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PHILOSOPHIA 
 ULTIMA 
 
 OR 
 
 SCIENCE OF THE SCIENCES 
 
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PHILOSOPHIA 
 
 ULTIMA 
 
 OR 
 
 SCIENCE OF THE SCIENCES 
 VOL III. 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 
 
 AND 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PHYSICAL AND PSYCHICAL SCIENCES. 
 
 BY THE LATE'^ 
 
 CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS. D.D., LL.D.. 
 
 Professor in Princeton University. 
 
 WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 
 1905. 
 
Copyright, 1905, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 
 
CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 BY / 
 
 WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE. 
 
CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS. 
 
 I. 
 
 The ideals of youth are seldom realized, and yet some 
 men see the fruit of their labors, being so blessed that after 
 a long and laborious life, they die as young in feeling and 
 in enterprise as they were in early youth. In his eightieth 
 year Charles Woodruff Shields was as much himself, as 
 fully in possession of all his fine powers and qualities as he 
 had been in the prime of his years. It was therefore with a 
 sense of fulfilment that he left in the hands of a friend 
 certain manuscripts for posthumous publication as the com- 
 pletion of his life work. His choice fell upon one who is 
 a layman to both lines of the study which so engrossed the 
 author, a fact interpreted as meaning that the editor was 
 to confine himself strictly to the task of verbal correction, 
 and to avoid all effort at revision or rearrangement of the 
 matter. This is the more evident as most of the philo- 
 sophical and apologetic material had already been printed in 
 one form or another, and had had the careful revision of 
 the author. What follows as the last division of the " Final 
 Philosophy " is therefore given exactly at it was intended 
 to stand, and in connection with the two preceding volumes 
 needs no introduction. 
 
 II. 
 
 The author of these chapters was fully aware of the 
 position he had taken and of all the responsibilities incident 
 to the selection of a title which was almost a challenge: 
 though personally one of the most modest of men, lie was 
 fearless to a fault in the exposition and defence of the truth 
 
viii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 as he saw it. He was convinced that all the sciences could 
 be united into one Christian philosophy, and that all denom- 
 inations of Christian believers could be united into one 
 visible church of Christ. In no sense did he conceive that 
 the " final " word in philosophy was to be spoken by him, but 
 he did believe and was not ashamed to declare that these 
 exalted ideals would never approach realization unless the 
 plan were outlined and fruitful suggestions were made to- 
 wards its accomplishment. This he essayed to do and in 
 the effort he deployed extraordinary powers of research 
 and of assimilation. This was not all, for as it stands the 
 " Final Philosophy " is far more than a suggestion, it is a 
 system more or less complete of Cosmic philosophy, based 
 on a synthesis of all the empirical sciences in their natural 
 order of an ascent which culminates in theology, or rather 
 in a theistic ontology derived from Revelation as a valid 
 source of data. 
 
 In the same way the author of the " United Church of 
 the United States" (1896) suggested with the strength of 
 a firm conviction and the force of a historical expert that 
 practical Church unity was within reach if only a beginning 
 were discussed and made. For him the most striking phe- 
 nomenon of contemporary history was the elasticity of the 
 federal system in politics, a system which in his own country 
 comprehended in a roomy edifice men of every land and 
 tongue, of every tradition and practice, provided only they 
 were devoted to the essential idea of liberty under law. He 
 could see no good reason why in some similar way men of a 
 common faith should not, under an elastic constitution, mass 
 their forces against the forces of infidelity and worldliness. 
 The question of church unity was for him an eminently 
 practical one, to be solved in a churchmanlike and politic 
 way. Assiduous in his study of the historic forces which 
 had rent the reformed churches into denominations, he pro- 
 posed a method of reintegration which was based on the 
 most sacred convictions of believers and on the lessons of the 
 past. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. ix 
 
 III. 
 
