
 channels, and returns to its parent ocean, where it is pressed 
 by the cold polar undercurrent back towards the equator. 
 
 The circulation of air and water is intimately connected 
 with another cycle of change affecting the land itself, for 
 the land is almost as unstable as the sea : — 
 
 " The hills are shadows, and they flow 
 
 From form to form, aud nothing stands ; 
 They melt like mist, the solid lands, 
 Like clouds they shape themselves and go." 
 
 Every raindrop which soaks into the clods, every 
 runnel which trickles through the soil, every brook which 
 leaps over its rocky channel, every river which flows 
 through its wide banks to the ocean, is burdened with the 
 ruin of plain and mountain. Every shower leaves the 
 continents with a new face and form. Water is a great 
 distributor of the solid matter of the earth. The cliffs of 
 the shore are incessantly gnawed by the surf which breaks 
 upon them, and rivers transport the crumbling sand and 
 mud of the higher levels to spread it out in deltas, mingled 
 with the buried wrecks of animals and plants, on the bottom 
 of the ocean. 
 
 The demolition of dry land effected by this aqueous 
 denudation, is, however, repaired by the secvilar elevation of 
 wide areas which is known to be going on, whatever may 
 be the cause ; and on a smaller scale by volcanic eruptions. 
 The secretion of coral from the calcareous brine of the 
 ocean by coral polypes, and the accumulation of thick 
 sheets of giobigerina ooze over wide areas of the sea floor, 
 are also important compensating processes, due to the 
 agency of animal life. Nor must we forget the part which 
 vegetation plays, in creating extensive beds of coal and 
 
104 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 lignite. For it is the duty of organisms to render to the 
 land the solid matter which has been pilfered from it by 
 the air and water. 
 
 The unspeakable beauty of the world is manifest to all 
 who have eyes to see, in the rare gems and sparkling ores 
 of the crags, in the delicate shells and sea-weeds of the 
 strand, in the lovely flowers and brilliant birds which haunt 
 the forests, in the rainbows wdiich embellish the clouds and 
 cataracts, in the remote vistas of mountain, lake and ocean, 
 in the evanescent hues of the aurora borealis, in the blue 
 day with its glorious sunsets, lulling the mind to repose 
 and instilling into it a strange sense of the infinite ; and, 
 last of all, in the dark vault of night, radiant with the 
 golden fire of distant spheres. 
 
 The whole world is steeped in colours borrowed from 
 the sun. For as soon as the pure radiance of the central 
 luminary falls on the prismatic surface of the earth, her 
 dark fabric is seen to glow with a thousand tints.* This 
 wondrous alchemy of light gives us a glance behind the 
 mask of sense, and teaches us that nature is, in a physical 
 sense, a dark and silent piece of mechanism, of which 
 some movements are translated by the eye and ear to light 
 and sound. That which seems to be at rest, proves to be in 
 ceaseless activity ; that which we mistake for peace, is con- 
 stant war : and we may truly say that the entire bulk of the 
 planet is thrilling with molecular tremors, due to its in- 
 herent temperature and the ether-energy derived from the 
 sun. 
 
 Such, then, is the home of man, — a great cavernous 
 crystal, its flowery rock-rind, adorned with lovely beings 
 
 * Solar radiance is, physically speaking, a mode of motion, set up in the 
 ether by the molecular vibrations of the sun. 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 105 
 
 and decorated with "innumerable tenements of beauty," 
 sailing majestically onward through the sun-illumined fields 
 of ether, an islet of order and beauty amid the stony streams 
 and hurtling wreck of space, an oasis blooming in the dust 
 of chaos. A splendid heritage is this masterpiece of Divine 
 art, overcanopied by azure curtains, and lapped in a liquid 
 mantle of sapphire sea, its crystalline framework studded 
 with gems, its genial surface seamed with ore and teaming 
 with varied life, — the heritage of man, which had been 
 slowly fashioned for him through the countless aeons, and 
 on which he entered when it was prepared. 
 
 And what is Man ? Man, says the physicist, is a 
 machine. A machine is defined as a material system which 
 transforms or changes the form of energy. A steam-engine 
 is a machine, for it is an arrangement of parts whereby the 
 heat of the furnace is transmuted into the bodily motion of 
 certain of the parts ; the solar system is a machine because 
 it makes the radiant energy of the sun drive winds and 
 streams, or support life on the planets. A timepiece is a 
 machine, for in it the force of gravity acting on the weights 
 or the stored power of the spring is manifested in the rota- 
 tion of the hands. The solar system, a steam-engine, and a 
 timepiece, are examples of machines dealing in a safe and 
 steady manner with the stable forces of nature. 
 
 There is, however, a second class of machines, whose 
 function it is to transmute the unstable energies of matter. 
 A loaded cannon is an excellent illustration of this class. 
 Here the chemical energies of the gunpowder are in a state 
 of touch and go, and a spark from the fuse is sufficient to 
 free them from their bondage, and launch them forth upon 
 the world of sense with the greatest violence. The latent 
 powers are so vast and so finely adjusted that a minute 
 
106 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OI^D FAITH. 
 
 expenditure of energy is capable of producing prodigious 
 results. 
 
 It is in this category of machines that a live animal is 
 placed by the physicist. The food which it eats, like the 
 fuel of an engine, or the gunpowder of a cannon, is the 
 immediate source of the energy to be transformed by it 
 into vital heat and work. This work is of a far more 
 complex character than can be done by any lifeless automa- 
 ton, however ingenious, and the higher the animal the more 
 complex it is. No person, for instance, could measure the 
 moral and physical consequences of a thought in the brain 
 of Newton or Napoleon. 
 
 The organs of animals, or the apparatus by which the 
 transformation of energy is effected, are also infinitely more 
 complex than the parts of an engine. The particles of their 
 substance are delicately poised in an unstable combination, 
 like the elements of an explosive, and those structures which 
 perform the noblest and most exquisite duties are the first 
 to perish after death. There is a perpetual decay and 
 renovation going on in them. 
 
 The food of plants is mere mineral matter, but the fuel 
 of animals must be dead protoplasm, for animals have not the 
 power of assimilating the chemical elements direct, and are 
 dependent upon the plants which stand between them and 
 the inanimate world. 
 
 Protoplasm is, according to the physiologist, the physical 
 basis of life, the fundamental tissue out of which all the 
 organs of a living creature are shaped. It is a clear, colourless, 
 gummy stuff,* which the chemist can resolve into oxygen, 
 
 * The composition of the human body is as follows : Oxygen, V2 parts ; 
 hydrogen, 9" 1 ; carbon, 13'5; nitrogen, 2"5 ; lime and phosphorus,! plus a 
 fraction more ; and a trace of other elements, making up the total of 100 
 parts. 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 107 
 
 hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, with traces of other elements, 
 and like all the inorganic compounds of nitrogen, is extremely 
 unstable and easily decomposed. Every living being, plant, 
 or animal is at first a tiny lump of protoplasm ; which rises 
 into the mature form by a process of budding, or, in other 
 words, by outgrowth and separation. And it is the standing 
 miracle of life that out of two specks of this inscrutable 
 stufi; in which the microscope can detect no difference, a 
 living man, a butterfly, or a flower may spring. 
 
 This mystic fact is proof in itself that there must be a 
 propound dissimilarity between various kinds of protoplasm, 
 according to its origin, although they may seem alike to the 
 senses. Analysis, indeed, shows that the proportion by 
 weight of the four chemical elements which go to make it 
 are very various. The derivatives of protoplasm are of two 
 sorts, one containing nitrogen and the other not. Yolk of 
 egg, blood fibrin, gelatine, and gluten (the tough ingredient 
 of wheat and macaroni) are examples of the first kind, 
 which is mainly found in animal organisms; and fat, oil, 
 sugar, starch, and cellulose, the woody part of plants, are 
 examples of the second, which is common among vegetables. 
 But in any part of animal or plant, two or more of these 
 derivatives are usually co-existent.* 
 
 Living beings are distinguished from inanimate things 
 in several respects. A particle of protoplasm has certain 
 powers which are not to be found in inorganic nature ; it 
 has a spontaneous power of expansion and contraction, and 
 there are definite currents circulating in its mass ; it can 
 produce heat by chemical change in a more gentle and 
 continuous way than combustion, and it can enlarge itself or 
 grow by uniting its constituent elements into material like 
 
 * St. George Mivart. 
 
108 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 itself and then incorporating them into its own substance. 
 Every inorganic compound has a fixed and invariable 
 chemical constitution, but protoplasm is subject to varia- 
 tions in the quality and quantity of its elements. But an 
 organism differs from a mineral in form and growth, as well 
 as in structure. A spar or crystal has plane facets, and 
 grows by having layers of new matter deposited upon its 
 outer surface. Even crystal groves, like the frost foliage of 
 a window pane, though they may vie in graceful beauty 
 with the plumes of the ostrich, or the fronds of New 
 Zealand ferns, do nevertheless build up their jewelled 
 branches hy the accretion of tiny crystal upon crystal. An 
 embryon cell, on the other hand, has a curving contour, 
 and grows by receiving fresh matter into its own substance 
 as a piece of jelly swells by taking in water. Moreover, 
 the single cell becomes a full-blown plant or a mature 
 animal, not by the attachment of strange cells to it from 
 without, but by the growth and division of itself, and of the 
 younger cells which are thus formed from it. 
 
 The most important distinction between living and not 
 living bodies is, however, the recurring series or cycle of 
 changes through which the former pass. A crystal can 
 only be generated in a solution of its own kind of substance ; 
 but a plant rises from a seed to flower and fruit by feeding, 
 under sunlight, upon the mineral salts in the air, water, and 
 soil around it, and an animal passes through all its phases 
 of childhood, youth, and parentage, in consuming the proto- 
 plasm manufactured for it by vital agency. Plants and 
 animals alike spring from an embryon germ, and in turn 
 bear other germs from which a similar being will come into 
 existence 
 
 Besides the striking differences between animate and 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 109 
 
 inanimate beings, there are others equally striking between 
 plants and animals. Plants, as a rule, have not the power 
 of spontaneous movement, and they do not feel ; besides, 
 there is great latitude allowed them in size and shape, and 
 they can propagate themselves by buds and slips, as well as 
 by fruit. Animals as a rule possess great freedom of move- 
 ment in their limbs and locomotion, they conform more 
 closely to the typical pattern, they feel, and they multiply 
 by means of embryon cells containing an " image " re- 
 semblino; themselves. More nitrogen enters into the com- 
 position of animals than of plants, and animals contain 
 neither cellulose nor starch. 
 
 It is true that there is a class of organisms termed 
 Radiolaria, which seem to link the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms together ; that sensitive plants move spontane- 
 ously ; that sea-anemones are rooted to the rock, although 
 they have a stomach and catch their food like an animal ; 
 and that certain fungi are as rich in nitrogen as any animal : 
 but still the above distinctions hold good in the main ; and 
 the most significant of all is, perhaps, the power of locomo- 
 tion. The functional distinctions are, however, less ques- 
 tionable. Plants live purely upon minerals, and transmute 
 the liquid and gaseous matter which they draw from the 
 surrounding atmosphere and soil into the protein materials, 
 and fat, sugar, cellulose, and starch, which compose their 
 own bodies ; thus, for a time, reclaiming solids decomposed 
 by the action of fire and water. Animals, again, consume 
 the protein materials which have been produced by plants 
 or other animals, and merely assimilate them into their 
 own body. " An animal," says Professor Huxley, " cannot 
 live on a watery solution of ammoniacal and mineral salts, 
 however much fresh air and sunshine may be added to this 
 
110 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 diet. It has no power of manufacturing the protein com- 
 pounds, or the fatty or saccharine matter of its bodies, out 
 of simpler substances ; but directly or indirectly it is 
 dependent upon plants for all the most important consti- 
 tuents of its bodies." * To maintain its powers of sponta- 
 neous movement, and the operation of its brain and senses, 
 it transforms the latent or potential energies of its food 
 into active or kinetic energy. This it does by dissolving 
 the unstable elements of the food into the blood, and 
 oxydizing them in the nascent lungs by means of oxygen 
 derived from the air in the process of breathing. " The 
 animal is in fact a machine, fed by the materials it derives 
 from the vegetable world, as a steam-engine is fed with 
 
 O ' CD 
 
 fuel. Like the steam-engine it derives its motor power 
 from combustion ; and, as in the case of the steam-engine, 
 the products of the combustion are incessantly removed 
 from the machine. The smoke and ashes of the animal are 
 the carbonic acid evolved in expiration, and the fsecal and 
 urinary excreta. The latter are returned to the earth in a 
 more or less fluid, or at any rate, soluble form : the former 
 is diffused through the air." f 
 
 But- what do all these facts amount to in solving the 
 mystery of life and the greater mystery of soul ? The 
 chemist, indeed, can tell us what kind of atoms compose the 
 living frame ; the physiologist can point out the formal 
 differences between animals, plants, and minerals; the 
 physicist can draw a close analogy between animals and 
 machines : but yet it must be confessed that each and all 
 of them treat only the outer shell of the matter and not 
 the inner core. The earnest student of this great problem 
 wishes to know what Life is, and what Soul is, but he can 
 find no answer in these poor fragments of research. 
 
 * Huxley's Physiography. f Ibid. 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. Ill 
 
 Life is a particular form of energy, and soul its last 
 refinement, says one thinker; life is a balance of various 
 forms of energy produced by the complex apparatus of the 
 body, suggests a second; life may denote a peculiarity of 
 structure rising from the lowest depths of the visible 
 universe, conjectures a third ; life is the continuous adjust- 
 ment of internal relations to external relations, enunciates a 
 fourth; and a fifth declares that all kinds of matter have 
 their motions, accompanied by simple sensations, and are in 
 some occult sense alive. But all these are mere speculations, 
 and the last, indeed, is perhaps the wildest notion that ever 
 emanated from a bewildered materialist. The real essence 
 of life, the true nature of the mind, still escape the vivi- 
 sector's knife and the prying of the physicist. 
 
 We must not blame the physicist for asserting that man 
 is a machine, especially if it be not done too positively. 
 Their whole training teaches them to look at the objective 
 side of things, and to explain everything as a phenomenon 
 of matter. Probably no individual so closely resembles a 
 thinking mechanism as a typical man of science. His life 
 labours tend to reduce him to a mere loo'ic-mill and cal- 
 culating machine ; hence it is little wonder that the steam- 
 engine analogy should be ground out of such a quarter. 
 There is danger, however, of this rigid figure hardening into 
 scientific cant, the most pernicious cant of all. 
 
 A few years ago it was the custom for people to talk of 
 cucumbers as bottled sunshine, and of the heat which warms 
 our hearth as the radiance of primeval days, which had been 
 stored up in coal for thousands of years. No one now, who 
 knows the direction of scientific thought, can entertain these 
 ideas literally, though cucumbers and coals were doubtless 
 built up under the influence of the past solar heat. The 
 
112 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 weakness of this materialistic analogy consists in this, that 
 man may be a machine and something else to boot. It is 
 assumed that a machine is a material system which trans- 
 forms energy ; and because it is found that man transforms 
 energy he is classed as a machine. Truly, if we have regard 
 only to his material body, he may be classed as a machine 
 under so broad a definition. But he is not a machine in the 
 proper sense of the term, and it is stretching analogy too 
 far to say so. Does a machine grow in shape and live in 
 every particle ? does it freely regulate its own movements ? 
 does it repair its worn or broken parts, and give birth to 
 copies of itself ? The moving wheels of an engine make a 
 seeming show of life, but it is a false vitality. The human 
 eye is a mere lens, they say, but can a lens darken with 
 hate, or beam with love ? 
 
 Even the body is not so much one machine as a con- 
 geries of machines ; and, moreover, though it holds for all 
 machines that where a certain amount of heat disappears 
 a definite amount of work is done, it is not yet proven that 
 the law strictly holds for man. The presence of conscious- 
 ness in man, is the principal fact which renders the mechan- 
 ical analogy very imperfect. 
 
 No combination of wood and metal, however ingenious, 
 can think or feel like the lowliest worm, yet man in his 
 whole nature is immeasurably exalted above the higher 
 apes. His self-consciousness of itself divides him infinitely 
 from the lower animals. Owen styles him the "ideal 
 exemplar " of the vertebrate animals, forecast by the verte- 
 brates which preceded him, and which were, doubtless, 
 makinsf for him. To Oken he is the " sum total of all the 
 animals, and God manifest in the flesh." In him the world 
 became self-conscious, and thus attained the highest reach 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 113 
 
 of development of wliicli it was capable. The lower animals 
 are not, it would seem, given to asking what and where 
 they are ; and a planet, tenanted only by creatures, blind to 
 their place in nature and to their Maker, is, at best, an 
 unfinished piece of work. 
 
 A being gifted with self-consciousness, with memory to 
 retain experience, understanding to know the causes of 
 things and harmonies of nature, genius to create new forms 
 of beauty and engines of power, faith to revere its Creator, 
 and conscience to discern His eternal decrees, is, so to say, a 
 necessary outcome of a world like ours. Such a being is 
 virtually endowed with a share of God's all-seeing vision ; 
 he is, as it were, enlightened by a ray of the Divine spirit, 
 for God has been pleased to initiate him into the secrets of 
 His art, and order him to execute His will. Not without 
 reason did the Apostle proclaim the human body to be the 
 temple of the living God. 
 
 To the imagination this life of man is, indeed, a strange 
 affair. Himself a spark of intelligence in the dust, kept 
 alive by a breath, with his instinct of immortal life on the 
 verge of death, his dreams of everlasting bliss in the last 
 agonies, his hope of resurrection in the act of dissolution ; 
 isolated on a flying ball hung in the wide realms of light and 
 space, he crawls about its surface, studies its materials, and 
 gauges its size and motions ; all the while building temples 
 to a Being he never saw or heard, and yet believes some- 
 where to exist. Surely he does these things by virtue of 
 the ordained powers granted to him for the purpose ? Why 
 does he decorate the whole planet with temples if there be 
 no God ? and why does he squander the earth's most precious 
 energies and materials on a delusion and a snare ? 
 
 The true meaning of human life is frequently a puzzle 
 
 I 
 
114 THE NEW TKUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 to old as well as young men. It is quite clear, however, 
 that man's work on earth largely consists in utilizing the 
 latent stores of energy which are locked in the materials to 
 which he can find access. The living creatures which have 
 preceded him on the globe have collected many diffused 
 minerals into masses ready for his use." Such are the coal 
 seams, beds of shell and coral, chalk pits, and quarries of 
 fossil ivory, which enrich the ancient crust of the earth. 
 Thus the dead remains of a lower order of world-inhabitants 
 in the past are turned to account by a higher creature 
 introduced at a later period. Nor does man probe the rocks 
 and dig up their treasures for a mere practical purpose ; he 
 has an aim still higher than that, namely, to restore in 
 imagination the past life of the planet from its mutilated 
 -vestiges, to explain its origin, and even to forecast its 
 future. 
 
 But this utilitarian view of the purpose of life is plainly 
 too material and one-sided. Man is surely more than a 
 piece of apparatus cunningly devised to perform certain acts 
 in the economy of nature without breaking down under 
 the strain. He was not created to be a mere tool for 
 working in matter, but also to enjoy his life, and to make use 
 of matter in sustaining and adorning it. The greater part 
 of human efforts and hardships arise from earning the means 
 wherewith to live : they are the tax we pay for the Divine 
 privilege of living'; they are not the penalty of a prisoner 
 or a slave, but the interest rendered unto the Lord for the 
 trust which He has put into the hands of His chief steward. 
 When we think upon the countless worlds around us, 
 we see that the All-Giver does not require our existence or 
 exact anything from us, not even our adoration. The world 
 is as a speck in the midst of immensity, and its loss would 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 115 
 
 scarcely be missed. What needs it matter to Him although 
 a comet shattered it into dust to-morrow ? For our own 
 sakes, then, we were created : and our life is manifestly a 
 great gift from him. Out of Divine love He has made, and 
 keeps us; and it is surely meet for us to render Him our 
 reverence and gratitude. Our chief end is to glorify God. 
 
 The tenure of man's life demands the exertion of all his 
 faculties. He is permitted to see and enjoy a corner of 
 God's great universe at the one price of his toil and service 
 in it. The tie which binds him to earth is as frail and 
 fleeting as a breath, and the terms of his existence are hard 
 but beneficent. He must not squander the potency of 
 nature at his disposal : but utilize it with as little waste as 
 possible. Hence, inventors and other men of genius, whose 
 minds resemble the class of machines which by an exquisite 
 touch set free an incalculable fund of energy, are honoured 
 because they introduce economies, and open up fresh sources 
 of power, or fabricate new objects of beauty. People often 
 say in these days of startling contrivances, that the world 
 will soon come to an end ; but it is rather an assurance of 
 a long futurity that such material triumphs give, for they 
 disclose unexpected possibilities of achievement. As man 
 accumulates knowledge and rises in the scale of civilization, 
 he discovers vaster arenas of effort, and deeper molecular 
 properties which the lower animals or himself in a lower 
 state were entirely ignorant of. At first he hunts the wild 
 animal crossing his path, then herds it on the grass ; then 
 tills the surface soil ; then digs up coal and metals from the 
 bowels of the earth ; and, at last, when these palpable sources 
 begin to fail his hand and sense, he looks into the secret 
 store-room of matter with the eye of intellect, and finds a 
 new stock of force even richer than the old. 
 
116 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 There are those who repudiate civilization and applaud 
 the days of simple shepherd life; but civilization is a 
 necessity, if the full capabilities of the earth are to-be 
 exhausted. It is impossible to predict when this condition 
 of things will happen, but when it does man's task will be 
 accomplished ; for it is very doubtful if a higher being than 
 man will succeed him on the earth. Such a higher being 
 might indeed be able to flourish in wastes where man 
 would perish, and make use of potentialities in nature 
 of which he never dreamed ; but is not man enough for the 
 planet ? Is he not the climax of its development ? 
 
 That he is gifted with indefinite capacities for improve- 
 ment is a powerful argument in favour of his lasting 
 pre-eminence on the earth. When we reflect on how much 
 man has done in the world, how he has thoroughly 
 explored it, sounding its seas, and mapping its continents, 
 determining its position in the universe, and availing him- 
 self of its atomic resources — how he has mastered it, in 
 short, and also how much he has it in his power yet to do, 
 the probability of his giving place to a superior animal 
 evolved from him grows very small. It is more likely that, 
 during his lease of earth, he will make the most of his 
 possession, and that the faculties of his mind will gradually 
 become nobler, so that the coming race may be our " loftier 
 brothers," but yet " one in blood." 
 
 Science has shown us that the human form is not quite 
 perfect. The wisdom teeth of an adult, for example, are 
 superfluous, and gradually disappearing from the jaws. The 
 colour sense of man, too, is often faulty, and there are signs 
 that it is still developing; so that the future man may 
 delight in hues which our eyes cannot now distinguish in 
 nature. These colours are already present, if we could only 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 117 
 
 see them ; for God did not make the world beautiful that 
 we might enjoy it, but rather He constructed us so that we 
 could see and appreciate the beauty of the world. The old 
 paleozoic shells still gleam with traces of iridescent hues, 
 and the pearly lustre of ancient fishes can yet be seen on 
 their fossil scales, proving that living things were beautiful 
 in the past, though man did not exist to take pleasure in 
 their sight. It is even possible that new senses, such as a 
 sense for detecting the excess of electricity in the atmo- 
 sphere, may be specialized in the human body. 
 
 Together with the development of man's faculties of 
 mind and body his scientific knowledge will go on in- 
 creasing, and the printing press has rendered it almost 
 impossible for an art henceforth to become lost. It is sur- 
 prising how young our physical science is, and how little 
 we really know, in spite of recent great discoveries. It 
 is only about a century * since we learned to know what 
 the air we breathe is, and less than that since we found out 
 the constitution of the water we drink. Our knowledge of 
 the ocean and its inhabitants has almost all been gained 
 since the first submarine cable was laid, twenty-six years 
 ago. We have measured the framework of the solar system, 
 and, to a great extent, the composition of its bodies ; but we 
 do not know what the elements are, or the arrangement 
 of the stars. At present, however, our physicists are busy 
 striving to elucidate the molecular apparatus, and to uncover 
 the well-springs of energy. Every lightning flash, indeed, 
 is a rift in the seeming show which hems us in, revealing to 
 the philosopher a glimpse of the hidden mechanism of the 
 universe. But it is doubtful if they will ever succeed in 
 probing the mystery of matter and force. God has pro- 
 
 * 1777. 
 
118 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 bably wrapped His secret processes as well as Himself from 
 the reach of sense, and only intends us to find out what is 
 for our welfare. 
 
 The properties of matter and energy will doubtless be 
 fully investigated in the future, even if their essence should 
 for ever remain a mystery. Within the last eleven years 
 chemists have taught themselves to build up in the la- 
 boratory substances such as indigo dye and alcohol, which 
 it was believed could only be produced by the agency of 
 life; and it is within the bounds of possibility that they 
 may ultimately be able to construct living or dead pro- 
 toplasm itself The last few years have given us, in the 
 telephone, a means of wafting the human voice far beyond 
 the reach of eye or ear; in the microphone, of magnifying 
 inaudible sounds till they come within the range of the ear ; 
 and in the phonograph, even of sealing the living speech 
 on brazen tablets. 
 
 But these marvellous inventions, which aid the ear in 
 the same manner as the telescope, the microscope, and pho- 
 tograph aid the eye, will probably be totally eclipsed in the 
 future. The stores of coal in the earth's crust will in time 
 become spent ; but sunlight, or electricity, or perhaps some 
 other unknown power, will take their place in driving our 
 mills and warming our homes. The very moon will be put 
 into harness, and the waves made to light our streets. 
 Personal flight through the atmosphere is one of the highest 
 practical achievements of the future. To this end man needs 
 no bodily wings, for he is endowed by nature with a rarer 
 faculty — the wings of mind. Preventative medicine will 
 largely take the place of curative ; and, if Dr. Richardson 
 is to be believed, our chemists will prepare our food from 
 vegetables in such a way that it will become as nutritious 
 
MAN AND HIS HOME. 119 
 
 as blood and tissue, without the need of being transformed 
 by animals. This superior food, according to that physician, 
 will produce a finer race of men, free from those diseases 
 which must always prevail so long as men, unlike their 
 first parent Adam, continue to feed on the bodies of other 
 animals. But although pain may be minimized and many 
 diseases eradicated from the flesh, it would be going too far 
 to say that there is a time coming when all sickness or pain 
 shall cease, for the world, like the rest of all nature, is in a 
 state of change, which is ever imposing new conditions on 
 its inhabitants, and demanding a sympathetic change in 
 them, so that an absolutely perfect adjustment of the living 
 being to its environment will probably never be attained. 
 
 The moral perfection of mankind is also a hope of the 
 future, but a hope which may not prove so vain as the 
 dream of his physical perfection. The insight which man 
 has into nature teaches him the laws which govern her 
 actions, and his faculty of memory enables him to keep 
 them before him. His inherited instincts are a bundle of 
 tendencies bequeathed to him by his fathers, and hence the 
 necessity of free-will to judge between the prompting of 
 these instincts and the word of the law inscribed in his 
 memory. His duty is to subdue those instincts which are 
 hostile to the law or the declared will of God. Every time 
 he acts by willing according to God's will he is purifying his 
 original natiu-e, and his reward is the deep happiness which 
 follows duty done. By this elevating course of conduct 
 man's wishes gradually tend to become one with his duty, a 
 result which marks the goal of moral perfection on earth. 
 This fair goal, like the rainbow which children chase 
 through the storm, is ever receding as we appear to ap- 
 proach it, for our earthly state is ever changing; but it 
 
120 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 may be that, during the long and steady planetary phase 
 on which the world is probably entering, the phase of full 
 maturity, the constancy of external conditions will be such 
 that the inward harmony of the human soul will be prac- 
 tically complete, and the kingdom of Jesus Christ will have 
 come. 
 
 How long this millennium, or golden age, of the future 
 will last it is, of course, impossible to say ; but science does 
 not guarantee that it will endure for ever. The life of the 
 planet is doomed to decline naturally, even as it uprose, 
 unless, indeed, it meet with some unknown cosmic mishap ; 
 the human race will die, and the rest of the organic creation 
 then alive will slowly taper off through novel forms to 
 lifeless matter again, and finally disappear from the ter- 
 restrial scene. The sun himself will wax dim with age 
 and the earth will roll her frozen orb through the black 
 abyss of night. At length, even her atoms may decay for 
 lack of heat, and the dead world complete the cycle of its 
 existence and finish its course by rushing to its grave in 
 the ashes of the sun. 
 
( 121 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FREE-WILL, 
 
 Shall man, whose soul is set in the royalty of discernment and resolve, 
 deny his rank and say, " I am an onlooker ; ask no choice or purpose of 
 me " ? That is the blasphemy of the time. . . . The divine principle of our 
 race is action, choice, resolved memory. — George Eliot, Daniel Deroncla. 
 
 As far as we can learn, men have laid claim to freedom 
 of will in all times and countries. They have had an 
 innate sense that their wills were free, a feeling which 
 is now expressed by saying that free-will is a fact of con- 
 sciousness. In this age of doubt, speculation, and material 
 quest, however, there are many men of science who deny 
 the truth of free-will. To them a man is merely a more 
 complex automaton than the brute — a living marionette, 
 contrived to fret and caper on the world's stage by cords of 
 force and subtle springs of thought. They have proved 
 to their satisfaction that the volition of the lower animals 
 is not free, and they cannot see their way to admitting that 
 man, the probable offspring of the lower animals, is endowed 
 with free-will. 
 
 It is certain that our will is either free or not free. It 
 cannot be both free and bond, whatever hazy theologians 
 may say. If bond, it seems to us our sense of freedom 
 is a deceit, our punishments are cruelty, our pangs of con- 
 
122 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 science needless, our prayers futile, our nobility a mockery 
 and the last judgment a farce. If free, even though re- 
 stricted in its freedom, our faith and life has a meaning, 
 prayer is reasonable, sin is real, and salvation just. If there 
 be no free-will for men, all sin and meanness must be 
 charged to God, and the penalty of evil is but the torture 
 of the innocent. Without free-will, God alone is responsible 
 for all that happens in the world. With it, He is not entirely 
 so ; for man, as far as his free-will operates, takes his share 
 of the responsibility. 
 
 In a famous address " On Science and Man," delivered 
 at Birmingham, Dr. Tyndall discussed the question of Free- 
 will with all his usual lucidity of thought and happiness of 
 diction. " What is meant by free-will ? " he asks. " Does 
 it imply the power of producing events without ante- 
 cedents ? — of starting, as it were, upon a creative tour of 
 occurrences without any impulse from within or without ? 
 Let us consider the point. If there be absolutely or rela- 
 tively no reason why a tree should fall, it will not fall ; and 
 if there be absolutely or relatively no reason why a man 
 should act, he will not act. It is true that the united voice 
 of this assembly could not persuade me that I have not, at 
 this moment, the power to lift my arm if I wished to do so. 
 Within this range the conscious freedom of my will cannot 
 be questioned. But what about the origin of the ' wish ' ? 
 Are we or are we not complete masters of the circumstances 
 which create our wishes, motives, and tendencies to action ? 
 Adequate reflection will, I think, prove that we are not." 
 
 But is Dr. Tyndall not misapprehending free-will here ? 
 He seems to think it synonymous with ivishing, and speaks 
 of his power to raise his arm if he wished to do so, when he 
 should really say, if he chose to do so. A man may wish 
 
FREE-WILL. 123 
 
 to do a thing and not choose to do it. Therein is the whole 
 secret of the matter. It is the choice between wish and 
 duty which constitutes free-willing. My wish is a pro- 
 duction of my inherited body and my past discipline ; my 
 duty is the knowledge of what I ought to do. If wish and 
 duty merely outweighed each other, will would not be 
 necessary, for its function is to step in, decide, and tip the 
 balance to one side or the other. 
 
 The Ego sits as judge between two opposing counsels. 
 Dr. Tyndall does not doubt man's freedom of will to raise or 
 lower his arm : he cannot surely deny a man's power to 
 banish a thought ? Grant free-willing in the one operation, 
 and there is no reason why it should not be granted in the 
 other. 
 
 Freedom of will, indeed, would seem to be necessary to 
 a creature gifted as man is with reason, memory, and 
 imagination, and placed upon a planet governed by fixed 
 laws which he can understand, remember, and utilize. En- 
 dowed with powers to know the harmonies of nature, he 
 should also possess the will to set himself in accord with 
 them; capable of forming an ideal, he should be able to 
 fashion himself into its likeness. " God made man free," 
 says St. Augustine, " that he might serve Him better." 
 
 At first the world was under the rigid rule of law, just 
 as a youth is under tutelage during his minority ; but when 
 man, the supreme inmate, came to it, the destiny of the 
 planet was manifest, and a certain amount of freedom was 
 allotted to him. Ignorant of the laws of nature, the lower 
 animals were " bound fast in fate," for free-will would have 
 been superfluous to them. 
 
 To make our ideas still clearer, we may regard nature 
 as God's will written on matter, the pure animal feelings 
 
124 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 as His will written in the flesh, and human knowledge as 
 His will written on the brain. The life of the lower animal 
 is a resultant of the interaction of the animal feelings and 
 the environment of nature ; it is a combination of the flesh 
 and matter records. Like two meeting streams, these two 
 elements follow their natural impulses, and may clash 
 together or blend, the animal being fettered by its ignorance, 
 and as automatic as the sequence of nature. But, in addition 
 to God's laws bound uj) within his flesh, man has them 
 jotted on the tablets of his understanding. Thus far he has 
 a dual existence. The flesh writ is faulty, but the brain 
 writ is sure, and serves to correct and check the other. His 
 duty is to follow the brain commandment, whatever the 
 temptations of the brutish impulse ; and for this purpose he 
 must needs have a certain freedom of action to follow one 
 or the other course. Free-will is the faculty which de- 
 termines the choice, and it completes the triple existence 
 of man. 
 
 In cases where the flesh and matter would clash together, 
 the brain and will are able to steer clear ; thus liberty of 
 volition allows of a greater scope for achievement on the 
 part of man as compared with the lower animals. It 
 even allows him to commit self-annihilation when he 
 may think fit. 
 
 Every sane man possesses the power of free-will, and 
 exercises it for the better or worse. He can employ it to 
 decide in favour of his duty and against his impulse ; he may 
 decide in favour of his impulse ; or he may fail to exercise 
 it consciously at all, and thus resign himself to chance or 
 instinct, — in which case he is abandoning his high pre- 
 rogative, for, being gifted with free-will, it is obvious that 
 he should make use of it. Some persons' " will " is weaker 
 
FREE-WILL. 125 
 
 relatively to the "wish" than others, and hence no man 
 can rightly judge the conduct of another. But every 
 triumph of the will over the wish weakens the relative 
 power of wish, and renders duty easier in future. The 
 development of man proceeds by an increase of the brain 
 register, and a curbing of the animal propensities more and 
 more into conformity with it. 
 
 Whether or not free-will is essential to man, it is 
 certainly a fact of consciousness : we feel it to be a real 
 thing, and may therefore seriously doubt if it can be a mere 
 delusion. But, though it be no delusion, we can only claim 
 for it a limited action, like that of a tethered animal which 
 can only frisk, or graze, or lie down within the range of the 
 restraining rope. So hampered is it by personal feelings 
 and capacity, by want and accident, that individual efforts 
 probably hasten or retard very little the natural course of 
 evolution. For the same reason, too, error can only be 
 transient and local in its effects. 
 
 There are evolutionists who found an argument against 
 free-will on the hypothesis that man developed from the 
 lower animals, which are acknowledged automata. They 
 cannot see where the line is to be drawn between the 
 volition of man and his inferior ancestors — how his will 
 should be free when theirs is bond. But though free-will 
 and the manner of its production is inconceivable to them, 
 that is no reason for its non-existence. When a primal 
 nebula breaks up into discrete planets, or the first pro- 
 toplasm cell grows out of the primordial atoms, or the perfect 
 eye out of the blind flesh, there is apparently a gap in 
 evolution which cannot be spanned over ; and, similarly, we 
 can understand that the bond volition of the lower animals 
 may be differentiated or set free in man. 
 
126 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 The doctrine of the conservation of energy has also been 
 by some supposed to militate against the possibility of 
 free-will. If, as this doctrine postulates, there is only a 
 certain constant amount of energy in the universe, never 
 more nor less, whatever the protean shapes it may assume, 
 it is not easy at first glance to see how there can be such 
 a thing as free volition. Force of will would seem to be 
 part and parcel of this stock of energy, like light, elec- 
 tricity, or other so-called force, and to act by law like 
 any of these. But a deeper consideration shows us that 
 necessity of conduct — in other words, bondage of will — 
 may not be implied in the conservation theory ; for it is a 
 principle of dynamics that a force can act on a moving 
 body so as to change the direction of its motion without 
 " doing work " upon it ; that is, communicating energy to it. 
 The force has a directive but not an accelerative effect on 
 the mass in motion; and in some such way may the will 
 operate, quite unfettered by any exchange, or requiring any 
 creation of energy. 
 
 Another analogy of free-will has been offered in the 
 " sorting demon " of the late Professor Clerk Maxwell. This 
 imaginary imp is a mathematical spectre dwelling in the 
 gloomy reign of molecules, and doomed to perform the 
 dismal task of selecting the swift atoms from the slow. 
 This he can do without imparting any energy of his own to 
 them. He acts simply as a controlling power, moving his 
 arms and limbs so as to direct the molecules in their 
 motions, but not to alter their velocity. But one is tempted 
 to ask where the energy comes from which enables this 
 lively sprite to move about and ply his labour; for, if it 
 be not drawn from the general stock of nature, it must per- 
 force be created, a condition which the theory in question 
 disallows. 
 
FREE-AVILL. 127 
 
 Both the figure of a force acting at right angles and the 
 " sorting demon " are obviously imperfect attempts to solve 
 the mystery of free-will. No trace of such a demon can be 
 found among matter, and the force of volition has never yet 
 been measured. " The dynamical theory of a conservative 
 material system," * says Clerk Maxwell, " shows us, however, 
 that, in general, the present configuration and motion 
 determines the whole course of the system, exceptions to 
 this rule occurring only at the instants when the system 
 passes through certain isolated and singular phases, at 
 which a strictly infinitesimal force may determine the 
 course of the system to any one of a finite number of 
 equally possible paths, as the pointsman at a railway 
 junction directs the train to one set of rails or another." 
 And this is all the light that exact science can throw upon 
 the subject. Our will is like this — a strictly infinitesimal 
 force which acts on the material system as it passes through 
 certain isolated and singular phases, and directs the applica- 
 tion of energy in the system without interfering with its 
 amount. 
 
 Science, therefore, may doubt the existence of free-will, 
 or she may try to explain how it is possible ; but in either 
 case, the truth is at present beyond her grasp, and, for 
 anything we can see now, may ever thus remain. For in 
 the region of the soul we deal with actions which, as Dr. 
 Tyndall himself says, " refuse the yoke of physical laws." 
 