 The personality of Dr. Shields was as engaging as his 
 mind. He was elegant and urbane, sensitive and fasci- 
 nating, a man of refinement and culture, with all the charm 
 of manner which springs from self-respect and consideration 
 for others. His company was eagerly sought by the best 
 society and his conversation was stimulating and refreshing. 
 He loved the atmosphere of quiet studies, but he was happy 
 in the world and sensitive to its charms. No man could be 
 more ardent and industrious in the pursuit of knowledge, 
 nor more contemplative in its interpretation; yet he had 
 abundant leisure for friendship and the duties of his home. 
 His love for his university was a passion, and he served her 
 with a devotion which ennobled her life and his own. In 
 his veins ran the blood of old colonial stock, north and south, 
 his view of his country was correspondingly catholic and 
 patriotic. 
 
 The endearing qualities of the man were as marked as the 
 wide range of his learning. Constructive scholarship is not 
 always gentle, far from it, and it is interesting to trace the 
 origin and evolution of the man who is both a gentle man 
 and a learned man. This combination was the preeminent 
 characteristic of Dr. Shields : it was due partly to heredity 
 and partly to a broad and varied training. 
 
 Mere pride of birth is vanity. The world is full of men 
 and women whose personal insignificance is only heightened 
 by the achievements of the ancestors from whom they claim 
 descent. But on the other hand, there are many who are 
 stimulated to great energy by the knowledge that there 
 courses in their veins the blood of men who have lived on 
 a high plane and who have achieved something for God and 
 fatherland. Among the notes of Dr. Shields, written late 
 in life and evidently as a pastime, are some remarks on the 
 subject which are of much interest in explaining the char- 
 acter of the man. I like, he said, to discern the honorable 
 ancestry of a friend in his character and in his countenance. 
 
X Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 For myself, however, I must be content with a modest pedi- 
 gree which is good enough as far as it has been traced. If 
 it can boast of no crowns or coronets among its crests, yet 
 it shows no blot or bar sinister upon its shields. The name 
 itself may hint of the knightly esquire of heraldry (scutum, 
 ecuyer) ; and in fact both the Scottish and the English 
 branches of the family have borne, with differences, the 
 device of three shields upon their escutcheon. The surname 
 has even been traced far back among northern myths to Scyld 
 or Schild, father of the demigod Odin, the founder of both 
 the Norman and the Saxon dynasties of southern Europe. 
 As these two lineages became blended after the Conquest, 
 it would be easier to claim them both than to choose between 
 them. 
 
 In later times, he continues, the family was lowland 
 Scotch or northern English by turns, as the border line 
 shifted during the wars of the two kingdoms. The place 
 name is still found on both sides of the Tweed, as borne by 
 hall or hamlet at Shieldfield and Galashields near Melrose 
 Abbey and by the two seaport towns. North Shields and 
 South Shields, on the site of old Norman and Roman ruins 
 on both sides of the Tyne. To myself I seem to have lived 
 mentally in borderland, and if subconscious effects of ances- 
 try may assert themselves in one's tastes, I like to look back 
 for a historical beginning to that romantic region so cele- 
 brated in the Border Minstrelsy and so hallowed in the more 
 heroic annals of the Border Covenanters. The ballad of 
 Chevy Chase is attributed by antiquarians to " one Rychard 
 Sheale, minstrel " ; and in another old ballad the name 
 appears among the Scots with whom the Englishman was 
 
 at feud — 
 
 " And Anton Shiel, he loves not me." 
 
 When the feuds became religious as many as eighteen of 
 the name were ranked with the Presbyterian martyrs. Chief 
 among them was James Shields, a bonnet laird of Haugh 
 Head, in Lauderdale, whose two sons. Michael Shields and 
 Alexander, wielded their pens vigorously enough for Christ's 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xi 
 
 Crown and Covenant. Michael was clerk of the Societies, 
 as the outlawed Covenanters were called, with Sir Robert 
 Hamilton for their chief, and afterwards published their 
 proceedings in a volume with the quaint title " Faithful Con- 
 tendings Displayed," from which the philosopher Sir Wil- 
 liam Hamilton has since derived proof of his claim to the 
 baronetcy. The other son, Reverend Alexander Shields, 
 had a most eventful career. Graduating from Edinburgh 
 University in 1675, he pursued his studies in Holland, re- 
 turned to England, was ordained by the Presbytery of Lon- 
 don and became amanuensis to the great non-conformist 
 divine John Owen. During the persecutions of James 11 he 
 was taken to Edinburgh, subjected to torture at the Tolbooth 
 and cast into the dismal prison of the Bass Rock, from which 
 he escaped in woman's clothing. He then succeeded the 
 martyred Renwick as preacher to the hunted bands of wor- 
 shippers on the moors and mountains, and issued for them 
 their " Informatory Vindication," published in Holland ; at 
 the same time publishing his own chief treatise: " Naphtali, 
 The Hind Let Loose, or An Historical Representation of the 
 Church of Scotland for the Interest of Christ." On the 
 coming of William of Orange he espoused the " revolution 
 settlement," and was made chaplain of the famous Came- 
 ronian regiment, exhorting them to the desperate battle at 
 Dunkeld, which ended in a psalm of victory. After serving 
 for ten years as minister at St. Andrew's he was appointed by 
 the General Assembly senior minister to the ill-fated Darien 
 expedition, and after severe hardships and disappointments 
 died on the homeward voyage in the island of Jamaica. " It 
 is not easy to conceive," says Macaulay, *' that fanaticism 
 could be heated to a higher temperature than that which is 
 indicated by the writings of Shields. Yet there was then in 
 Scotland an enthusiasm compared with which the enthusiasm 
 of even this man was lukewarm. The extreme Covenanters 
 protested against his defection as vehemently as he had pro- 
 tested against the Black Indulgence and the oath of suprem- 
 acy." It should be added, however, that he afterward 
 
xii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 showed the same moderated enthusiasm as a zealous advocate 
 of church unity in his final work entitled " An Inquiry into 
 Church Communion." 
 
 The writer of these notes firmly believed that genealogy 
 was an important part of history. It is very interesting to 
 see how much the inspiration of what men of his name and 
 his blood had done affected his own life work. The border- 
 land and marches of science, literature, and philosophy were 
 the scenes of his labors as those of conterminous kingdoms 
 had been the scenes in which his forbears had fought and 
 suffered and died for the same lofty ideals which were the 
 mainspring of his own life: ideals expressed in the nine- 
 teenth century by the unity of all learning and the unity 
 of the whole visible Christian church. 
 
 The remaining portions of these genealogical notes are 
 scarcely less interesting, although they are historical as well 
 as personal and genealogical. They are given without com- 
 ment or revision because they need neither. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In the colony of Virginia since the close of the seventeenth 
 century, there have been three distinct settlements of the 
 Shields family. They were successfully planted in eastern 
 Virginia, in the valley of Virginia, and in midland Virginia, 
 and may be located by the unquestioned authority of Hen- 
 ning in the counties of York, Augusta, and Halifax. The 
 name also appears on the map of Virginia as a place name 
 in each of these districts. 
 
 The first settlement was made probably by direct migra- 
 tion from England to the banks of the James River. This 
 branch of the family is mentioned occasionally by Bishop 
 Meade and its genealogy has been sketched by President 
 Lyon G. Tyler. It has intermarried with the families of 
 Marot, Bray, Minge, Page, Armistead, Bryan, and Tyler 
 and it became distinguished in the Reverend Samuel Shields 
 of the colonial church, in Colonel James Shields of the 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xiii 
 
 Colonial Army, in Captain John Shields of the Revolution- 
 ary Army, and more recently in Dr. William J. Shields of 
 Williamsburg and Dr. Charles H. Shields of Richmond. 
 