 Our best proof of the existence of free-will is, after all, 
 our feeling that it is a reality. The scientific thinker is, 
 doubtless, shy of what he cannot comprehend, and there- 
 fore inclined to regard this feeling as a mere deception. 
 He is afraid to admit the freedom of will, though he cannot 
 
 * Nature, Dec. 19, 1878. 
 
128 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 deny it. But the natural sense of men less accustomed to 
 subtleties plainly feels and instinctively believes it to be a 
 fact. 
 
 The certainty that our wills were not free would not, 
 however, render all moral teaching useless. Dr. Tyndall is 
 careful to say that the last words of the preacher go for 
 something in making up the mind. They would still do so 
 by aiding our better wishes and stimulating our highest 
 motives. If the wish were known to be all-powerful, the 
 true aim of discipline would be to elevate the wish, so that 
 it would incline of itself toward virtue. But does anyone 
 dream that this education would be as rapid and practicable 
 if men knew themselves to be automata as it is now, when 
 they believe themselves to be free moral agents ? If wish 
 is to be the arbiter of destiny, and not duty, who can doubt 
 that, in the present state of human nature, there would soon 
 be a backsliding towards barbarism ? If a man be not 
 responsible for his acts, and not justly subject to any 
 reward or penalty for his good or evil conduct, what is 
 there to prevent him from following his own desires ? Fear 
 of punishment, answers the materialist. Although the man 
 cannot be blamed for his actions, seeing he is not a free 
 agent, the good of society requires that he should be chained 
 up and kept from the chance of committing further harm to 
 his fellows. Therefore the dread of this imprisonment, or 
 of violent extinction in the case of grave offences, will 
 operate as a moral check and keep him back from crime. 
 Moreover, we are told that there are some men and women 
 who are perfectly incorrigible, and these it would be ab- 
 solutely necessary to pen up all their lives without hope of 
 ever being " free " again. 
 
 This prompt and effective plan of dealing with " incor- 
 
FREE-WILL. 129 
 
 rigibles " has rather a liard ring in it, not infrequently heard 
 in the new-fangled gospel of materialists, and caused, 
 perhaps, by the scientific habit of looking upon an erring 
 fellow-mortal objectively as a piece of clock-work hopelessly 
 out of gear. Experimental physicists and closet naturalists 
 are often singularly unfit to publish the moralities. Not 
 having as a rule lived an emotional and spiritual life, they 
 can hardly know the sentimental capacities of the human 
 heart. The story goes that Mr. Darwin, in his voyage 
 round the world, pronounced the savage natives of Terra 
 del Fuego as utterly incapable of civilization; and yet, a 
 few years ago, he found himself unwittingly alongside some 
 of them in dress clothes on a public platform. Christian 
 missionaries had effected a total reformation in their lives, 
 and the renowned philosopher had the satisfaction of giving 
 a handsome donation to their mission fund. 
 
 If, as Dr. T3^ndall says, the last word of the preacher 
 goes for something, how can it be that some men are 
 absolutely incorrigible ? Who is to decide on their in- 
 corrigibleness ? The power of thought is infinitely complex, 
 and man is altogether too intricate a subject to be measured 
 by a rigid formula, like some galvanic battery or steam- 
 engine. A single thought has power to calm him into 
 peace, to excite him into rage, or even change the whole 
 subsequent tenor of his life. And, whilst there is a chance 
 for such a thought to take root in his soul, it would surely 
 be unsafe to say that any man is quite incorrigible. 
 
 The restrictions of a narrow materialism tend to stunt 
 the free development of the soul, which must ever feel itself 
 free to open out to all noble influences ; and religion, as the 
 highest means of evoking the best emotions, is the prime 
 instrument of moral culture and reform. It is a libel on 
 
 K 
 
130 THE NEW TllUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 human nature to base all impulses to good conduct on the 
 fear of punishment. "Pardon," says Pittacus, one of the 
 seven sages of Greece, " is often a more effectual check on 
 crime than penalty." 
 
 But if the selfish hope of reward, and still more the fear 
 of punishment, are powerful influences with all men in 
 determining the will — with lower types of mind perhaps the 
 chief influence, — how much more potent must be the con- 
 sciousness that man possesses true freedom of will, and is, so 
 to speak, master in his own house. Then there is a noble 
 pleasure in sacrificing selfish inclination to duty, a sublime 
 happiness in voluntarily settling against the wish in favour 
 of the law. 
 
 Until we know for certain that we are automata it is 
 better for us to take advantag-e of the doubt and to believe 
 we have the faculty of free-will. When a man has a 
 conviction of possessing free-will, he is the more likely to 
 exercise it. Weaken the conviction, and you sap his power 
 of self-control and resistance to temptation. The firm faith 
 that his will is in his own keeping, and that he is more or 
 less responsible for his conduct, is the sheet-anchor of his 
 moral life. " I am lord of this moment's change, and will 
 change it with my soul," * is a maxim surely which no man 
 ever should forget. 
 
 We are degraded from the dignity of our nature by the 
 doctrine that we are merely the slaves of mysterious forces 
 duped into a belief that we are masters. We have prided 
 ourselves upon our authority over the powers of nature ; but 
 our vaunted dominion becomes ridiculous when we learn 
 that we are wholly the product of these powers, and help- 
 lessly shackled by them body and soul. Freedom of will is 
 
 * Daniel Deronda. 
 
FEEE-WILL. 131 
 
 indeed man's noblest attribute and chiefest glory. It is his 
 highest prerogative to feel that he himself makes destiny, 
 that his mind is the subtle loom whereon the threads of 
 fate are centred, and his will the swift-gliding shuttle which 
 weaves the mesh. His true dignity consists in this, that 
 his intellect can know the mysterious powers of nature, can 
 trace the fibres of the web, and that his energy and will are 
 at liberty to govern them. The lower animals live by law, 
 unconscious of law ; but man is able to discern law, and to 
 will himself into conformity with it or deliberately to break 
 it. Therein lies the distinction which marks him as a 
 higher kind of being. Take away the freedom of his will 
 either to obey or disohey the laws which his understanding- 
 acquaints him with, and you lower him to the rank of the 
 brutes, and render his superior intellect as dangerous as an 
 edge-tool in a child's hand. 
 
 By the old faith man is regarded as the intelligent agent 
 of God on earth, and from that view we have seen no cause 
 as yet to turn aside. A man becomes elevated in his own 
 esteem when he knows that God expects him to carry out 
 His great designs on earth, and that his duty is to fulfil 
 God's wishes manifested to him by motive feelings within 
 and experiences without. He is inspired to do this duty 
 by the elevating thought that God puts trust in him and 
 leaves His work in human hands. From God he gets a 
 certain endowment of body and mind, and is planted in 
 a tiny corner of the universe. This is the sphere of his 
 labour, these his implements. Man is His servant, and it is 
 right that he should do God's will ; but the Divine wisdom 
 and goodness is manifested in the condition that, in doing 
 so, man shall find his highest earthly pleasure. 
 
 The mystery of free-will and the sense of responsibility 
 
132 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OED EAITH. 
 
 which it entails on man have been a source of awe and 
 wonder to many people. Can it be possible that the 
 Creator would grant to one of His creatures a degree of 
 freedom and independence of Himself wliich might even 
 result in open defiance ? The old faith would answer yes ; 
 for it represents man as being a little lower than the angels, 
 who were quite free to rebel against His power ; and Miltorx 
 pictures the Divinity as holding converse with man. There 
 must be more interest for the Author of all in a being to 
 whom He has allotted a certain independence of Himself 
 and gifted with great powers to serve Him ; whom He has 
 emancipated, in short, from the bondage of the lower 
 animals, and lifted to the sacred position of a friend and 
 helpmate. In man apparently the world breaks forth at 
 length from chaos into light, from blind, soulless matter, 
 ignorant of its orioin, to self-knowledgfe and communion 
 with its Maker. And surely, between such a being and the 
 Creator, there must be mutual love — love on God's part 
 because we are His children, and on man's part in return 
 for the Divine goodness. But obviously the love of man 
 for his Creator must be accorded freely, or else it can have 
 no value in God's sight. A forced love without free willing, 
 instead of being a grateful offering from man, would only 
 be a tyranny of God. 
 
 The gift of free-Avill confers, it is true, a great privilege 
 upon man, since it raises him into fellowship with God ; but 
 it does not therefore derogate from the Divine majesty. 
 Nor can the freedom of the human will be said to endangfer 
 the Divine plans and sovereignty on earth, for we are so 
 fettered by fate and punished for our misdeeds that our 
 liberty is, in practice, very limited. 
 
 The future perfecting of mankind will, as we have 
 
FREE-WILL. 1V>^> 
 
 already hinted, consist in developing what we call the 
 conscience, or sense of duty, and purifying the heart until 
 the wish and duty harmonize. The free-will of the parent 
 influences the destiny of the child, and on the acts of each 
 generation will depend, to a very large extent, the joys and 
 sorrows of posterity. By the structure of our being, know- 
 ledge gained passes somehow into feeling, and voluntarily 
 Lmidance becomes instinctive impulse. Hence it follows that, 
 according as our knowledge is true and our voluntary con- 
 duct right, so our development will be noble and our race 
 improved. 
 
134 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EVIL. 
 
 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast 
 done f And the woman said, The sei-pent beguiled me, and I did eat. 
 
 And the Lord God aaid unto the serpent. Because thou hast done this, 
 thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field ; upon 
 thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life : 
 
 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy 
 seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 
 
 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy con- 
 ception ; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children ; and thy desire stall be 
 to thy busband, and he shall rule over thee. 
 
 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast heai'kened unto the voice of 
 thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, 
 Thou shalt not eat of it : cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt 
 thou eat of it all the days of thy life ; 
 
 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat 
 the herb of the field. 
 
 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return into the 
 ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art and unto dust shalt 
 thou return. — Genesis iii. 13-19. 
 
 A VERY few years ago it was generally believed that 
 physical death and evil were introduced into the world 
 by the fall of Adam and Eve from a state of innocence 
 through eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of 
 Eden. But the recent researches of geologists have put it 
 beyond a doubt that death at any rate had taken place in 
 the world long before man was created at all. Numerous 
 fossils of crushed carcases, many of which must have 
 
EVIL. 135 
 
 perished in flocks and herds by wholesale violence, were 
 disinterred from rocks deposited hundreds of thousands of 
 years before those in which the slightest relics of mankind 
 have yet been found. And it should be remembered that 
 the surviving vestiges of these defunct animals are very 
 few compared Avith those which have entirely disappeared 
 and mingled with the elements of earth and sea. They 
 bear witness to a waste of life in the past at least as lavish 
 and seeming pitiless as that going on at present in the 
 savage wildernesses of the earth ; and unless those earlier 
 organisms had duller powers of feeling than their existing 
 representatives and offspring, it is evident that they must 
 have suffered bodily pain, mutilation, and premature 
 decease. 
 
 If, then, we define evil in the scientific sense as an 
 imperfection or derangement in the working of nature, of 
 which mutilation, disease, and sudden murder are examples, 
 we must confess that physical evil as well as natural death 
 were rife enough before the advent of man. 
 
 It is moral evil and spiritual death, however, which are 
 now believed to constitute the penalty of Adam's fall. By 
 moral evil is meant sin. St. Augustine, the celebrated 
 Father of the Christian Church, defines iniquit}^ or evil to 
 be " not a substance, but a perversion of the will, bent 
 aside from Thee, O God, the supreme Substance, towards 
 these lower thinofs," and thence argues that God could not 
 be the origin of evil, though He made all substance. 
 
 The scriptviral idea of evil is, therefore, more restricted 
 than the scientific or even popular one, for disease and 
 bodily injury are included in the latter. Sin may be 
 defined as a moral imperfection or derangement in the 
 working of nature, and as it can only exist in a free moral 
 
136 THE NEW TIIUTII AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 agent such as man, there could necessarily be no sin until 
 man came into the world. Physical evil, on the other 
 hand, did exist in the world while it was still inhabited by 
 will-less automata incapable of sin; and since God made 
 both these and their dwelling place, it follows that, unless 
 we admit the interference of a spirit of evil, the enemy of 
 God, in creation, we are bound in reason to i-efer tlie origin 
 of physical evil to God. 
 
 Positive scientists repudiate the existence of such a 
 personage as the devil, and regard him as the childish myth 
 of a superstitious age. Some, indeed, in their sardonic 
 ridicule of Satan would not disgrace that mocking character 
 himself. Perhaps the devil is but a concrete idea, a con- 
 venient imao-e or figure, emblematic of the evil flaws in 
 nature, and engraved on the imagination by words and 
 pictures till it acquires the vividness of an actual presence.* 
 Still it is in the personal form of a devil that evil takes a 
 living hold upon the mind, and hate of it is keener in this 
 form than if it presented itself as an abstraction like the 
 scientific concept. The mass of mankind must have dis- 
 tinct images to enable their minds to grasp and keep an 
 idea, and since our chief notion of evil is derived from 
 depraved men, it is natural we should typify it by a human 
 likeness. Therefore, though science may have slain the 
 real personality of the Evil One, b}^ giving us a better 
 knowledge of our own nature and circumstances, she has 
 not succeeded in laying the ideal ghost of Satan. As the 
 old Greek gods yet live within the memories of men, re- 
 ceiving their homage, and to a certain extent swaying their 
 lives, though they have been for ever driven from their 
 
 * Not knowing' the secrets of the unseen, science cannot bo absohztely 
 cei-tain there is no evil spirit. An aatlior of evil mnj co-cxist witli God. 
 
EVIL. 107 
 
 Olympian thrones, so the old medineN-al Prince of Darkness 
 will doubtless continue his gloomy reign in the human 
 heart long, although the Ithuriel spear of modern research 
 identify him with the inherited vileness of the beast, as 
 represented by the toad and serpent. 
 
 Before enteiing more fully on the question of physical 
 evil, let us first consider the case of sin, or moral evil. Sin 
 is disobedience to the Word or Law of God, and the Bible 
 tells us that it first began when Adam and Eve ate the 
 fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil growing in 
 the midst of the garden of Eden, which God had commanded 
 them not to taste. Eve was tempted to eat of the fruit, 
 against the Divine injunction, by the serpent which ap- 
 peared to her, and she in turn persuaded Adam to share her 
 sin. The forbidden tree was a Divine test of the human 
 character, and both the man and his wife failed under it ; 
 hence they fell from their perfection and happiness into a 
 state of sin and misery, which has been shared by all their 
 posterity. Every human being born into the world is 
 supposed, according to this account, to derive his original 
 sin from the fall of Adam his first parent, who, by a single 
 act of disobedience, under enticing temptation, ruined a 
 world, and delivered his innumerable descendants into 
 sorrow and death. 
 
 The story of the Fall is literally inconsistent with the 
 development theory. According to the latter, original sin 
 is the strain of antecedent beasts remaining in our blood. 
 It is derived not from the defection of a being suddenly 
 created perfect, but by inheritance from a line of brutal 
 ancestors. Evolution indicates that man is striving to be 
 better than his origin, and to elevate himself higher than 
 his first human parent, while Scripture teaches us that he 
 
lo8 THE XEW TEUTII AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 has sunk for ever from the high condition of his birth. 
 There is apparently an irreconcilable difference here, and as 
 it is our method in this work to assume, rightly or wrongly, 
 the truth of the development theory, in order to see how it 
 will square with the old faith, we cannot, in the letter, 
 accept the biblical account of the Fall. 
 
 It is perhaps a sacred allegory of some ancient Semitic 
 poet, founded on the idea of man's original perfection, 
 seemingly implied in the narrative of the Creation pre- 
 ceding it, in Genesis, chapter first; and as it simply and 
 beautifully symbolizes the perpetual ordeal of man's earthly 
 lot, his duty to obey the will of God and refrain from sin, 
 despite the allurements of desire and promptings of am- 
 bition, it forms a fundamental part of Holy \¥rit. 
 
 Whether evolution be true or not the Darwinian doc- 
 trine of the Struggle for Existence has opened the eyes of 
 naturalists to the terrible amount of physical evil which 
 exists on the earth ; and created a corresponding pessimism 
 in the minds of many feeling-hearted men. There are some 
 writers, indeed, who would deduce pessimism from a flea- 
 bite ; but it is not to be wondered at that men of science, 
 engaged in the study of animal existence b}^ the light of 
 this cruel idea, should give way to utter despair in the 
 beneficent order of the world. They tell us that nature is 
 conspiring to kill us, and that we only live because as yet 
 we have proved stronger than the myriad agents of death 
 which lie in wait for us at every corner and dog our steps. 
 The food we eat, the water we drink, the very air we 
 breathe, is teeming with the germs of disease. 
 
 In the howling wilderness the struggle gains its height ; 
 there every creature is at war with every other one, and a 
 furtive existence is only to be conquered by taxing to their 
 
EVIL. 130 
 
 utmost the powers of selfishness and brute force. Even in 
 districts subject to human cultivation, spoil rather than 
 bounty, strife and not peace are the rule of life. An elo- 
 quent writer in a recent number of the Journal of Science 
 imagines to himself a man unversed in the recent discoveries 
 of natural history, but educated and thoughtful, rambling 
 in the rural pleasaunces of the New Forest or the ferny 
 coombs of Devon. 
 
 " He fancies himself," says this elegaut writer, " iu a sphere where 
 boundless resources are dispensed with a liberality equally boundless. The 
 heavens are full of light and warmth, and the earth is clad in rich and varied 
 hues. Perfume breathes from every spray. On all sides is life, animal 
 and vegetable, miworn by toil and unshadowed by care and anxiety. To 
 the butterfly hovering over the blossoms, to the blackbird warbling on the 
 Bpray, the world seems not as to man, the task -yard of a workhouse, but 
 the banqueting-hall of a palace. The observer, even whilst he envies the 
 insects and flowers, who ' toil not, neither do they spin,' feels soothed and 
 refreshed by tlie mere reflection of their supposed felicity. 
 
 " Plenty requires peace as its natural complement, and our wanderer 
 believes that he finds this boon also in the -woodlands and the heaths. In- 
 deed, how should it be otherwise ? Where there is superabundant plenty, 
 where every demand is more than satisfied, how should there be the 
 thrusting, and pushing, and jostling, outward visible signs of that inter- 
 necine war of each against all, and of all against each, which the ' friends 
 of peace ' worship under the name of competition ? The observer cannot, 
 indeed, forget that in his realms of concord and repose, pain and death 
 are present. He knows that at any given moment hundreds of flies must 
 be struggling in the snares of spiders ; that caterpillars innumerable are 
 being gradually devom-ed by internal parasites ; that many a song-bird is 
 falHng a pi-ey to the hawk or the weasel. But, as was the case half a 
 century ago, even with eminent naturalists, he scarcely apprehends the full 
 meaning of all this suffering and massacre. Such facts as we have enumer- 
 ated seem to him mere 'rude exceptions to the general joy,' departures 
 from the order of Nature, casual, even though numerous, rather than as 
 they really are, part and parcel of its very essence. Our friend in his 
 ramble, and in his necessarily hasty survey, fails to perceive that not only 
 does one-half the animal kingdom live only in virtue of the death of the othet 
 half, but that the herbivorous creature is as much a life-destroyer as the 
 beast of prey, extirpating other animals by depriving them of food, and 
 plants hj consuming their seed or their seedlings. He overlooks the silent, 
 quiet, but not the less deadly war waged by plants among themselves, each 
 seeking to monopolize to itself soil, air, and light, and to crowd out, starve, 
 
1 10 THE NEW TRUTH A\D THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 or smother its competitors. In sburt, in his optimistic contemplations, he 
 entirely forgets that struggle for existence which — whether or not we regard 
 it as a main factor in the development of animal and vegetable forms — we 
 are bound to accept as perhaps the greatest, and assuredly the saddest, 
 feature of the oi-ganic world. Who, after reading the third chapter of the 
 ' Origin of Species,' can fail to be reminded of those words of St. Paul, ' For 
 we know that the whole creation groaueth and travailetli in pain together 
 until now ; ' or of the sadder exclamation of one who, having no faith in the 
 ultimate solution of this dark riddle, cries out in agony, ' Creation is 
 murder ! ' " 
 
 The author of this dark picture is finally brought to the 
 serious conclusion that if a maximum of earthly enjoyment 
 and the minimization of earthly suffering had been the 
 objects of the Creator, the world would have assuredly been 
 constituted very diilerent from what it is. 
 
 Without disputing the ghastliness of the struggle for 
 existence as thus disclosed, it is probable that the cultured 
 person whom the writer initiates into the horrors of organic 
 life, would take a view of things not quite so morbid as 
 himself. It is easy for an exclusive student of some gloomy 
 subject to become possessed of a fixed idea, which blights 
 liis happiness and haunts his mind with the spectres of 
 despair. Freer living and change of intellectual scene would 
 perhaps dispose the imaginary spectator to seek ideas whieli 
 would alleviate the hard conditions of life imposed by the 
 struggle for existence. He might reflect, for example, that 
 after all, death if sliarp is a short event, and the period of 
 immunity from trouble is usually long comjDared with times 
 of suffering; that there is evidently keen j)leasure in the 
 excitement of the very strife which animals wage; and that 
 the pains of extinction may not be so severe as one is apt to 
 think. Again, the lower animals have no knowledge of 
 death to sadden them, and when it does come it is usually 
 of a sudden kind. Nor should he forget that in many of 
 them, especially those of lowly habits and organization, the 
 
EVIL. 141 
 
 capacity to feel pain may be very small. Po\yer of sensation 
 evidently rises with the scale of being ; and acute perception 
 of pain would hardly be given to creatures little able to 
 escajDe from danger or to remedy their hurts. 
 
 It is true that races of animals are ruthlessly extermi- 
 nated by others, man being the greatest exterminator of 
 all ; and countless individuals are constantly swept to 
 destruction by the blind forces of nature — like the butter- 
 ilies of the Lombard plains, which are blown by the high 
 winds up the Alps to perish in thousands among the snow. 
 But we should not forget that the process of animal ex- 
 termination or modification by pain and murder is on the 
 whole a slow and gradual one. It is a stern law which 
 consigns an organism to death unless it is fit to bear the 
 hardships laid upon it, and mercilessly sifts the weak from 
 the strong: but having regard to the incessant change of 
 conditions of the physical universe, it is also a beneficent 
 one. The material environment of living beings is con- 
 stantly changing, and they must necessarily change too. 
 It is right that those which best adapt themselves to the 
 chansre should have the best chance of survival. The most 
 active, alert, and strong members of a race, they who keep 
 up their powers by exertion, and whose frames have stood 
 the searching tests of experience, are worthiest to live on 
 and perpetuate their good qualities in posterity. Pain is 
 clearly a beneficent design, paradoxical as it may appear 
 to say so, for pain is in the main a signal of danger, a 
 punishment for carelessness, and a lesson for the future. 
 "We are warned by irksomeness or feeble pangs to desist 
 from some dangerous course ; and when they take the form 
 of a penalty for some injury we have received, they incline 
 us to be more prudent thereafter. Without the system of 
 
Ii2 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 nervous fibres which when unduly strained give rise to 
 the disagreeable sensation we term pain, there would be no 
 sufFerincr among: ors^anic beings, but wholesale slaughter and 
 mutilation would probably become so common that animal 
 life would speedily break up and perish. As a recompense 
 for pain we have pleasure, and together they ameliorate the 
 rude struggle for existence. 
 
 Death, too, is part of the scheme of evolution ; for it is 
 a means of keeping the harmony between the organism and 
 its changing environment more perfect. During its short 
 tale of years each animal undergoes a modification which 
 it entails to its offspring. Each life-time is so brief that, 
 unless some catastrophe occurs, the corresponding change of 
 environment will be small, and thus the animal powers of 
 alteration will not be too severely taxed ; hence there is 
 a genial purpose apparent here also, if it could only- be 
 carried out properly. 
 
 A deathless creature, or even one capable of living for 
 aeons of years, would be impossible on the earth under its 
 present unstable conditions, unless it were formed of some 
 unknown substance, other than flesh and blood. If there 
 were no change and all things were perfect, pain and death 
 would indeed be unnecessary ; but it is admitted that the 
 world is not absolutely perfect, and hence the necessity of 
 these agents in the process of evolution which is going on. 
 
 That natural death is painless, is another proof that things 
 are ordered for the best rather than for the worst ; and we 
 ought not to overlook the wonderful recuperative powers 
 of vitality, or the fact that hereditary diseases, which are 
 generally the result, directly or indirectly, of sin or folly, are 
 in course of time purged out of the system. Why it is that 
 Nature, according to our view, is to a certain extent imper- 
 
EVIL. 1-13 
 
 feet, — that magnitude, rather than perfection, seems to have 
 been the aim of the Creator, — or that evolution should be 
 the order of Nature, it is beyond our power to telL But 
 perhaps the poet is right, and in that unseen universe where 
 science and religion are at one, we may learn some day — 
 
 " That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
 
 That not one life shall be destroyed, 
 Or cast on rabbish to the void, 
 When God hath made the pile complete ; 
 
 That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
 
 That not a moth, with vain desire, 
 
 Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, 
 Or but subserves another's gain." 
 
 Pessimistic naturalists, of the Darwinian school, lookin"- 
 as they do only to the inferior creation, are too apt to forget 
 that the struggle for existence belongs to an incomplete 
 stage of the world's existence ; and that a sublimer law is 
 in force for man, namely the law of lovingkindness and 
 self-sacrifice. The lower animals who held the planet until 
 man appeared, had at best a mere surface possession. They 
 were ephemeral tenants, who paved the way for the master 
 form yet to come. They did not utilize the energies of 
 matter around them as he does ; but rather served to lay up 
 stocks of material for his later purposes. They developed, 
 however, in harmony with the globe development which 
 went on simultaneously, and attained to higher types as 
 their environment permitted it. Charged from the beginning 
 with the ' sacred burden of a nobler being who should 
 become their lord, they could only deliver themselves of it 
 at the appointed hour. 
 
 During all those fBons of unconscious ministry they were 
 put upon their mettle by the struggle for existence. Blind 
 force ruled the earth ; and though to us that seems a cruel 
 dispensation, it is because we have finer capacities and 
 
Ul THE NEW THUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 greater knowledge than the brutes. To them, who were 
 ignorant of their fate, and filled with savage fury, might 
 could be the only right. For us a gentler and a higher law 
 is justice. 
 
 In this preparatory stress and interaction of blind forces, 
 the wondrous frame of man was Avrought. Every organ 
 bequeathed to him by the lower animals had been beaten 
 into shape by the shocks of that hard training, and tested 
 for its fitness through countless ages of shifting circum- 
 stance. In that tough material body, the heritage of man 
 from all the earlier stages of the world — from the womb of 
 chaos, the infancy of cosmos, the youth of passion and 
 strife,— there was incorporated a sublime spirit, from which 
 a gentler order emanated. 
 
 Amid a crowd of warring beasts, tearing each other in 
 selfish hate, and rioting in sensuality, man stood forth like 
 Daniel in the den of lions, quelling the uproar and con- 
 fusion, and bringing in his hands the arts of peace, and in 
 his heart the glow of friendship. 
 
 In man the world at length woke to consciousness and 
 saw both itself and its Creator. Unlike the animals 
 beneath him, mere puppets of a grim decree, he was put 
 upon his good behaviour. The vice-god of the earth, it is 
 for him to do away as far as possible the actual cruelty of 
 nature, and to return good for evil. 
 
 To say that life is all for the best, is, on the other hand, 
 to charter sin and sanction vice. If whatever is be right, 
 then there is no such thing as wrong, and the wanton 
 tortures of a dumb animal, the horrors of war, and the 
 ar»-onies of a broken heart are blessings in disguise. Life 
 is neither all for the best nor for the worst; and it lies 
 greatly with ourselves what it may be made. We are 
 
EVIL. 145 
 
 manifestly here to make the best of our circum^stances by 
 intelligent understanding of nature's laws, and voluntary 
 obedience to them. In doing this we find our truest happi- 
 ness. 
 
 The overthrow of our faith in the original perfection of 
 man is not so severe a blow to the feelings as it might be, 
 did evolution not proffer to us the hope that we are 
 ascending towards perfection. The perfect state, if it is 
 no more behind us, as a regret of the past, yet lies before 
 us as a goal of the future, and our plain duty is to climb 
 towards it. 
 
 To aid us on this upward path there has been implanted 
 in us a love of all that is beautiful and good. The charm 
 of goodness is above all others ; and character is more 
 esteemed than talent. Beauty without goodness may 
 excite our admiration ; but goodness without beauty can 
 win our hearts. If wisdom is far above rubies, virtue is 
 far above graces ; indeed the only true nobility in man is 
 virtue. However cultivated a person may be, if he is 
 addicted to vice, he is to that extent ignoble, and the bestial 
 taint defiles him still. 
 
 Man is degraded lower than the animals by committing 
 vice, which cannot be said to exist for them ; for though 
 the act in both cases may be the same, an animal merely 
 follows its blind instincts, whereas a man knows that he 
 is doing wrong and abusing nature. Laws and ideas are 
 human checks higher than those A^aterial ones which 
 control animals. It is useless for certain neo-pagan writers 
 to point to the lower animals in illustration of the error of 
 virtue, and depreciate the idea as mere human invention. 
 As well tell us to imitate the flowers and vegetate, as to 
 live a free animal life. We are not mere animals now 
 
 L 
 
146 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 (whatever we may have been once), any more than we are 
 germ-cells, and hence the laws of animal life do not ex- 
 clusively hold for us. Apes and tigers do not produce bibles 
 and marble Apollos, nor would they be likely to respect 
 these objects if presented to them ; yet bibles and Apollos, 
 like the idea of virtue, are, in one sense, human products. 
 
 A scientific habit of thought exhibits old evils in a new 
 light. War, for example, presents itself as a monstrous 
 instance of misdirected energies, and wasteful destruction. 
 To use a mechanical analogy, it may be compared to a 
 conflict in a workshop, wherein one half of the machines 
 are arrayed against the other half, and proceed to smash 
 each other. It is far worse than the struggle for existence 
 among the lower animals, for in that the stronger indi- 
 viduals prevail and live, while the weaker perish ; but war 
 is indiscriminate slaughter, and the bullet fells alike the 
 noble and the vile. To be sure it has redeeming features, 
 for while it lets loose some of the most brutal qualities of 
 our nature, it calls forth some of the very highest, such as 
 patriotism, valour, fortitude, and self-sacrifice. 
 
 Falsehood is clearly seen to be a despicable and futile 
 act when we consider that every physical event occurring 
 is the result of unalterable laws. Since the universe works 
 around us, works like a great machine, it is folly to deny 
 its movements. Truthfulness is perforce our rational ad- 
 justment to it, and falsehood or pretence must necessarily 
 be productive of harm. 
 
 Error is a dangerous thing, but its existence is only 
 temporary ; and as it often employs the best powers of our 
 nature in an honourable, though vain pursuit, it is not an 
 unmitigated evil, since it leads to healthy exertion. Folly 
 is a much more fatal fault, and a blunder is often attended 
 
EVIL. 147 
 
 by a train of consequences as dire as those of sin itself. 
 The cultivation of the understanding and judgment is 
 therefore of the utmost importance. The brain is an 
 exquisite piece of apparatus, whose tiniest action may 
 unlock mighty stores of energy, and direct far flowing 
 issues ; hence the urgent need of keeping it in good order, 
 and using it with skill as far as possible. For it is not 
 wholly in our power, it appears, to maintain the mind and 
 body in the best condition. " There is," says Mr. Huxley, 
 " a vast and increasing mass of evidence that birth, death, 
 health, and disease, are as much part of the ordinary 
 streams of events as the rising and setting of the sun, or 
 the change of the moon; and that the living body is a 
 mechanism, the proper working of which we term health ; 
 its disturbance, disease; its stoppage, death. The activity 
 of the mechanism is dependent on many and complicated 
 conditions, some of which are hopelessly beyond our control, 
 while others are readily accessible, and are capable of being 
 indefinitely modified by our own actions." It is these 
 modifiable conditions that we must investigfate and select 
 to the end that we may improve our own constitutions, 
 and transmit hale ones to posterity. 
 
 We should never forget that the consequences of sin not 
 only affect ourselves or our contemporaries, but go down to 
 generations yet unborn. Our body is really a lease from 
 time given into our trust. We inherit it from our ancestors, 
 who helped to make it, each in his turn, and the welfare 
 of our posterity depends upon our treatment of it. Man is 
 not designed to be an isolated creature, living a selfish life, 
 and coming to an end at death. He is a link in the chain 
 of animated being ; if he is weak the chain is weak ; and a 
 taint of disease, or an evil thought, is a poison infused into 
 the common blood. 
 
148 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 If sin, or disobedience to the word of God, is heinous in 
 His sight, surely evil and disease are very hateful to Him, 
 who knows their full significance. Their very fate shows 
 that they exist under the ban of His displeasure. Obedience 
 and disobedience, nature deteriorated or improved, are 
 states as different to Him as heaven from hell. Man is the 
 end of God's creative dream, whom He has formed with 
 infinite care. Whensoever we debase ourselves by sin and 
 folly, we blemish His handiwork ; whensoever we mar our 
 souls or mutilate our bodies, we destroy its perfection and 
 beauty. It is our duty, therefore, to attend with care to our 
 health and conduct, not only because it is for the good of 
 self to do so ; but for the higher reason, that it is the will 
 and pleasure of God. 
 
( 149 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GOD. 
 
 Behold ! God the Lord passed by ! And a mighty wind rent the moun- 
 tains around, brake in pieces the rocks, brake them before the Lord ; but 
 yet the Lord was not in the tempest. Behold, God the Lord passed by ; 
 And the sea was upheaved and the earth was shaken ; but yet the Lord was 
 not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there came a fire : but 
 yet the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there came a still 
 small voice ; and in that still small voice, onward came the Lord. — 1 Kings 
 xix. 11, 12. 
 
 O the dejDth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how 
 unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out ! 
 
 For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been his 
 counsellor ? 
 
 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him 
 again ? 
 
 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things : to whom be 
 glory for ever. Amen. — Romans xi. 33-36. 
 
 The idea of a living God seems to have been held by the 
 earliest historic, if not prehistoric, tribes of mankind, and 
 at present it is extremely doubtful if there is any variety 
 of men, however savage, who are utterly without some 
 notion of a higher power. " As young birds gape with 
 their mouths for food, so all men crave for the gods," says 
 Homer ; and this indwelling thought of Deity in the human 
 race, throughout all ages, is a great spiritual fact, tending to 
 show that He exists. Considering its universality, the belief 
 in a God is evidently no accident, but part of the plan of 
 
150 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 the world, like the sense of colour or the feeling of warmth ; 
 and we may surely assume that it presupposes the existence 
 of a Deity. 
 
 The form of the idea has indeed changed very much in 
 course of time, and among different peoples, according to 
 their nature and progress ; but the great point is that they 
 have always possessed the notion of a supreme Being. 
 Even in these days of positive science only a few ultra- 
 materialists, bewildered in the dark labyrinth of matter, 
 have lost sight of the Creator in the mazes of His mighty 
 handiwork, and given way to the insane dream that there 
 is no God. 
 
 The human soul is chilled at the contemplation of a 
 universe bereft of God ; and the mechanical forces of natiu-e 
 inspire a kind of fear. The roaring of the winds, the dash- 
 ing of storm waves, the awful thunder-peal seem to be cruel 
 remorseless enemies. We go about as one walking among 
 hidden pitfalls ; and lose all sympathy with Nature, in 
 the harsh belief that she is bent on killing us if she can. 
 We should even be in danger of sinking into gross super- 
 stition and fetishism, did we not also know that we can 
 investigate her powers and conquer them, that mind is 
 greater than matter. 
 
 How pleasant, on the other hand, is the faith in an ever- 
 present Ruler. Even if His order be established from all 
 eternity, we are glad to think that He is near and that we 
 are not lonely or abandoned. To rob the world of God is to 
 eclipse its moral sunshine. 
 
 The desire to honour God has called forth the highest 
 efforts of the human mind ; wealth and fame have been 
 but sorry motives as compared with religion. The flame- 
 shaped obelisks of rosy granite erected to the Egyptian 
 
GOD. 151 
 
 Sun-God, the cedar-ribbed temple of Solomon, the sculp- 
 tured Parthenon at Athens, St. Peter's at Rome, Westminster 
 Abbey, the paintings of Michael Angelo, the psalms of 
 David, the poems of Dante and Milton, — these are some of 
 the supreme creations which the world owes to the instinct 
 of divine worship. 
 
 According to the old faith, our knowledge of God has 
 been communicated to us by a Divine revelation from with- 
 out ; and there are some who regard it as the internal 
 revelation of spiritual instincts implanted in us. But the 
 evolutionist in religion seeks to explain its origin in a less 
 mysterious way. He requires nothing more than the 
 common sense and feelings of mankind. Faith to him is no 
 excej^tional faculty of the soul ; it is merely our " ordinary 
 consciousness, so developed and modified as to enable us to 
 take cognizance of religious objects : " * and the first pre- 
 historic impulse to all religion is the perception of the 
 infinite. To create this impulse, all that was necessary 
 were the bodily senses and the reason. Wherever the pre- 
 historic man went he always discovered a beyond, and 
 hence, we are told, a perception of something other than 
 the finite, a belief in beings which he could not find, grew 
 up within him. 
 
 Perhaps the idea of God did arise in the human heart 
 by this process, or, what is still more likely, perhaps it 
 arose from the natural question which a sane man, face to 
 face with the wonderful world, would ask himself, How did 
 it come there ? Who made it ? It is, at any rate, some- 
 thing to know that the prehistoric man had his conception 
 of a God, and that even in his fetish worship and idolatry 
 he did not bow down to stocks and stones or graven 
 
 * Max Milller, in the History of Eeligion. 
 
152 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 images for their own sake, but only because they were to 
 him the symbol of a living Spirit. 
 
 The development of religion from its first germ onwards 
 has been to a certain extent different among the Aryan, 
 Semitic, and Turanian races. In all these, however, there 
 have been many changes of creed, and old gods have given 
 place to new ones. Professor Max Miiller has made a study 
 of the origin and progress of religion among our ancient 
 Arj'an forefathers who settled in India, the Land of the 
 Seven Rivers, we cannot say how many thousand years 
 ago ; and he tells us that they sought the God which they 
 imagined, first, perhaps, in tangible things, such as stocks 
 and stones ; next, in the semi-tangible things, which cannot 
 be wholly seen or handled, such as mountains, trees, and 
 rivers ; then in the intangible things, which are entirely 
 beyond reach, such as the wind and lightning, the moon, 
 the sun, the sky. They called these deities collectively 
 azuras, or living things ; devas, or bright things ; amaryta, 
 immortals; and singly they named them the Thunderer, 
 Bringer of Light, Giver of Rain, Bestower of Life, and so on. 
 Afterwards they came to s^^eak of God as Maker, Ruler, 
 Preserver, King, Father, Lord of Lords, God of Gods, and 
 Cause of Causes. 
 