 The second settlement was made by emigration from 
 Scotland and north Ireland through Pennsylvania into the 
 Shenandoah Valley, where, by the liberal policy of Governor 
 Gooch, the Scotch-Irish were then finding a refuge from 
 religious persecution. I have been able to glean but little 
 information in regard to this settlement. As early as 
 1749 Thomas Shields purchased a portion of the Beverly 
 tract, two hundred acres in extent, for six shillings, agree- 
 ing to pay one ear of Indian corn on Lady Day next to 
 secure possession. There is also on record an inventory 
 made in 1750 of the estate of James Shields, full of interest- 
 ing details as to the domestic life of the time and place. 
 The will of John Shields, freeholder, is recorded in 1772, 
 naming his wife Margaret and children John, Thomas 
 Robert, Mary, William. It is probable that some members 
 of this family did military duty in the Colonial and Revolu- 
 tionary Wars, as the name occurs in the muster-rolls of 
 Colonel Lewis, of Colonel Hite and of the Muhlenburg Regi- 
 ment when it was engaged in the battles of Brandywine and 
 Germantown and encamped at Valley Forge. Beyond these 
 fragmentary items, no fuller information has been obtained 
 in regard to the Augusta County family. 
 
 Distinct from these two settlements, with no traceable 
 connection to either of them, a third Shields settlement was 
 made by migration into Virginia from the colonies of 
 Delaware and Maryland, where, as appears by the public 
 records of those States, a number of persons of the name 
 had been settled for one or two generations. As early as 
 1654 the Maryland Archives mention Robert Sheels, and in 
 1689 Thomas Shields, and in 1694 John Shields. There 
 are also recorded wills in Queen Anne County of Catherine 
 Shields, 171 7; and of Susanna Shields, 1735; in Talbot 
 County of James Shields, 1759; in Somerset County of 
 Elizabeth Shields, 1766; in Frederick County of Elizabeth 
 
xiv Cliarles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 Shields, 1769, and in Newcastle County, Delaware, of 
 Robert Siiields, 1796. The Maryland muster-rolls of the 
 Revolutionary Army contain the names of Lieutenant Archi- 
 bald Shields, Lieutenant Caleb Shields, Captain John 
 Shields, Commissary Edward Shields and Privates James, 
 John, Patrick, and William Shields. 
 
 These persons were probably of Scottish or Irish origin 
 and naturally Episcopalian ; in connection with the estab- 
 lished church of the colony. Of some of them but little has 
 as yet been ascertained, but it is positively known that about 
 the middle of the eighteenth century two brothers, Archibald 
 and Thomas Shields, of Delaware, married two sisters, 
 Rebecca and Anne Bayard, daughters of Samuel Bayard of 
 Bohemia Manor, Maryland, from whom are also derived 
 the distinguished Bayards of Delaware and New Jersey. 
 The descendants of Archibald Shields have been widely 
 scattered throughout the Southern States : among them is 
 the Honorable William Bayard Shields of the United States 
 Court, New Orleans, La., who married Victoire Benoist, 
 daughter of a French Catholic refugee. The grandsons 
 were Thomas Rodney Shields, William Bayard Shields, the 
 Honorable Joseph Dunbar Shields of Natchez, Miss., and 
 Gabriel Benoist Shields. The great-grandsons are the Rev- 
 erend Van Winder Shields, D. D., Rector of St. John's 
 Church, Jacksonville, Fla., and Dr. W. B. Shields of St. 
 Francis, Arkansas. 
 
 The other brother, Thomas Shields, who married Anne 
 Bayard, afterwards settled in Virginia. Among his descend- 
 ants are Colonel John Shields of Poplar Vale, Va., who 
 married Anna Jane Moncure, daughter of a certain Mr. 
 Robinson ; also Lieutenant Wilmer Shields, U. S. N., who 
 was son of Purser Thomas Shields, and married Julia 
 Devereux Scott. Also, Wilmer Shields, who married Eliza 
 Runkle, daughter of Captain Thomas Conway of Pittsyl- 
 vania County, Va. To these should be added James Shields, 
 son of the first Thomas, who was born near Sassafras River 
 in Delaware, married Elizabeth Graham of Christiana, and 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xv 
 
 migrated to Halifax, now Pittsylvania Co., Va., where his 
 family was seated until the Revolutionary War. 
 
 At this point it will be interesting to notice the influence 
 of environment as well as heredity, upon family character. 
 During the latter part of the eighteenth century the com- 
 munity dwelling between tide-water and the mountains on 
 the east side of the Blue Ridge was as intermediate in its 
 characteristics as in its situation. Therein were blended the 
 social and religious elements of the eastern and western col- 
 onists. It should be remembered that in contrast with the 
 Puritan of New England, both the Covenanter and the Cav- 
 alier of Virginia had been Royalists, devoted to the house of 
 Stuart, and also zealous Churchmen, the one attached to 
 Presbytery and the other to Episcopacy. When united under 
 William of Orange, they had settled their ecclesiastical feud 
 by establishing the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and the 
 Episcopal Church in England. And not long afterwards in 
 the New World they found themselves again neighbors with 
 only the Blue Ridge between them ; but with new common 
 interests taking the place of the old border warfare. The 
 tolerance granted to the Presbyterian Churchmen of midland 
 Virginia was altogether creditable to the colonial govern- 
 ors : it had already ample legal precedent in the mother 
 country as well as in Virginia law, and there was really 
 nothing now to prevent the free intercourse and fusion of 
 the two races and creeds. The product was a type of Vir- 
 ginian, distinguishable alike from the luxurious planter of 
 the lowlands and from the hardy freeholder of the uplands, 
 yet retaining much that was best in both of these stocks with- 
 out their defects and vices. 
 
 This commingling of the two strains showed itself not 
 only in the inherited traits of individuals and families, but 
 also in certain affinities and interchanges which have long 
 since been forgotten or but seldom noticed. It is a remark- 
 able fact that some great political leaders like Madison, 
 Light-horse Harry Lee and even Randolph of Roanoke were 
 not educated at William and Mary, but at Nassau Hall in 
 
XVI 
 
 Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 the school of statesmanship founded by the patriotic Witlier- 
 spoon. It is a no less remarkable fact that Princeton Col- 
 lege instead of looking to New England for Presidents such 
 as Dickinson, Burr, and Edwards, now summoned from Vir- 
 ginia the eloquent Davies, who was Patrick Henry's model, 
 the accomplished Stanhope Smith, who was President of 
 Hampden-Sydney, and Dr. Archibald Alexander, also Presi- 
 dent of Hampden-Sydney, and founder of the Princeton 
 School of Divinity. Thus it was that the seeds of old civili- 
 zations as transplanted to a new soil, flowered into a new 
 form of culture as strong as it was graceful. 
 
 Besides this difference between eastern and western Vir- 
 ginia, there was a still further difference of social atmos- 
 phere between the northern and southern sections of mid- 
 land Virginia. 
 
 It may not be easily explained, but it appeared in the im- 
 passioned genius of Patrick Henry and John Randolph as 
 compared with the trained statesmanship of Jefferson and 
 Madison. It appeared still more strongly in the Presby- 
 terian College in Prince Edward as contrasted with the 
 liberal University afterwards founded at Charlottesville. 
 And it also appeared in the gradual decline of the Cavalier 
 and Episcopal elements in the southern counties. It would 
 seem that these counties, after having been devastated by two 
 civil wars and drained of their best blood by emigration to 
 the Western States, now retain but little of their former pres- 
 tige. Bishop Meade in his day lamented the extinction of the 
 Church throughout this region and remarked that the names 
 of such churchmen as Madison, Henry, Read, Carington, 
 Watkins, Venable are no longer to be found in the vestry- 
 records of parishes though enrolled among the trustees of 
 Hampden-Sydney College. John Randolph bitterly deplored 
 the decay of the gentry in the county of Charlotte where he 
 lived, attributing its degeneracy to the attacks of Jefferson 
 upon the church establishment and the law of primogeniture. 
 The old regime, however, still lingered some time after the 
 Revolution. Dr. James W. Alexander depicted it as it 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xvii 
 