 From henotheism, or belief in a number of gods of 
 equal dignity, they changed to polytheism, or belief in one 
 Supreme God, presiding over other lesser powers ; and then 
 to monotheism, or faith in one sole Divinity. Then came 
 the denial of the devas,* or atheism ; and after a transition 
 period of doubt and despair, they abandoned the altars of 
 the old gods and built them new ones to the Unknown, 
 the Unknowable, so that the last hymns of the vedas were 
 
 * i.e. " bright things ; " L. Deus. 
 
GOD. 153 
 
 sung to the glory of the Eternal Self, the One without a 
 Second. " The Self which is free from sin, free from old 
 age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, which 
 desires nothing but what it ought to desire, and imagines 
 nothing but what it ought to imagine, that it is which we 
 must search out, that it is which we must try to under- 
 stand. He who has searched out that Self, and understands 
 it, obtains all worlds and all desires." * Thus runs the 
 creed of the forest sages, those Brahman hermits who spent 
 the last years of their lives in the contemplation of their 
 God. 
 
 If we try to put ourselves in the place of these early 
 men we shall see that their crude notions of God were very 
 natural. Let us imagine that we open our eyes on the 
 world, as they did, without knowing of what it was com- 
 posed, or any of the secrets of growth and physical change 
 which science has revealed to us. In short, let us view the 
 earth with the wondering eyes of a child. At first, every- 
 thing we look upon will appear miraculous and divine ; 
 then, by degrees, as we become familiar with wood, stone, 
 and metal, and use them as tools, they wiU lose their 
 mystery ; but the plants which silently grow upon our sight 
 from day to day, and unfold their blossoms or mature their 
 fruit, — the streams of water which revive every living thing 
 upon their banks, even the mountains from which they 
 seem to be born, — the splendid sky from which refreshing 
 showers descend, — and the radiant sun, bringer of life and 
 light, who rolls his glorious course each day from east to west 
 — ail these would still seem to possess an inscrutable inner 
 life and virtue which might be that of the Being which we 
 were seeking. By-and-by, as we learned that trees were 
 
 * Max Miiller's The Origin of Religion. 
 
154 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 less mystic things than we ourselves, that mountains were 
 stupendous rocks and did not contain the sources of rivers, 
 that the sky was a congregation of vapours, and the sun a 
 prodigious fire, we would begin to separate the Work from 
 its Maker, and finally might rise to the conception of a 
 heavenly Father.* 
 
 It seems to the writer, however, that this explanation 
 of the origin of religion as given by the evolutionist is 
 incomplete, and does not take sufficiently into account the 
 influence of inspired minds on the faiths of men. It 
 banishes that external revelation which is supposed to be 
 breathed into the spirit of man direct from Heaven, much 
 in the same way as a sunbeam strikes upon the world ; but 
 it also ignores the internal revelation which weUs up in the 
 soul of certain men of a sacred genius, who from time to 
 time make their appearance in the world as if they had 
 been divinely sent. Genius of any kind is little understood, 
 and that which produces holy issues least of aU ; therefore 
 we cannot tell how its effects are brought about : but we 
 must not overlook the fact that new faiths, like momentous 
 ideas, usually emanate from some great teacher, and become 
 the common property of the world. There is in the develop- 
 ment of the human spirit, as in the development of living 
 bodies, a progress by sudden leaps, as weU as by slow and 
 steady steps ; and but for the occasional advent of extra- 
 ordinary men, it is well known that the race at large 
 would still be sunk in barbarism. There is a spiritual 
 mystery here, just as there is a physical mystery in the 
 development of life. 
 
 Like the ancient Aryans, the other pagan peoples 
 worshipped inanimate and animate objects before they 
 
 * Aryan, Dyaus Pitar ; L. Jupiter. 
 
GOD. 155 
 
 awoke to an abstract conception of God. The Persians 
 adored the winds, fire, the earth, the moon, and the sun. 
 The Keblah Arabs bowed down to the stars, and the mystic 
 stone, a black meteorite kept at the holy city of Mecca. 
 The early Egyptians and Greeks worshipped the elements 
 which were useful to mankind, such as bread (Demeter), 
 wine (Dionysius), and water (Poseidon). The old Goths 
 worshipped the sun and moon ; they personified the visible 
 workings of nature, and had their frost giant, Thyrm 
 (Rime), and their Jotiin, or demon Flame. Their chief god 
 was Odin, the Thunderer, a deified hero who invented 
 rhymes and poetry; but they had, besides, a rich and 
 beautiful mythology. 
 
 All these idols, whether of matter or idea, were, how- 
 ever, mere symbols for an Invisible Power, which they 
 were groping for, and in their helplessness believed that 
 they had found. 
 
 It is curious to find withal, that the decay of the deities 
 is predicted both in the Scandinavian Eddas and in the 
 Aryan Vedas. These prophetic misgivings are the doubtful 
 strains in the pagan religions ; and they have been amply 
 fulfilled. The ancient Hindoo has come to regard his time- 
 honoured devas, Indra, Agni, and Varina as mere names, 
 and now professes the reformed creed of Buddha ; the Arab 
 and the Egyptian prostrates himself before the one God of 
 Mahomet; the marble temples of the Greek have been 
 despoiled of their divine emblems ; and the warlike Teuton 
 has forsaken wrathful Odin for the Prince of Peace. 
 
 Well may we ask, therefore, if positive science will not 
 in turn sweep away the faith of Buddha, Mahomet, and 
 even of Christ. 
 
 The Christian conception of a Triune God is' one which 
 
156 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 science cannot very well assail^ even if it does not offer any- 
 supporting evidence. Most men of science agree in thinking 
 that there is one God ; but they differ in respect of His 
 attributes. The study of nature points to one original 
 energy and substance as the basis of all phenomena ; and 
 to one Creator, or at least to such harmony of action 
 between the different persons of the Godhead, as makes 
 them practically one. Thus far the new truth may be said 
 to endorse the old faith. 
 
 Science declares that we cannot know God fully from 
 the physical investigation of His universe ; and revelation 
 also tells us that His works do not manifest Him com- 
 pletely. Nor should this surprise us, for no human inven- 
 tion reveals the whole man who made it. Here we can 
 see only in part ; matter is His handiwork, and motion His 
 design; but these, or any result of these, are not Him. 
 The human intellect is intended to deal with finite things, 
 and cannot grasp the infinite. The beginning, middle, and 
 end of God are inscrutable to science, which can only name 
 Him the Infinite Cause. 
 
 The Scotch Presbyterian definition is perhaps the most 
 perfect statement of the Christian idea of God. It lays 
 down that " God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchange- 
 able in His wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and 
 truth." Now certain ancient, as well as modern materi- 
 alists, have not been able to reconcile the facts of the world 
 with infinite power and goodness on the part of its Maker. 
 Lucretius affirmed that we could be sure from the defects 
 in the working of atoms, that these were not made by an 
 Almighty Agent. Hume and J. S. Mill were in favour of 
 a limited conception of the Creator ; and argued that if we 
 allowed Him to possess infinite power, we ought to deny 
 
GOD. 157 
 
 Him infinite goodness, or that if we granted the latter we 
 must withhold the former attribute. 
 
 It would certainly seem as if the Divine Architect had 
 aimed at magnitude rather than perfection, and the good 
 of the greatest number rather than the good of all. It 
 would seem that His great problem was the utilization of 
 energy for the support of immense multitudes of successive 
 beings in a state of partial happiness, amid never-ending 
 change; and this He has accomplished by the machinery 
 of evolution and death. Why He has chosen this plan and 
 process is a mystery as yet, perhaps because it was the 
 more engaging to Himself.* In any case the Christian 
 believes it to be the design of infinite wisdom and goodness ; 
 and it is not for us, isolated as we are in a remote corner 
 of His creation, and catching but a momentary glimpse of 
 it through the dark glasses of sense, to venture judgment 
 on His character. 
 
 The anthropomorphic picture of God which presents 
 Him as a kind of benevolent giant in human form, is put 
 quite out of date by the results of science ; and must be 
 relegated to that limbo of childish things in which the 
 sheepskin firmament of the monkish geography has long 
 been treasured. We use the word "treasured," for relics like 
 these are neither to be ridiculed nor destroyed. They are 
 vestiges of the intellectual development of man, and should 
 be far more precious to us than the fossil skeletons of 
 mammoths, or the stone and metal weapons of the prehistoric 
 ages. 
 
 The immensity of the universe in space and time, which 
 astronomy and geology have opened our eyes to, have 
 effectually disposed of the man-like personality of the 
 
 * See Eev. iv. 11. 
 
158 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Creator. " Eeligious feeling," says Dr. Tyndall, "is as 
 much a verity as any other part of human consciousness ; 
 and against it, on its subjective side, the waves of science 
 beat in vain. It is against the mythologic scenery, if I 
 may use the term, rather than against the life and sub- 
 stance of religion that Science enters her protest. Sooner 
 or later among thinking people that scenery will be taken 
 for what it is worth — as an effort on the part of man to 
 bring the mystery of life and nature within the range of 
 his capacities; as a temporary and essentially fluxional 
 rendering in terms of knowledge of that which transcends 
 all knowledge, and admits only of ideal approach."* 
 Science has indeed struck a fatal blow at pagan nature- 
 worship, and "mythologic scenery" in all its forms; but 
 in proclaiming that nature is a mechanism and personal 
 gods a delusion, does she not rob us, for a while at least, of 
 the old reverence for nature, and the loving sense of Divine 
 care ? 
 
 Ever}^ Christian child is taught that God is everywhere, 
 in every blade of grass, and every twinkling star ; and 
 science does not falsify the doctrine. "We are obliged," 
 says Herbert Spencer, " to regard every phenomenon as a 
 manifestation of some Power by which we are acted on ; 
 though omnipresence is unthinkable, yet, as experience 
 discloses no bounds to the diffusion of phenomena, we are 
 unable to think of limits to the presence of this Power ; 
 while the criticism of science teaches us that this power is 
 Incomprehensible." God is, in all probability, within us 
 and without us, knowing all and seeing all. We see Him 
 not, though He is ever near us on the earth ; but we may 
 note the presence of His hand in the ceaseless changes ever 
 
 * Fragments of Science. 
 
GOD. 159 
 
 taking place in His work, and the train of vestiges they 
 leave behind them. 
 
 The omniscience of God follows from His omnipresence, 
 if we grant to Him an insight into all physical process, as 
 we must perforce do. We do not know by what sense or 
 senses He apprehends matter, but we may suppose that He 
 sees it undisguised, and comprehends it by infinite reason.* 
 Time is probably a figment of man's organization, to give 
 him a notion of the succession of events; and we may 
 imagine that to God the past, present, and (in general) the 
 future, are spread out like a scroll. Even if the past and 
 present were not so openly displayed, since the present is 
 the fruit of the past, and the seed of the future, it might 
 sufiice for His infinite reason to know the present in order 
 to infer from it alike the future and the past. 
 
 The only knots in this line of argument arise from the 
 admission of free-will. If there be such a thing as free- 
 will, rendering men to a certain extent independent of God's 
 control, and able to act after their own judgment, in spite 
 of Him, we confess we cannot see how the future can be 
 absolutely revealed to God in its uttermost detail. We can 
 understand that He sees all that does take place, and re- 
 members all that has taken place : we can also understand 
 that with a limited free-will on the part of man, God is able 
 to divine the gross results, and as nearly as He wishes, 
 perhaps, to know the entire future in fine ; but if free-will 
 be free in fact, as it is in name, we fail to discern how 
 even infinite reason can deduce any other than a general 
 product from the problem of things into which such an 
 indeterminate factor enters. 
 
 It might seem at first sight that this limitation of God's 
 
 * Newton termed infinite space " the seusorium of the Godhead." 
 
160 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 prevision detracted from His glory and power; but on 
 reflection it will be found rather to increase the dignity of 
 man, to whom the Creator has not scrupled to give a noble 
 freedom, in order that he might serve Him, not as a slave, 
 but as a grateful child. 
 
 Whether the Divine foreknowledge be infinite or not, 
 and whether the Divine power be infinite likewise, they are 
 to all intents and purposes infinite with respect to us ; nor 
 need we have any doubts about the omnipresence of God, 
 and His full acquaintance with the present and the past. 
 Being infinite-eyed, He sees all that is passing ; and even 
 if all that has occurred be not permanently inscribed in His 
 essence, it is sufiicient that He occupies all space and is all- 
 seeing in order that He may know whatever has transpired. 
 For let us suppose that the Divine substance is beset 
 with myriad eyes,* through the whole of space, and to fix 
 the ideas consider only two of these, namely one at the 
 earth's surface over London, and the other placed on the 
 remote confines of the sidereal system. Then, at any given 
 moment, owing to the time light takes to travel, the near 
 eye would perceive London only, and all that took place in 
 it at the time being ; while the far eye would only see the 
 spot on which the great city stands as it appeared millions 
 of year's before when the earth was still a blazing sun. A 
 range of intermediate eyes along the line joining these two 
 extreme ones would thus observe the whole history of that 
 portion of the earth from its red-hot period to the present 
 time ; and if, instead of a single line, we imagine an infinite 
 sphere set with eyes along every radius and filling all space, 
 we shall see how it is possible for the supreme Being to 
 
 * See R. A. Proctor's Stars and Earth for an account of the ingenious 
 device of a collapsing myriad-eyed sphere. 
 
GOD. 161 
 
 know the past history, not only of the whole surface of the 
 earth, but of all the bodies in the universe. 
 
 There are some who with Goethe and Carlyle, regard the 
 universe as a visible fringe of the garment of God, Himself. 
 The more patent conception is, however, to regard it as 
 His workmanship; but we need not therefore banish the 
 Creator from it, as if it were a clock which the maker had 
 finished, sold, and done with. The omnipresence of God is 
 a comforting thought which science is too apt to make us 
 forget — a thought which restores the old reverence to our 
 vision when we look upon the world, for there we see it not 
 as an abandoned mechanism, but a vital frame animated by 
 the living God. It is, besides, an antidote to the callous 
 spirit born of materialism, and the hard ring of the doctrine 
 of survival ; in short it is a check on cruelty and evil-doing, 
 and an incitement to help the needy, from man downwards 
 to the worm. 
 
 The rigid laws of nature are perhaps His unchangeable 
 mode of working ; and if this be so, when a man errs he 
 runs counter, not to a dead machine, but to a silent in- 
 structor. Shame, failure, and pain teach him pitilessly 
 that he is wrong ; but the compassionate spirit of the 
 Father may be behind it all. God is the teacher, though 
 He is invisible, and His lesson is invariable, for only then 
 could it become true experience and of use to men. 
 
 It was a favourite idea of Charles Kingsley that the 
 Creator takes pleasure in His works ; and we may even go 
 so far as to surmise that in granting a measure of free-will 
 to men (if He really has done so) He may have intended a 
 greater variety of interesting and pleasing results from it. 
 For without free-will, evolution, however varied and long 
 continued, can only produce that which God had strictly 
 
 M 
 
1G2 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 ordered beforehand, and ordained to come to pass. In man, 
 however, He may have created a being (" a little lower than 
 the angels ") who, by virtue of his understanding, invention, 
 and volition, could, as it were, create new forms, which did 
 not even strictly enter into the original design of the 
 supreme Author. And inasmuch as these works are in 
 conformity to the Divine principles of beauty, truth, and 
 virtue, we believe they will find favour in His sight. 
 
 Science tells us that the universe is a great cloud float- 
 ino' in the void, a ceaseless commotion of matter in all 
 stages of aggregation, a tremendous maze of vibrating 
 particles, careering masses, and whirling atom-streams, 
 utterly dark, eternally silent. The eye translates this 
 lightless, soundless mechanism of jarring molecules into a 
 scene of beauty. But there is a harmony of motion as well 
 as colour, nay, the only true harmony is that of motion. 
 To the uninitiated the stars are a labyrinth, and the move- 
 ments of matter, could they be seen by us, would appear as 
 an awful chaos. But to the intelligence of a Uriel, the 
 planets are balanced in their paths, and move harmoniously, 
 while the atoms dance in time. He who made the eye 
 can doubtless see as the eye sees,* and may take delight 
 in an outer view of His creatures ; but in His sight is also 
 visioned that inner music of the unseen universe which 
 is hidden now from us, but yet may be revealed. 
 
 " Look how the floor of hcayen 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. 
 There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st — 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ; 
 But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." 
 
 * " He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ; he that formed the eye, 
 shall he not see."— Psalms xciv. 9, 10. 
 
GOD. 163 
 
 Once upon a time the priest anathematized the philosopher 
 and insisted that revelation should bar all progress in 
 physical science ; but the tables have since been turned, and 
 it is now the privilege of the philosopher to repudiate all 
 efforts in theology. Science tolerates all religions with the 
 same pitying equanimity, for it regards them as all equally 
 vain. A dogmatic attitude is, however, as bad on the part 
 of the philosopher as it is on the part of the priest ; and it 
 is idle to tell us that we ought to give up the search for 
 God. What though there have been and are a thousand 
 different forms of religion, and may be a thousand more ; 
 what though we cannot comprehend the Infinite (as who 
 can), the heart of man feels the need of worshipping, and 
 worshipping the Highest and Best it can conceive. 
 
 The idea of progress has long been accepted by divines 
 in the affairs of the world ; yet they have jealously clung 
 to what they believed to be divinely inspired truths, and 
 passionately rejected discoveries which seemed to conflict 
 with revelation. But modern research has come to dis- 
 tinguish an "evolution," which is the process resulting in 
 progress, not only in all nature but even in religion ; and 
 the more advanced theologians have become converts to 
 this novel view. If it be so, theology and science ought to 
 go hand in hand, each correcting and aiding the other ; the 
 comparative method of study will be applied to religion, 
 and all kinds of creed will take their places together as so 
 many parts of the whole spiritual truth to which mankind 
 have attained. Not one of these will be too mean for our 
 respect ; and the best will be that which contains the 
 greatest share of truth. 
 
 All nations have had their prophets and sacred books, 
 revealing portions of spiritual truth suited to their con- 
 
164 JHE NEW TKUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 ditions. The God of the Jew is a jealous God, named " I 
 am," who loveth righteousness, and visiteth the iniquities 
 of the father upon the children, unto the third and fourth 
 generation. He is, therefore, the Divinity which a pious 
 naturalist would imagine, from the study of external nature, 
 and the struggle for existence. The God of the Christian, 
 on the other hand, is a loving Father, such a God as our 
 inner nature craves. The Hebrew conception is true to a 
 certain point; but the Christian idea is the higher and 
 more human revelation. Taken together, they exhibit two 
 aspects of the Divinity more patently than each does alone. 
 The life and teaching of Christ and all Christlike men and 
 women shows Him to be a merciful Father ; while the 
 inexorable decrees of nature declare Him to be a stern and 
 just God. 
 
 Other religions particularly express certain allied ideas. 
 For example, Hindooism inculcates a profound disbelief in 
 this life, and an unhesitating faith in another; Buddhism 
 recognizes the reign of eternal law, and Mohammedanism 
 enjoins the strictest sobriety of conduct. Thus all religions 
 have their good points, and may be said to supplement 
 each other. 
 
 Why, then, should we lose faith in religion because it 
 is found to grow, and assume different shapes : since the 
 root of each is some conception of God, however poor, which 
 is good for man to possess ? It matters not where we seek 
 Him — in tree, river, mount, air, sky, or beyond material 
 things, — He is everywhere. It matters not by what name 
 we call to Him — Jehovah, Father, Allah, Brahma, Indra or 
 Varuna, — the Creator exists for us in feeling ; and in the 
 emotions of the savage, kneeling to his fetish, the Greek 
 offering wine to his marble Jupiter, the Goth sacrificing 
 
GOD. 165 
 
 his garlanded bull to Odin, or the Christian bowing at the 
 name of Jesus, there is the same core of humble fear and 
 sacred aspiration. Can we doubt that all these endeavours 
 after God are in some degree pleasing to Him, or that what 
 is hiffhest, dearest, and best to us, is likewise best in His 
 esteem ? * 
 
 Professor Max Miiller has pointed a lesson in toleration 
 from the fact that in India the whole of the Aryan religion, 
 from its first beginnings in the ancient vedic hymns, its 
 middle phase in the Brahmana laws, and its latter end in 
 the Upanishad hymns, even now survive together, and 
 form part of the religious services of the Buddhists. 
 Though they conflict at places, these three well-marked 
 religions amicably exist together, the earliest vedic hymns 
 serving for childhood, the Brahmanas for maturity, and the 
 Upanishads for old age. But, indeed, we need not go so 
 far away for an example of the same state of things, for in 
 our own churches do we not read from the Old Testament 
 as well as the New, and blend the Jehovah of the Hebrew 
 with the Heavenly Father of the Christian. 
 
 There can be no doubt that science, by extending our 
 observation of nature, has enlarged our ideas of the power 
 of God, and increased our wonder at the immensity of His 
 works. It has given to our imagination a mightier artist, 
 a clearer knowledge of His art, and a safer, because a better 
 understood, tenure of life. Like purblind children in dread 
 of ghosts, men were groping about in the material world. 
 
 * (< 
 
 " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in 
 heaven." — Matt. vii. 21. 
 
 " Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, 0£ a truth I perceive that God 
 is no respecter of persons : But in every nation he that feareth him, and 
 worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." — Acts x. 34, 35. 
 
166 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 misled by superstition, till science came and purged their 
 eye-sight. 
 
 But although the study of matter can inform us on 
 the power, and perhaps also the wisdom, of the Creator, it 
 can tell us little about His goodness. The utterly incom- 
 prehensible God of science is almost as bad as no God at 
 all. It is a fetish of the intellect, and as poor a substitute 
 for a loving Father as the Jumb}^ of a savage. It is not in 
 nature, regarded objectively, that the dearer part of God is 
 to be sought ; but in the human soul, where He is felt to 
 have established an agency. Neither scale nor crucible 
 Avill find out Him, who dwells for us in the human heart, 
 and the teaching of His apostles. We look out from our 
 earthly home upon the shining stars, and see them wheel 
 their bright eternal courses, and it is natural that we 
 should consider the celestial sphere as the abode of God 
 and all his hosts ; yet if we roamed to every star in turn 
 we should fail in meeting Him, who is to be recognized, 
 not by the bodily, but by the spiritual sense. 
 
 Men of science, overwhelmed by His inscrutable power, 
 are, indeed, apt to lose their hold upon the Deity, and to 
 despair of His existence. He eludes the grasp of their 
 intellect ; but as heart and intellect unite to form man, so 
 should they unite to make the likeness of the living God. 
 If science can give us nothing better than a* blank canvas, 
 it is for faith to limn upon it the form and feature of the 
 Divinity. 
 
 Any one who has stood before an image of the virgin 
 in a Catholic cathedral, or even a Greek statue of Minerva, 
 must have felt the hold that such a fixed emblem takes 
 on the imagination. It seems to focus the religious feeling 
 till we almost fancy that the Deity is present, that the 
 
GOD. 167 
 
 image bows its head and will speak to us. To some people, 
 especially the unenlightened and imaginative, this concrete 
 embodiment must be far more impressive than an abstract 
 idea, a vague, inconceivable essence. The evil of image 
 worship consists, however, in the tendency to mistake the 
 symbol for what it represents ; or, at least, to contract our 
 conceptions of the latter ; and science will certainly counter- 
 vail the spirit of idolatry. 
 
 The God of science is a Being whom it is sacrilege to 
 imitate by any toy or material effigy of man. And the 
 pure idea of Him may exalt our worship, and solemnize our 
 song of praise, if we reflect upon the awful and mysterious 
 attributes of His power. In indulging this abstraction, 
 however, we had need be careful not to let it carry us too 
 far, and lose us in the infinite mazes of the universe. Let 
 us keep ourselves to home, where God surely is, and not 
 forget the fuller and more potent concept of our souls. 
 
 The angels, like the devil, have suffered from the 
 hostility of certain scientific writers ; but although positive 
 Science can find no trace of their existence among mole- 
 cules, and has learned to replace them by physical law, she 
 cannot absolutely deny that they, or their equivalent, may 
 dwell in other spheres. At least they are symbols for a 
 spirit which does exist in man, and doubtless also in God. 
 Pure types of holiness, and ineffably precious creations of 
 the spiritual imagination, the world is so much the richer 
 for the idea of them, and would be so much the poorer for 
 the lack of it. They come as tender friends, even as 
 Jesus came, between us and the awful majesty of the In- 
 scrutable. Science could never have given them to us, at 
 the utmost she can only construct a mechanic "sorting 
 demon " to pick the fast atoms from the slow ; and it is 
 
168 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 to be hoped that Science will never wholly take them 
 from us. 
 
 Science brands the Christian's conception of God as 
 being too anthropomorphic or manlike. But if God is 
 infinite in His attributes, doth not the greater include the 
 less ? and if an anthropomorphic notion of God be only a 
 partial one, it need not therefore be false. It is beyond us to 
 fully comprehend the mysterious Power who framed the 
 universe ; but we may learn to know the face which He 
 presents to us. We are surely right to choose as our living 
 God the highest and best ideal of the Divine nature we can 
 attain to ; and what is this but our infinitized and perfect 
 human spirit ? Man, we believe, is in some sort an epitome 
 of his Maker : he is the most godlike thing we know ; 
 and the Creator, consciously or unconsciously, assumes his 
 form in our imagination. 
 
 Our plea, then, is for the personal God of the old faith, 
 because it is good that we should have some definite and 
 heartfelt conception of Him. Nor need this dear idea of 
 Him as He shows Himself to men be incompatible with His 
 infinite and inscrutable attributes as the Creator of the 
 whole universe. We may know that His essence is past 
 finding out, that His ways are not as our ways, and yet we 
 may believe He is our loving Father. But our worship of 
 Him should not therefore sink into a narrow anthropomor- 
 phic ceremony ; and while we come before Him as His 
 children, the consciousness of His unthinkable existence 
 should purify and elevate our praise. 
 
( 169 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 After this manner therefore pray ye : 
 
 Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom 
 come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day om.' 
 daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And 
 lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil : For thine is the 
 kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. — Tlie Lord's 
 Prayer, Matt. vi. 9-13. 
 
 There has been a great deal of controversy lately between 
 writers on science and theologians respecting the efficacy 
 of prayer. Taking their stand on the positive doctrine 
 that all nature is governed by general laws which are never 
 interfered with by the Deity, the apostles of the new truth 
 have not hesitated to proclaim the utter futility of prayer ; 
 while, with a few exceptions, the clergy have warmly 
 defended the immemorial practice. The feelings of the 
 public have been rudely shocked, and much dogmatic spleen 
 has been freely vented on both sides, but the question seems 
 to remain very much where it was. Prayers for spiritual 
 and material good, for fair weather and peace of mind, are 
 still offered up in church and pious homes, despite all the 
 trenchant logic of materialists, who are fain to solace them- 
 selves with a pitying smile for the harmless folly of a world 
 which is yet so darkly benighted. 
 
170 THE NEW TIIUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 The old gospel has taught us to live in the happy assur- 
 ance that every living thing is in the hands of God whether 
 alive or dead, that every hair of our heads is numbered, 
 and that not even a sparrow falls to the ground unmarked 
 of Him. It has instructed us to draw near to God as our 
 loving Father, to pour out all our joys and sorrows before 
 Him, to ask His forgiveness for our sin, and to beseech His 
 lielp in our distress. But the prophet of science ruthlessly 
 destroys our fool's paradise, and urges a harsher faith upon 
 us. He tells us that the great Juggernaut of nature rolls 
 on heedless of whom it crushes, and eternally deaf to our 
 most agonized entreaty ; that our grief is absolutely hope- 
 less, our trouble persecution, our struggles selfish, and our 
 death violence. 
 
 To brood too much in solitude over the reign of law and 
 its possible mishaps, the exclusion of all aid from special 
 providence, and all chance of any response to prayer, is apt 
 to breed a kind of fatalism which deadens the energies and 
 overshadows the spirits of a man. His life in a manner 
 becomes sunless and sad. Knowing that he is surrounded 
 by a subtle mechanism, ready to kill him if he takes a single 
 false step, and which sooner or later will kill him in spite of 
 all his care, the world loses its poetry, and beauty, and 
 gladness for him. On the other hand, he beholds the hap- 
 piness of the unthinking crowd, the brightness, health, and 
 goodness of those who do not fret themselves with such 
 perplexing thoughts, but yield them up to the blissful 
 dreams inspired by faith and the inward joy of their 
 religious sense. How can he escape from his baleful mood, 
 and recover the animating zeal of spirit which is so neces- 
 sary for strenuous and cheerful endeavour in his work and 
 life ? " By a deep-founded trust in Providence," answers 
 
PKAYER. 171 
 
 the divine, a belief in the efficacy of prayer, and simple 
 faith in a future state, of which this is only the threshold." 
 Let us see what science has to say to it. 
 
 The strongest argument against the efficacy of prayer 
 consists in the doctrine that, to the best of our knowledge, 
 the material universe is governed by general laws, estab- 
 lished in the Beginning, and depending upon the original 
 constitution of natui-e. No trace of any hitch or mysterious 
 freak in their operation, which could only be referred to 
 supernatural agency, has ever been detected by the most 
 delicate experiments. Indeed, miraculous interference with 
 tlieir working would only introduce a capricious element 
 which would render exact science impossible and all experi- 
 ence untrustworthy. In other words, were the continuity 
 of phenomena broken, the human intellect would be con- 
 founded. 
 
 This sweeping assertion would seem to exclude all hope 
 of a special providence; though, of course, it still leaves 
 room for a general providence acting since the creation of 
 the universe. The belief in a special providence, which 
 has been -so prevalent among men, is easily accounted for. 
 The astonishing variety of things and events in the world 
 has masked the action of general laws, and the limited 
 experience of men until the present century, combined 
 with their egoistic feelings, has led them to deem them- 
 selves the special care of a presiding Guardian. But in 
 these days of newspapers and mechanical appliances, of 
 rapid travel and change, the mind is better prepared for 
 the reception of a doctrine which strikes at the root of the 
 efficacy of prayer. Boiler explosions, shipwrecks, railway 
 collisions, and imprisoned miners, come to shock our serenity 
 every other day, and read us the stern lesson that no amount 
 
172 THE NEW TIIUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 of praying will prop up rotten structures or set carelessness 
 to rights. 
 
 In old times when a high wind overturned a house, or a 
 lightning stroke felled a man to death, it was considered a 
 special judgment of God which could not have been avoided. 
 But very few educated persons think so now-a-days. The 
 judgment, if judgment there be, can only be regarded as a 
 warning to build stouter dwelling's, and to beware of ex- 
 posure to the electric discharge. Bengal floods, and Madras 
 famines, earthquakes, and destructive tornadoes, by which 
 millions of human beings miserably perish, are traced to 
 great cosmical causes which render them inevitable and 
 quite " past praying for." 
 
 Significant incidents are easily cited. Three years ago 
 an excursion train, returning from a Moody and Sankey's 
 prayer meeting in America, broke through a trestle bridge, 
 and many lives were lost. 
 
 The fall of the Tay Bridge, while a train was passing on 
 a Sunday evening last December, is still fresh in the 
 memory, and Scottish ministers, with a strange lack of the 
 national shrewdness and unmindful of the utterances of 
 Christ anent the Tower of Siloam,* are even now preaching 
 that the calamity was a judgment of the Lord on Sabbath 
 travelling. Evangelists, on the contrary, can see in the 
 event a mercy. The truth is that it was neither a mercy 
 nor a judgment in the way these pious people mean. The 
 downfall of the Tay Bridge was a purely physical pheno- 
 menon, a question of material stress and strain. The force 
 of the gale was too strong for the bridge to bear, and had 
 the Pope of Rome, or any other holy personage been on the 
 train, we must consider that the structure would have 
 
 * Luke xiii. 4. 
 
PRAYER. 173 
 
 broken all the same. The victims met a cruel fate because 
 they happened to be in the train, and not because they had 
 deserved it. The judgment was a judgment on bad building, 
 and the mercy was a mercy that no more bridges of the 
 kind have been put up. 
 
 During the late Eusso-Turkish war the victorious 
 " Christian " armies of the Czar, marching on their career of 
 slaughter, drove thousands of poor Turkish refugees, mostly 
 women and children, destitute and naked before them ; and 
 mothers dropped their babes in the snow from sheer exhaus- 
 tion, or cast them away that they might not die at their 
 breasts. They took shelter in the Mosques of Constantinople, 
 and daily exercises of prayer and praise were carried on in the 
 midst of a crowd of the most helpless and wretched of God's 
 creatures. Whether He interposed to aid them or not we 
 cannot tell ; but doubtless they felt a sublime emotional 
 solace in the thought that Allah saw and pitied them. 
 
 When one reads of incidents like these, he cannot but 
 feel that appearances are very much against the efficacy of 
 prayer. Before the reign of law had been fully demon- 
 strated it was always open to the clergy to account for 
 occurrences of this kind by supposing that God knew best, 
 and for some wise purpose had seen fit to let such things 
 be. The seeming inefficacy of prayer, in short, was disguised 
 under a trusting optimism. Now, however, the view is 
 somewhat changed, and we are led to regard all physical 
 catastrophies as the inexorable result of laws which are 
 never changed at human entreaty. 
 
 Special providence has always resided in the mysterious ; 
 but the light of science is ever rolling further back the dark 
 verge of the unknown, and things which a hundred years 
 ao-o were believed to reveal the finger of God, are now seen 
 
174 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 to be part of the ordinary course of nature. In our 
 ignorance we referred whatever we could not explain to 
 supernatural agency; but one mystery after another has 
 disappeared before the scrutiny of research, and the tendency 
 of modem thought is to bring all that happens under the 
 domain of law. 
 
 In the affairs of common life we have never asked for a 
 miracle to be done ; but have naturally depended upon our 
 own efforts. If a man breaks the leg of a chair, or sprains 
 his wrist, he does not think of praying that the hmb in 
 either case should be made whole ; but goes and gets the 
 chair mended by a joiner, and the wrist bandaged by a 
 doctor. Now, the aim of science is to render more and more 
 things familiar to us, and as science progresses the occasion 
 for prayer will consequently become more and more rare. 
 The theologian would, perhaps, say that this circumstance 
 does not deny the efficacy of prayer, but only proves that 
 need for it will grow less the better we learn to act for 
 ourselves ; but the materialist would draw from it the con- 
 clusion that there is no use in praying at all. 
 
 From the operation of a general providence by means of 
 general laws, instead of a special providence, acting directly 
 it is often deduced that God does not care for the individual, 
 but only for the race. Judging, however, by the thousands 
 of races which have perished during the whole life of the 
 planet, we may well ask if this be a just inference ? Races, 
 as well as individuals, have perished from the world, and 
 we cannot therefore argue that God cares for the one and 
 not for the other. Indeed, it seems to us that if He cares 
 for one of these He must of necessity care for both ; for a 
 race is made up of individuals, and by the very process of 
 development the good of the race depends upon the welfare 
 
PEAYER. 175 
 
 of the individual. A single creature may be less important 
 than the whole family to which it belongs : but as a member 
 of that family it influences the body corporate ; and its 
 strength or weakness is part of the total strength or 
 weakness. 
 
 But the death of individuals and the wholesale destruc- 
 tion of races which have taken place in the past, and are 
 even now going on, force upon us the serious question 
 whether any care or pity is manifested in the course of 
 things. Nature apparently acts with an inscrutable dis- 
 regard to consequences ; the thunderbolt will smite whatever 
 lies in its track, be it church steeple, ship at sea, or little 
 child gathering berries on the heath ; nay, rather is it the 
 presence of the steeple, ship, or child that determines the 
 discharge and draws it down. A priest may be at prayer 
 within the church, a sailor at work on the mast of the ship, 
 the child may fee lisping a hymn, but the pitiless fluid 
 swerves not from its fatal path. 
 
 If the action of physical lavv^s are inevitable, we may, 
 however, find evidences of the Divine care and compassion 
 in the framing of these laws, and in our own capacity to 
 understand them and to take advantage of them. The laws 
 of nature are inexorable, but God has not left us in ignorance 
 of them ; our life, indeed, is a long course of training in the 
 knowledge of them. It was a bitter remark of John Stuart 
 Mill, that Pope's pertinent query, " Shall gravitation cease 
 when you go by ? " might be a just rebuke to any one who 
 should be so silly as to expect common human morality 
 from nature, when, in sober truth, nearly all the things 
 which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one 
 another are Nature's every-day performances. But Mill 
 overlooked the fact that Nature, generally at least, gives 
 
176 THE NEW TEUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 fair warning of her penalties ; she does not pounce upon a 
 man unawares like a criminal : we are taught to know her 
 invariable laws, they are freely open to our inspection, like 
 the laws of our country, and if we suffer by transgressing 
 them, it is absurd to throw the blame upon the laws. If a 
 proprietor hangs out his sign-board to warn wayfarers off 
 his land, he has a perfect right to punish those who trespass 
 in spite of the notice he has given. Every man knows that 
 if he should stumble over the edge of a precipice he will 
 fall to the bottom, and in that case his mishap could not 
 justly be laid on gravity. By gravity we are kept upon the 
 earth ; and were it to cease, as Pope supposes, we could not 
 go past at all. It is serving us constantly ; and all that is 
 required of us is to avoid making a bad use of it. 
 
 The relentless apathy of nature has, perhaps, been too 
 rashly transferred to its Creator, who — 
 
 " Sees with equal eye, as God of all, 
 A hero perish or a sparrow fall, 
 Atom or system into ruin hurled, 
 And now a bubble burst and now a world." * 
 
 It may be going too far to say that the Deity beholds 
 these things with " equal " eye, although the material mask 
 which hides His face is evenly callous. The scripture saith, 
 " Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one 
 of them is forgotten before God ? But even the very hairs 
 of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, ye are 
 of more value than many sparrows." Now, if we believe in 
 the omnipresence of God,t we cannot doubt the first lesson 
 of this text ; it is the second which is open to dispute, for 
 if we are to judge by the evidence of the senses, a hero is 
 not of higher value than a sparrow in the Creator's sight. 
 
 * Pope's Essay on Man. f See last chapter. 
 
PRAYER. 177 
 
 But here again the outer experience may have to be supple- 
 mented by the inner. 
 
 Judging by the course of external nature, there is 
 nothing that God has made of greater worth in His eyes 
 than any other thing ; but our human instincts tell us that 
 the higher the creature, the higher the Creator must value 
 it. A work of art rises in value according to the time, 
 pains, and genius which the author has spent upon its 
 development. A statue or a cathedral is more costly than 
 a block of marble or a stone quarry. And, though the 
 notion may seem too anthropomorphic for the taste of a 
 materialist, we are fain to believe, that in the sight of God, 
 a human being, with his living soul, is of more value than 
 a living plant or a piece of dead matter. 
 
 But if we are to find any proofs of this special love on 
 the part of the Creator, we may err in looking for it in 
 material nature, which is the common ground on which all 
 His creatures meet under the self-same laws. We ought, 
 rather, to seek for it in the special privilege of communion 
 with Himself which He has granted to us, and in those 
 inspired teachers whom He has sent from time to time into 
 the world. 
 
 One duty forced upon us by the sovereignty of law is 
 the pursuit of science. If the laws of nature are the 
 Creator's unchangeable decrees. His standing orders, as it 
 were, it behoves us to seek them out and inscribe them on 
 our memories, in order that we may be able to obey them. 
 In this regard the modern man of science, like the ancient 
 seer, is a lawgiver, interpreting to men the words which 
 God has written upon matter. Gifted as we are with free- 
 will, it is our noble prerogative to find out God's will, and 
 help to further it by the direction of our own. And one of 
 
178 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 the most important results of science has been the dis- 
 covery that much of our bodily and moral sickness is due 
 to the neglect of physical laws. 
 
 The necessity of self-help is another lesson, brought 
 home to us by the assurance that physical laws are never 
 interfered with by a special providence. It is clear that if 
 we cannot depend upon God to alter the course of material 
 nature in our behalf, we must rely entirely on ourselves to 
 guard against the misfortunes arising from it. Practically, 
 this is what has been done by men in all ages, especially 
 by the great workers amongst them ; but there has also 
 been a disposition to trust something to Providence, or to 
 luck. Hence the very last precautions have not been taken 
 in myriads of cases ; and crazy vessels have dared the sea, 
 or foolhardy individuals have risked their lives, under the 
 mistaken faith that prayer would ward off danger. They 
 are wise proverbs which tell us to " Trust in God, but heep 
 our poivder dry" and that " God helps those who help 
 themselves." In all the mechanical arts there must be no 
 leaning upon Providence as an excuse for oversight and 
 bad workmanship. All bridges, locomotives, ships, and 
 other engines fraught with fate, must be made safe and 
 sound, in strict conformity with natural principles, and 
 nothing should be left to chance. The new commandment 
 is " Thou shalt not blunder ; " and if we are deprived of the 
 hope that God will specially protect us from injury by 
 suspending his physical laws, we are granted in exchange 
 the firm assurance that if these be properly obeyed we shall 
 be safe from harm. 
 
 It is not, however, a narrow selfishness which is incum- 
 bent upon us, but a genial and mutual helpfulness. If we 
 can expect no help from the angels in heaven, we must 
 
PEA YE R. 179 
 
 become as angels on earth to one another. In this way 
 will the human race fulfil its brotherhood, and the world 
 increase in happiness. Nor is it merely for our own profit 
 that we should love and assist one another with all our 
 might ; but also because it is right to do so. By helping 
 ourselves and each other we are also helping God. Careful 
 conduct, both physically and morally, is not onl}^ a matter 
 of good policy, but of duty. Our life is not to be the life 
 of a material mechanism without any light from above ; the 
 whole soul revolts from such a view of existence. No ! it 
 is to be glorified by the thought that its guidance is in 
 accordance with the Divine will, and pleasing to the Most 
 High. 
 
 Another consequence of the recognition of general laws 
 in nature is our emancipation from many degrading super- 
 stitions of the dark and middle ages. It is the triumph of 
 our time that man sees himself to be left alone to walk in 
 freedom and inherit the earth. The shade of ignorance no 
 longer frightens him, as a child is frightened in the night. 
 His spirit is now unshackled from paralysing humours of 
 the blood, and fears of supernatural visitation. Misfortune 
 is no longer a divinity, to bp propitiated by further suffering 
 and sacrifice, but the result of some material law which has 
 been broken. 
 
 Positive science is demonstrating every day that prayer 
 can produce no direct physical effect ; that it cannot moisten 
 the monsoon, for example, or draw rain from the thunder- 
 cloud like a cannon shot fired into it ; but notwithstanding 
 this fact, our clergy continue to obey their natural impulse. 
 Days of public prayer for fine weather are appointed by the 
 Church of England ; and the synod of the Scotch Kirk 
 discerns a judgment for national sin in a bad harvest, which 
 
180 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 the physicist attributes to a scarcity of spots on the sun's 
 disk. A divine goes for his health to the South of France, 
 we will suppose, and there encounters the " mistral," a cold 
 dry wind, which blows down with great violence sometimes, 
 from the snows of the Pyrenees or Alps. The consequence 
 is, that he suffers from a severe attack of rheumatism, which 
 he says, with pardonable doubt, he cannot see the benefit of, 
 but believes to have been sent for his good. Now, to one 
 who believes in the teachings of science, and knows the 
 "mistral" to have been determined by purely cosmical 
 causes, by the balance of the atmosphere over all the earth, 
 by the mountains which were elevated on its surface 
 thousands of centuries ago ; by the snows which were 
 condensed upon their summits by cold, referable to the 
 position of the planet in relation to the solar luminary — to 
 such a man, the only apparent good of these severe pains 
 in the reverend sufferer's limbs, besides the discipline of 
 suffering, is to read him the harsh, but wholesome lesson, 
 not to go in the way of the mistral in future. 
 
 It is a common mistake of well-meaning believers in the 
 physical efficacy of prayer, to give only a local or personal 
 significance to operations of nature which are really of 
 cosmical importance, and the resultant of forces operating 
 since the creation of the universe. The storm which 
 plunges us in hopeless gloom, and drives us to despair and 
 prayer, is to Uriel but the passage of a cloud, his eye has 
 followed from its source, across the world. Science endows 
 us with something of this larger vision; and a skilful 
 physicist would make an experiment imitating our terrible 
 storm, in a glass bottle. 
 
 Another thing often overlooked by believers in direct 
 physical response to prayer is the hopeless confusion which 
 
PRAYER. 181 
 
 would ensue if such prayers were answered. Take the case 
 of two neighbouring farmers, one who prays for rain for a.' 
 particular crop which he has planted, and a second who 
 at the same time solicits fair weather. To grant the request 
 of one party would be to refuse that of the other. From 
 this point of view there is seen to be an element of selfish- 
 ness in prayer which ahnost justifies the startling paradox 
 of Emerson, " Prayer, as a means to effect a private end, is 
 theft and meanness." 
 
 Of course it may be said the Deity would not answer the 
 prayer of one person at the expense of another : but what is 
 this but a confession that, after all, special interference with 
 the physical order of nature is unnecessary, since a general 
 dispensation of Divine bounty is required, and this can be 
 effected well enough by general laws established in the 
 beginning. 
 
 In spite of the physical futility of prayer, however, 
 we may yet ask if there be no spiritual efficacy. Is the 
 natural impulse of the human heart to pray a false 
 and useless one, to be utterly suppressed in the future ? 
 Verily, if men are only automata we do not see any use 
 for the practice. The lower animals, being automata, do 
 not pray, and why should man, if he too is a mere puppet 
 of law ? 
 
 The brutes depend entirely on their own exertions in 
 trouble, and do not know the name of God. Man, like them, 
 is in contact with nature : but he also knows God ; so, 
 while he struggles with all his might and depends upon 
 himself, he cannot help referring himself to God. He looks 
 beyond the machine to its Creator; he is raised above 
 nature by the idea of God ; while he lives, and is sustained 
 by nature, he is intermediate between it and its Author. 
 
182 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 An articulate being inspired with the knowledge of God, he 
 can, not only exert his OW' n powers like the animals to their 
 utmost, but also beseech the help of the Almighty One 
 whom he believes to be regarding him. 
 
 The materialist is in the habit of looking upon the 
 universe as a self-existent mechanism, capable of manufac- 
 turing certain automatic creatures, like marionettes, one of 
 which is man. But why has man, unlike the rest of these, 
 been fitted with an alarm, for calhng on the Driver or Con- 
 structor, if there be no Driver on whom to call, or if the 
 Constructor never interferes with the machine which he has 
 once set going ? An automaton has surely no need of such 
 a futile organ, unless indeed it be to furnish sport for the 
 gods. 
 
 On the other hand, if man has liberty of will, as we are 
 still left free by science to believe, we can see at once how, 
 if not a physical, at least a spiritual efficacy of prayer is 
 reasonable. If man is to a certain extent independent 
 of God, we can see how it may be necessary to deal 
 directly with him, in order to correct distresses perpetrated 
 by the agency of his spirit; if his soul can rise into 
 voluntary communion with God, we can understand 
 that God may exercise some kind of responsive influence 
 over it. 
 
 Such a spiritual influence w^ould be sufficient to 
 effect not only the cure of man's soul, but also an indirect 
 physical result. For it is by his soul and will that 
 man changes nature. His soul gears in with matter through 
 the medium of his body, and his will is a hair-trigger 
 which launches powerful energies. The safety of his 
 body might sometimes be effected by the disposition of his 
 mind. 
 
PEAYEK. 183 
 
 We cannot yet definitely say whether this spiritual 
 response to prayer does take place. Many devout people, 
 however, are ready to assert that they have had profound 
 experience of its reality. On the other hand, there are 
 many men of science who hold that the mind, too, is 
 governed by absolute laws, which we are ignorant of, and 
 that apparent spiritual response is a delusion, or at best a 
 sort of moral reaction. Perhaps the question will never be 
 decided, except by faith, for the mind is a stronghold of 
 mystery which is like to baffle all the assaults of science. 
 The secret of the soul appears to be beyond mere logic 
 and dissection, and while it is a secret, while free-will is 
 a point of faith with us, we are at liberty to believe the 
 spiritual efficacy of prayer, for a miraculous influence on 
 the will would not in that case lead to the intellectual 
 confusion which would attend such interference with the 
 working of the physical world. There is nothing in the 
 model prayer of Christ to encourage any faith in material 
 efficacy ; and while it asks for the chief necessaries of life, it 
 makes no special request for private ends whatever. 
 
 Though this spiritual efficacy existed, it would never- 
 theless follow that many prayers would be unanswered, 
 many events past praying for, and beyond the reach of the 
 means in question. It is a pathetic thought, that prayers 
 are rising from the whole earth every day, which are doomed 
 to go unanswered ; but it is a great deal to be left with 
 some hope that they may be answered. 
 
 To him who has no faith in the efficacy of prayer either 
 physical or spiritual, for whom prayer, as an appeal to the 
 Almighty, is simply a human error to which our eyes have 
 been opened at last, there still remains a Divine service 
 consisting of a reverent thanksgiving, acceptable to the 
 
184 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Lord, for benefits received, resignation to whatever destiny 
 may have in store, and the inward contemplation of the 
 Divine nature. He can put his soul, as it were, into silent 
 communion with God — a piactice which of itself induces a 
 serenity and hopefulness of spirit. 
 
 In his ordinary life, if he have no longer any trust in a 
 special providence preserving him from harm, and knows 
 too well that calamity may overtake him at any moment as 
 it has done thousands before, he at least learns the virtue 
 of extreme care and caution, and to prevent the knowledge 
 of his jeopardy weighing like a millstone on his heart and 
 stifling all genial vivacity, he may indulge in the hope that 
 his succeeding fortunes will be favourable. 
 
 It is doubtless natural that a man should feel and hope 
 that his earnest prayers would be answered by a Being, 
 not only all powerful, but all good. If, however, he should 
 come to believe that God has established the order of the 
 universe in the beginning, and does not interfere with it now, 
 that therefore he must conform to the plan of things rather 
 than expect God to conform that to him, he will thereby 
 have gained a deeper insight into truth, and the intentions 
 of his Maker with regard to him on earth. In the hour of 
 his trial he will strive his utmost in self-defence, and when 
 he can do no more he will resign himself to fate. Indeed, 
 it is not difficult to decide as to which is the nobler figure, 
 he who merely supplicates in his distress for the Divine 
 assistance, or he who bears with uncomplaining fortitude 
 the peril meted out to him by laws which have a higher 
 purpose than his individual good. In the supreme moment 
 perchance the former will not be without the lofty con- 
 sciousness that the Creator sees his doom, and that he falls 
 a sacrifice to the method of creation. 
 
PEAYEE. 185 
 
 But the true Christian experiences a resignation equally 
 sublime and much more tender, when, after doing all he 
 can himself, he leaves the rest to God the Father, and ends 
 his prayer for succour with the words of Jesus, " Never- 
 theless, not my will, but Thine be done." 
 
BOOK III. 
 WHITHER? 
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 
 
 Thon madest Life in man and brute ; 
 
 Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
 Is on the skull which thou hast made. 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why, 
 
 He thinks he was not made to die ; 
 And thou hast made him : thou art just. 
 
 Thou seemest human and divine, 
 
 The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 
 
 Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 
 Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 
 
 Our little systems have their day ; 
 
 They have their day and cease to be : 
 
 They are but broken lights of thee, 
 And thou, Lord, art more than they. 
 
 We have but faith : we cannot know ; 
 
 For knowledge is of things we see ; 
 
 And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
 A beam in darkness : let it grow. 
 Let knowledge grow from more to more. 
 
 But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
 
 That mind and soul, according well. 
 May make one music as before. 
 
 But vaster. 
 
 Tennyson, In Memoriani. 
 
( 1S9 ) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Thou, even as thou art, sunk in the sleep of death, shalt continue so to 
 be in all time to come, freed from all distressing pains; but we, with a 
 son-ow that would not be sated, wept for thee, when closely thou didst turn 
 to an ashen hue on thy appalling funeral pile, and no length of days shall 
 pluck from our hearts our ever-enduring grief. This question, therefore, 
 should be asked of this speaker, what there is in it so passing bitter, if it 
 come in the end to sleep and rest, that any one should pine in never- 
 enduring sorrow. — Muxro's translation of Lucretius. 
 
 Eternity ! — thou pleasing, dreadful thought ! 
 Through what variety of untried being. 
 Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! 
 The wide, the unbounded i^rospect, lies before me ; 
 But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. 
 ***** 
 
 The soul, secured in her existence, smiles 
 At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. — 
 The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
 Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; 
 But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
 Unhurt, amid the war of elements. 
 The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds. 
 
 Addison's Cato. 
 
 The haunting doubt as to the immortality of the soul 
 which troubled the ancient thinkers, has taken a bolder 
 and more alarming hold on the minds of our living men of 
 science. Modern research has demonstrated the workino-s 
 of the mind to be so intimately associated with the state of 
 
190 THE NEW TRU'J'H AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 the health and the structure of the brain, that there are 
 many who think it impossible for the soul to exist apart from 
 the material body. To these the ruin of the brain is not 
 merely the wreck of a tenement in which the soul erewhile 
 was lodged, but the final extinction of intelligence. Loss of 
 life is no mere flight of the spirit from one phase of exist- 
 ence on this earth to another phase in some unknown 
 sphere, like the passage of a caterpillar through a chry- 
 salis into an aerial butterfly ; but absolute annihilation for 
 ever. Others, who believe in the doctrine of evolution, 
 cannot conceal from themselves the serious question to 
 which it gives rise : If man is but the last born of the 
 lower animals, and his soul but a development of theirs, 
 how is it that he claims an exclusive heaven solely for his 
 species ? or, if he denies the title of the " beasts that perish" 
 to any future state, by what natural right does he alone 
 expect to inherit eternal life ? 
 
 Positive science might rob us of many fond illusions, 
 painful to lose at first, perhaps, but soon forgotten. It is 
 difiicult, however, to see what would compensate us for the 
 lack of faith in immortality. We may ask ourselves with 
 the Roman poet, why death should be grievous if it bring us 
 in the end to sleep and rest ; but the inquiry is a vain one. 
 Death, as a bitter parting from our loved ones, is only 
 palliated by the hope of meeting them again. Did we 
 believe it to be final, no assurance of their lasting rest 
 would ever assuage our keener sorrow. Consciously or un- 
 consciously we live in the expectation of rejoining our lost 
 friends : and if we realized that they were gone for ever 
 out of our existence, what a strange forlorn mockery our 
 life would seem. The longing for immortality is apparently 
 an instinct implanted in the human breast, and, with the 
 
IMMORTALITY. 191 
 
 dubious exception of the early Jews and one or two savage 
 tribes, all the races of mankind have believed in a Here- 
 after. To tell us, then, that there is no future state is to 
 do a violence to our best feelings. Science busies herself 
 with discovering the harmonies of nature : but she will 
 reveal a terrible discord if she should prove that our hopes 
 of eternity are false. There would be ample grounds in 
 that case for the complaint of the materialist, that human 
 consciousness is a mournful mistake. 
 
 Can it indeed be true, that after its short tale of years 
 is told, the spirit of each of us will be totally extinguished, 
 and we shall be no more ? It seems impossible for the soul to 
 conceive of its own death : but does the reason, neverthe- 
 less, force us to acknowledge the fact ? The hope of eternity 
 has exerted an immense influence in strengthening morality. 
 Has the race, after all, been elevated by a holy illusion, a 
 pious dream ? and can a sham produce a higher species of 
 man ? Parting from familiar pets which have learned to 
 love us, the dog or bird we have fed and fostered, is always 
 cruel to us. Would God annihilate a creature who has 
 known of Him ? 
 
 These are the great riddles which are perplexing the 
 age. Let us see if science can give us any solution of them 
 yet. 
 
 At least we may safely say that immortality is not to 
 be expected in the present world, and even in the present 
 universe. For this is a universe of change, and, as we have 
 seen before, death is part of the machinery of evolution. 
 It is plainly a corrective device in the original design of 
 nature, whereby living beings are kept in adjustment to 
 their transitory environment. The body is made of perish- 
 able stuff; it is not so plastic as to prevent its habits 
 
192 THE NEW TEUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 becoming fixed. Therefore a new generation succeeds the 
 old, and forms another link in the great chain of life which 
 gears into the material world. Matter appears to be very 
 much the same everywhere throughout the visible universe, 
 and to obey the self-same laws, so that immortal beings are 
 not likely to exist for ever on any other habitable globe, 
 though they may pass from one to another. 
 
 Natural death is probably painless ; and, as Schiller 
 has said, we cannot surely consider it an evil, since it is 
 universal. As the body begins to die, the soul, in harmony 
 with it, is gradually weaned from this life. Nevertheless, 
 to those who survive there is something shocking and 
 mysterious in death. The decease of a friend causes a 
 blank in our lives which nothing can fill up, and breaks 
 asunder ties which never can be mended. 
 
 To science the event is merely the stoppage of an 
 engine, the breakage of a piece in the vital mechanism 5 
 but to the soul, the stark physical fact is transfigured by a 
 strange aureole of sentiment. When one who was near 
 and dear to us is suddenly struck down, we feel somehow 
 that the finger of God has reached out of the darkness and 
 brought us to the brink of the Unknown. 
 
 This wondrous awe and mystery of death, so common 
 to all the children of men, is a blessing of Providence which 
 we cannot allow science to take from us lightly. Neither 
 can we willingly relinquish the consolations of religion 
 which comfort the sorrows of bereavement, with the hope 
 of a joyful reunion. In fine, until the scientist can prove 
 beyond a doubt that the soul is mortal as well as the body, 
 and ceases to exist when vitality is destroyed, the human 
 race will have momentous reasons for not giving up their 
 sweet and solemn faith that, "though the body dies, the 
 soul shall live for ever." 
 
IMMORTALITY. 193 
 
 Taking the body as an apparatus fitted solely for this 
 world, and its destruction after a certain period of use as a 
 feature in the plan of evolution, the question arises whether, 
 apart from the assurances of revelation, there is anything in 
 the nature of the soul which would seem to warrant the 
 exemption of it from a similar fate. The spirit of the lower 
 animals is mainly a collection of passions needful for the 
 preservation of their species on earth. They are ignorant 
 how they live, of their dwelling-place and of their Creator. 
 But man, on the other hand, has a soul which may be said 
 to be above the world, since it enables him to know of God, 
 and other regions of the universe. He can understand the 
 laws of nature, and possesses a faculty by which he can 
 apprehend the infinite. Wherever his home might be in 
 the universe, his reason, imagination, and volition would, pre- 
 sumably, be of service. Certainly he has a higher claim 
 than the lower animals to immortality ; but, nevertheless, 
 his powers of mind are all employed in this world ; and it 
 is only his purely spiritual faculty of apprehending God 
 and the Hereafter on which he can reasonably base any 
 hopes of an exclusive immortality. 
 
 Some of the lower animals are believed to possess the 
 germs of reason, fancy, and free-will, but no trace of the 
 religious sentiment can be found amongst them. It is in 
 keeping with our ideas of Divine love that a creature, in 
 whom the dead world has risen into fellowship with its 
 Maker, and whose holiest desires are to be nearer to Him, 
 should not be suddenly and mercilessly cut off" from the 
 fulfilment of its dearest hopes. Surely the Father will not 
 break asunder for ever the bonds of communion which have 
 united Him to His children ? 
 
 This, however, is a side of the question with which 
 
 o 
 
194 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 physical science has no concern. Her inquiry is into the 
 nature of consciousness from a material standpoint, and she 
 does not distinguish between different kinds of conscious- 
 ness. The sense of a worm is the same to her as the soul of • 
 a man, for her aim is to show the relationship between 
 thought and matter. 
 
 Some extreme materialists, like Haeckel and Nageli, 
 arguing from the supposed fact that man is descended from 
 the lower animals, and seeing no breach in the continuity 
 of life, have come to hold that all matter is spirit and spirit 
 matter. If elementary matter is eternal, elementary spirit 
 will be eternal too : but the forms of matter change, there- 
 fore the forms of spirit will change also. They point to 
 the action of anaesthetics, to sleep, and mental disease in 
 support of their position. Anaesthetics, they say, are mere 
 matter, yet they destroy consciousness, sleep is solely due to 
 lack of chemical energy in the brain, insanity is the result 
 of a deranged organ ; hence they infer that all sorts of 
 molecules are alive, and that their motions are associated in 
 some occult way with simple sensations of pleasure and 
 displeasure. George Henry Lewes promulgated the obscure 
 theory that consciousness was only another side of matter ; 
 and his illustrious wife, in one of her psychological novels, 
 has defined the soul to be the " last refinement of energy." 
 The famous physician. Hartley, satisfied himself that thought 
 is " an agitation of the nerves," and John Stuart Mill very 
 cleverly hit off the mind as a " voltaic pile giving shocks of 
 thought." 
 
 But scientific truth is ill at ease in the frippery of an 
 epigram, and all these trenchant guesses of philosophy are 
 merely bold attempts to grasp the mysterious and picture 
 the unknown. The soul is an entity which baffles their 
 
IMMORTALITY. 195 
 
 pursuit, and escapes their intellects, do what they will ; and 
 the striking phrases into which they coin their speculations 
 are by no means to be taken upon trust. 
 
 The wild notion that the atoms have souls and that 
 their attractions and repulsions are accompanied by feelings 
 of pleasure and displeasure, is amusingly disposed of by 
 Professor Clerk Maxwell, who quietly points out that the 
 molecules like the planets move along with the gait of the 
 blessed gods, rendering to every force precisely that amount 
 of deflexion which is due to it, and keeping therefore a 
 perfectly even temper, untroubled with either love or hate. 
 The corollary to this extravagant theorem proving the 
 soul of man to be the sum total of all the atomic souls com- 
 posing his mortal frame, falls, of course, to the ground along 
 with the theorem itself, for nothing is more certain than 
 thai the ordinary human spirit is sadly innocent of god-like 
 serenity. 
 
 Anaesthetics and madness are, doubtless, evidences that 
 the brain is an engine of thought, and that its proper work- 
 ing is essential to the sanity and vigour of consciousness • 
 but they do not prove that nervous or other matter in a 
 peculiar state is actually thought and feeling. The brain 
 may be a material organ with which the spirit is linked in 
 some occult manner : and when it gets choked with waste 
 or defiled by foreign particles its action is enfeebled until 
 it is cleaned and restored again by the circulation of the 
 blood in sleep. Trance, whether due to anse&thetics or 
 faintness, is a temporary failure of the organ to fulfil 
 its duties, a paralysis of its parts, proceeding, doubtless, 
 from a fouling of its delicate structure by alien atoms, or a 
 deficiency in the fuel it requires. Insanity is obviously the 
 derangement, and death the fatal wreck, of its mechanism. 
 
196 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 It is a fascinating mystery to us where the spirit vanishes 
 to during sleep, or coma, which are a kind of relapsing death. 
 Does it leave the world for a time and return to it with the 
 return of health to the brain, or is the consciousness only 
 latent whilst the brain is faulty ? To all our tests it would 
 seem to have perished, yet we know it to exist, for it comes 
 back again. But can we therefore say the spirit is extinct 
 because in death it returns no more ? Lucretius believed 
 that the mind was made of atoms, smaller, rounder, and 
 smoother than those which made up the bulk of nature, but 
 our finest balances can show no reduction of weight in a 
 body after death. If the soul, therefore, is a substance 
 which forsakes the body after death, its total mass must be 
 extremely small, else we should be able to detect its loss by 
 weighing. If it were immaterial, of course, no scales what- 
 ever could indicate its separation from the body. 
 
 Physiologists assert that every specific thought is at- 
 tended by a specific waste of the tissue of the brain : and 
 that memory is dependent on residual traces of the state 
 in which the brain was when the remembered sensation 
 took place. But is there anything in this inconsistent with 
 the notion that the brain is the physical organ of the 
 spirit ? We think not. The theory that spirit is united to 
 matter by means of a special organ called the brain is a 
 strong one, and all that physiologists can yet tell us may be 
 reconciled with it. Carbon and phosphorus are said to be 
 burned in the brain during consciousness ; and if so, that 
 is so much learned of the process by which soul and matter 
 may interact; but after all it is very little, and, as the acute 
 authors of the Unseen Universe have pointed out, we do 
 not even know that phosphorus and carbon in the brain 
 are in the same state as common phosphorus and carbon. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 197 
 
 The fact is, the mystery of intelligence is as great a 
 puzzle as ever, and the mind in trying to penetrate it finds 
 itself brought face to face with Immensity. The connection 
 between consciousness and the brain is an intimate one, but 
 as yet it is quite beyond our ken, and probably always will 
 be. Years ago. Professor Stokes, in his presidential address 
 to the British Association, at Exeter, delivered himself of 
 the following remarkable words : " Admitting to the full," 
 he said, " as highly probable, though not completely demon- 
 strated, the applicability to living beings of the laws which 
 have been ascertained with reference to dead matter, I feel 
 constrained at the same time to admit the existence of a 
 mysterious something sui generis, which I regard not as 
 balancing or suspending the ordinary physical laws, but as 
 working with them, and through them, to the attainment 
 of a designed end. What this something, which we call 
 life may be is a profound mystery. . . . 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." 
 Dr. Tyndall has also admitted "that the passage from 
 the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of con- 
 sciousness is unattainable," and Professor Clerk Maxwell 
 records his belief that "no new discoveries can make the 
 argument against the personal existence of man after death 
 any stronger than it has appeared to be ever since men began 
 to die, and no language can express it more forcibly than 
 the words of the Psalmist: 'His breath goeth forth, he 
 returneth to the earth: in that very day his thoughts perish.' 
 Physiology may supply a continually increasing number 
 of illustrations of the dependence of our actions, mental as 
 
198 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 well as bodily, on the condition of our material organs, but 
 none of these can render any more certain those facts about 
 death which our earliest ancestors knew as well as our 
 latest posterity can ever learn them. . . . The progress of 
 science, as far as we have been able to follow it, has added 
 nothing of importance to what has always been known 
 about the physical consequences of death, but has rather 
 tended to deepen the distinction between the visible part, 
 which perishes before our eyes, and that which we are 
 ourselves, and to show that this personality with respect to 
 its nature as well as to its destiny lies quite beyond the 
 range of science." 
 
 Lastly, Dr. Allman, the president of the British Asso- 
 ciation for the time being, ended his discourse at Sheffield, 
 last year, with the following memorable words : " When 
 a thought passes through the mind, it is associated, as 
 we have now abundant reason for believing, with some 
 change in the protoplasm of the cerebral cells. Are we, 
 therefore, justified in regarding thought as a property of 
 the protoplasm of these cells, in the sense in which we 
 regard muscular contraction as a property residing in 
 something far different, but which may yet need for its 
 manifestation the activity of cerebral protoplasm ? If we 
 could see any analogy between thought and any one of 
 the admitted phenomena of matter, we should be bound to 
 accept the first of these conclusions as the simplest, and as 
 affording a hypothesis most in accordance with the compro- 
 hensiv^eness of natural laws : but between thought and the 
 physical phenomena of matter there is not only no analogy, 
 but there is no conceivable analogy : and the obvious and 
 continuous path which we have hitherto followed up in our 
 reasonings from the phenomena of lifeless matter through 
 
IMMOETALITY. 199 
 
 those of living matter, here comes suddenly to an end. The 
 chasm between unconscious life and thought is deep and 
 impassable, and nO transitional phenomena can be found by 
 which, as by a bridge, we may span it over ; for even from 
 irritability, to which, on a superficial view, consciousness 
 may seem related, it is as absolutely distinct as it is from 
 any of the ordinary phenomena of matter. . . . 
 
 "That consciousness is never manifested except in the 
 presence of cerebral matter or of something like it, there 
 cannot be a question ; but this is a very different thing 
 from its being a property of such matter in the sense 
 in which polarity is a property of the magnet, or irrita- 
 bility of protoplasm. The generation of the rays which lie 
 invisible beyond the violet in the spectrum of the sun 
 cannot be regarded as a property of the medium which by 
 changing their refrangibility can alone render them appa- 
 rent. 
 
 "I know that there is a special charm in those broad 
 generalizations which would refer many very different 
 phenomena to a common source. But in this very charm 
 there is undoubtedly a danger, and we must be all the more 
 careful lest it should exert an influence in arresting the 
 progress of truth, just as at an earlier period traditional 
 beliefs exerted an authority from which the mind but 
 slowly and with difficulty succeeded in emancipating itself. 
 
 "But have we, it may be asked, made in all this one step 
 forward to an explanation of the phenomena of conscious- 
 ness or the discovery of its source ? Assuredly not. The 
 power of conceiving of a substance different from that of 
 matter is still beyond the limits of human intelligence, and 
 the physical or objective conditions which are the concomi- 
 tants of thought are the only ones of which it is possible 
 
200 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 to know anything, and the only ones whose study is of 
 value. 
 
 " We are not, however, on that account forced to the 
 conclusion that there is nothing in the universe but matter 
 and force. The simplest physical law is absolutely incon- 
 ceivable by the highest of the brutes, and no one would be 
 justified in assuming that man had already attained the 
 limit of his powers. Whatever may be that mysterious 
 bond which connects organization with psychical endow- 
 ments, the one grand fact — a fact of inestimable importance 
 — stands out clear and freed from all obscurity and doubt, 
 that from the first dawn of intelligence there is with every 
 advance in organization a corresponding advance in mind. 
 Mind as well as body is thus travelling onwards through 
 higher and still higher phases ; the great law of Evolution 
 is shaping the destiny of our race; and though now we 
 may at most but indicate some weak point in the general- 
 ization which would refer consciousness as well as life to a 
 common material source, who can say that in the far ofi" 
 future there may not yet be evolved other and higher 
 faculties from which light may stream in upon the dark- 
 ness, and reveal to man the great mystery of Thought ? " 
 
 Although Dr. Allman agrees with the fore-quoted writers 
 as to the incapacity of man as at present constituted to 
 reveal the secret of consciousness, he does not therefore 
 despair of ultimate success. As a naturalist, he looks for- 
 ward to the development of higher powers in our posterit}^ 
 by the operation of the law of evolution; but it is well 
 to remember what physical astronomy teaches us about the 
 maturity and decay of systems; that our planet is now 
 apparently in its prime, and that man is probably its 
 culminating inhabitant. The faculties he has may be 
 
IMMORTALITY. 201 
 
 improved in the remote future, but it is extremely doubtful 
 whether they will ever be succeeded by those of another 
 kind : and only those of another kind would enable him 
 to discover how it is that matter occasions intelligence. 
 
 It is reassuring to learn from such high and unbiassed 
 authorities that science cannot as yet hinder the free exer- 
 cise of faith in a future state. For aught wo know to the 
 contrary, the brain may be a focus between the material 
 and the spiritual universe, by the form, texture, and health 
 of which the mind is limited. Perhaps at birth, " & soul 
 is drawn from out the vast," to which it returns again when 
 the conditions rendering its mortal presence on earth are 
 no longer possible. The expansion and contraction of 
 metals, electric and magnetic repulsions, muscular irrita- 
 bility, are material effects which are not due solely to the 
 bodies which are seen, but to the unseen ether which 
 permeates them, like a finer universe within the grosser. 
 Even so it may be that a spirit world lies within the ether 
 world. 
 
 Soon after the invention of the phonograph by Mr. 
 Edison the celebrated electrician, Dr. Siemens suggested 
 that the brain might act in a somewhat similar manner. 
 It is well known that in the phonograph the vibrations 
 of speech are made to record themselves by driving a metal 
 probe against a sheet of tin foil wrapped round a revolving 
 barrel ; and that by properly causing the probe to retrace 
 its steps while the barrel is turned as before, the speech 
 can be reproduced aloud from the inanimate register, almost 
 as well as if it came from the living lips. Dr. Siemens' 
 suggestion is mainly valuable as a mechanical analogy ; but 
 it serves to show how marvellous a thing the human brain 
 is. In this mysterious apparatus are garnered up not only 
 
202 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 sounds, but sensations of all kinds, pictures of the entire 
 scope of visible nature, as well as ideas and feelings. What 
 is the phonograph to such a splendid engine as this ? Yet 
 people wonder more at a phonograph than at their own 
 brains, and there are plenty of men who would think it 
 a sacrilege to injure the former; but at the same time 
 would have very few scruples about damaging the latter ! 
 
 The authors of the Unseen Universe have founded a 
 cogent argument for immortality on the principle of con- 
 tinuity, which is the guide to all modern scientific advance. 
 They reject the notion of the soul's extinction on the death 
 of the body as a breach of continuity, and hold the opinion 
 that it has simply migrated to another sphere. As one of 
 the results of their inquiry, they are led by strict reasoning 
 on purely scientific ground to the probable conclusion that 
 " a life for the unseen, through the unseen, is to be regarded 
 as the only perfect life." * 
 
 It may, however, be objected to this argument that the 
 continuity of things is not broken by the extinction of 
 the soul. The continuity of nature is not broken by the 
 disintegration of material forms, because, although the par- 
 ticular forms have perished, their ruin is not lost but 
 scattered; and in the same way it may be said that the 
 elements of consciousness are only dispersed and not 
 annihilated by death. 
 
 It is apparently a rude waste of power to bring to 
 sudden end a wonderful creation like the soul, very often 
 when it has just reached its full maturity; but the 
 materialist would say that there is no real waste either 
 of matter or force, because the natural energies which 
 
 * See Addison on the perpetual progress of the soul towards perfection, 
 as an argument for immortality, Spectator, No. 111. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 203 
 
 combined to form the living soul are simply conserved for 
 other purposes. 
 
 The weak part of this defence, however, consists in the 
 assumption that the soul is a mere combination of physical 
 forces ; since, as we have seen, it is agreed by high autho- 
 rities to be something very different, we cannot tell what. 
 Though the material fabric of the mind may crumble into 
 dust, it is unthinkable that thought will therefore fall away 
 from thought. The brain is a congeries of separate atoms, 
 but the soul appears to be an indissoluble unity : the renewal 
 of atoms constantly taking place in it does not seem to 
 change the personality. Moreover, our very faith in the 
 existence of a Supreme Spirit which designed and con- 
 structed nature should help us to believe more implicitly 
 that mind can exist apart from matter, for we never think 
 of demanding a brain and molecular motions for the 
 operation of the Divine inteUigence. 
 
 An obvious reason why the future of our soul has been 
 left a mystery, is that we should not be too hasty in leaving 
 this world. Did we know for certain what would befall 
 us after death, we should not be disposed to bear " those 
 ills we have " so patiently. The Hereafter is therefore a 
 matter of faith, and not of knowledge. The lower animals 
 are ignorant that death awaits them ; but men are allowed 
 to know of it, because they are perriiitted the hope of a 
 life beyond the grave. The sceptic might reply that our 
 common sense informs us of the fact of death, and our 
 imagination escapes from the horror of it by conceiving 
 the hope of immortality; but the human longing for 
 eternity and the gospel of the prophets are too important 
 to be explained away so easily. There is an inherent 
 incapacity in man to feel that his intelligence can die, and 
 
204 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 he acts as if his life were an eternal one. More than this, 
 he has a distinct craving to be united to his Creator and 
 the spirits of the good in heaven. If his life is to be 
 entirely confined to this little earth, it is very strange he 
 was endowed with the religious faculty and the perception 
 of the infinite, or that any prophets were sent to keep 
 the faculty alive and warn him of his destiny. 
 
 Manifestations of spiritualism so-called are involved in 
 too much uncertainty and mixed up with too much 
 charlatanry to be relied upon in proof of a future state 
 of existence, as one would rely on the evidence of an exact 
 science. Owing to repeated and signal failure of the alleged 
 phenomena in their presence, many true men of science 
 have become sceptical of the whole subject and treated it 
 with scorn. But its votaries have sought to explain these 
 failures by the curious fact that manifestations will not 
 invariably take place, especially if there be any doubting 
 or hostile minds in the circle of witnesses. 
 
 This element of caprice is not to be met with among the 
 physical sciences, and hence the student of matter is apt to 
 reject the excuse as a hollow one ; but it may be true for all 
 that. Spiritualism should be studied in the same unbiassed 
 frame of mind which is brought to bear on chemistry or 
 physiology ; and if an unwonted effect is noticed, it ought 
 rather to be received with interest as a possible clue to the 
 solution of a mystery, than ridiculed as a sign of fraud. 
 Important sciences have sprung from smaller beginnings 
 than the elements of spiritualism. Electricity took its rise 
 from the fact observed by Thales of Miletus (500 B.C.) that 
 rubbed amber attracted shreds and dust; and stellar as- 
 tronomy, from Newton's prism, which broke up the sun- 
 light. Mesmerism is an undoubted phenomenon which is 
 
IMMORTALITY. 205 
 
 not yet clearly explained ; and the reputed spiritualistic 
 results are, perhaps, of an allied nature. Mediums may 
 be persons endowed with a peculiar power of revealing 
 spiritual presences, just as there are certain individuals 
 who have a mysterious sense of electricity in the air. In 
 any case, it is unscientific to turn away from spiritualism 
 as a degrading superstition without having thoroughly 
 investigated these results. There would seem to be ample 
 testimony to spectral effects; and whether they be due to 
 subjective hallucination or objective apparitions, is surely 
 a matter of the most serious investigation. In spiritualism 
 we may be on the threshold of a new and momentous 
 science, giving us some insight into another sphere, or at 
 least into the constitution of the mind. 
 
 We have now seen that positive science cannot, at least 
 as yet, disprove the immortality of the soul. For all that 
 she can say to the contrary, the soul may continue to 
 exist personally in another sphere, into which it is born 
 either by a pre-arranged order or by special grace of God. 
 