 existed In his father's time. There is no portion of the State 
 or country where the bright side of the planter's hfe is more 
 agreeably exhibited. The district has always been remark- 
 able for its adaptation to the culture of a particular variety of 
 tobacco which usually commands high prices, and it has 
 therefore abounded in slaves, although the estates are less 
 extensive than in the cotton districts of the remote South. 
 The proprietors enjoy the comforts and luxuries of life in 
 a high degree, and almost every family has some man of 
 liberal education within its bosom. Hospitality and genial 
 warmth may be said to be universal. Nowhere in the South 
 has the Presbyterian Church had greater strength among 
 the wealthy and cultivated classes. Dr. William Henry 
 Foote skilfully traces the same society to its sources and 
 elements : " Coming from different divisions of the European 
 stock, mingling in society on the frontiers, amalgamating 
 by marriage, moulded by the religious teachings of Robinson 
 and Davies, they formed a state of society and morals in 
 which the excellencies of the original constituent parts have 
 all been preserved. The courtly manners of Williamsburg, 
 the cheerfulness and ease of the Huguenots, the honest 
 frankness and stern independence of the English country 
 gentleman, the activity and shrewdness of the merchant, the 
 simplicity of republican life — all have been preserved." 
 
 Into this frontier region in 1757 came certain members 
 of the Shields family of Delaware through Maryland down 
 the Chesapeake Bay. The first of the name on record was 
 Patrick Shields, of the County of Halifax and Colony of 
 Virginia, planter, who for two hundred and twenty-five 
 pounds purchased twelve hundred and sixty acres of rich 
 tobacco-growing land on Sandy River, next to Colonel 
 Byrd's tract, the " Land of Eden," and not far from Leather- 
 wood, the purchase of Patrick Henry. During his lifetime 
 he deeded portions of this land to his children Samuel, 
 James, John, and Elizabeth Read, and by his will, September 
 22nd, 1770, he bequeathed his own plantation to his wife 
 Jeane and son Joseph, together with a negro servant Phyllis 
 
xviii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 and a roan mare and colt ; also 50 pounds to his son Robert, 
 and 10 pounds to his " grandson Patrick and son of Samuel," 
 The will is conventional in form, beginning with a confession 
 of his Christian faith in the doctrine of the resurrection. 
 
 The next interesting record nine years afterwards is 
 another will so much briefer that I will cite the whole of it : 
 
 In the name of God, Amen. I, James Shields, of Pitt- 
 sylvania County, Virginia, being in perfect health, mind, and 
 memory, do constitute, make and ordain this my last will 
 and testament in manner and form following : 
 
 And first of all my lawful debts to be paid. And to my 
 beloved wife Elizabeth I give and bequeath her third of 
 my estate, and to my son Patrick I give and bequeath the 
 other third of my real and personal estate, and to Molly my 
 daughter the other part. I also will and desire that my son 
 Patrick over and above his share have so much to be paid 
 from my estate as will pay his learning through the several 
 degrees of the college : and I do hereby constitute my beloved 
 wife my whole and sole executrix of this my last will and 
 testament, and do hereby revoke, disallow and annul all for- 
 mer will or wills whatsoever, and do make and confirm this 
 only to be my last will and testament. As witness my hand 
 and seal this third day of August in the year one thousand 
 seven hundred and seventy-nine. 
 
 And as my wife is with child if the child lives I desire that 
 it may have its due and equal share of my estate. 
 
 James Shields (L. S.). 
 Teste 
 
 John Smith, 
 
 Samuel Shields, 
 
 Joshua Cantrill. 
 