 It is no part of our plan to discuss at length the nature 
 of a future state. But we may briefly review the various 
 ideas which have been held at divers times in the world's 
 history by different races. Transmigration of the souls 
 of men to other bodies on the world has been, to a small 
 extent, believed in. Passage of the soul to a universe 
 intimately connected with this, or to one quite distinct from 
 this, has, on the other hand, been widely accepted. A future 
 state, intimately connected with the present universe, is 
 a notion which agrees best with the doctrine of continuity. 
 In such a case earthly memories might not be wholly 
 useless in the other world, and the suggestion of the authors 
 of the Unseen Universe that every thought may stamp its 
 
2CG THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 duplicate on the invisible, so as to form our future being, 
 may not be without meaning. It should be remembered, 
 moreover, that our personality at any moment is something 
 distinct either from our past or future, though shaped by 
 our past ; and, though our memory would be in great part 
 useless in a totally new sphere, since it relates chiefly to 
 the things of this earth, our personality, pure and simple, 
 might be serviceable in a sphere wholly apart from this one. 
 
 Among ancient peoples the Indo-German race, some 
 fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, believed 
 in a personal immortality; and the cry of sacred poets 
 in the Ri^-Veda was for a seat "where there is eternal 
 light, in the world where the sun is placed, in that 
 immortal, imperishable world, place me, O Soma. Where 
 King Vaivasvata reigns, where the secret place of heaven 
 is, where those mighty waters are, there make me im- 
 mortal. Where there is happiness and delight, where joy 
 and pleasure reside, where the desires of our desires are 
 attained, there make me immortal." * Reference is also 
 made in the Rig-Veda to a hell-pit, and the terrible dog of 
 Yama, the king of the departed. 
 
 To the Brahman forest sages death simply meant the 
 return of the Atman, or subjective self within a man, to 
 the true Brahman, or objective self, from which it had been 
 estranged for a time by birth and life. 
 
 Zoroaster, who reformed the idolatry into which Brah- 
 mauism fell, taught that there was a god (Ormuzd) and 
 a devil (Ahriman), a heaven where the good were rewarded 
 according to their merits, and a hell for infidels. 
 
 Buddha the Enlightened, who reformed the social 
 tyranny ot the priesthood which had corrupted Brah- 
 * Chips from a Oerman Workshop. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 207 
 
 manism, taught that all we see is vanity and a dream, 
 and that the highest wisdom consists in knowing this and 
 desiring to be freed from nature, with its penalties of birth, 
 decay, and death, and to enter into Nirwana, the state of 
 everlasting peace. 
 
 The Egyptian priests believed in one supreme God, 
 whom they did not dare to name from very reverence ; but 
 the people worshipped numerous gods, and even sacred 
 animals, such as the bull and ibis, emblematic of the Divine 
 attributes. They held the soul to be a Divine emanation, 
 which reunited itself to the Deity, if pure enough, but 
 otherwise passed into the bodies of animals until it became 
 pure. To them death and dissolution was only a new birth, 
 and their elaborate tombs and funeral rites attest their 
 strong belief in immortality. Anubis, like the Mercury of 
 the Greeks, ushered souls into the land of the Amenti, of 
 the Hereafter, where they were tried and judged by Osiris in 
 presence of forty-two accusing spirits, supposed to represent 
 the forty-two crimes from which a spirit should be free. 
 
 The Hebrews, at least after their deliverance by Moses 
 from the bondage of the Egyptians, believed in one God, 
 and apparently in an unseen world, where good and evil 
 spirits, or angels, dwelt. There is, however, very little in 
 the Old Testament to favour any belief in man's immor- 
 tality, but there are a few passages indicating something 
 of the kind. Perhaps, as Dean Stanley has suggested, this 
 poverty of allusion to the subject was due to the over- 
 shadowing doctrine of the omnipresence of the living God. 
 
 Like the Egyptians, from whom their faith may have 
 been derived, the Greeks and Romans believed in an Ely- 
 sium, or state of bliss, where the souls of the good were 
 conveyed, and a Tartarus, or state of misery, to which the 
 
208 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 souls of the bad were consigned. But, on the whole, their 
 conception of Hades, or the other world, appears to have 
 been vague and shadowy. To Homer it was a gloomy 
 reign, where dismal ghosts flitted in eternal sadness. 
 
 The Druids appear to have believed in the transmigration 
 of souls, and the Goths in a Valhalla for the souls of heroes 
 slain in battle. 
 
 Of course there were sceptics and dissenters among all 
 these nations, and the exact form of the public faith changed, 
 to some extent, in course of ages; but the belief in a 
 Divinity and some future state, either ethereal or bodily, 
 was entertained by them all. 
 
 At length our Saviour came into the world, and his 
 apostles taught the resurrection of the spiritual body "to a 
 future state of reward and punishment, according to the 
 works done in the flesh. " And I saw the dead, small and 
 great, stand before God ; and the books were opened : and 
 another book was opened which is the book of life ; and the 
 dead were judged out of those things which were written 
 in the books according to their works." * 
 
 As we have previously written, the last judgment here 
 prefigured can only seem just to us on the assumption that 
 we are what we feel ourselves to be, namely, free moral 
 agents. If men are only complex automata, they cannot 
 justly be condemned to sufffer by their Creator for acting 
 out their nature. As well inflict torture on a timepiece, 
 if it were possible, for telling the hours and minutes badly 
 after it has been wound up. To set the machine aside if it 
 proved faulty might be right enough, but to punish it for 
 what it could not help would be sheer cruelty. If, however, 
 the Creator has endowed man with a spark of His own 
 
 * Rev. XX. 12. 
 
IMMORTALITY. ^ 209 
 
 Divine intelligence, and given him a certain freedom of 
 action, a future state of reward and punishment would be a 
 reasonable sequel to the present life. 
 
 The old notion of a resurrection of the material body 
 has been again and again falsified by the actual fact that 
 the remains of one creature enter into the living flesh of 
 another; so that at the last day there would be atoms 
 whose proper place might be in several distinct bodies. It 
 is a notion which could only have arisen from ignorance 
 of the words of St. Paul : " Behold, I shew you a mystery : 
 We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a 
 moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : 
 for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised 
 incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this cor- 
 ruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must 
 put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have 
 put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 
 immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that 
 is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, 
 where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? " * 
 
 What time the last day may be expected is beyond the 
 power of science to foretell; but if the ordinary course 
 of nature holds, and if no unforeseen catastrophe, such as 
 the advent of a comet into collision with the world, or near 
 enough to the solar system to disturb the existing balance 
 of the planets and their luminary, occurs, we may be sure 
 that the world has a long career of several million years 
 before her ere the sun burns down too low to destroy human 
 life, or ere she crashes headlong into the sun. It is curious 
 to find the death of Nature foreshadowed in old mythologies 
 as well as prophesied in the New Testament. In the Norse 
 
 * 1 Cor. XV. 51-57. 
 
 P 
 
210 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Edda of the Twilight of the Gods we are told that after 
 the final universal struggle and battle of the gods and 
 jotuns, the whole created world would be swallowed up 
 in darkness, and give place to a new and better land.* 
 Mahomet also taught that when Allah withdrew his hand 
 from the world the mountains would dissolve like mists, 
 the earth whirl into wreck, and disappear in the inane. 
 The immortal passage which Shakespeare puts into the 
 mouth of mediaeval Prospero is too well known to be 
 repeated here; but it grandly expresses the idea of the 
 modern materialist, who anticipates the time when he and 
 all that is shall vanish in the infinite azure. 
 
 The sublime idea entertained by men during all historic 
 aofes, that the soul will survive the ruin of the visible uni- 
 verse, and be rewarded according to its deserts in a future 
 state of existence, has probably elevated the conduct and 
 promoted the good of the human race more than any other 
 conception. There are some philosophers who doubt, how- 
 ever, if the decay of this ancient faith would ever weaken 
 our morality, and point to the Jews as a triumphant 
 example of a moral nation which does not appear to have 
 been sustained by any " clutching other- worldliness," as it 
 is called. But it should be remembered that the Jews had 
 a very good substitute in a righteous " this- worldliness." 
 
 * The following lines are from Ossian's address to the sun, as rendered 
 by Lord Byron : — 
 
 "Whether at morn, in lucid lustre gay. 
 On eastern clouds thy yellow tresses play, 
 Or else at eve, in radiant glory drest, 
 Thou tremblest at the portals of the west, 
 I see no more ! But thou mayst fail at length, 
 Like Ossian lose thy beauty and thy strength. 
 Like him but for a season in thy sphere 
 To shine with splendour— then to disappear. 
 
IMMOETALITY. 211 
 
 They believed that a just and omnipresent God would 
 recompense them in this life for their good works, a faith 
 surely every bit as " greedy " as that attributed to Christians, 
 for it asks no visionary reward in the next world, but a 
 substantial one in this. The world at large, seeing that 
 Providence does not dispense with poetical justice in this 
 life, can hardly be blamed for expecting a better state of 
 things in the next. 
 
 Professor Tyndall, again, declares that there are indi- 
 viduals who lead very noble lives without any hope of im- 
 mortality whatever : some of his best friends let the belief in 
 it alone, and derive neither stimulus nor inspiration from it. 
 But if these persons really let this belief alone, and it is not 
 even unconsciously present to them, may the cause of their 
 righteousness not spring from the inheritance of a noble 
 nature, which is in part the fruit of that very creed which 
 they ignore ? Perhaps, there are characters of high intrinsic 
 worth who do not require such a hope or restraint to keep 
 them from vice and littleness : but these noble pagans 
 are unfortunately very rare. The great mass of mankind 
 are neither stoics nor epicureans, but just somewhere 
 between ; and we fear that until the race is greatly im- 
 proved it will not be strong enough to renounce its hope 
 of heaven and fear of hell. 
 
 " I will work faithfully and diligently for the sake of 
 God," says a young man to himself: " I will earn His divine 
 approval." And not even success in the aspiring struggle 
 after wealth or fame can content the heart like this thought. 
 Riches and reputation and power may be found to be 
 empty baubles when they are gained. The striving for 
 them is a feverish craving of the spirit which ends in dull 
 satiety or sordid exhaustion. A man may have the best 
 
212 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OI>D FAITH. 
 
 the world can give, but how little it is after all ! One does 
 not need to live long to find out that the soul's desire is for 
 things of a higher kind than the earth can yield. There 
 is a marked disproportion between our real experience and 
 what we long for. We soon learn to gauge the actual life, 
 and as we feel its shortcomings, we find in our hearts a love 
 for a nobler and a better life. The sense that our labours 
 are agreeable to God is a far happier reward than mere 
 worldly success. 
 
 But what does this happy feeling resolve itself into 
 when it is analyzed ? That the young man anticipates a 
 day when he will appear before his Maker, and have the 
 inexpressible joy of being received with the words, "Well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant." This is the thought 
 which really kindles his soul, and renders him happy in 
 toil and patient in adversity. 
 
 But if the faith in a future state be utterly quenched out 
 of his heart ; if he believes that death means extinction ; that 
 all he can expect is what befalls him in this life ; that the 
 Supreme Being he is asked to love and righteously obey, often 
 to his own pain, makes no acknowledgment of his efforts, 
 takes no pity on his fate, and is even more impassive than 
 the Sphinx, because He is a blank or a delusion, — then what 
 will keep him from extracting as much earthly pleasure 
 as he can from life, and sinking into selfish sensuality and 
 despotism ? The one great and tempting prize would be 
 the fruits of this world. Poverty, the need of honest labour 
 to earn his bread, the fear of going down in the world, and 
 other considerations of prudence might restrain him for 
 a while from seeking his own pleasure at the cost of sin. 
 But when his position was secured from want and shame, 
 what, we ask again, would restrain him from a career of 
 
IMMORTALITY. 213 
 
 self-indulgence in this life, if the belief in a future state 
 is taken from him, and he knows that there is nothing after 
 death, no judgment he may undergo, no punishment he 
 may incur ? 
 
 On the other hand, there is an infinite power for good 
 in the belief in heaven. It is a glorious and happy thought 
 to think that all the bliss we may not hope to realize on 
 earth, is yet in store for us in heaven. Chords of our nature, 
 touched at odd times amidst the ordinary business of life, 
 reveal in us possibilities of a Divine emotion and happiness, 
 and we need not regret the " vesture of decay " which grossly 
 hems us in, nor the prosaic drudgeries which so much 
 engage us here, if we are led to believe that all these half- 
 tasted joys will yet be fully ours in the world to come. 
 
 We are nobly elated, too, at the prospect of being 
 received into the everlasting fellowship of the good and 
 great, the idols of the imagination, St. Paul, Homer, Shake- 
 speare, Newton, Hypatia, or Raphael, as well as into 
 the kindly circle of the friends who went before. Above 
 all, the sublime felicity is held out to us of resting on the 
 bosom of Jesus. In the full faith of this great destiny, 
 therefore, is it likely that we will readily do any act to 
 forfeit it, and lightly yield to a degrading sin or vice ? 
 
214 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REVELATION. 
 
 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. — Psalm 
 cxix. 105. 
 
 Such a man ia what we call an original man : he comes to us at first- 
 hand. A messenger he, sent from the Infinite Unknown with tidings for us. 
 We may call him Poet, Prophet, God : — in one way or other we feel that the 
 words he utters are as no other man's words. Direct from the Inner 
 Fact of things ; — he lives and has to hve in daily communion with that. 
 Hearsays cannot hide it from him : he is blind, homeless, miserable, following 
 hearsays ; it glares in upon him. Really his utterances, are they not a kind 
 of " revelation :" — what we must call such for want of some other name ? 
 It is from the heart of the world that he comes ; he is a portion of the 
 primal reality of things. God has made many revelations ; but this man 
 too (the prophet) , has not God made him, the latest and newest of all ? " The 
 inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." We must listen before 
 all to him. — Caelyle, Heroes and Hero-worshippers. 
 
 To an old-fashioned Christian the Divine inspiration of 
 the Holy Scriptures is a plain and simple fact, which cannot 
 be put down. He firmly believes that the Lord breathed 
 his message into the minds of certain men, called prophets, 
 in order that they might deliver it to the world from Him. 
 The Bible is the record of these commands, and therefore 
 they revere it as the veritable Word of God. It is a revela- 
 tion from the unknown Creator to His intelligent creatures, 
 and every word of it is to be taken as the absolute Truth. 
 
 In these latter days of evolution and the nebular theory, 
 however, this happy creed has suffered many a rude shock ; 
 
KEVELATION. 215 
 
 and thousands who were taught to believe it in their youth, 
 feel themselves compelled to give it up in their maturity. 
 Their confidence being shaken in direct verbal revelation, 
 they are apt to lose faith in all spiritual teaching soever, 
 and to regard every religion as a mere human invention. 
 
 For if all that exists on the earth now or has existed in 
 the past, all kinds and conditions of life, all cities and 
 societies, all arts and learning, all thoughts and feelings were 
 once latent in the embryonic nebula of our planet millions 
 of years ago, and have been continuously developed from it 
 by unalterable laws operating according to the mode or 
 process which we term evolution, it would seem to follow 
 that a direct revelation from God cannot have taken place. 
 Such an act on the part of God would appear to be an 
 unnecessary interference ; and there is either no such thing 
 as a Divine revelation from Him at all, or it is an indirect 
 revelation from the beginning, when He ordered the pregnant 
 elements into their places, and constructed the germ of the 
 world. 
 
 Now, we know that every great man of genius is, in some 
 sort, a revelation to us. He is an embodied principle, a law 
 incarnate, the pioneer and guide of a fresh order of things ; 
 himself a new phenomenon, inasmuch as we have not seen 
 his like before. He reveals truths to us which, to all 
 appearance, we cannot otherwise discover at the time ; and 
 if he does not come too early, he will be recognized as one 
 of the teachers of his age. The progress of mankind takes 
 place through the force of his example ; and just as, in the 
 history of some individual mind, the idea which may dawn 
 upon it in some rare exalted moment is afterwards made 
 the standard of ordinary conduct, so the precept first 
 enunciated by a genius becomes the rule of life for common 
 men. 
 
216 THE NEW TEUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Every department of higher mental work has its great 
 masters, whose authority to teach comes from Nature herself, 
 and whose power consists in an inborn sense rather than an 
 acquired aptitude. The man of science is gifted with an 
 intellectual insight into the mechanism of the universe, 
 and an inventive genius for utilizing its material energy. The 
 Musician fills the world with new harmonies ; the Painter 
 with ideal scenes ; and the Poet or Maker helps to decorate 
 life with his fancies, and to reveal the beauty of the world. 
 The Moralist again, is one who conceives in his imagination 
 a nobler ideal than his fellows, and is impelled to furnish 
 them a purer mode of living. 
 
 All these different types of teachers and benefactors of 
 their species deal, however, with the present life and tem- 
 poral things. They minister to our earthly welfare and 
 enjoyment, by increasing our material comfort and good 
 conduct, elevating our ideas, delighting our imaginations, 
 and purifying our tastes. But there is another class, whose 
 mission it is to tell us of a future state of being, and bring 
 us tidings of the things which are invisible and eternal. 
 These are the men we term Prophets, Men of God, and 
 Saviours of their kind. 
 
 Every true man of genius is organically formed for a par- 
 ticular work, and feels that he has a special vocation for it. 
 The poet derives his privilege to sing from Nature herself, 
 or (as the ancients figured it) his inspiration from the nine 
 muses. The prophet, on the other hand, who deals with the 
 mysteries of the Divinity, and ministers not to sense and 
 reason, but to faith, is he not the appointed mouthpiece of the 
 Almighty ? From whence does his inspiration come if not 
 from God ? 
 
 Isolated as man is on the earth, and surrounded b}- the 
 
REVELATION. 217 
 
 Infinite, a desire has sprung up in his heart for some com- 
 munication with the unseen world, which he has come to 
 believe in. The lower animals live only in relation to 
 material nature. They have no internal communion with 
 the ideal. They hunger for food, and food is to be had for 
 the seeking — herbage, fruit, or flesh. They partake of it to 
 their satisfaction, and are sensible of no gratitude for it. 
 But man feels grateful in his heart for the blessings of pro- 
 vidence, and would fain return thanks to some Unknown 
 Being, to whose bounty he is sensible that he owes his 
 happiness. He craves more than bread alone ; and yearns 
 for spiritual help and guidance — food for the soul. Shall 
 there be nothing to satisfy these higher needs ? Shall the 
 physical world be self-compensating, and not the spiritual ? 
 Shall his body be environed with all the nourishment it 
 requires to maintain it in health and vigour, free from pain, 
 and even in joy, while the diviner part of him, the soul, 
 is left to }>ine in want, and suffer in neglect ? What are the 
 aches of the frame to the despair and doubts of the spirit? 
 The highest and greatest portion of human life is something 
 which the lower animals entirely lack, and has its true 
 home, not in visible matter, but in invisible consciousness. 
 We feel that there is a miiverse for thought and feeling to 
 dwell in too ; we feel it instinctively, although we cannot 
 prove it. " The things which are seen are temporal ; but 
 the things which are unseen are eternal." God's work 
 would seem to be incomplete without such a home for the 
 aspirations of the soul ; there would be an unfinished blank 
 left in creation if man's religious faculty existed without 
 its true sustenance. 
 
 To feed this craving for spiritual manna, for knowledge 
 of Himself and of His will with respect to man, the Creator 
 
218 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 has, it appears, provided the order of inspired prophets. 
 His plan is evidently to render the world as self-suflBcing 
 as possible ; and hence the natural course of any inspiration 
 from Him would be tlirough man who is already formed 
 to s]jeal\ God's inspiration would not dwell in rocks and 
 rivers, or in atoms either, but in the human soul. He has 
 no need to give the earth and floods a tongue. The only 
 question is whether these human oracles of the Deity are 
 directly inspired by the words which proceed out of His 
 mouth, or whether their powers come by means of heredity 
 and development, like those of other men of genius. 
 
 We have already pointed out that there is an important 
 distinction between men of genius and prophets, inasmuch 
 as the latter come to tell us of things altogether beyond 
 this world, and incapable of proof. They appeal entirely to 
 our faith, and not to reason, and hence their function is one 
 of pure revelation. We require no revelation from God on 
 matters of science, for by exercising the ordinary abilities 
 He has given us, we can discover the laws of nature for 
 ourselves ; but if we are to know the truth about the unseen 
 world, a revelation from Him is absolutely necessary. The 
 peculiar and momentous calling of the prophet is thus 
 exalted above all other human duties. If we admire the 
 poet, we must revere the prophet. 
 
 Certain men of science have of late shown a disposition 
 to arrogate to themselves the highest place as teachers of 
 their fellowmen. But this is a pernicious error. Men of 
 science, it is true, improve our mechanical aids, develop 
 the resources of the planet, and so pave the way for a larger 
 population. They may make the numbers of a nation ; but 
 it is the moralist or the prophet who determines whether it 
 shall be a good nation or a bad one. A patent spinning-jenny 
 
IMMORTALITY. 219 
 
 may help to put a fine coat on a man's back, but it will not 
 make him any nobler within. 
 
 Even in an economical sense, the prophet is of infinite 
 value compared to the man of science, or the poet either, for 
 his business is to improve the character of man, the highest 
 and most valuable mechanism of all, the tool from which all 
 other tools proceed. He implants noble thoughts, lofty 
 ideals, and a spirit of holiness into the human heart, and 
 fosters its capacities for vii'tue. The prophet's task is to 
 answer the questions which men are ever vainly asking 
 themselves, as to their nature, whereabouts, and destiny, — 
 What am I. ? Where am I ? What is life ? What is death ? 
 What am I to believe ? What am I to do ? — and to make men 
 render unto God the things that are rightfully His. Without 
 them men would grope in spiritual darkness, and be per- 
 plexed with never-ending doubts. "All Scripture," says 
 St. Paul, " is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 
 for doctrine, for correction, and for instruction in right- 
 eousness." 
 
 All branches of mankind have had their prophets, even 
 the North American Indians had their Hiawatha, who was 
 sent by the Great Spirit to teach them peace and brother- 
 hood ; but none has produced so many prophets as the 
 Semitic race, especially the tribes of Israel, which, for this 
 reason, are justly called the "chosen people." The Greeks 
 have enriched the world with sculptors ; the Italians, with 
 painters ; the Germans, with musicians ; the English, with 
 moralists, and so on : but it was the high destiny of the Jews 
 to furnish it with prophets and messengers from God. 
 
 The works of these Hebrew prophets are contained 
 in the Bible, beside other historical matter. They are 
 spread over a period of IGOO years, which may reasonably 
 
220 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 be regarded as the great era of Inspiration, culminating 
 in the advent of Christ, the long-expected Messiah. 
 
 He who believes in spiritual response to prayer need 
 have little difficulty in accepting also the inspiration of the 
 prophets as a direct effluence from God ; fur if God speaks 
 at first hand to the soul of every man who sincerely asks 
 Him, there is no natural reason why He should not breathe 
 His thoughts into the minds of certain men peculiarly 
 organized, whom He has selected for the purpose. Although 
 of rarer occurrence and more exalted power, prophecy, 
 either by means of visions or otherwise, would not there- 
 fore differ from Divine response to prayer in its real 
 essence, and could not be considered as something more 
 miraculous. Both would imply the direct action of the 
 Holy Spirit on the human soul ; and both are rendered 
 reasonable if we admit the existence of free-will. 
 
 Nor is there anything in this view, as far as we can see, 
 which the moderate evolutionist can object to, for as we 
 have pointed out in discussing the efficacy of prayer, the 
 Holy Ghost may interact with the human mind in such 
 a way as not to confound its understanding. Thus the 
 Creator might be ever revealing Himself to men, through 
 nature, without producing what we should recognize as an 
 interference in her mode of working. 
 
 Scholars tell us that there is internal evidence in 
 the Bible disproving its verbal inspiration. Different 
 versions have different wording, and it is not quite satis- 
 factory to explain this fact by saying that mistakes have 
 crept in through copying; for if the original version was 
 verbally inspired by God, it is to be expected that He would 
 keep it pure. 
 
 A Divine influence on the human spirit such as we have 
 
REYET.ATION. 221 
 
 described need not, of course, preclude mere errors of form 
 which are no longer of any consequence, since the appointed 
 prophet might be left to interpret and express the inspira- 
 tion in his own way, which would be a way capable of 
 being understood by the unenlightened people he addressed. 
 Words are only symbols after all, and change their sig- 
 nificance as time goes on although the truth they body 
 forth remains the same. The expression which is true for 
 one age requires a fresh interpretation for succeeding ages, 
 and if God speaks to men at all it must be in language they 
 can understand at the time. Indeed, they can only under- 
 stand that part of His addi'ess which they are capable of 
 understanding-. 
 
 We do not maintain, however, that a miraculous in- 
 spiration of this kind is absolutely necessary ; and are willing 
 to accept a revelation produced by means of evolution 
 without miraculous intervention. Nor do we think it any 
 argument against the evolutionary inspiration, to say that 
 Christ and the Apostles firmly believed in the direct in- 
 spu-ation of the Bible, because they quoted passages from it, 
 and discussed them. This fact, in strictness, only proves 
 that Christ firmly believed the prophets to have been 
 inspired of God, and does not at all imply the method of 
 their inspiration. 
 
 There is a growing disposition amongst men of science, 
 and even divines, to regard the Bible as a record of pro- 
 gressive revelation, a collection of spiritual fossils, so to 
 speak, illustrating the evolution of religion. As such it will 
 doubtless be marred by trifling errors, just as organisms 
 are found to exhibit trifling defects and rudimentary organs, 
 or as the shining disk of the sun is known to be blemished 
 with spots. The Bible should, according to this view, be 
 
222 THE NEW TIIUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 taken as a whole and not in detail, in the spirit not in the 
 letter, and then it will be seen in all its true worth and 
 beauty. 
 
 The utter materialist, who holds with the nebular theory, 
 is apt to deny the Divine source of revelation altogether. 
 Believing, as he does, that the prophets were once imprisoned 
 in the flames of chaos along with all other products of the 
 earth, spars, ores, and organisms, he attributes their origin 
 as well as crystals, plants, and animals, to the inherent 
 potency, the loves and hates, of atoms. And if we ask him 
 who impressed that mystic "potency," that inaccountable 
 caprice, on the elements, he is dumb himself, and, what is 
 still worse, will not allow any other person to explain. 
 
 Now, even if what he says be true, and the primal 
 nebula did contain the prophets, we might still believe that 
 the Creator, in the beginning, disposed the atoms in such 
 a way that as they developed by natural law, and of 
 necessity, the works which we call inspired made their 
 appearance in due course, and hence are attributed to His 
 providence. But one class of scientific workers check the 
 speculations of another class, and the molecular physicists 
 of the day are evidently preparing a rude awakening for 
 the ardent physiologists who dream about the souls of 
 atoms. According to them, the atoms of matter are either 
 vortex rings in ether, solid (and perhaps slightly elastic) 
 spheres, or some other form of inert material ; and it is of 
 course preposterous to suppose that such contrivances can 
 possess souls, or form the entire substance of the prophets. 
 
 Just as the ether plays a part in building atomic struc- 
 tures, so is it probable that at least one other unseen 
 entity, the spiritual world, enters into the formation of a 
 prophet. 
 
REVELATION. 223 
 
 The interaction of a spiritual world with the world of 
 matter is not discountenanced by the Darwinian doctrine 
 of evolution, which does not concern itself primarily with 
 the origin of life but rather its development. Accepting 
 the fact of the original life-germ or germs, it seeks to show 
 how other organisms grew out of it by the action of en- 
 vironment. On this theory, we suppose, tlie prophet as well 
 as the poet would be accounted for by the influence of 
 external nature in fertilizing the mind of man with ideas. 
 In the case of the poet the beauty of the world would in 
 time produce a poetic genius, and speculations regarding 
 the infinite would kindle a spirit of holiness in the prophet. 
 
 But here, again, it might be said that the capacity so 
 implanted in the germ, and developed with the race, is 
 as much a creation of God and the result of His design as 
 a man's hand or foot. And being a creation, the spiritual 
 truth of it is as sure as the bodily fitness of the hand. 
 There are minor imperfections, doubtless, in the human 
 hand ; but they do not seriously affect its usefulness, they 
 only mask a little the ideal form we have to find. And 
 just as we should discern the representative hand in the 
 faulty individual one, or as we should trace in a collected 
 series of fossils the types which iUustrate the descent of a 
 particular species, even so from the history of revelation, 
 preserved for us in the Bible, we can put aside all that is 
 local and fleeting in order to lay bare the ideal core of 
 heavenly truth. This is the task of the divine. 
 
 We have seen, however, that even in the development 
 of physical life the Darwinian theory is inadequate; and 
 that while it is admitted to account for the survival of the 
 fittest, it does not seem sufficient to explain the origin of the 
 fittest. But if it is incompetent in the case of animal bodies 
 
224 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 how much more incompetent is it in the case of spii'itual 
 forms. There is still a mysterj^ in the origin of living 
 types, but a greater mystery in the origin of the prophets. 
 And if in the one mystery we recognize the design of the 
 Creator, may we not in the other discern the inspiration of 
 the Holy Spirit ? 
 
 The moderate hypothesis of evolution would not pre- 
 clude the agency of the Holy Spirit altogether, but would 
 make its action dependent on the development of matter ; 
 in other words, the interaction of the Holy Spirit would 
 have to be in accordance with the laws of matter. The 
 original life-germs would require to possess the power of 
 interacting with the invisible world in such a way as to 
 produce prophets by terrestrial development, as modified by 
 the operation of human will. And here we may point out 
 that the very existence of free-will, implying, as it does, the 
 liberty to sin, gives a right of being to the prophets, who 
 declare what God's law is, and the inexorable penalty of 
 breaking it. 
 
 Whether inspiration be direct, or indirect through 
 " evolution," is not perhaps, a very important matter, after 
 all. The great point is that there is a revelation which 
 obviously comes from God, and while we are assured of 
 this, we surely need not quarrel about the way in which it 
 has come. We have shown already that there is something 
 mystical and Divine about the utterances of the prophets, 
 which speak of the Unseen, and are in this respect distin- 
 guished from the doctrines of the world-sages. If the 
 oracle which reveals to mankind the nature of the God- 
 head be not from God, from whom, we ask again, does it 
 come ? This is a matter which peculiarly concerns Himself. 
 
 There is a distinct need of revelation to satisfy the 
 
REVELATION. 225 
 
 aspirations of men, and that need has evidently been sup- 
 plied. Though it may not have come direct from the Holy 
 Ghost into the souls of the prophets, as one person speaks 
 to another, it has come indirectly by the mysterious process 
 of spiritual evolution, and that should be enough for us. 
 In our fear of human error we are too apt to doubt that 
 it has come from God at all ; but just as we are satisfied 
 that the world and all its beings was still created by God 
 although we may no longer believe that He did so in six 
 days by sudden fiats of His power, so may we rest assured 
 that though He may not have breathed His divine words 
 into the prophet's ear. He nevertheless gave the prophet 
 his mystical soul, pregnant with its news of Him and of 
 His will. 
 
 The Bible, or sacred book of the chosen people, is 
 admitted by competent authorities to be superior to the 
 sacred books of other races. We need have little difficulty 
 in believing it almost entirely a Divine revelation ; and if 
 a Divine revelation, the highest we have received, or, in all 
 essential matters, can receive. There may be imperfections 
 in its several parts, but they are deficiencies rather than 
 errors. It appears to be a progressive revelation, the 
 several portions of which are fitted to the times in which 
 they were revealed ; and we seem to trace a consistent plan 
 running through it, from Genesis to the New Testament. 
 Thus, if we accept the Mosaic cosmogony as also inspired, 
 we may regard it as adapted to the infancy of the world 
 and therefore even now best suited to the childhood of the 
 individual. The later revelations of the prophets satisfy 
 the imaginative period of youth and the craving for the 
 high ideal. Christ, as this ideal, is the fulfilment of their 
 prophecy, the realization of their desires. His coming may 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE NEW TKUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 be held to mark the culminating point of inspiration, and 
 the maturity of the world. The sacred record of Divine 
 revelation is completed by His Gospels, and contains all that 
 is necessary for man's salvation. The idea of evolution, 
 worked out afterwards by man himself, deals only with the 
 process of creation, and is therefore comparatively unim- 
 portant. Revelation gives us the supreme result. The fact 
 of its existence, like the human hand or the mountain 
 chain, is the main consideration, not how it was produced. 
 The mountain peaks which drain the clouds to fill our 
 wells with water, and lift our souls to heaven with their 
 sublimity, shall not be valued less, although their origin, 
 once lost in obscurity, is now attributed to physical law : 
 and so we should continue to revere the prophets, even if 
 there were less mystery in their origin, for we believe they 
 come from God. 
 
( 227 ) 
 
 . CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHRIST. 
 
 He is despised and rejected of men : a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief : and we hid as it were our faces from him ; he was desjjised, and 
 we esteemed him not. 
 
 Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows : yet we did 
 esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 
 
 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our 
 iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his 
 stripes we are healed. 
 
 All we like sheep have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his 
 own way ; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 
 
 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth : 
 he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers 
 is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 
 
 He was taken from prison and from judgment : and who shall declare 
 his generation ? for he was cut off out of the land of the living : for the 
 transgression of my people was he stricken. — Isaiah liii. 3-8. 
 
 Modern criticism has thrown considerable light upon the 
 nature and origin of the Christian Gospels ; but there is yet 
 a great deal to learn concerning them, which, perhaps, we 
 shall never know. It has indeed proved that as records 
 of the life and ministry of Christ they are fragmentary 
 compilations based upon original traditions of the church, 
 probably both oral and documentary ; but when and where 
 or by whom they were written still remains a matter of 
 estimate and conjecture. 
 
 The three first Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are 
 found to contain many similar phrases which have evidently 
 
228 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 been derived from a common source. Whether this Triple 
 Tradition, or fountain-head of the three synoptical Gospels, 
 was committed to writing, or merely handed down by word 
 of mouth ; whether it was in the Aramaic language, spoken 
 by Jesus, or in the Greek tongue of the evangels ; whether 
 it had come untouched from its first author, and who that 
 author was, cannot certainly be told. No doubt its authority 
 in the early church was high, and it may even have origin- 
 ated at some of the early councils of the apostles after the 
 death of Christ. 
 
 Mark appears to embody this tradition in its purest 
 form, and both Matthew and Luke may either have copied 
 from Mark, or translated from the original. " To sum up 
 the contents of the common tradition," says the Rev. Dr. 
 Abbott, " it omits the genealogies, miraculous incarnation, 
 and the picturesque details of the infancy ; it lays emphasis 
 on the relations of John the Baptist and Jesus ; it contains 
 none of the parables except the sower, the mustard seed, 
 and the wicked husbandmen, and few of the long discourses 
 of Jesus, except an abridged prediction of the second coming. 
 The disputes between Jesus and the Pharisees about fasting, 
 about exorcism, about the baptism of John, and the tribute, 
 and Christ the Son of David, and the dialogue with the 
 Sadducees about the resurrection, are very fully given : and 
 so also is the dialogue with the rich young man. Indeed, 
 it is a collection of dialogues and anecdotes rather than a 
 set treatise of doctrine or biography. The sayings of Jesus 
 recorded in it are short, pithy, and abrupt, and many of 
 them are polemical. Only now and then do we find a 
 sentence which goes deep down below all polemics, and 
 reveals a deep-laid spiritual plan. But putting such sen- 
 tences together, we perceive that the Triple Tradition 
 
CHRIST. 229 
 
 describes a Prophet wholly different from any that had 
 before appeared in Israel ; a Prophet who not only (like 
 Isaiah) protested against Sabbaths and purifications as ends 
 in themselves, but who also preached the Fatherhood of 
 God in a manner entirely peculiar to Himself, and who set 
 aside the Mosaic law of divorce. He also instructed His 
 disciples to enter into the kingdom as little children, and 
 seems to have attached a certain symbolic mystery to 
 childhood as representing Himself He taught His disciples 
 further, to devote their lives to Him, and to ignore all life 
 apart from Him ('to confess Christ, to deny themselves'). 
 From the first He claims the power of forgiving sins ; and, 
 as soon as one of His disciples confessed Him to be the 
 Messiah, He prepared for death, predicting that He should 
 die but rise again. Then, after prophesying the fall of the 
 temple, and great distress in all nations. He predicted a 
 .final triumph for His disciples : and after bequeathing 
 Himself, His body, and His blood, as at a funeral feast, as 
 His final legacy to His disciples. He Avas arrested and put 
 to death. 
 
 " Several miracles of healing are recorded, and, in addition 
 to these, the exorcism of the Gadarene (in which, however, 
 great confusion is apparent), the stilling of the storm, the 
 feeding of the five thousand, and the transfiguration. From 
 the beginning of the discourse on the second coming, Luke 
 diverges more and more from Matthew and Mark. After 
 the death of Jesus, Matthew and Mark continue to agree in 
 words and phrases, but a little confusion is apparent ; and 
 the tradition suddenly terminates without any record of the 
 appearance of Jesus to His disciples. However we may 
 regret this, it is perhaps what may naturally be expected 
 on the hypothesis that we have before us an early tradition. 
 
230 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 originated at a time when the numerous manifestations of 
 Jesus after His death were still attested by living witnesses ; 
 when as yet it had been found impossible to reduce the 
 experiences and impressions of those who had seen Him — 
 impressions necessarily variable and transient, blended with 
 fear and with an excitement bordering on ecstasy — to a 
 consistent and historical shape ; and when it had not yet 
 been found necessary to define and harden the narrative so 
 as to adapt it for the purpose of meeting doubts and 
 objections."* 
 
 Besides the Triple Tradition, there are signs that Matthew 
 and Luke also borrowed from a documentary tradition in 
 the Greek, which may have been translated from the 
 Aramaic. This Double Tradition is thought to have been 
 adapted for reading in the churches, and it was probably 
 later than the Triple Tradition. 
 
 The dates of both these traditions are lost to us ; but the 
 Gospel of Luke must have been compiled at least seventy 
 years after the birth of Christ. Matthew and Mark (which 
 seems to be the oldest of all) may have been composed 
 before the Fall of Jerusalem ; while John was, perhaps, the 
 latest written, for it did not become widely read and 
 authoritatively quoted until after the middle of the second 
 century. 
 
 None of the Gospels profess to give a full and complete 
 account of the person, life, and ministry of Jesus. Each 
 evangelist apparently relates what he can remember of the 
 sayings and doings of Christ, and the events to which he 
 was a witness, or which were otherwise best known to him. 
 The synoptists confine themselves chiefly to the Galilean 
 
 * Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edit.. Art. " Gospels," by Rev. E. A. Abbott, 
 D.D. 
 
CHRIST. 231 
 
 ministry, and eke out the sketch supplied them by the 
 original tradition from their own experience. St. John, on 
 the other hand, treats mainly of the Judsean ministry, while 
 supposing the Galilean one. The style, too, and literary 
 purpose of each Gospel is different from the rest. Matthew, 
 the publican and ready writer, groups together long records 
 of the sermons and parables of Jesus, and seeks to identify 
 Him as the expected Messiah by tracing His descent from 
 David, and pointing out the incidents in His life which 
 fulfil the words of prophecy. Mark, who is supposed to 
 record the story of St. Peter, furnishes a plain and blunt 
 report of the Saviour as a man, adding little to the original 
 tradition, and ending with it at the return of the women from 
 the tomb. Luke, again, has written with the order, power, 
 and beauty of a true artist, editing what had been loosely 
 jotted down by many, and, unlike Matthew, narrating the 
 acts rather than the speeches of Jesus. John, who, at a 
 great age, may have dictated the fourth Gospel to an inter- 
 preter, dwells upon the mystical being of Christ, and exalts 
 Him as the Logos, or Word, of God, which had existed 
 from all eternity, and was at length born into the world. 
 The four Gospels are therefore supplementary to each other, 
 and it is chiefly from their united testimony that the 
 orthodox view of the life and work of Jesus is obtained. 
 
 From them we gather that some 1883 (not 1880) years 
 ago the infant Clii'ist, called Jesus,* was born at Bethlehem 
 in Palestine, a small but important country situated at 
 the junction of the three great continents, Europe, Asia, and 
 Africa ; and, in a geographical sense, the middle of the 
 ancient world. His birth and parentage was of the 
 humblest kind. Joseph, His legal father, was a carpenter 
 * Jesus, or Joshua, the Salvation of Jehovah. 
 
232 ■ THE NEW TEUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 by trade in the little town of Nazareth in the ill-famed 
 province of Galilee; but both he and Maiy, his wife, are 
 said to have been Jews of the house and line of King 
 David. In order to enrol their names in a national census, 
 they had left Nazareth and gone to the village of Bethlehem 
 in Judaea, because it was the city of their ancestor David ; 
 but not being able to find lodgings in the khan, or inn, 
 Mary made her bed in a rock-hewn stable, and here she 
 brought forth Jesus, and cradled Him in the manger. 
 
 The childhood of the Boy was quietly spent at Nazareth, 
 a rural hamlet, embosomed in the green hills of Galilee, 
 where He appears to have been taught His father's homely 
 craft. While His hands were learning to ply the tools of 
 Joseph, however. His heart was thirsting to know the Lord, 
 and His holy genius began to recognize its future mission. 
 It is related by St. Luke, that when His parents had taken 
 Him to Jerusalem, in His twelfth year, to a feast of the 
 passover. He tarried behind in the city after the homeward 
 caravan had left, till, after three days' search, they found 
 Him in the Temple, sitting amidst the doctors, both hearing 
 them and asking questions. " Wist ye not," said He, " that 
 I must be about my Father's business ? " 
 
 His life at this period, and until His manhood, was 
 probably one of peaceful, healthy toil, of sweet, lonely 
 meditation among the hills, and pious study of the Jewish 
 law and prophets. 
 
 It was an evil time. Paganism was far gone in its 
 decline, and the ancient world was utterly corrupt. Men 
 were longing for a new revelation, a messenger from the 
 spiritland who would give them the unerring rule of con- 
 duct and show them how to dwell w ith God and men. Plato 
 had written that Socrates amongst the Greeks had already 
 
CHRIST. 233 
 
 predicted the advent of a just man who would teach the 
 world how to pray; and now, according to the Gospels, 
 John the Baptist among the Jews was crying in the wilder- 
 ness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord; and make His 
 paths straight " — " the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." 
 
 Jesus heard the fame of John's preaching, and when 
 He was about thirty years of age, He went out to the 
 wilderness, to be baptized by the new prophet in the 
 river Jordan. When John saw Jesus, he declared Him 
 to be the Messiah * of whom he prophesied, and wished 
 to humble himself before Him. Jesus, however, did not 
 suffer John to do so ; and after receiving His baptism went 
 into the wilderness for a space in order to commune with 
 His own Soul. Here He was powerfully tempted in 
 different ways to choose the evil and forsake the good ; 
 but He came out of the ordeal victorious. His mission 
 was now clear to Him : He had received the Divine call ; 
 and from that time He began to preach in Galilee, and other 
 parts of Palestine, that the Scriptures were now fulfilled 
 and the kingdom of heaven at hand. 
 
 The idea that He was the expected Messiah whom the 
 Lord had anointed and sent into the world to preach the 
 gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to deliver 
 the captive, and give sight unto the blind, as the prophets 
 had foretold, was now, it seems, firmly planted in His 
 mind ; but He appears to have asserted it with greater force 
 as His ministry went on, and He encountered the unbelief 
 of those who heard Him. He selected a few disciples from 
 among His followers with a view to instruct them in His 
 doctrines and train them to preach His gospel, and it is 
 remarkable that they were mostly men drawn from the 
 
 * Messiah, or Christ, the auoiuted One. 
 
234 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 lowest ranks of life, men whom other priests and sages 
 would have ignored, if not despised. They were illiterate, 
 dull, prosaic, vile, yet He, the enlightened, the pure and 
 holy, chose them as His companions. He associated, too, 
 with the lowest characters, the poor, the wretched, the 
 diseased; He who fondled little children, and whom all 
 Christendom esteems to have been sinless, took up his 
 quarters with " publicans and sinners." The ignorance and 
 hard literalism of His disciples frequently saddened Him ; 
 the hypocrisy of the Pharisees or pietists often awoke His 
 righteous anger, and the wickedness of the world grieved ffim. 
 Still He went about doing good and preaching the gospel to 
 the poor, and His fame went abroad through all the country. 
 Great numbers of people followed Him, bringing with 
 them their lame, halt, and blind ; for not only did He speak 
 to them " as no man ever spoke," but He wrought miracu- 
 lous cures. He healed the sick, He restored the palsied 
 limb. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech 
 to the dumb; He brought the maniac back to reason by 
 the word of His power. But in addition to these wonderful 
 cures on the living frame, He even raised the dead to life, 
 He changed one substance into another, He walked on the 
 sea despite the laws of gravity, He created bread and fish 
 where there was none, and took upon Himself to forgive 
 sins. In the beginning of His ministry He seems to have 
 besought the power and leave to work these miracles from 
 God, but afterwards, as His confidence increased. He per- 
 petrated them as it were in His own name and authority ; 
 and finally, when His rejection by the Jews and Pharisees 
 made Him dispirited. He effected them with greater diffi- 
 culty and earnest prayer. Faith, He represented, was an 
 essential requisite to the performance of these works, faith 
 
CHRIST. 235 
 
 on the part of the agent, and faith on the part of the 
 subject. 
 
 It is plain, from the Gospels, that whatever His Divine 
 relation may have been, Jesus also felt Himself to be a 
 man, and represented His miraculous power as a gift from 
 God. Although He claimed to be the Messiah He did not 
 exalt, but rather always humbled Himself ; and it is curious 
 to see how He wished many of His miracles to be kept 
 secret, as if He shunned the character of a mere wonder- 
 worker, and deprecated the fact that His miracles and 
 signs were so eagerly desired and noised abroad while His 
 Divine teaching, which should have recommended itself, was 
 left neglected. The miracles were avowedly subsidiary, and 
 intended to accredit His gospel as a veritable revelation 
 from the Almighty Father; but the vulgar crowd seized 
 upon the marvel and overlooked its true significance. That 
 Jesus did not work any futile and unnecessary miracles out 
 of mere display of power, or even to convince the sceptical 
 at request, but did them out of charity in the natural 
 course of His work, is also evident from His refusal to 
 show the Pharisees the " signs " they asked for, and to work 
 them in His own behalf when He was in extremity. 
 
 The greatest scepticism of His Messiahship was 
 encountered among His own people at Nazareth and 
 among the Pharisees at Jerusalem. He had "found no 
 honour" as a prophet in His own country, for was He 
 not " Joseph the carpenter's son," whom they all knew ? 
 His kindred wished to lock Him up as a madman ; and 
 the proud bigoted Pharisees, failing to understand how 
 this Man knew letters, having never learned them, de- 
 nounced Him as a rtiesith, or deceiver of the people. 
 Nevertheless, many believed that He was in truth the 
 
236 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Messiah, the Holy One of God, and others said, ''He is 
 a good man." The rejection of Christ by the Galileans, 
 and the hostility of the Pharisees, at length drove Him 
 into other lands, a fugitive and houseless wanderer upon 
 the face of the earth ; and the foxes had holes, the birds 
 of the air had nests, but the Son of man had nowhere to 
 lay His head. 
 
 At last He began to have premonitions of His approach- 
 ing fate; and if He Himself had no misgivings of His 
 Messiahship, He was at any rate anxious to test the faith 
 of His disciples, whom He had selected to carry on His 
 work ; for after questioning them as to what men thought 
 of Him, He asked them, " But whom say ye that I am ? " 
 Peter answered, " Thou ai't the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God;" and Jesus made the memorable response, that on 
 Peter's faith He would build His Church. 
 
 He then acquainted them with His impending death 
 and resurrection, instructed them to preach His gospel, and, 
 as if further to confirm their faith. He was transfigured 
 before the principal three, Peter, James, and John, so that 
 they were initiated into His heavenly glory. The trans- 
 figuration is also understood to mark the end of the old 
 dispensation represented by Moses and Elias, the Law and 
 the Prophets, and the beginning of the new order under 
 Christ. 
 
 After this event was consummated. He set His face 
 towards Jerusalem, in order to meet His death, and entered 
 the city in triumph, riding on an ass amidst the cheers 
 of the multitude, who hailed Him with hosannas as 
 one who came in the name of the Lord. The religious 
 feast of the Passover was going on, and Christ preached 
 in the Temple, and prophesied to His disciples the fall 
 
CHRIST. 237 
 
 of Jerusalem and His second coming. The animosity of 
 the Pharisees and Sadducees against Him rose to a high 
 pitch. They charged Him with blasphemy ; He denoimced 
 their hypocrisy and boldly asserted Himself to be the Son 
 of God. At length an open rupture ensued, and His death 
 was resolved upon by the Sanhedrim. 
 
 Meanwhile Jesus ate the Passover with all His disciples, 
 and foretold that one of them, Judas Iscariot, would very 
 soon betray Him to be crucified. He distributed the bread 
 and wine with great solemnity as at a funeral feast, bidding 
 the disciples to regard it as His body and blood, which was 
 broken for many, and to keep the sacrament in remem- 
 brance of Him. 
 
 That same night He went into the Garden of Gethsemane, 
 near the city, to pray, and while here in an agony of spirit, 
 over the sacrifice He was about to make, and sublimely 
 bowing to the will of God, He was captured by a party from 
 Jerusalem led on by Judas, and taken before the High 
 Priest Caiaphas, who charged Him with blasphemy. 
 Palestine was then a Roman dependency, and Jesus was 
 brought before the Roman Governor Pilate, who, although 
 impressed with His innocence, delivered Him over to be 
 scourged, and crucified at the entreaty of the mob. 
 
 After suffering for six hours the terrible shame, the 
 excruciating pain, and spiritual anguish of the cross, a 
 trial which wrung from His lips the despairing groan, " My 
 God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me," Je&us cried 
 with a loud voice, " It is finished," and bowing His head. He 
 gave up the ghost. He was buried in a new tomb cut in 
 the rock, but after three days rose again to life, and 
 appeared in the flesh at different times and places to his 
 disciples. He commanded His chosen apostles to preach 
 
238 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 His word unto all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, where 
 the power of the Holy Ghost Avould be given them ; and, 
 after blessing them at Bethany, he was " parted from them 
 and carried up into heaven." 
 
 It is easy to see from the Gospels that the personal 
 impression made by Jesus on those about Him was very 
 great. John the Baptist when he saw Him walking by, 
 proclaimed Him the Messiah which was to come ; the herd 
 of money-changers in the temple fled before His face ; 
 even the Pharisees were sometimes awed in His presence ; 
 His captors in the Garden were arrested by His majestic 
 mien; and Pilate was so struck by His appearance as to 
 believe Him innocent. While He yet lived His earnest 
 manner and inspired aspect vvould, no doubt, authorize His 
 teaching; but so transient an influence would surely not 
 account for the extraordinary spread of Christianity after 
 His decease. His early death in an outlying part of the 
 lettered world, the disadvantages of His birth, the degra- 
 dation of the age, and the bitter hatred of the reigning 
 priesthood, would very soon have blotted out His name. 
 Even now, the Talmud speaks of Jesus as the " fool ; " the 
 "hung;" "that man;" "so and so;" and condemns His 
 memory to oblivion. 
 
 It was the miraculous element in His works, and the 
 belief among His followers that He was the veritable Son 
 of God, which promoted so rapidly the doctrines of the 
 Prophet of Nazareth, not only in Jerusalem, the city of the 
 Jews, but far away amongst the Gentiles. Jesus, though 
 aware of the posthumous influence of His personality on His 
 apostles, neither trusted to that nor to the witness of His 
 miracles for the fundamental proof of His Divine mission. 
 Knowing the short-lived nature of the one, and the dubious 
 
CHRIST. 239 
 
 character of the other, He api^ears to have based His claim 
 to be the Son of God, and the success of His plans, on 
 prophecy ; for He predicted His death and resurrection, the 
 fall of the Temple, great distress among all nations, and 
 finally the second coming. It was the belief that His 
 prophecy had come to pass, and that He had risen from the 
 dead, which gave the irresistible authority of God to all His 
 words, and sped the leaven of His kingdom among men. It 
 was for this blessed assurance that the apostles wandered, 
 and the martyrs bled. " If Christ be not risen," says Paul, 
 " then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain." * 
 
 But apart from the Divine sanction of the Christian 
 gospel, it was doubtless welcome to the ancient world. Its 
 own inherent excellence fitted it for reception by a people 
 which had begun to tire of the old myths, and yearn for a 
 higher and purer religion. The new evangel taught men to 
 regard the Deity as a loving Father, who, out of His 
 Divine goodness had sent them a beloved Messenger and 
 Mediator. It enjoined them to obey God like little children, 
 and to trust in Him. It comforted their souls with the hope 
 of a glorious immortality, through faith in Christ and a 
 sincere repentance. He who had not sinned Himself, had 
 yet revealed the secret and mysterious virtue of contrition. 
 The humanity of the gospel was of the sublimest order. 
 Jesus was not merely a lawgiver like Moses, or a seer Hke 
 Elijah; he gave to men the loveliest and best ideal of 
 human life, not as a mere picture or poem, but in the shape 
 of a living reality. 
 
 " And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
 With human hands the Creed of Creeds 
 In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
 More strong than all poetic thought." 
 
 * 1 Corinthians xv. 14. 
 
240 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 He commanded the exercise of that universal charity and 
 brotherly love which is the most Divine and acceptable 
 service man can render to the Infinite Goodwill, and freely 
 sacrificed His life for the benefit of the whole world. He 
 inculcated the utmost purity of thought and deed, forgive- 
 ness, humility, and patient endurance to the end. He 
 exalted labour and poverty, and had compassion on the 
 loathsome and the vile. " Come unto me," He cried, " all ye 
 that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
 Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek 
 and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." 
 
 Within two hundred years after its foundation, Chris- 
 tianity was, we are told, the religion of Rome, notwith- 
 standing the persecutions which the early Christians 
 suffered. The humanizing influence which it has exerted 
 on Europe, is thus eloquently summed up by Canon 
 Farrar: — "It expelled cruelty; it curbed passion; it branded 
 suicide; it punished and repressed an execrable infanticide; 
 it drove the shameless impurities of heathendom into a con- 
 genial darkness. There was hardly a class whose wrongs it 
 did not remedy. It rescued the gladiator; it freed the slave; 
 it protected the captive ; it nursed the sick ; it sheltered the 
 orphan ; it elevated the woman ; it shrouded as with a halo 
 of sacred innocence the tender years of the child. In every 
 region of life its ameliorating influence was felt. It changed 
 pity from a vice into a virtue. It elevated poverty from a 
 curse into a beatitude. It ennobled labour from a vulgarity 
 into a dignity and a duty. It sanctified marriage from little 
 more than a burdensome convention into little less than a 
 blessed sacrament. It revealed for the first time the angelic 
 beauty of a Purity of which men had despaired, and of a 
 Meekness at which they had scoffed. It created the very 
 
CHRIST. 241 
 
 conception of charity, and broadened the limits of its obli- 
 gation from the narrow circle of a neighbourhood to the 
 widest horizons of the race. And while it thus evolved the 
 idea of Humanity as a common brotherhood, even where its 
 tidings were not believed — all over the world, wherever its 
 tidings were believed, it cleansed the life, and elevated the 
 soul of each individual man." * 
 
 Although the unbeliever and the believer alike partake 
 of the benefits of Christianity, these benefits have become 
 general through the faith of the believer. Every one must 
 recognize the civilizing power of the gospel, "but the true 
 believer sees in the Cross of Christ something which far 
 transcends its historical significance. He sees in it the 
 fulfilment of all prophecy as well as the consummation of 
 all history ; he sees in it the explanation of the mystery of 
 birth, and the conquest over the mystery of the grave. In 
 that life he finds a perfect example ; in that death an infinite 
 redemption. As he contemplates the Incarnation and the 
 Crucifixion he no longer feels that God is far away, and 
 that this earth is but a disregarded speck in the infinite 
 azure, and he himself but an insignificant atom chance- 
 thrown amid the million living souls of an innumerable 
 race, but he exclaims in faith and hope and love, ' Behold, 
 the tabernacle of God is with men ; yea. He will be their 
 God, and they shall be His people.' 'Ye are the temple 
 of the living God : as God hath said, I will dwell in them, 
 and walk in them.' " * 
 
 For nigh two thousand years the Faith of Christ has 
 been the religion of the most civilized nations in the world ; 
 but many people now begin to fear its reign is over. Creeds, 
 like races, have their day. They rise and flourish for a 
 
 * Farrar's Life of Christ. * Ibid. 
 
 R 
 
242 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 time and then become extinct. Fossil ferns and slialy 
 skeletons buried in the rock remain to tell of bygone 
 living types : crumbling ruin, broken torso, and splintered 
 column, upon the sands of Egypt or the capes of Greece, 
 bespeak the death of the old gods. Scandinavian Odin 
 with his wrathful brows and clanging hammer, Grecian 
 Apollo shaking out light from his golden hair, Syrian 
 Adonis with his love-locks and blooming youth, have passed 
 from the hearts of men into their intellects. Once they 
 were living gods and objects of devotion, but now they live 
 only in the memory of men as the relics of an ancient error, 
 or the poetical symbols of beauty, strength, and genius; 
 while the marble shapes in which they were embodied to 
 the sight are copied by our artists as models of the human 
 form. 
 
 Shall Christianity perish in its turn ? Shall the image 
 of Christ be cherished as a mere emblem of holiness, and 
 the sacred temples where His gospel was enshrined be 
 handed over to the revelations of the lime-light ? or shall 
 the broken vestiges of these solemn monuments, the gilded 
 altars, the pictured saints, and sculptured angels, yet be 
 stored in public museums, to gratify the curiosity of an 
 enlightened generation which has learned to smile upon 
 them with a touch of pity as the fetishes of a mistaken 
 worship ? Or is the time approaching when the works of 
 Jesus, the Galilean peasant, surnamed the Christ, shall 
 appear in editions de luxe, with a portrait of the author, 
 and a preface by an able critic, clearly proving that Joseph 
 the carpenter was a master builder after all ! 
 
 Such a prospect is neither cheering to the Christian, nor 
 to the poor ; but the consequences of the fall of Christianity 
 cannot, of course, be anticipated without knowing what 
 
CHRIST. 243 
 
 religion will succeed it. Though the ancient creeds and 
 living types became extinct, they left behind them a higher 
 progeny to take their place. What creed, then, we may 
 ask, can take the place of Christ's ? Surely there is no 
 higher faith than that. 
 
244 THE NEW TKUTII AND THE OLD FAITH 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE OLD CREED, 
 
 I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Makei- of heaven and earth : 
 And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the 
 Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was 
 crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell ; The third day He rose 
 again from the dead, He ascended into heaven. And sitteth on the right 
 hand of God the Father Almighty ; From thence He shall come to judge the 
 quick and the dead. 
 
 I believe in the Holy Ghost ; The holy Catholick Church ; The Communion 
 of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The resurrection of the body, And 
 the life everlasting. Amen.— The Apostles' Creed. 
 
 Faith, as an act of the mind, is necessary to every man, 
 and the more his faith the happier he would seem to 
 be. Even the atheist, denying God, must nevertheless 
 believe in the laws of nature and put his trust in the 
 certainty of their operation. Did he not, he would be 
 miserable, since he could never at any time be sure of his 
 life and safety. The Christian, on the other hand, by his 
 exalted faith is elevated above mere earthly security and 
 happiness by the rapture of his confidence in God and his 
 hopes of everlasting life in Jesus. 
 
 It is a trite saying of the pulpit that faith is higher than 
 reason, and that we must live by faith. But why should 
 we live by faith with all its tormenting doubts, and why is 
 faith higher than reason ? It is higlier than reason because 
 it sees things which pure reason fails to see ; it stands on the 
 
THE OLD CREED. 245 
 
 shoulders of reason and looks, as it were, far beyond. In 
 living by faith we are freer as moral agents than we should 
 be if we lived by knowledge only. For could we know to 
 a certainty the wages of our deeds in this life, we should 
 have less credit in our conduct. Our wills would be the 
 slaves of lust or fear, for the reward would bribe us on the 
 one hand, and the punishment would frighten us on the 
 other. The more room there is for faith, the freer our 
 wills are, the more commendable is our success, and the 
 more pardonable is our failure in righteousness. He is a 
 nobler boy who obeys because his father bids him, than one 
 who does so because he has been shown the lash and prize. 
 In fact, pure duty for its own sake, and without any hope 
 of pay in any kind, is the noblest action of all, and hence 
 materialists are apt to flout at a religion which is so base as 
 to expect rewards and punishments. But the obedience of 
 the true Christian, like that of Christ, is irrespective of any 
 reward that God in His mercy may have in store for him. 
 He obeys because it is the Will of God, and if he is en- 
 couraged by the hope of future glory, his standard of duty 
 is far higher than the materialist's. 
 
 Faith, however, is more liable to err than reason, and 
 we may readily believe in a delusion. It is necessary, 
 therefore, that our articles of faith should be tried by 
 science, and this testing process must go on until the critical 
 limit of science has been reached. Doubt and controversy 
 are to faith as darkness is to light ; and even here the law 
 of personal exertion holds. To get our faith we have to 
 struggle for it. Apathy alone is the great offence, and 
 surely we may hope the effort made will weigh against the 
 error. The sweeping condemnation of Christian unbelievers 
 by St. Athanasius is evidently too severe. 
 
246 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Faith, then, is a prime condition of our s])iritual being, 
 and " T believe in God " is the first article of the Apostles' 
 Creed. We are left to believe that God exists, for we cannot 
 have any sensible knowledge of Him. His works can be 
 seen, heard, and handled, but Himself is silent and in- 
 visible ; the Art is before us, but the Artist is withdrawn 
 from view. And yet this golden silence finely speaks the 
 Infinite Wisdom, this viewlessness reveals the Unapproach- 
 able Majesty. 
 
 For however we may desire to have a direct knowledge 
 of God, we must confess that there is something gross and 
 paltry in the notion of a Deity who should take the form 
 of an apparition, and address us in the loud voice of an 
 oracle. It is a more exquisite, liberal, and exalted policy 
 which leaves us to trace the Godhead in His handiwork. 
 
 The signs of God are to be found in Nature and the 
 human soul, and hence it is that our theology is progressive. 
 The order and immensity of the material universe exhibit 
 His power and wisdom ; the " still small voice " of con- 
 science proclaims His will and love to us. The man of 
 science investigates His relations to the cosmos, the prophet 
 expresses His relations to man. The former interprets the 
 physical creation, the latter interprets the spiritual, and thus 
 they supplement each other. 
 
 How vain a purely scientific quest for God is, may be 
 gathered from the fact that nearly all the atheism of the 
 day is due to the study of science ; and on the other hand, 
 the early religions show us that unassisted revelation is apt 
 to render our ideas of Him by far too anthropomorphic. 
 
 Physical science tends to widen our- conception of the 
 Almighty Essence, Maker of heaven and earth; but it is 
 revelation which informs us of His Fatherly character with 
 
THE OLD CREED. 247 
 
 respect to ourselves, and thereby satisfies our heartfelt and 
 proper desire. 
 
 But what are the rights of revelation to regard the in- 
 scrutable Creator as a Father ? In the first place, He is the 
 author of our being ; He gives us work to do and laws to 
 obey. By our obedience to these laws we evidently please 
 Him, for He has arranged things so that we are rewarded 
 with inward happiness; and by our disobedience we 
 evidently offend Him, for He chastises us with pain. Love 
 is at the root of His commandments, and in all His dispen- 
 sations He desires our good. If He is strict. He is only 
 just ; if He seems cruel, it is only to be kind. 
 
 True, He is an absent Father, a Father whose face we 
 cannot see because He dwells in heaven, but whose presence 
 and loving-kindness is everywhere apparent, both in the 
 goods provided for us and in teachers which have been sent. 
 Moreover, if His ostensible absence demands a greater faith 
 in Him, it increases our freedom while it dignifies our 
 responsibility. 
 
 So far, then, the Creator may be justly likened to a father ; 
 but when we assume, with many scientists, that prayer is 
 futile, and that God makes no response to our petitions, the 
 paternal relation seems to be entirely vitiated. For would 
 he not be a stern parent, a hard stepfather, who could 
 turn a deaf ear to the groans and passionate entreaties of 
 his children ? To this it may be answered, that even as 
 God differs from a human father in providing all the con- 
 ditions of his children's existence, so is He free to disregard 
 their outcries without incurring a charge of ill-will or in- 
 difference. A human father can only in part arrange the 
 circumstances about his children ; and therefore he must 
 exercise a watchful care over them, and be ever ready to 
 
218 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 respond to their appeals for help. But it is otherwise with 
 God, who has provided all things for our welfare since the 
 beginning ; and we may rather compare Him to a provident 
 nurse who has disposed her charges in the nursery in such 
 a way that, though she leaves them to their own resources 
 for a time, and on their good behaviour, she knows that 
 they can take no permanent harm. 
 
 It has been pointed out, however, in a former chapter, 
 that the spiritual efficacy of prayer is not necessarily in- 
 compatible with the physical theory that the sum of energy 
 in the universe is constant. Nor can such efficacy be said 
 to run counter to the theory of development, at least as far 
 as moderate Darwinism is concerned, for it does not come 
 into play until man has been developed, and therefore 
 leaves all the lower world under the entire control of evolu- 
 tion. Pursuing this train of thought, we are even led to 
 inquire whether a response to prayer might not come under 
 some higher law of evolution, applicable only to man. It 
 is not necessary to surrender the freedom of will for this 
 arrangement to hold, because the response might solely 
 depend on the fact of an earnest and voluntary request, 
 much in the same way as the sunshine is ever ready to 
 our seeking. But then comes the difficulty that all prayers 
 are not granted, that the sunshine is often withheld by 
 clouds, and we are obliged to return to the idea that effec- 
 tive spiritual prayer must be to all intents and purposes 
 a voluntary petition on man's part and a voluntary grace 
 on God's. 
 
 We come now to the difficult question touching the 
 Divine nature of Christ. Was Jesus of Nazareth the true 
 Son of God, and therefore, in a certain sense, God Himself, 
 or was He only a man of the highest possible type ? The 
 
THE OLD CREED. 249 
 
 human race has long yearned to know the God who made 
 them and their world, long craved a special messenger 
 from Him. Has God broken His eternal silence once, and 
 satisfied this natural desire ? Not content with giving 
 seers and prophets to the earth, has He also given it a 
 Messiah ? 
 
 Regarded in this light there is nothing improbable in 
 the idea of the Incarnation. On the contrary, it would 
 seem likely enough that God had visited His people, either 
 in His own Person or in that of an accredited Representative. 
 But yet we hesitate to believe in a special fecundation, 
 because it may not be His mode of working. 
 
 Evolution, we are told, is the Divine process, and what- 
 soever is inconsistent with evolution cannot be accepted. 
 Now, the miraculous fecundation mentioned in the orthodox 
 creed ivould be inconsistent with evolution, such as we 
 know it. Let us look a little closer at this point. 
 
 If the pure materialist is right, and tlie world as it 
 stands, with all its products, is nothing but a nebula in a 
 certain phase of its necessary development, and if free-will 
 in mankind has no existence, then, indeed, a special fecunda- 
 tion, at a certain stage, would be absurd. For, in the first 
 place, the same result could be provided for in the original 
 nebula, and, in the second, without free-will there could be 
 no real meaning in Christianity, no Fall, and therefore no 
 Redeemer. 
 
 But it is a different matter if we recognize the existence 
 of human free-will and human sin. Then, althouofh evolu- 
 tion continues to operate as before, we have also to take 
 into account the arbitrary element of free-will. By virtue 
 of this quality, man has power to interfere with the natural 
 progress of evolution, either hastening or retarding it. And 
 
250 THE NEW TKUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 if man is thus allowed to tamper with the Dormal course of 
 nature, why may not God be ? If there were no sin — that 
 is, if man always willed in accordance with God — there 
 would be no need of any special interference on the part of 
 God ; but as man has disobeyed God's will, there is a reason 
 for His interference. In a former chapter we used this 
 argument in favour of a Divine response to prayer in 
 certain instances, and now we may employ it to illustrate 
 the reasonableness of the supreme mystery, the miraculous 
 conception of a Messiah. 
 
 It was there shown that spiritual response to prayer 
 may not necessarily be incompatible with the doctrine 
 of the conservation of material energy,* but in the case 
 we are considering it is difficult to see how the viola- 
 tion of that doctrine could be avoided. Nevertheless, we 
 must remember that the Agent here is the Almighty. 
 
 It is part of our method to assume the truth of evolution 
 and the conservation of energy ; and hence we are careful 
 to discover how far the old faith holds good without in- 
 fringine: either doctrine. There are some, however, who 
 reject both theories as unproven ; and others, again, who, in 
 defiance of both theories, would still claim the birth and 
 works of Christ as a Divine breach of continuity in nature 
 tantamount to a special creation. We need not concern 
 ourselves with this uncontroversial view of the matter, 
 further than to point out that a peculiar and avowed breach 
 of continuity, as in the case of Christ, could hardly put the 
 human intellect to that perpetual confusion which is so 
 much dreaded by men of science. 
 
 We wall not dwell upon the scriptural evidence for the 
 divinity of Christ, the predictions of His coming contained 
 * See Book J I., Clmp. V. 
 
THE OLD CKEED. 251 
 
 in the Bible, from Genesis downwards,* the manifest 
 simplicity and truthfulness of the Gospels, and the Divine 
 greatness of the Personality which emanates from them, de- 
 spite their plain matter-of-fact style, the glory of a Sinless 
 Life, and the wonder of a Being whose like the world had 
 never seen before. That may be left to worthier pens. 
 But we may remark here, that the sayings and doings of 
 Christ are so intimately blended together in the Gospels 
 that it is not easy to see how the truth of His words can be 
 accepted without also believing in the truth of His deeds. 
 There is a class who reject the miracles, but retain the 
 precepts of Jesus. Now, if the miracles are false, what 
 hope have we that the precepts are true, since both rest on 
 the self-same Witness. Assuredly none but the fact that 
 the sayings are in themselves more credible than the 
 miracles. At least, they are more credible now, after 
 eighteen centuries of Christian culture ; yet the fact remains 
 that the miracles were at first the vouchers of the sayings. 
 Christ's doctrine was found so "hard" to understand and 
 practice by his followers that it had to be accredited by 
 wondrous works. 
 
 We have heard scientists argue, with some show of 
 reason, that miracles could not prove the verity of Christ's 
 doctrine, since a physical feat is no test of spiritual truth. 
 But they forget that miracles were used to show that Jesus 
 camiG from God, and thus indirectly to attest the truth of 
 His precepts, since that which came out of God's mouth must 
 be true. Jesus appeared as the Divine Plenipotentiary, and 
 the miracles were His credentials. Common sense recog- 
 nizes the justice of this plan, which, even to-day, would 
 serve the purpose intended. 
 
 * Genesis iii. 15, etc. 
 
252 TUE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Attempts are sometimes made to explain away the 
 supernatural character of the miracles, by representing 
 them as curious freaks on the part of Nature, or spectral 
 illusions on the part of the witnesses. This is equivalent to 
 confessing that the miracles were a pious fraud imposed on 
 the disciples ; but it is quite patent from the Gospels that 
 the miracles were not a sham. 
 
 On the other hand, is it necessary to suppose that they 
 were wrought in opposition to the laws of nature ? Let 
 us have as clear ideas on this point as on others. 
 
 True, they were out of conformity to the usual custom 
 of nature, but breaking the old custom need not be break- , 
 ing the old laws. Living matter, sensation, instinct, reason, 
 present themselves one after another in the world by a 
 slow and gradual growth in keeping with the changes of 
 its mineral mass, and we call the process natural. An 
 inexplicable sudden growth at God's command would be 
 miraculous, and contrary to all custom, but would it be 
 antagonistic to the laws of evolution ? 
 
 Man, by his knowledge of nature's laws, his free-will 
 and power, is able to produce new kinds of animals, and 
 plants, or build up mechanical marvels. This he does by 
 influencing nature, yet obeying her. He breaks her ancient 
 customs, but he cannot break her ancient laws.* Cannot 
 God, then, with His perfect knowledge and control of all 
 the inner mechanism of nature, perform miracles without 
 transgressing these laws ? "f" 
 
 * Dr. Siemens coaxes tulip-buds to blow by his electric ligbt, and 
 Mr. Edison makes the diaphragm of his phonograph restore the speech of 
 yesterday. 
 
 f It has been ingeniously suggested tliat the miracles might be a 
 nniqne result of evolution, such as would be manifested by a machine which 
 performed a peculiar act just once in its whole course of working. 
 
THE OLD CREED. 253 
 
 But man can only do these wonders by exerting force 
 on nature. He employs part of the total energy in the 
 universe in directing another part to his private ends. By 
 the conservation of energy theory, however, God is not 
 permitted to add any energy to the sum of that within the 
 universe. Therefore He must perform the miracles by 
 means of power already stored in nature. He must not 
 communicate energy to the universe, or, in other words, must 
 not create. 
 
 Spiritual response to prayer may possibly take j)lace 
 without adding to the sum of energy in nature ; and the 
 forgiveness of sins may also be effected in a similar manner. 
 Both of these operations belong to the region of mind, which 
 we can never penetrate and wholly understand. Divine 
 interference there, cannot put the human intellect into con- 
 fusion, any more than man's free-will can. But the physical 
 miracles deal with matter, the laws of which we learn 
 to know. Science can permit no arbitrary meddling here, 
 or else her inferences would be confounded. 
 
 We cannot see how the material miracles could be 
 performed without communicating energy to nature, how 
 the miracle of the loaves and fishes, for example, could be 
 accomplished without the creation of matter. Nevertheless, 
 we cannot therefore say the feat is absolutely impossible.* 
 One thing we may be sure of is that God would work the 
 miracles in the simplest and easiest way ; that is, by utiliz- 
 ing existing means as far as they would go. 
 
 In studying the nature of Christ, we have to consider 
 
 * The growing probability that all bodies are combinations of one 
 primitive matter may give us a dim inkling of how the water could be 
 changed to wine, and air to bread and fish, etc. Moreover, the alleged 
 phenomena of spiritualism, if there be any truth in them, may afford a clue 
 to other miracles, such as walking on the sea. 
 
254 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 whether He was God made man or man made God, whether 
 His birth was an Incarnation or an Apotheosis. In mediaeval 
 times, when the earth was thought to be a great plain and 
 the most important part of the universe, it was far easier 
 to believe that God had entered the womb of a creature, 
 and been crucified on the cross by men, than it is now, 
 when the overwhelming magnitude of the cosmos is 
 revealed by science. The preferable view is that which 
 regards Christ as a God-sent man, conceived by the Holy 
 Ghost, and bearing a peculiar relation to God, best expressed 
 by the phrase " His Son." This relation was such that at 
 Christ's request God performed miraculous works. This 
 view is favoured by Christ's own conduct in praying 
 repeatedly to God as to His Father, and in many passages 
 of the Gospels.* The Athanasian Creed also expresses the 
 same idea in the clause, " One ; not by conversion of the 
 Godhead into flesh : but by taking of the Manhood into 
 God." 
 
 The mystery of Christ's atonement for the sins of others 
 is frequently assailed on the ground of its being unjust for 
 an innocent person to be made to suffer for the guilty. 
 But if all the human race is guilty, the punishment of the 
 guilty would mean the suffering of the whole world. To 
 save the world, therefore, Jesus offered Himself as a sacri- 
 fice ; and the naturalness of the act is illustrated by those 
 historic mstances of captured cities in which the inhabi- 
 tants were spared by the vicarious sacrifice of two or three 
 of their chief men. The Mayor of Calais who offered 
 himself to the offended English monarch in order to save 
 the city from destruction, is a heroic example of this kind 
 of propitiation. If Jesus voluntarily gave His life as a 
 
 * See John x. 31-37 ; Johu v. 30, 
 
THE OLD CREED. 255 
 
 "ransom for many," might not an offended God forgive 
 the rest of the world for His sake ? 
 
 Guided by the foregoing considerations, we are led to 
 the following definition of the orthodox Trinity : — 
 The three Persons of the Godhead are : — 
 
 First Person, God the Father, omnipresent, but unseen 
 almighty, who out of His infinite goodwill, and in order to 
 give happiness to His creatures, created heaven and earth, 
 and all that in them is. 
 
 He endowed man — that is, mankind — with free-will; and 
 hence, also, the power to disobey His commands — that is, to 
 sin. Mankind sinned, as was to be expected. Sin is 
 offensive to God, and death to the soul of man. Therefore 
 to redeem man from sin by showing him a Divine example 
 of righteousness, and, by contrast, the heinousness of sin. 
 He sent Christ, the sinless Man, into the world to teach 
 men, and be crucified by them. Christ, being wholly 
 sinless, was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He is there- 
 fore called the Son of God, and His mission is a sign of 
 God's love. Love shows itself in self-sacrifice for others. 
 " God so loved the Avorld that He gave His only begotten 
 Son to be a propitiation for our sakes." The love is shown 
 by God in giving Christ into the world ; the propitiation is 
 accomplished by Christ in dying for us. 
 
 Second Person, Jesus Christ, sent by God to be the 
 Spiritual Light, and therefore the true Lord, of the world, 
 God's representative on earth. He is the highest revelation 
 of God to man ; his life was an incarnation of the command- 
 ments, "the Word made flesh." In His hatred of sin, His 
 universal love, and special mission, He is at one with God, 
 and worthy to be called His Son. 
 
 The human race, created free moral agents, have sinned 
 
256 THE NEW TRUTH iSND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 or disobeyed God. They have therefore offended God, and 
 brought spiritual suffering and death upon themselves. 
 God, however, does not destroy them as a race ; He pro- 
 vides them with a Redeemer, who, by His sufferings, shall 
 expiate the offence of the race against the Deity ; and by 
 the example of His life, shall help each individual to see the 
 error of his ways, and to turn from his wickedness and live. 
 He is thus the Saviour of the world. His death, the cruel 
 death of the Divinest Being the world can ever know, is 
 calculated to show God's hatred of moral evil, and bring 
 home to men the awful heinousness of sin. His life is 
 an example aiding each free moral agent to accomplish his 
 own personal salvation. The end of His work on earth, the 
 establishment of His kingdom, is the reign of universal 
 charity and holiness. His resurrection gives an assurance 
 of immortal life to all who truly believe in Him, for true 
 belief in Him implies the doing of His word, repentance, and 
 the renunciation of sin. 
 