 This document, brought to light after a lapse of one hun- 
 dred and twenty-five years, is a remarkable confirmation of 
 family tradition in every particular. It was evidently writ- 
 ten somewhat hurriedly, in view of the fate which might 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xix 
 
 befall a soldier of the Revolution. One may fancy him ten- 
 derly leaving the paper with his wife, as he rode away never 
 to return. The disastrous siege of Savannah followed on 
 October loth, and the will was probated December 21st, 
 1779. The executrix and "beloved wife Elizabeth" was 
 the above-named Elizabeth Graham of Christiana. 
 
 In reference to the family of Elizabeth Graham some 
 traditions may here be interesting. Her father, a Coven- 
 anter as well as a Graham, had narrowly escaped the sword 
 thrust of another Graham before he fled to the Colonies. 
 The story runs in the family that the dragoons of bloody 
 Claverhouse thrust their swords into the very thicket in 
 which he was concealed, but without discovering him. He 
 crossed the sea in the same ship with the family into which 
 his daughter afterwards married. The two families before 
 their emigration, it is said, lived on opposite sides of the Irish 
 Channel where it was so narrow that they could tell when it 
 was washing day on the other shore by descrying the clothes 
 hung to dry. It is also said that Graham on settling in 
 Delaware built his house in part of bricks brought with him 
 in the vessel and marked with his initials, and as late as 1821 
 Senator Tipton, a friend of the family, reported that he had 
 seen the house and noticed the initials. Beyond such home- 
 like traditions there are no European annals of Elizabeth's 
 family. Her little, worn Bible which she bequeathed to the 
 oldest son of the oldest son, because of its register showing 
 title to Scottish properties, has come to her great-grandson, 
 water-stained, tattered, and alas, without the register. It 
 was accidentally dropped into a stream which was being 
 forded by another ancestor on one of his preaching excur- 
 sions. The lost pedigree might have helped to decide 
 whether she came from the Grahams of Menteith, or of the 
 Grahams of Montrose, who boasted of the handsome and 
 gallant Dundee, as much praised by the Cavaliers as he was 
 hated by the Covenanters. 
 
 But to return to the will. The unborn child proved to be 
 another daughter. Left alone with three young children 
 
XX 
 
 Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 and in charge of a plantation, Elizabeth Graham Shields 
 married a neighboring planter, General Burnett, whose name 
 was gratefully given to one of her grandsons, Henry Bur- 
 nett Shields. Her two daughters married husbands who 
 rose to wealth and public office in Tennessee. Her son 
 Patrick, so thoughtfully provided for in the will, became 
 Judge Shields of Corydon, Indiana. He was born in Pitt- 
 sylvania, May 17th, 1773. His boyhood was passed in the 
 Virginia plantation mode of life with the church and school 
 at home and in a neighborhood then exceptionally good. 
 Dr. Archibald Alexander thus notices it in his Journal : 
 " Tuesday, August 7th, 1792, I preached at Sandy River. 
 The house was very full of people who seemed desirous to 
 hear. I don't remember that any to whom I have preached 
 since I was on my tour were apparently more affected than 
 these." One of these listeners may have been young Patrick, 
 then nineteen years old. In accordance with his father's 
 will he was educated for the law in Hampden-Sydney 
 Academy and William and Mary College. 
 
 To his uncle's name Patrick his parents had added the 
 name Henry in compliment to their intimate friend the 
 patriot orator, but in after life he preferred to write his name 
 simply " P. Shields." I have, however, official documents 
 signed " P. Henry Shields," The boy was educated care- 
 fully, according to his father's directions. At one time 
 William Henry Harrison, the future President, was his class- 
 mate and thus became his lifelong friend. On the sixth 
 of December, 1798, he was married to Mary, daughter of 
 Rev. Clement Nance, by his cousin Rev. James Read. The 
 Nances were an old Virginia family, first seated as early as 
 1 64 1 in Henrico County, from thence migrating into other 
 counties and intermarrying through successive generations 
 with Isham, Vaughn, Lanier, Giles, Palmer, and Pleasant. 
 After the Revolution Clement Nance removed with his 
 family to the Northwest Territory. It was not long before 
 his son-in-law decided to follow him, drawn into the general 
 westward movement. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxi 
 