 Third Person, the Holy Ghost, or Spirit of Holiness, 
 which showed itself in the world before Christ's advent, 
 but has been especially active since that event, in carrying 
 on Christ's work, and extending His kingdom. All holiness 
 is from God ; and the Holy Ghost is the source or germ of 
 the prophet's inspiration, the nature of Christ, and the 
 goodness of the saints. 
 
 The mystery of the Trinity lies in the dogma that these 
 three separate Persons are one, a mystery which is best 
 explained to a logical mind by supposing them to be three 
 aspects or manifestations of God, namely, the Creator of 
 the Cosmos, the Saviour of the World, and the Fountain of 
 all Goodness. By proclaiming the unity of nature, science 
 confirms the Christian idea of the Oneness of its Maker. 
 
THE OLD CREED. 257 
 
 Belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ involves belief in 
 all His doctrines, His resurrection from the dead, His glory- 
 in heaven, His last judgment. His resurrection demonstrates 
 the truth of man's instinctive belief in a hereafter. It is 
 clear from our knowledge of the evanescent and atomic 
 character of the body, as well from many passages of Scrip- 
 ture, that the old material body is not raised again.* Many 
 scientists incline with Priestly to regard the soul as mortal 
 in itself, and the future life as a fresh gift of God to those 
 who have obeyed Him. But we must bear in mind that 
 science has not proved the soul to perish with the body. 
 She only suspects it, because she cannot see how it can be 
 otherwise. According to Christ's teaching of a heaven and 
 a hell, and St. Paul's illustration of a seed sown in the 
 ground — " that which thou sow est is not quickened except 
 it die," the soul is in itself immortal, and enters on a new 
 life at or some time after the death of the body. This is a 
 view in keeping with the process of evolution and the con- 
 tinuity of things. The plant springs upward from the 
 rotted seed ; the butteri3y emerges from the chrysalis. 
 
 Heaven and hell are described by Christ in strong but 
 figurative language, which must not be taken literally. His 
 object was to impress his hearers with the bliss of heaven 
 and the misery of hell, and this could best be done by 
 using images with which they were acquainted. So he 
 likened heaven to a beautiful city, and hell to the Valley 
 of Gihon, or Gehenna, the sink of Jerusalem, a revolting 
 sewer where the rubbish of the city was perpetually burn- 
 ing, "where the fire is unquenched and the worm dieth not." 
 Heaven was not necessarily a place exclusively for Chris- 
 tians, but Christians were there to enjoy perpetual fellow- 
 
 * See Matt. xxii. 30 ; 1 Cor. xv. 35. 
 
258 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 ship with Him, their Master. For aught we can find to the 
 contrary, there is a heaven for all who obey God, pagan and 
 heathen ; but belief in Jesus is a sure title to heaven. " I 
 am the way, the truth, the life." 
 
 The prophecy of the Last Judgment is one of those 
 remarkably significant passages of holy writ which make 
 even the materialist pause and ponder, whether, after all, 
 there is not such a thing as a Divine revelation. In Psalm 
 cii. 25, 26, we read, "Of old hast Thou laid the founda- 
 tion of the earth ; and the heavens are the work of Thy 
 hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure : yea, all 
 of them shall wax old like a garment : as a vesture shalt 
 thou change thenn, and they shall he changed." Christ 
 foretells that the sun shall be darkened, the stars shall fall 
 and the powers of heaven be shaken, when the Son of Man 
 shall come in the twinkling of an eye. Elsewhere we read 
 of the Last Day, "wherein the heavens being on fire shall 
 be dissolved, and the elements shall melt xvith fervent heat."* 
 Now, modern science assures us that the whole visible 
 universe is slowly waxing old, and that a day must come 
 when the lifeless ruins of its worlds shall dissolve through 
 sheer inanition into some primal fluid, and, 
 
 " Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 Leave not a rack behind ; " 
 
 or that the collisions of dead and wandering suns shall 
 " shrivel up the earth like a scroll," and reduce the cosmos 
 to a glowing nebula^ perhaps the embryon of a new earth 
 and heaven. 
 
 The arguments against the Divinity of Christ are 
 numerous enough; but it will suffice to mention a few of 
 them here. The prophecy of Christ's coming is held to be 
 
 * 2 Peter iii. 12. 
 
THE OLD CREED. 259 
 
 a natural instinct in men, leading them to expect moral 
 teachers. Socrates, for example, is said to have predicted 
 the appearance of a Just Man who should teach his fellows 
 how to pray. A Messiah was expected in the Holy Land, 
 and Jesus of Nazareth, urged by His prophetic soul, believed 
 Himself to be the Man, The authority of the Gospels is 
 weakened, we are told, by the superstition that has become 
 mixed up with it. The miraculous element has a habit of 
 growing up round the founders of all the earlier religions ; 
 for example, Buddha. It gathered round his life, within 
 one hundi'ed and fifty years of his death, and he, too, is 
 believed to have been miraculously conceived. Lastly, it 
 is submitted that a practically sinless person could be born 
 of human parents in a natural way. 
 
 We must leave to others the discussion of these opinions. 
 Time will show whether they will come to be accepted by 
 mankind or not. But, meanwhile, we are fain to see what 
 would be left to us of the old faith were the miraculous 
 ingredient sifted out. 
 
 No " cosmic emotion," or facts of science, are like to 
 compensate us for the loss of that sublime and hallowed 
 mystery, the personal visitation of the Father, the special 
 token of His endless love, which Christians recoernize in 
 the Divine and blessed life of Jesus. Nevertheless, althouR-h 
 the miraculous element which fostered the young faith 
 were separated from it, much would remain behind. When 
 the husks of so-called mythus are stripped away, there is 
 still a healthy core of living truth revealed ; and incidents 
 in the Gospels held as true objectively, might still be held 
 as true subjectively, or in a symbolic sense. 
 
 Putting aside the idea of a special interference, we have 
 now to regard the birth of Christ as the natural result of 
 
260 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 evohition, tempered by the operation of human free-will. 
 To admit the debatable factor of a Divine response to 
 prayer, in other words, a supernatural influence on the soul, 
 into the problem, would be to admit a miraculous agency 
 competent to produce a Sinless Person without the aid 
 of a special fecundation. Supernatural response to prayer 
 raay be a real influence in human evolution, as it seems 
 to be, and if so, the production of a Sinless Person by 
 Divine and human agency together could apparently be 
 brought about. But for our present purpose we will con- 
 sider prayer a natural agent in evolution, and not a super- 
 natural one. Let us suppose, then, that Christ was born in 
 the usual course of nature. He was the Perfect Man, the 
 prime result of evolution, the choicest fruit of cosmos. And 
 being such. He was conceived in God's mind from the 
 beginning, just as the human type was pre-designed. As 
 the selachian fishes, and batrachians of the ancient eras fore- 
 showed the advent of mankind * so did the prophets foretell 
 the coming of Jesus. Moses and Elias were his spiritual 
 ancestors. As the first man was the oflspring of a chosen 
 tribe of anthropoids, so Jesus was a scion of the Jews, the 
 sacred branch of the human stock. Adam came upon the 
 earth when it was ripe enough to render his works 
 permanent, and Jesus when the moral world was ripe for 
 the duration of His teaching. In the one the animal creation 
 reached a climax, and in the other the religious life attained 
 its culminating form. 
 
 Both were monarchs who established a new order — 
 Adam in the physical, Jesus in the spiritual realm. 
 
 Created intelligent and free, or capable of knowing both 
 good and evil, man was therefore fallible. He was free to 
 
 * See ante, Book II. Chap. I. 
 
THE OLD CREED. 261 
 
 follow his conscience and obey God, or be guided by the 
 promptings of the flesh and disobey God. In this freedom 
 lay his glory and his danger. Tempted by the hereditary 
 strain of the lower animals (which, in the Hebrew parable 
 of the Fall, is typified by that most degraded beast, the 
 serpent, inspired by the spirit of lawlessness which dwelt in 
 chaos), man sinned, and incurred the penalty of moral 
 suffering and moral death. God foreknowing the failure 
 of mankind from the ideal, that many would fall and all 
 might, provided a Saviour* for them, who is represented 
 in Scripture as the seed of the woman, the Word or Spirit 
 of Law, dwelling in heaven, made flesh. The Saviour 
 is the ideal Man, and as such is an examplar to the race. 
 He obeys God in all things, and voluntarily dies for the 
 sake of His fellow-men. His conduct is therefore pleasing 
 to God, and atones for the disobedience of mankind. His 
 life revealed to men the beauty of holiness : and His 
 death the hideous crime of sin, that sin which crucified the 
 Divinest thing the world had known. His Divine precepts, 
 and heroic endurance of the most terrible ills, constitute Him 
 our highest possible pattern and teacher. By believing in 
 Him, and therefore striving to do likewise, we will be saved 
 from sin, and all its evil consequences. 
 
 Having now reviewed the birth and mission of Christ in 
 a natural light, we may in like manner briefly consider the 
 doctrine of the Trinity. The First Person may still be 
 defined as the Creator of the Cosmos — that is, all matter and 
 living things in this or other worlds ; the Father, Almighty, 
 Maker of heaven and earth. The Holy Spirit becomes the 
 spirit of holiness infused into the world through man. In 
 the material and lower animal nature, no spirit of holiness 
 
 * " The Lamb slain from the beginmng of the world." 
 
262 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 is seen ; but it appeared befoi'e Christ conspicuously in the 
 prophets,* and after Him in the saints. Christ is the pure 
 incarnation of this Holy Spirit, and in this sense may be 
 regarded as conceived by the Holy Ghost. He was appa- 
 rently designed by God to be a light unto the world, a special 
 response to the spiritual craving of man. Hence He may 
 be looked upon as a Messiah. He is a complete expres- 
 sion of all that God desires man to be. Hence He is an 
 Ideal Exemplar, a Redeemer, Saviour. In His infinite love, 
 God-like character, sinlessness, and heavenly mission. He 
 may be called the Son of God. As the spiritual heir of the 
 world, and its crowning figure, whose life is its highest joy, 
 and whose death is its deepest woe. He may be called the 
 Son of Man. 
 
 The Creator, the Spirit of Holiness, and Christ are three 
 aspects then, or manifestations of the same Godhead, as 
 recognized by men. According to the nebular theory of 
 creation, the latter two were latent in the primal nebula ; 
 but if the nebular theory is not strictly correct, they may 
 really be special manifestations of God made later on. 
 
 If Christ be not God Himself, He is, at any rate, the 
 highest emblem of God that men can ever know. No love 
 can be greater than that of Him who sacrificed His life for 
 the whole world. No moral teaching can be loftier than 
 His, let science and culture advance as they will. It 
 neither conflicts with physical science, nor, rightly inter- 
 preted, does it stifle culture. In a social respect, it is free 
 alike from the asceticism sanctioned by Buddhism, and the 
 sensuality and fatalism of Mohammedanism, 
 
 * The prophets, and we include religions teachers other than Jewish in 
 the word, must also be regarded as Divine missionaries to men. Buddha, 
 indeed, is called " Saviour," because he saves men from sin and evil desires. 
 
THE OLD CKEED. 263 
 
 Christ cannot fail to take a deep hold on the hearts and 
 imaginations of those who seek a knowledge of His life. 
 He is the soul's idol, the Ideal Being we are all ready 
 to love. Whatever was good in the past, and whatever 
 shall be good in the future, was centred in Him. All the 
 spiritual loveliness which poets and painters have feigned 
 beamed from the eyes of Jesus. His life is a standing 
 protest against any sneers and scoffs that may be levelled 
 at humanity. Christ has lived, whose holiness, purity, and 
 goodness transcends imagination. That fact is enough to 
 silence carping cynics, and at the same time to inspire all 
 noble spirits. He is our supreme moral exemplar ; and 
 just as the human body is evidently the highest and domi- 
 nating animal form to be developed on the planet, so is the 
 teaching of Christ the crowning spiritual evolution. By its 
 beauty and fitness it will survive, for surely we are right 
 in thinking that it is the best and highest possible. And if 
 it is the fittest for us here, life will rebuke and scourge all 
 our departures from it. Since, then, we have received His 
 teaching, and acknowledge its truth, our duty is to obey it. 
 " He that hath my word and despiseth it, hath that which 
 shall judge him at the last day." "We may not, with 
 impunity, construct moralities to suit ourselves. The glory 
 as of the Highest has been revealed to us, and the image 
 of His divine beauty will never die out of our eyes. It 
 behoves us to study His life and precepts, as recorded 
 in the Gospels. And shall we not also love and reverence, 
 in a word, adore Him ? 
 
 We see, then, that revelation will bear a natural in- 
 terpretation; and that even a rational version of the old 
 faith is consistent. Let us pursue this treatment still 
 further. 
 
26J: THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 If the whole earth is to be regarded as a Divine work, 
 it may be argued that the person of Christ would be 
 equally sacred, whether produced by a special fecundation, 
 or by the ojoeration of Divine laws from the beginning.* A 
 thing is sacred in proportion as it manifests the Divine 
 nature. Christ manifested this in a supreme degree, and 
 therefore He is supremely sacred. Eighteen centuries have 
 proved the truth and beauty of His cultus ; and hence it 
 may be pleaded there is now no need of miracles to warrant 
 it. The human race, especially the poorer classes, can ill 
 afford to let it perish. 
 
 As for the hope of immortality, science cannot deny 
 there is a hereafter ; and, therefore, faith is free to believe 
 in one. The all but universal instinct of mankind, the 
 firm assertions of the prophets, are in favour of a future 
 state. If science could one day prove that there is none, 
 why expose the race to such a needless disappointment, and 
 discount the teaching of the prophets, by laying bare so 
 gross an error ? It would surely have been better to permit 
 no such instinctive hope, no such innate conviction to grow 
 up in men. Christ, as Highest Prophet, also preached a 
 future state. We know His moral teaching to be true, and 
 Heaven-sent, and therefore are the readier to believe His 
 promises of immortality. Even if He did not rise from the 
 dead in the manner related in the Gospels, He may have 
 risen in some normal way, open to other souls. Faith in a 
 future state of happiness is so blessed, so inspiriting, and so 
 universal that, while science has no positive proof against 
 it, we may well be pardoned for indulging it. 
 
 * This does not toucli the argnment that i'ree-will might necessitate a 
 special fecundation. That argument can only be answered by submitting 
 the questionable proposition that a practically sinless person could be born 
 in a natural way, despite the operation of free-will. 
 
THE OLD CKEED. 265 
 
 It has been pointed out by a recent writer that there is 
 a progressive refinement in the action of the different 
 senses. Touch has primarily to do with solids coming into 
 direct contact with the organ, taste with a liquid medium, 
 smell with particles carried by a gas, hearing with vibra- 
 tions in a gas, and seeing with vibrations in an ether. And 
 this advance in power to appreciate finer qualities of matter, 
 and discern to greater distances in nature, together with the 
 well-known fact that certain persons have a peculiar power 
 of " reading the thoughts," has led him to the speculation 
 that a special sense may yet be develoj^ed enabling men to 
 divine thoughts by a kind of clairvoyance; * an induction of 
 thought, or direct action of soul on soul. On the theory of 
 evolution it is highly probable that the senses were de- 
 veloped in organisms in the order named; and we may 
 institute a parallel between their evolution and the spiritual 
 evolution of mankind. At first men groped about after 
 God, and perceived Him in tangible things, then gradually 
 rose to higher knowledge of Him. New spiritual senses 
 were given them as they were required. At last came 
 Christ, who looked on God as the intelligent eye of the 
 original man would gaze upon the sun. Perhaps the whole 
 human race will, in the days to come, acquire a direct sense 
 of God's presence in the universe, similar in kind to that 
 which was possessed by Jesus. And, if not on earth, per- 
 haps it will be granted us when we have laid aside the 
 garments of mortality. 
 
 * Such a power is recorded of Christ, and it would seem miraculous to 
 His followers, even though due to natural evolution. 
 
266 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE NEW EVANGELS. 
 
 How is it that our modern thought 
 Has travelled from these sacred ways, 
 And every certaia truth is bought 
 By parting with some Faith and praise ? 
 We light our earth with the quenched rays 
 Of heaven ; and yet we only seek 
 Truth for the strong and for the weak, 
 Loving it more than length of days 
 Or the ruby lip and the blooming cheek. 
 * * * * 
 
 'Tis wisdom, doubtless, for the man 
 To learn the fact and steadfast law : 
 Yet wisdom also in its plan 
 Embraced the child's great wondering awe 
 Which found the Unseen in all it saw ; 
 Whom now we seek with cruel strain 
 Of longing heart and wildered bram, 
 Tossing our barren chaff and straw 
 In search of the old diviner grain. 
 
 From Olrig Grange. 
 
 In the whole history of the Christian religion there probably 
 never was a period when doubt and infidelity were as rife 
 in Christian countries as they are at present. England is 
 no exception to the rule. The conflict of heretical opinions 
 among her leading thinkers, and the cultured classes who 
 share their society and hearken to their teaching, is a 
 notorious trait of the times. Philosophers who have grown 
 grey in poring over test-tubes and microscopes, assure us 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 267 
 
 that the soul is nothing; more than a cluster of molecules 
 which death shall for ever disperse ; that God is either an 
 ideal myth or an inscrutable Power, whose real nature 
 baffles the heart and bewilders the brain. "Weaned from 
 their allegiance to Christ, our poets long to join in the 
 vanished festivals of Apollo ; and freed from the burden of 
 the Cross, they languish for the seductive licence of paganism. 
 Even within the pale of the Church herself there are minis- 
 ters tainted with the prevailing scepticism, who either 
 overtly preach or secretly believe some heterodox version 
 of the old creed; and callow freshmen at the universities 
 improve their leisure in chattering about Christianity as a 
 defunct superstition, to be relegated ere long to the lumber- 
 room of fossil faiths. The upper classes, early infected by the 
 decay of the old belief and the ferment of new ideas, have 
 become cynically corrupt ; the middle classes, though they 
 have to a great extent caught the same mental epidemic, 
 have borne up better against it, owing perhaps to their busy 
 lives ; and only the lower classes are as yet comparatively 
 exempt from the prevailing malady. 
 
 This lamentable state of society is largely due to the 
 spread of materialism, whatever eminent materialists may 
 urge to the contrary. By teaching that every event taking 
 place in the world is the result of mechanical laws and 
 never of any supernatural agency, positive science deprives 
 Christianity of its miraculous element, and shatters our 
 faith in the gospels and the divinity of Jesus Christ. To 
 the work of spiritual demolition thus begun, materialism 
 adds the finishing stroke by announcing that the soul 
 perishes with the body ; and that nothing exists but matter 
 and motion. 
 
 It would appear, however, that men can not be happy 
 
268 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 without a faith of some kind, and since the old one has 
 been discarded, by many persons, they have found it neces- 
 sary to manufacture new ones. We will examine some of 
 these latter-day evangels. 
 
 Beginning with materialism, we find that there are two 
 sorts of it, mild materialism and rank materialism. Dr. Tyn- 
 dall is, perhaps, the chief exponent of the first kind, while the 
 German professor, Haeckel, is the great mouthpiece of the 
 second. In the eyes of Dr. Tyndall a red-hot star is a fiery 
 embryo, out of which endless forms of life and beauty will 
 develop by its inherent potency. "Supposing," he writes, 
 " a planet carved from the sun, and set spinning round its 
 axis, and revolving round the sun at a distance from him 
 equal to that of our earth, would one of the consequences 
 of its refrigeration be the development of organic forms? 
 I lean to the affirmative. Structural forces are certainly in 
 the mass, whether or not these forces reach to the extent of 
 forming a plant or an animal. In an amorphous drop of 
 water lie latent all the marvels of crystalline force : and 
 who will set limits to the possible play of molecules in a 
 cooling planet? If these statements startle, it is because 
 matter has been defined and maligned by philosophers and 
 theologians who are equally unaware that it is at bottom 
 essentially mystical and transcendental."* 
 
 Dr. Tyndall further regards the animal body as a piece 
 of mechanism kept at work by consuming the blood, which 
 is the " oil of life ; " " but," says he, " in affirming that the 
 growth of the body is mechanical and that thought, as 
 exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of the 
 brain, I think the position of the materialist is stated as 
 far as that position is a tenable one. ... If you ask him 
 
 * Fragments of Science, 6tli edit. 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 269 
 
 whence is this matter of which we have been discoursing, 
 who or what divided it into molecules, who or what im- 
 pressed upon them this necessity of running into organic 
 forms, he has no answer. Science is mute in reply to these 
 questions. But if the materialist is confounded *and science 
 rendered dumb, who else is prepared with a solution ? To 
 whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed ? Let us 
 bow our head and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and 
 philosopher, one and all."* 
 
 In this cautious confession of faith, or rather of non- 
 faith, it will be seen that the claims of Holy Writ are entirely 
 ignored. 
 
 Professor Haeckel goes far beyond Dr. Tyndall, and 
 boldly asserts a positive creed, which he has termed Monism 
 in opposition to the Dualism of divines, which would affirm 
 the universe to consist of both matter and spirit. According 
 to monism there is only one force acting on matter, namely, 
 mechanical force; and as for mind, it is a quality of all 
 matter. By the play of mechanical force and matter the 
 universe is evolved in a regular and rational manner 
 like the working of a great machine. The theory of 
 descent, or transformism, which explains the origin of 
 living types by change of shape due to mechanical causes, 
 is an essential part of monism : and the theory of selection, 
 or Darwinism, is until now the chief among the different 
 theories which try to explain this transformation. 
 
 Not content with a description of the general process of 
 development, Dr. Haeckel attempts to trace its actual steps, 
 and he has therefore drawn up a " Stamm-baum," or family 
 tree, to illustrate the pedigree of man. 
 
 From this interesting archive, we learn that, some time 
 
 * Fragments of Science, 6th edit. 
 
270 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 about the beginning of the Laurentian period of geology, 
 the atoms C, O, H, N (Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen) 
 were thrown together by chance, and united to form a 
 monera, or bleb of living jelly, which was the primal germ 
 of all succeeding organisms. From this monera, by a 
 slow and devious course through intermediate vermin, the 
 humble worm issued, and from the worm there sprang in 
 time the fish, and from the fish the ape. Later on, in 
 Miocene ages, the man-like ape parted with his tail, and 
 eke his hair, while receiving in exchange a more capacious 
 brain-pan. At last this " dumb-ape-man," our idiotic first- 
 parent, who dwelt in the paradise of Lemuria, a lost island 
 of the Indian ocean, left ofi" his disagreeable howling and 
 became a talking person. How he ever learned to laugh 
 is as yet a mystery ; unless, indeed, there were Haeckels in 
 those days. 
 
 There is no break in the continuity of this long chain 
 of descent ; and all the various links of it are solely due to 
 mechanical force. " A stone falling to the ground," says 
 Haeckel, " according to definite laws, a crystal forming in 
 a saline solution, sulphur and mercury combining into cin- 
 nabar, are neither more nor less mechanical life-phenomena 
 than the growth and flowering of plants, the propagation 
 and sensation of animals, or the perception and intelli- 
 gence of man."* There is no essential difference between 
 animals, plants, and minerals, that is, between dead and 
 living matter. All natural bodies are equally alive : every 
 atom has an atom-soul ; every plastidule, or molecule 
 of protoplasm (COHN), has a plastidule-soul which is the 
 resultant of all the atom-souls composing it ; just as the 
 
 * Natural History of Creation. For a similar theory see the famous 
 eighteenth century romance, The Fool of Quality, by Henry Brooke, Ch. IV. 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. ' 271 
 
 soul of a weed or a man is the sum total of all the plastidule 
 souls it contains. Soul-life resolves itself into two elements, 
 attraction and repulsion ; or, in other words, the love and 
 hate of atoms. All our thought and feeling may be 
 ultimately referred to the food we eat ; and our highest 
 social instincts, even the Christian sense of duty, so far from 
 being peculiar to mankind, are to be found in still greater 
 perfection amongst the ants. 
 
 Monism is, in its founder's eyes, destined to be a panacea 
 for all the evils under the sun. It will correct the effects 
 of bad education, and raise us from the barbaric state we 
 grovel in despite all our boasted civilization. By a prompt 
 recognition of our apish ancestry, we shall arrive at the 
 only true religion, the religion of nature, whose highest 
 commandment is Love ! 
 
 The idea of a God, creator of the world, is to Haeckel 
 so absurd that it can only have originated in the crania of 
 the dumb-ape-men, or parental idiots, before they had begun 
 to exchange ideas ; and as for free-will, right and wrong, good 
 and evil, virtue and vice, they do not exist. Man is an 
 automatic brute; human nature is the intricate play of 
 atoms ; inexorable fate rules all. 
 
 " The time has come," says Haeckel, " to replace the 
 antique dualistic and teleological conception of life and 
 spirit by the monoistic or mechanical conception. We have 
 arrived at the boundaries of the old faith and the new. 
 Mystery which is, perhaps, impenetrable exists; but, in 
 any case, scholastic arguments will not pierce it. The 
 doctrine of final causes has all the artless simplicity of the 
 explanations which prevail among savages or children ; and 
 the theories of Lamarck and Darwin have given the quietus 
 to this decrepit doctrine. Modern morphology is irrecon- 
 
272 THE NEW TEUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 cilable, not only, I say, with the dogma of creation, but 
 also with that of a Providence, or a vague ideal pantheism ' 
 of the kind associated with the names of Hegel, Schopen- 
 hauer, and Hartmann."* 
 
 As for Christianity, Herr Haeckel treats it with rather 
 more courtesy than he bestows on Providence, and shows 
 his appreciation of it by coolly proceeding to appropriate a 
 portion. "It is certain," he remarks, "that the Christian 
 religion, as well as the Buddhist doctrine, if freed from all 
 dogmatic fables, contains an excellent human kernel ; no-w- 
 it is just this humane and truly social democratic part of 
 the Christian creed which proclaims the equality of all men 
 in the sight of God, and preaches ' Love thy neighbour as 
 thyself,' in fact ' love ' in its highest sense, compassion with 
 the poor and unfortunate, etc.; I say these truly human sides 
 of the Christian faith are so natm-al, so pure and noble, 
 that I comprise them with pleasure amongst the moral laws 
 of our monoistic religion." f 
 
 We need not linger long over the avowed ignorance of 
 Professor Tyndall. If science cannot tell us anything about 
 the Deity, we are still free to put our faith in revelation ; 
 for revelation, as well as plants and crystals, may have been 
 included in the original " promise and potency " of atoms. 
 
 The bold denial of Professor Haeckel concerns us more ; 
 but in its boldness there is an element of rashness, and there- 
 fore of weakness. It is altogether unwarrantable to deny 
 the existence of a God because science can find no traces of 
 Him in nature ; and Dr. Tyndall takes a safer position in 
 leaving the question open. Materialism seems to be a kind 
 of inverted Christianity. Instead of seeking God in the 
 -wide heaven of the human soul, the materialist inverts his 
 
 * See Nature, Sep. 5, 1878. f Freie Wissenschaft und Freie Lehre. 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 273 
 
 view and peers througli the small end of his glass into the 
 stocks and stones of the ground. No man can be absolutely 
 certain that God exists ; but if He does, we are more likely 
 to discover signs of Him among His higher than His lower 
 works. It is not among the bricks and mortar of a building 
 that we expect to trace the aim and genius of the architect, 
 but rather in the finished edifice, especially its superior 
 parts. Life, indeed, appears to be an ascending scale, like 
 Jacob's ladder, based upon dead matter and leading up to 
 God. Man, who is at the top, is, of all earthly things, the 
 nearest to Him ; and it is among the highest men that we 
 shall best discern His image. Moreover, if we assume there 
 is a Creator, may we not derive an argument for Divine 
 revelation from the very unlikelihood that He would leave 
 all His creatures ignorant of their Maker, and sit eternally 
 in solitary state, environed by a blind machinery ? 
 
 Time was when proofs of providential design in nature 
 were one of the happiest products of science, and this design 
 was held to imply an original Intelligence; but we have 
 changed all that, and while one physicist mystifies matter 
 another demonizes it, and gets rid of the necessity for a 
 Creator by endowing each atom with a spirit of its own. 
 Haeckel is obviously led to this preposterous notion by the 
 apparent absence of any break in the continuity of nature 
 from man downwards, through brutes and plants, even to 
 the minerals. Animal life glides into vegetable life, and 
 vegetable life into mineral matter, and we cannot detect 
 where the one ends and the other begins. But surely, we 
 are not therefore forced to conclude that soul and sense are 
 mere properties of matter ; for though matter and spirit were 
 two distinct entities, we might expect an all-cunning Artist 
 to join them so closely that to our perception they appear as 
 
 T 
 
274 THE NEW TKUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 one. The weak side of materialism consists in assuming 
 that the ^•isible universe alone exists ; and that, because all 
 the " forms and qualities " of temporal life apjpear to arise 
 wholly out of matter, matter is therefore all in all. But 
 appearances are never more deceitful than in science ; and 
 we know not into what hidden worlds the visible may 
 strike its roots and draAV forth sustenance. Besides, in 
 taking for granted that life was evolved from dead matter, 
 the stark materialist oversteps the rigid limits of ascertained 
 fact. He allows his hypothesis to carry his imagination 
 away, and an ugly surprise may some day bring him back 
 to sober reason. The spontaneous generation of living from 
 dead matter is only an hypothesis as yet, however agreeable 
 to the reason it may be to reckon it as proven truth. And 
 further, we ought not to overlook the fact that even if abio- 
 genesis were practically demonstrated every day in the 
 laboratory, and the "missing link" were ticketed in our 
 museums, the existence of a spiritual world ingearing with 
 the physical, though perhaps discredited would not be dis- 
 proved. There would still be room for a spiritual Creator 
 and, similarly, a spiritual universe ; only His mode of 
 working, instead of being thought fitful, would be shown to 
 be continuous, and the connection between the seen and 
 unseen worlds less abrupt than was supposed. 
 
 Monism does indeed please the desire for causality in 
 the human mind, but we are afraid it fails to satisfy the 
 spiritual cravings of the human heart. It gives us a 
 grander conception of what we must still persist in calling 
 God's handiwork, but it leaves our knowledge of God Him- 
 self a blank. As a theory of nature it is magnificent, as a 
 religion it is contemptible. 
 
 The splendid pageant of evolution, the long panorama of 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 275 
 
 change through endless aeons, may fill the imagination with 
 sublimity ; but it is not by this kind of knowledge that a 
 man must live. The affairs of our parish to-day are more 
 important to us than the dragons which made their lairs 
 upon it a thousand centuries ago ; and the state of the sky 
 above our heads, than the mean temperature of Jupiter. 
 Moreover, when we reflect that all this wondrous scenery 
 of nature is but an infinite grinding mill and masterless 
 engine of destruction, all its enchantment and poesy is at 
 once extinguished. The soul can only be genial to spirit ; 
 it can have no communion and fellowship with matter, and 
 in the mechanism seeks instinctively the Maker. 
 
 In his ethical aims Haeckel evidently means well by 
 incorporating into monism all that he considers good in the 
 earlier religions, and especially Christianity. But taking 
 the good of Christianity, without also adopting its authority, 
 is likely to be of little avail, since every sinner will be at 
 liberty to interpret his canons to his own taste. If he does 
 not believe that his commandment is God's word, and that 
 God has power over him and loves him, will he deny him- 
 self indulgences to keep his patchwork faith? We think 
 not. 
 
 In the case of public offences monism may indeed serve 
 as a deterrent, but not in the case of secret sins. For these 
 only the eye of God can be the restraining power. 
 
 A faith evolved by doctors like a principle of science, 
 and formulated like a mathematical theorem, even though 
 illustrated by the sublime example and ideal of Jesus 
 Christ, will, if we mistake not, have little hold upon the 
 hearts and minds of men, since the great boon which they 
 have ever craved is an accredited revelation from the Most 
 High. 
 
276 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Positivism, again, holds that as yet we know nothing 
 about God, or a hereafter, and that nntil we do we need 
 not concern ourselves about them. It is a need of our higher 
 nature to devote ourselves to some worthy object, and if the 
 idea of God be eliminated from the question, the next best 
 thing we are sure of is man. It is man, therefore, that the 
 Comtist would worship in place of God, not indeed any 
 individual man, but an ideal Humanity created by his 
 own imagination. His rule of conduct is to renounce 
 all egoism, for the sake of others ; and, instead of looking 
 forward to a blessed immortality after death, he derives a 
 satisfaction from the thought that, when his elements shall 
 dissolve for ever, he will leave behind him in the cosmos 
 the memory and impress of a well-spent life. This lofty 
 but melancholy faith appears to be the last refuge of noble 
 souls disappointed of their God. From His deserted mercy- 
 seat and desolate altars they turn away as with a sigh, and 
 stifle their sadness in good works. The very feeling that 
 they are abandoned of God, that in fact no God exists, 
 and that it lies solely with ourselves to make the planet as 
 happy a place for each other as we can, endues them with 
 a tender sympathy for their fellow-creatures thus left grop- 
 ing in the dark and crying for the light. 
 
 The flaws in Comtism are similar to the flaws in monism. 
 It is too weak in its authority, for example, and only half 
 satisfies the aspirations of the heart. It may incite to 
 righteousness the few who are inherently noble ; but the 
 multitude of secret sinners will laugh to scorn the threat of 
 posthumous disgrace. And a religion which cannot restrain 
 the wicked and vile from evil doing is unworthy of the 
 name. The actual human race, with all its vice and folly, 
 is a sorry kind of god ; and further, it may be retorted on 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 277 
 
 the Comtist that if the Deity is a fiction of the mind, so in 
 reality is the ideal race. Good fame, too, would prove, we 
 fear, a hollow mockery of immortality in the hour of sick- 
 ness or of death. Love of God and of humanity, in fact, are 
 complementary, and require to go together. Now, it may 
 here be remarked that Christianity embraces both, and 
 while it commands us to love one another, it enjoins us also 
 to love the Father. 
 
 Another candidate for the toppling shrines of Christian- 
 ity is the doctrine which has been termed Cosmic Theism, 
 and which, in the opinion of its apostles, is destined to 
 become the religion of the future. It professes to unite the 
 principle of nature with the God of history, and if we 
 understand the vast abstraction rightly, it is a kind of 
 mystic hybrid between Pantheism and Judaism. The new 
 deity is, however, neither a phantom man nor a living 
 universe, but a combination of two abstruse ideas. It is 
 therefore only knowable by the learned, and in this respect 
 resembles the godhead of the Egyptian priesthood, which 
 was so far beyond the capacities of the multitude that it 
 had to be parcelled out to them in the form of idols symbol- 
 izing its various attributes. This ideal maze and " august 
 bewilderment" may indeed excite a feeling of devotion in 
 the souls of a few deep thinkers, able to brood over the 
 grandeurs of the cosmos; but to the great bulk of mankind, 
 whose business is with life, not science, it wiU probably 
 remain an empty sound, if, indeed, it does not lure them on 
 to madness. 
 
 Beliefs are now as plentiful as blackberries; and each 
 eloquent layman, not content with preaching his own par- 
 ticular gospel in the magazines or on the platform, must 
 needs essay his prentice hand at fabricating to himself a 
 
278 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 new creed from the remnants of the old. It would be a 
 vain and endless task to criticise all these clever adaptations 
 of Christianity with the part of Christ left out. But we 
 cannot here overlook the doctrines of a certain school of 
 Broad Church divines, whose aim is evidently to make a 
 compromise between science and theology at the expense of 
 mystery. Their views are rarely or never stated with that 
 unmistakable clearness and precision which befits this 
 era of definite thought, probably because they are some- 
 what hazy and sophistical to the preachers themselves ; 
 but we may glean some notion of them from a sermon 
 recently preached by an eminent theologian, in which he 
 spoke of the divinity of Christ's life, but did not mean 
 that Christ was divine : he alluded to the overshadowing 
 providence of God, but did not therefore imply a personal 
 God; and he defined the three elements of the Christian 
 Trinity to be all that is God-like in human life and charac- 
 ter, and all well-attested facts of science and of history. This 
 Trinity, it will be remarked, is apparently the Deity of 
 Cosmic Theism with the human element added, and we do 
 not very well see in what essential respect it differs from 
 the Infinite God, wdio already dwells in our imaginations. 
 It is mainly in regard to the nature and ofiice of Christ 
 that their ideas materially diverge from orthodoxy. For 
 instance, another reverend theologian, preaching in West- 
 minster Abbey one Christmas Da}', explained that Jesus 
 Christ was the mediator because He was the middle-man 
 who reconciled all the conflicting parties among men. 
 Again, in a sermon to children preached in the same place 
 on the succeeding Innocents' Day, he taught that " He was 
 good, and went through all sorts of trouble and pain for no 
 other reason but to render us good ; and this is why He is 
 called the Son of God, the Saviour of men." 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 279 
 
 Now, surely we are right in saying that, until these 
 latter days of Broad Church divines, the reason why Christ 
 was called the Son of God was simply that He was believed 
 to be the actual Son of God, and not because He went about 
 doing good or suffering pain. It was not in a metaphorical 
 but a real sense that the term was wont to be and still 
 is employed by the less advanced clergy of the Church. 
 Indeed, while the reverend theologian quoted was busy 
 spinning his elusive verbal refinements in the Abbey on 
 that particular Christmas morning, a preacher in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral was at the same time engaged in proclaiming to 
 his hearers the ancient gospel, that the Maker of the world 
 had become flesh and descended into the world to seek and 
 save mankind. 
 
 However true this ingenious rendering of Christianity 
 may be, it is certainly not the Christianity of our fathers. 
 The sacred pile of Westminster Abbey was not erected by 
 the faith which now is taught within its precincts. No 
 masquerading in traditionary vestments, or cant of borrowed 
 epithets can disguise the fact. Though it be preached at 
 Christian altars and hallowed by Christian hymns, we 
 cannot forget that the new faith is not the old ; though the 
 image of Christ be represented with a halo, and the head 
 still bowed at mention of His name, we cannot help feeling 
 that it is a mere effigy of His former self that we are 
 worshipping, and that the divinity with which His person 
 was once instinct has vanished quite away. 
 
 These creedless Christians, doubtless, have a sincere and 
 amiable motive in acting as they do, but it has landed them 
 into a species of insincerity. They are striving to reconcile 
 the new scientific culture with the old religion, but they 
 have not succeeded very thoroughly. They seem to lack 
 
280 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 both the courage to treat Christ as a mere man, and the 
 faith to recognize Him as a God. The consequence is, that 
 they " are really a new firm trading under an old name and 
 trying to purchase the goodwill of the former establish- 
 ment"* by palming off an inferior article under the old 
 trade-mark. 
 
 There is a stratum of good in all these new religions as 
 far as they go, and they preach in their fragmentary way 
 some old doctrines with a new force. Materialism enlarges 
 our ideas of the size, age, and structure of the visible 
 universe, it raises the value of material thins^s, and im- 
 presses upon us the importance of a wise obedience to 
 material laws. Evolution brings into prominence the 
 momentous fact that we are links in a great chain of being, 
 joining the past and future; that our health is a precious 
 legacy which we bequeath unto our children, and our 
 weakness means the weakness of those who follow us. 
 Comtism encourages us to leave a good name behind us in 
 the world, by helping others, and points out the eternal 
 consequences of even our most trivial actions ; while Cosmic 
 Theism preserves us from a too petty conception of the God- 
 head, by reminding us of His infinite power and majesty. 
 
 Nevertheless, we have an uneasy feeling that there is 
 something wanting in these fine-weather faiths, and that 
 they will not serve us in the hour of need. Amid the 
 blinding storm of fresh ideas they are, we fear, but the 
 illusory glamours of the rainbow, and not the vivifying sun 
 of Truth. They present us, it is true, with a pure system of 
 morality, an inexorable providence, and an abstruse God; 
 but the human soul yearns for something better. It longs 
 for the assurance of a loving Father, who will guide and 
 
 * The Neiv Kepuhlic, by Mr. W. H. Mallock. 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 28l 
 
 care for it ; it seeks to enter into communication with Him 
 while on earth, and hopes to draw nearer to Him after 
 death. Morality is not religion ; and it is not the inscrut- 
 able Power which created the universe, so much as the 
 Being who made us, that we wish to know. The chemistry 
 of our own little planet is of more consequence to us than 
 the astronomy of countless galaxies ; and, similarly, the rela- 
 tions of the Deity to mankind are more to be desired than 
 His relations to the cosmos at large. It is not the Creator, 
 but the Father, to whom our souls incline. The deep 
 craving of our generation for some lofty and regenerative 
 ideal sanctioned by the Lord is patent to all close observers. 
 The new evangels fail to supply it, for they can only give 
 us an eidolon of the human imagination ; but the old creed 
 gave us what we wanted in the living Jesus before its 
 Divine authority was cankered by the insidious doubts of 
 recent science. Christianity is all the world requires, and 
 yet some of the noblest men and women cannot honestly 
 accept it ; even its central Figure is degraded and its lovely 
 ideal sullied in their sight, for it lies under a suspicion of 
 being false. 
 
 To endeavour to clear away this suspicion is the urgent 
 task imposed upon our clergy. The Church is the appointed 
 warden of the old faith, and it is her duty to guard it 
 against the attacks of hostile criticism. What then is the 
 state of the Church at the present time ? We desire to 
 approach this question in a reverent and charitable spirit, 
 knowing that Christian ministers have fallen upon evil 
 times ; but over and above this desire, we are impelled to 
 speak out plainly, in the assurance that it cannot be a 
 matter of indifference to the Church to learn how she 
 appears to a very great number of laymen. Our remarks 
 
282 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 will apply rather to the English Church than to the 
 Dissenters ; and it must be understood that there are 
 numerous exceptions to them in both bodies. 
 
 We do not think it is any exaggeration to say that the 
 Church is fast losing her hold upon the love and reverence 
 of many educated men. Instead of a holy temple, conse- 
 crated to the worship of the Deity, and the exercise of the 
 highest thoughts and sublimest feelings, she has sunk 
 almost to the level of a moral lecture-room or a sacred 
 concert-hall. Numbers of her priests enunciate with arti- 
 ficial solemnity, and all the sanctimonious tones which hide 
 a spurious piety, the tenets of a creed which they them- 
 selves dare not examine. Her pews, when they are filled 
 at all, are mostly occupied by women and young girls who 
 are ready to accept all that is told them with implicit trust, 
 and, being innocent of natural science and the new ideas, 
 are of course incompetent to detect any weak points in the 
 doctrine. The ten-minutes' exhortation which often does 
 duty for a sermon, may be a very nice little lesson for 
 children, but it is sorry stuflf for thinking men and women ; 
 and to one distempered with scientific scepticism it sounds 
 but the parrotlike repetition of an empty fable. Many 
 people go to church for the sake of keeping up appearances, 
 and doubtless the Divinity is highly honoured by their 
 condescension. Some go to hear the music in a pleasure- 
 seeking spirit, as one goes to hear an oratorio ; and others, 
 far more earnest in fleeing from their doubts, take refuge 
 in the sacred gloom of a beautiful and traditionary faith, 
 where for a moment they can silence their hearts in a 
 strain of heavenly music, or beguile their reason with 
 the pomp of ceremonial. To the former, the services 
 of the church are a mere entertainment ; to the latter, 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 283 
 
 they are a saving sham : to neither are they what they 
 ought to be. 
 
 It is the habit of some clergymen to repudiate science 
 altogether; and another favourite mode of avoiding the 
 difficulties of belief which are raised by science, is to assert 
 that science and religion are fundamentally at one, however 
 they may appear to differ in our imperfect knowledge. We 
 are told that " Whatever enlarges our ideas of nature, en- 
 larges our ideas of God;" "Whatever is bad theology is 
 bad science — whatever is good science is good theology," 
 and so on ; but these cant phrases, however they may cloke 
 the antagonism of science and religion, do not dispel it. 
 They will satisfy the ignorant and confiding, perhaps, but 
 they will not cure the doubts of thoughtful people. While 
 the spirit of science is entirely opposed to the working of 
 miracles, to the apparition of angels, to the Divine concep- 
 tion of Christ and His resurrection from the dead, is it not 
 idle to tell us that science and the orthodox faith are in 
 harmony ? It is equally vain to combat scepticism, as is 
 often done, by quoting passages from Scripture, when the 
 truth and authority of Scripture are the very things which 
 are doubted. What use is there in citing the words of, 
 Christ, when the Divinity of Christ is called in question ? 
 Before certain young curates, whom we have heard, begin 
 to prate of science and pass their judgments upon it in the 
 pulpit, they should at least have taken the trouble to know 
 something about it ; otherwise they are in danger of mis- 
 representing it to the unversed, and of exposing their holy 
 office to the ridicule of the learned. The science to be 
 gathered from quack advertisements in the Rock newspaper, 
 or even from the pages of popular Magazines, is not exactly 
 the positive science of Faraday, Helmholtz, Darwin, and 
 
284 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Thomson. Let them see what positive science really means 
 before they attempt to set the world right about it. 
 
 In a great number of English churches now the sermon 
 has dwindled into insignificance, and the time is almost 
 wholly taken up with choral singing, by boys in white 
 surplices, and in mumbling over the Prayer Book. Such a 
 service is well enough adapted for the officiating priests 
 and for true believers ; but it is worse than useless for 
 persons who wish to become true believers, but cannot con- 
 scientiously do so until their doubts are set at rest. Men 
 of this class are at present, if not always, out of all propor- 
 tion to the true believers, and therefore it is essential on 
 their behalf to make the sermon a very important part of 
 the service. Listening to the music of a well-trained choir 
 of good voices may be a very agreeable mode of spending 
 time, but (except to the few) it is hardly worshipping the 
 Most High. Trvie, there are many of the unconverted who 
 feel the better for the music, especially when they are allowed 
 to join in the singing themselves ; but that holy influence is 
 too transient to suffice. It may be likened to the perfume 
 of flowers beside the well of Truth, when the living waters 
 are out of reach and the burning thirst unquenched. 
 
 Repeating the liturgy is an act more worthy of a rational 
 being worshipj^ing his Maker, but when that being is un- 
 certain that his Maker exists, or will hear his prayer ; when 
 he fears that the Saviour in whose name he pleads was only 
 an erring man like himself, how spiritless is his entreaty, 
 and how hollow is his creed ! Under these circumstances, 
 the reading of the liturgy is even worse than a lesson said 
 by rote. 
 
 As for the sermons themselves, or rather school-boy 
 essays dignified by the name of sermons, they are often, we 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 285 
 
 regret to say it, almost an insult to the understanding of 
 men who know the world. For the sake of the music the 
 sermon is tolerated, under the comforting reflection that in 
 any case it will not last long. Brief as it is, however, it 
 frequently does more harm than good, by stirring up again 
 the silt of doubts before subsided, and calling forth derogatory 
 criticism. There is something radically wrong in this state 
 of things, for the services of the Church are meant to put 
 men in a good, and not a bad frame of mind. 
 
 Until there is a reform in the quality of sermons de- 
 livered in the English Church, those persons who are capable 
 of thinking for themselves, in other words the most valuable 
 members of the community, will stay away. If we ask 
 these men why they do not go to church, we shall hear the 
 same answer from all of them. " I would fain go to church ; 
 I long to hear a good sermon ; but I can never hear one 
 anywhere." 
 
 The art of preaching is lost ! Scientific scepticism is 
 spreading its insidious poison through all classes of the 
 people, and the Church is quite incompetent to stop the 
 evil. Instead of studying the nature of this mental dis- 
 order, and battling it manfully with its own weapons of 
 acute logic and clean-cut scientific thought, too many 
 of our clergy turn aside from the fray, and seek a refuge 
 in the efi'ete ceremonies of a past age. The scientific doubts 
 of the day will never be cured by sentiment ; and when 
 the very foundations of the faith are undermined, it is 
 of little use adorning the superstructure. 
 
 It is needful therefore that the clergy should inform 
 themselves thoroughly with the science of the day, imbibe 
 its spirit, investigate the religious doubts to which it gives 
 rise, then fight and overthrow them in the pulpit if they 
 
286 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 can, and vindicate their creed before all men. They must 
 go to the root of the evil, and attack it there, if they would 
 check its ravages. 
 
 It is not perhaps so much the infidelity of our time 
 the Church has to fear, as its own incapacity. Infidelity is 
 an old complaint which she has coped with successfully ere 
 now ; and though it may wear a new armour at present, 
 the substance is essentially the same in all ages. What the 
 Church needs is that vital want of wants, capable men, men 
 who feel they have a vocation for the work, not supei-fine 
 dandies, with commonplace brains set off by elegant 
 manners ; men who have passed through the fire of scientific 
 and scholastic doubts, and come out of the ordeal with 
 a firm faith of some sort, which they believe in, and the 
 power to help others who may be sufiering the like spiritual 
 trials, and bring to them the peace which they have found. 
 Eloquent men cannot be obtained on demand ; but the per- 
 nicious system of reading written sermons as one reads a 
 manuscript essay, should be as much as possible discouraged. 
 
 To hear able essays on religious topics, one does not 
 require to go to church in these days, when the press 
 competes so strongly with the pulpit. What the people 
 want is an earnest man who wiU speak to them out of the 
 fulness of his heart ; and if it is necessary for him to write 
 his thoughts out beforehand, let him at least speak them in 
 delivery as if they sprang spontaneously, so that they may 
 smite home to his hearers with living force. This growing 
 practice of reading written sermons is one of the chief 
 faults of the English and even now the Scotch clergy. 
 In giving way to it they are cultivating the art of writing 
 instead of the art of speaking, which is the proper study 
 of the preacher. Verily the Scottish Presbyterians of fifty 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 287 
 
 years ago erred on the right side with their keen antipathy 
 to read sermons. Nowadays, even in our best cathedrals, we 
 rarely hear anything else than a read sermon ; and after 
 the frigid propriety of phrase in which our ordinary 
 preachers dress their mediocrity, it is a great refreshment 
 to the wearied soul to hear the native eloquence and poetic 
 fervour pouring from the impassioned tongue of a John 
 Caird or Knox-Little. 
 
 It is of infinite moment that the Church should be a 
 strenuous power for good in the community. At its lowest 
 estimate, it is a place where men devote set periods of 
 their lives to adjust their moral balance, and revive 
 their sense of the ideal ; and at its highest, it is an altar 
 where they may renew their vows to God. But if the 
 preaching is in discord with the progress of thought, and 
 men learn from the press truths to which the pulpit shuts 
 its eyes, the natural result will be that the latter will grow 
 dissatisfied and forsake the Church altogether, so that even 
 its mere moral benefits will be lost. When the services 
 of the Church and other appointed ceremonies, wisely 
 ordained to remind us of the unseen world, are neglected, 
 we are in a fair way of forgetting religion altogether, and 
 losing the highest culture. At whatever cost, then, the' 
 Church must try to keep its hold upon the minds and hearts 
 of the people. Nothing in the world will compensate us for 
 the loss of the sublime sense that the earth is Divine, and 
 it is the mission of the Church to keep this feeling alive. 
 Whoever does not feel, in spite of all the laws of science, 
 that the earth is a sacred place, the temple of the living 
 God, is devoid of all religious inspiration, and a stranger 
 to the holiest charm of life. 
 
 Having touched upon the condition of the clergy, let 
 
288 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 US now consider the position and aims of men of science. 
 There is an impulse in the human mind prompting it to 
 learn all the facts it can, and probe all the secrets of nature. 
 This is the true scientific spirit, the sacred ardour to know 
 the truth whatever it may cost. By experimental science 
 we gain an insight into the interior mechanism of nature, 
 and tap the stores of concealed energy therein. By applied 
 science we are enabled to turn these treasures of power to 
 our own uses, so as to increase our material comfort ; and 
 the worthiest inventor is he who best economizes the 
 energies available in the world. The pursuit of science 
 trains the mind to observe well, to think justly, and to be 
 accurate and truthful in all its doings. 
 
 Yet a scientific habit of mind is not an unmixed good, 
 and science is very far from being the all-in-all which some 
 of its votaries proclaim it to be. Although it informs us 
 of the elementary constitution of bodies, and can say, for 
 example, that water is made up of the elements H^O (two 
 molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen), these so-called 
 " elements," if elements they be, are mere phantom-symbols, 
 after all ; the real stufi" of nature remains as much a mystery 
 as ever. If it supply us with many material luxuries, it 
 is also apt to breed a lustful ease, degenerating both to soul 
 and body, and to develop organic monstrosities and engines 
 of destruction. If it enlightens the understanding, it is also 
 in danger of blighting the feelings ; and though it kills both 
 error and superstition, it tends to wither both poesy and 
 faith. In adding to the grandeur of the universe it 
 diminishes the glory of human life. 
 
 In this age of science we patent the laws of nature, and 
 trade upon them as if they were a mere marketable com- 
 modity, forgetting in this huckstering spirit and mechanical 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 289 
 
 view that they are the method of God's own handiwork. 
 We have, indeed, become assimilated to the very matter 
 in which we deal, and are little better than intelligent 
 engines working among dead matter, with no higher 
 feelings than a gin-horse. The Divine idea of the world, 
 felt by poets at rare times when gazing at a beautiful 
 scene or a noble human type, or when their souls are being 
 tuned by music, is getting lost to us. We pry into the 
 anatomy of beauty until the ascertained cause disenchants 
 us with the effect. To the student of science the dewdrop 
 is merely a condensed vapour, the diamond crystallized 
 carbon, the rainbow a refraction-spectrum, the music of the 
 winds and the trees nothing but the friction of air particles 
 upon the boughs, and all the poetry of the fallen leaf resolves 
 itself for him into an evolution of gases. He cannot admire 
 the rose for thinking of its juices, and his chief emotion on 
 beholding the Venus of Milo would be a curious desire 
 to analyze the marble. 
 
 This morbid relation to the external world and human 
 life is, however, mostly confined to young scientists who 
 have plunged too exclusively into their proper studies. 
 Science, when pursued after a healthy method, is not wholly 
 inimical to the finer feelings. There is a lofty poetry in 
 contemplating the celestial panorama of the cosmos, with 
 its pristine fires, its planets rising out of chaos and teeming 
 with lovely forms, the long vista of evolution, with its 
 successive scenes of earthly splendour, and the varied history 
 of man himself. We experience, too, a pleasing sense of 
 awe and wonder on viewing the minute as well as the 
 stupendous works of nature. A biologist watching the 
 mystic motions of the blood corpuscles under his microscope, 
 or a physicist noting the marvellous symmetry of tiny snow- 
 
 u 
 
290 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 crystals, feels some of the solemn reverence of a priest who 
 has been permitted to peep into the secret arcana of his 
 faith; and this high privilege is in itself a kind of conse- 
 cration. But there is undoubtedly a tendency in science to 
 reduce even the most sacred and mysterious things to the 
 commonplace. Novel truths and triumphs of science in- 
 variably awaken our wonder, and fresh glimpses of the 
 works of nature incite our awe; but, in course of time, 
 familiarity breeds a kind of contempt for them. 
 
 There are some who fear that science will destroy 
 poetry; but this idea is, we think, a morbid one, arising 
 from the one-sided culture of the new scientific phase 
 through which we are passing. While the mystery of life 
 and the soul exists, poetry and religion will live also. Both 
 spring from the yearning in man for the ideal and the 
 infinite — in a word, the Divine, and therefore are higher 
 than science, which can only deal with the actual. It is a 
 presumptuous error on the part of scientists to say that 
 poetry and religion must give place to science. If the 
 human race is rising in the scale of being, we should rather 
 expect poetry and religion to be more and more prized as 
 time goes on, since they conjointly tend to make man more 
 and more Divine. Let science learn the How as it may, the 
 Why is still the more important quest ; the effect is higher 
 than the means, the ideal than the real, the Deity than 
 nature. 
 
 Indeed, we may expect that science by unifying our 
 conception of nature, extending our knowledge of it in time 
 and space, and providing new materials for the hand as well 
 as the imagination, will largely assist both art and poetry 
 in the future. It is highly probable that the great poets 
 and painters yet to rise will find new inspiration in the 
 idea of evolution. 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 291 
 
 The moral results of scientific culture, too, are not 
 imadulterated. It is true that positive science helps to show 
 that virtuous conduct alone is right, and that the noblest 
 men are those who have a clear sense of this fact, and 
 act consistently" up to it; yet it generates a pernicious 
 tendency to excuse every vice on the plea that it has a 
 physical cause. Now the devil himself might be excused 
 on such grounds, since a cause could, no doubt, be found for 
 his defalcation too ; and, though we should be charitable in 
 our views of practice, we ought to have a clear sense of and 
 reverence for principles. 
 
 Self-help and intelligent care of the body are inculcated 
 by science; but these excellent principles are sometimes 
 accompanied by incipient selfishness and cruelty. The 
 doctrine of the survival of the fittest is liable to take 
 possession of the mind, and preach to the conscience that 
 weakness is a hateful thing and might is right. Indeed, 
 we are not sure but there are some professors who hold 
 that all deformed and weakly creatures should be put to 
 death, and infants murdered, for the benefit of society, just 
 as heavily taxed householders may drown puppies. The 
 physiological green-sickness has jaundiced their humanity, 
 and men and women appear to their objective vision, along 
 with plants and brutes, as nothing more than cunning works 
 in protoplasm. 
 
 As we have said before in this work, the cardinal blunder 
 here consists in forgetting that revelation is a phenomenon 
 of human life just as the survival of the fittest is of animal 
 life, and that while selfishness is the lesson of the latter, the 
 highest teaching of the former is self-sacrifice. The race is 
 not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, and 
 physical evil is often productive of moral good, which is a 
 still more precious thing than bodily strength. 
 
292 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 The most pernicious result of scientific study is, however, 
 the descent into infidelity and atheism. "We must deny 
 God and trample the Cross under foot," says Posner, " before 
 we can become even scholars, far less masters, in natural 
 science." Yet there are many Christian masters of science, 
 and some of these the greatest, as, for example, Newton, 
 Brewster, and Faraday. It is not easy to see how a man 
 of science, whose days and nights are given to a study of 
 the wondrous works of nature, can become an atheist ; yet 
 it is so. The late Professor Clerk-Maxwell, himself a true 
 Christian we believe, was wont to say he had examined 
 every system of natural atheism and found them all to 
 imply a Deity at bottom. Nevertheless, we cannot doubt 
 the sincerity of those materialists who deny the existence 
 of God. 
 
 How, then, is this atheistical frame of mind brought 
 about ? The answer is, by a too exclusive study of matter. 
 To them the universe is entirely filled with matter, and 
 nothing else can be detected by experiment or sense. All 
 the phenomena which make up our positive knowledge are 
 apparently caused by the actions and reactions of this 
 matter. Reason alone is exercised, and faith is carefully 
 eschewed. In tracing back the history of the world the 
 materialist can find no definite beginning. The primal 
 nebula seems but the glowing pyre of ruined worlds, whose 
 prior life directs his mind still further backward until it 
 loses itself in the abysm of time. World springs out of 
 world in never-ending cycle, and there is no sign of a 
 creation to be found. At last the little automaton stands 
 forth and disowns his Maker. A strange sight, indeed ! 
 The clay pot, which has just been fashioned, mocks itself at 
 the notion of a potter and falls to worshipping the wheel. 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 293 
 
 If the thoughts of these materialists could only be given 
 at times to a consideration of the possibility of God and the 
 unseen universe, they would probably soon become, after 
 some sort, religious men. But, as it is, they banish these 
 subjects entirely from their meditations. They think they 
 have been initiated into a new revelation, to the effect that 
 all religions are delusive dreams, and that the only proper 
 study is reality and proof 
 
 In doing so they overlook the fact that the senses are 
 their only caterers, and that these are but imperfect wit- 
 nesses at best. Both consciousness and ultimate matter 
 elude their grasp, but as reason infers the supra-sensible from 
 the sensible matter, so faith infers the spirit world from the 
 spirit phenomena. 
 
 Since they have eliminated the idea of God from the 
 universe, we need not wonder at the essential sadness of 
 materialists. In their souls, no doubt, they would fain 
 bring Him back again if pride and reason would allow it. 
 Their consecrated matter is only a cultured fetish after all, 
 an idol of ether atoms instead of stocks and stones, the very 
 dirt of the ground which they cannot keep from secretly 
 despising. They are nobler than the thing they worship, 
 and crave the Deity they have disclaimed. 
 
 But if the materialist errs in thinking too highly of 
 matter and neglecting the spiritual world, the divine is, on 
 the other hand, too prone to think meanly of material 
 things. Science and religion have their separate spheres ; 
 the one confines itself to the mechanism of nature, the other 
 deals with the character of its Creator. When sense and 
 reason have done their utmost in exploring the experi- 
 mental world, there still remains a field for the exercise of 
 faith. 
 
294 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 The proper culture is a combination of religion (with 
 poetry) and science. Since the Author of matter and the 
 Source of all true science is likewise the Author of spirit and 
 the Source of all true revelation, we cannot suppose that there 
 is any real antagonism betwixt them. The so-called conflict 
 of science and religion must therefore limit itself to a struggle 
 between truth and error ; and however severe the tests 
 to which rehgion may be subjected by science, all the 
 genuine parts of it will only shine forth the brighter for the 
 test. Keligion and science should be mutually helpful and 
 go hand in hand. When thus united, the immensity of the 
 universe which science reveals would speak the power and 
 glory of God, without making us feel unworthy of the 
 Divine regard, for His care is exhibited equally in the 
 small things of nature as in the great, in the exquisite cells 
 of foraminifers as in the systems of the planets. By teaching 
 man the extent of his capabilities and his true relations to 
 the present universe, science would assist him to find out 
 his earthly destiny, and to destroy the false ideas which 
 are the parasites of true faith in the Unseen. It is in- 
 cumbent upon men of science to pursue their proper studies 
 with all diligence, in order to discover new truths, and to 
 disseminate old ones amongst all classes, especially the 
 spiritual teachers of the people, with whom it will mainly 
 lie to keep the peace between material and spiritual doc- 
 trines. But if the clergy err in neglecting science, so also 
 we think men of science err in neglecting religion. The 
 Scriptures are full of remarkable passages which would 
 command the reverence of men of science, and the works of 
 many leading divines would well repay their examination. 
 
 They ought ever to guard themselves from making 
 dogmatic statements, or indulging resentment against 
 
THE NEW EVANGELS. 295 
 
 theologians, and scoffing at exercises which men hold sacred. 
 When they repudiate the virtue of religion they should not 
 forget that they are surrounded by Christianity, and owe to 
 it that very peace which enables them to prosecute their 
 researches. By the Divine service of worship the heart is 
 purified and strengthened with the best motives and the 
 noblest aspirations. It calls up thoughts and feelings which 
 no electric lights or growing crystals, however lovely, could 
 evoke. All the marvels of the telephone or phonograph 
 could not produce so fine an emotion as the strains of a 
 simple hymn sung in a village church. 
 
 The triumphs of science may make us more skilful in 
 our work, more entertaining in our talk, and prudently 
 moral in our conduct ; but they will scarcely make us more 
 forgiving, self-sacrificing, and nobly good. They assist us 
 to fit the earth for man's abode ; but they do not teach us 
 how to train ourselves for the life to come. It is in view of 
 a hereafter that religion takes its highest importance. For 
 a future life science off'ers no hope, and has therefore no 
 guidance to give. At this point the region of Faith com- 
 mences. Reason is chained to the temporal, but faith soars 
 into the eternal. On the death-bed, religion is greatest and 
 science least. If a man is dying, what shall it profit him to 
 know the chemical constitution of the rocks of Terra del 
 Fuego, or the spectrum of the aurora borealis ? 
 
296 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Believing where we cannot prove. 
 
 Tennyson, In Memoriam. 
 
 This work is the record of a mental phase. In writing it 
 the author's primary object was to ascertain whether the 
 new science is or is not incompatible with the Christian 
 faith. He began it without knowing what results he should 
 arrive at, and worked them out by degrees ; hence it is a 
 kind of growth. The conflicting doubts which filled his 
 mind were gradually laid, and harmony grew out of chaos 
 as he proceeded in his study. He has not sought to pro- 
 mulgate his own personal views, or to enter into the 
 minutiae of the old faith, but simply to draw the line 
 between it and the new science in a broad but clear 
 manner. It only remains to state the net results as briefly 
 and definitely as possible. 
 
 Most controversies on the same subject have hitherto 
 dealt with the truth or untruth of the doctrine of evolution ; 
 but the writer advanced beyond this point, and assumed 
 that doctrine to be true. He finds, however, that the 
 Darwinian theory does not fully account for evolution, 
 since there is still a mystery in the origin of life and 
 of living types. Darwinism may be the main agent in 
 developing life, but the inherent nature and capacities of 
 
CONCLUSION. 297 
 
 life are yet unknown. A beneficent design was traced in 
 the creation and development of the world, which was 
 referred to God. 
 
 The cosmogony of Genesis is not to be taken literally. 
 Sudden creation by Divine fiats is at variance with con- 
 tinuous development by fine degrees and with majestic 
 leisure. But though not interpreted literally, it is not 
 therefore to be spurned by men of science, for as a sacred 
 poem it is remarkable, and worthy of all reverence. If 
 deficient in describing the process of creation, it expresses 
 more important truths ; and as it seems to contain no 
 actual error, may be believed in as a partial revelation 
 telling the earlier men what it was good for them to know. 
 Under a more enlightened reading than the old, it will be 
 found to contain nothing at variance with science. It 
 expresses the creation of the world by one God according to 
 design (whether out of nothing or pre-existent substance is 
 not stated) ; and the production of living beings out of 
 " dust," or pre-existent matter, in a certain order occupying 
 successive periods of time. Its remarkable freedom from 
 error, theological, fanciful, or scientific, and its adaptability 
 to human progi-ess, is an argument in favour of its Divine 
 origin. 
 
 Whether living matter sprang from dead matter spon- 
 taneously is not yet known ; neither is it known how con- 
 sciousness became associated with living matter. Granting 
 the first living germs, however, it is believed by Darwinians 
 that all living types, including man, were developed from 
 them. But though we admit this, it is still, we think, an 
 open question, whether human free-will, and knowledge of 
 God, does not introduce arbitrary and supernatural factors 
 into evolution. 
 
298 THE NEAV TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 Science cannot;, at present, prove that the human will is 
 not, to a certain extent, free ; on the contrary, facts of con- 
 sciousness show that it is. This is a most important result ; 
 for on man's belief in the freedom of his will is based his 
 dignity, morality, and religion. Self-respect, conscience, 
 and revelation would be meaningless without free-will. 
 
 By magnifying our conceptions of the universe, science 
 tends to prevent our ideas of God from becoming too naiTow 
 and anthropomorphic, but does not attempt to define His 
 attributes. This is still left to Faith, which alike from 
 nature and human history, including revelation, believes 
 Him, in His relation to man, a personal God, uniting the 
 infinite power and justice of the Author of Nature with the 
 infinite goodness and mercy of the Author of Revelation. 
 He is all-seeing, all-knowing, almighty, eternal ; His ways 
 are past finding out ; but the Christian may still believe 
 that He who sent Christ Jesus is a loving Father. 
 
 Science denies the physical, but cannot yet deny the 
 spiritual efficacy of prayer. Free-will is a reason for the 
 existence of spiritual response to prayer by God, and such 
 response would not confound our intelligence as a physical 
 answer would do. Faith is therefore free to hold by spiri- 
 tual efficacy. And if the time should come when even 
 spiritual efficacy is no longer believed in, there will still 
 remain a service of thanksgiving and Divine communion, 
 which cannot but be pleasing to the most High, and sweet 
 as well as beneficial to mankind. 
 
 Science cannot demonstrate that there is no Hereafter. 
 Indeed it is probable she never shall be able, for it seems 
 that we are meant to live by faith, and therefore must not 
 know for certain what happens after death. Man knoius 
 not whence he comes nor whither he goes, but finds himself 
 
CONCLUSION. 299 
 
 upon the world for a time. Being free and living by faith, 
 he undergoes a test, which would imply a final reward or 
 punishment. This fact, and the instinct of immortality 
 common to the human race, together with revelation, 
 support belief in a Hereafter. 
 
 Just as the Darwinian theory does not fully account for 
 the origin of living types, it likewise fails to explain the 
 origin of the prophets ; and if we refer the mystery of life 
 to the Creator, so may we refer the higher mystery of 
 revelation to the Holy Spirit. We cannot prove whether 
 or not spiritual revelation was miraculously inspired by 
 God, but even if not, we may continue to believe it comes 
 from Him by a process of evolution not fully understood, 
 and that the Bible, including the New Testament, contains 
 all spiritual truth necessary for salvation. 
 
 The Divine element in the prophets reaches its fullest 
 glory in Christ. His origin may have been due to a 
 miraculous fecundation, to a new and unique manifestation 
 of evolution, or to ordinary birth. Science is antago- 
 nistic to a miraculous fecundation ; but free-will makes it 
 reasonable, and, being avowed, no serious confusion would 
 result from it. A more acceptable explanation, however, is, 
 that just as life or consciousness may have appeared in the 
 world by the action of some higher law than had operated 
 before, so Christ may have been born into it by a special 
 act of what may be called supernatural intrusion. This 
 process would still be called evolution. Again, Christ may 
 have been born in the normal way, and acquired miraculous 
 power from God by prayer. The question of Christ's birth 
 and life is a mystery which may be left to individual 
 faith based on the evidences of history and Scripture ; but 
 we know it was of infinite moment to the world. That 
 
300 THE NEW TRUTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 God at the proper time specially manifested Himself to the 
 world, either Personally or by means of a Representative, 
 and either through evolution or despite it, is a consumma- 
 tion so likely and desirable that it will be very difficult 
 to controvert belief in it. 
 
 Should the time come, however, when the miraculous 
 element in Christianity shall be taken as symbolic, there 
 would still remain a new or rationalized version of the old 
 faith; and Christ would still be regarded as the climax of 
 development, the Ideal Man, the Highest Prophet and 
 Divine Examplar, the Representative of God on earth, our 
 Lord and Saviour. He who regards the miracles as super- 
 stition may possess such a faith. 
 
 Although absolute knowledge of his origin and destiny 
 is evidently, by the conditions of existence, impossible to 
 man, we iind that science allows us to believe, in accordance 
 with Christianity, that man has come from God, is preserved 
 by Him on earth, and returns to Him in heaven. 
 
 One result of our study is, that though evolution is an 
 attractive idea, the process is not at all fully understood ; 
 and it is a doubtful question whether all that exists, in the 
 solar system let us say, was originally contained in the 
 primal nebula or not. Laplace's theory of planetary forma- 
 tion does not agree with latest facts — for example, the 
 recently discovered satellites of Mars do not travel round 
 the planet in the direction demanded by the theory ; 
 spontaneous generation has never been observed ; and Dar- 
 winism is now considered inadequate to account for the 
 origin, though it may account for the survival, of the fittest. 
 The molecular physicist is taking the ground from the 
 materialist by showing that matter is inert, and that 
 material structures require the co-operation of a finer 
 
CONCLUSION. 301 
 
 medium, the ether. We may well ask, then, if evolution 
 is not the Creator's mode of continuous creation by de- 
 velopment, and if there are not worlds within worlds. 
 Naturalists can detect no break in the chain of life from 
 vegetables to animals, but this may be due to cunning 
 workmanship. "For Thy pleasure they are and were 
 created," says St. John. * 
 
 Though the Creator may not continue to create in the 
 solar system or the world still (an idea which does not 
 preclude His activity elsewhere), it seems necessary to 
 admit that the world as it is was not all contained in the 
 material nebula, and that there is an Invisible Universe 
 interacting with it. The dead matter of the world may 
 have resided in the nebula, but it is very doubtful if 
 consciousness did. The tendency of chemistry is to show 
 that, in order for the material world to develop as it has 
 done, the atoms in the primal nebula would have to be 
 arranged in a certain way, and at a certain temperature. 
 How came they into their places? The "Shekinah," or 
 glowing cloud, was the Jewish symbol of God, and in the 
 nebula, perhaps, the Creator is at work. 
 
 Again, we assumed, for the purposes of the study, that 
 the theory of the conservation of energy is true ; but it is 
 right to remember that it is only a theory, a daring- 
 inference drawn from our present scientific experience. 
 Perhaps it will be recognized yet that it is going too far 
 to pronounce upon the whole universe from the results of 
 our petty experience ; and that though the theory be held 
 as true for matter, the mind is too indeterminate a factor 
 to be included in it. 
 
 But be these things as they may, we can still continue 
 
 * Eev. iv. 11. 
 
302 THE NEW TRliTH AND THE OLD FAITH. 
 
 to believe that in the beginning God created the heavens 
 and the earth ; and that though the progress of science has 
 given rise at present to a phase of scepticism, it will pass 
 away. Science and revelation will yet go hand in hand ; 
 as it is written, " man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
 every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." And 
 though we find that Nature is regulated by inexorable laws, 
 we can reflect that " every good gift, and every perfect gift 
 is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, 
 with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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CONTENTS OF THE VARIOUS VOLUMES 
 
 IN THE COLLECTED EDITIONS OF 
 
 MR. TENNYSON'S WORKS. 
 
 THE IMPERIAL LIBRARY EDITION, 
 
 COMPLETE IN SEVEN OCTAVO VOLUMES. 
 Cloth, price 1.0s. 6</. per vol. ; 12^. 6(/. Ro.xburgh binding. 
 Contents. 
 
 Vol. I.— MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 II. — MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 III.— PRINCESS, AND OTHER 
 POEMS. 
 
 Vol. IV.— IN MEMORIAM and MAUD, 
 v.— IDYLLS OF THE KING. 
 VI.— IDYLLS OF THE KING. 
 VII.— DRAMAS. 
 
 Printed in large, clear, old-faced type, with a Steel Engraved Portrait of the Author, the set complete, 
 
 cloth, price £1. 13.?. dd. ; or Ro.\burgh half-morocco, price £1,. js. 6d. 
 
 *jt* The handsomest Ediiion published. 
 
 THE 
 
 AUTHOR'S EDITION, 
 
 IN SIX VOLUMES. Bound in cloth, 3SJ1. 6rf. 
 Contents. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 I. — EARLY POEMS and ENGLISH 
 
 IDYLLS. 6i. 
 II.— LOCKSLEY HALL, LUCRE- 
 TIUS, and other Poems. 65. 
 III.— THE IDYLLS OF THE KING, 
 complete, -js. 6d. 
 
 Vol. IV.— THE PRINCESSand MAUD. 6s. 
 v.— E NOCH ARDEN and IN 
 MEMORIAM. 6^. 
 
 VI.— QUEEN MARY and HAROLD 
 
 7^. 
 
 This Edition ca>z also be had bound in half-7norocco, Roxburgh, price is. 6d. per vol. extra. 
 
 THE CABINET EDITION, 
 
 COIMPLETE IN TWELVE VOLUMES. Price 2>. 6^. each. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Vol. I.— EARLY POEMS. Illustrated with 
 a Photographic Portrait of Mr. 
 Tennyson. 
 
 II.— ENGLISH IDYLLS, and other 
 POEMS. Containing an Engraving 
 of Mr. Tennyson's Residence at 
 Aldworth. 
 
 III.— LOCKSLEY HALL, and other 
 POEMS. With an Engraved 
 Picture of Farrincford. 
 
 IV.— LUCRETIUS, and other POEMS. 
 
 Containing an Engraving of a Scene 
 in the Garden at Swainston. 
 
 v.- IDYLLS OF THE KING. With 
 an Autotype of the Bust of Mr. 
 Tennyson by T. Woolner, R.A. 
 
 Vol. VI.— IDYLLS OF THE KING. Illus- 
 trated with an Engraved Portrait of 
 ' Elaine,' from a Photographic Study 
 by Julia M. Cameron. 
 VII.— IDYLLS OF THE KING. Con- 
 taining an Engraving of ' Arthur,' 
 from a Photographic Study by Julia 
 M. Cameron. 
 VIII. -THE PRINCESS. With an En- 
 graved Frontispiece. 
 IX. — MAUD and ENOCH ARDEN. 
 With a Picture of 'Maud,' taken 
 from a Photographic Study by Julia 
 INI. Cameron. 
 X.— IN MEMORIAM. With a Steel 
 Engr.avhig of Arthur H. Hallam, 
 engraved from a picture in possession 
 of the Author, by J. C. Armytage. 
 XL— QUEEN MARY: a Drama. With 
 
 Frontispiece by Walter Crane. 
 XII.— HAROLD : a Drama. With Frontis- 
 piece by Walter Crane. 
 
 These Volumes may be had separately, or the Edition complete, in a handsome ornamental 
 case, price 32^-. 
 
 THE MINIATURE EDITION, 
 
 IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES. 
 Contents. 
 Vol. I.— POEMS. Vol. VII.— IDYLLS OF THE KING. 
 
 II. 
 
 -POEMS. 
 
 
 VIII.- 
 
 -IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 III. 
 
 -POEMS. 
 
 
 IX.- 
 
 -PRINCESS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 -IDYLLS OF THE 
 
 KING. 
 
 X.- 
 
 -MAUD. 
 
 V. 
 
 —IDYLLS OF THE 
 
 KING. 
 
 XI. 
 
 -ENOCH ARDEN 
 
 VI. 
 
 -IDYLLS OF THE 
 
 KING. 
 
 Vol. XIIL- 
 
 Xll. 
 HAROLD. 
 
 -QUEEN MARY. 
 
 Bound in imitation vellum, ornamented in gilt and gilt edges, in case, price 42J. 
 This Edition can also be had in plain binding and case, price 36.J. 
 
 Spottisivoode &= Co., Printers, New-street ^Square, London.