 His father's estate, which was valued at seventeen thousand 
 pounds, having become depreciated through the failure of the 
 Continental currency, he surrendered the home plantation to 
 his mother and sisters and accepted as his portion two thou- 
 sand six hundred and sixty acres of wild land in the Elue 
 Grass region of Kentucky, which was then still the County 
 or District of Virginia. About the year 1803, with his wife, 
 two young children, and a negro servant, Sam, and doubtless 
 other emigrating families, he made the long and difficult 
 journey over the mountains into Kentucky. On arriving 
 at Lexington he found that owing to the dishonesty of a 
 business agent, made easy enough by the chaotic state of 
 land titles at that time, he was unable to secure possession of 
 his land and must simply begin the world anew. For a 
 time he remained with some of his Graham connections in 
 Mercer County, but at length he decided to join his wife's 
 relatives beyond the Ohio River, where land was more easily 
 obtained. 
 
 With his family, household goods, and cattle in a flatboat, 
 he floated down the Kentucky and Ohio rivers to a point 
 below the Falls where his relatives, having seen the boat 
 approaching, were waiting to welcome him after the long 
 separation with hysterical tears of joy. In the unbroken 
 wilderness he entered a section of land; this time with no 
 flaw upon the title. Upon my study wall now hangs the 
 parchment deed to this tract signed by President Monroe as 
 recorded in the general land office at Washington. Here 
 with the aid of his servant was cleared the first patch of 
 ground in the wilderness and the first crop of grain was 
 raised only to be destroyed by severe frost in autumn. A 
 local chronicler describes the cabin which he erected as much 
 better than those of that time : " It was built almost entirely 
 of blue ash logs and nearly full two stories in height. 
 Shields in a short time gathered around him a settlement 
 of some size and wielded considerable influence among the 
 settlers." His spacious cabin being the most commodious 
 in the neighborhood became almost a public resort, the place 
 
xxii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 where political and religious meetings were held. It was 
 also for a time the seat of the Territorial authorities until the 
 government was established in the neighboring village of 
 Corydon. The building was in due time replaced by a more 
 commodious brick building, styled by the ruder settlers — 
 the folly of " stuck-up " Virginians. 
 
 There is no doubt that Shields was the pioneer of all that 
 band of Virginians, a score or more of families that sub- 
 sequently followed his lead and became citizens of this town- 
 ship. He was soon, on December 8th, 1808, commissioned by 
 his old classmate Governor William Henry Harrison as judge 
 of the Court of Common Pleas, the first appointment of this 
 kind for the territory, which then included the region since 
 divided into the States of Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. 
 In 181 1 he went to the defence of the border with General 
 Harrison as a mounted rifleman and volunteer aide. In the 
 battle of Tippecanoe his horse received a bullet in the head, 
 but was not killed and was safely brought back home w^ith 
 him again. When Indiana became a separate territory 
 under Governor Posey, January 7th, 18 14, he was com- 
 missioned judge of the Circuit Court of Harrison County, 
 the first president judge in that territory; and in the year 
 1816 he was appointed a member of the Constitutional Con- 
 vention which met at Corydon for the organization of the 
 Territory into a State. 
 
 These pages were written by Dr. Shields in his seventy- 
 ninth year and amply suffice to show that his force was not 
 in the least abated. Their interest is far from being either 
 personal or local, for they are a contribution to American 
 history as showing the sources of the strength and culture 
 characteristic of many small but vigorous communities 
 through the central and further West. Though life was 
 very primitive in Corydon, Indiana, the people had as their 
 leaders men of the first importance from the viewpoint of 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxiii 
 
 education, family, and energ-y. As the years went on and 
 material prosperity blessed the efforts of the pioneers, they 
 gave the same attention to their intellectual and spiritual 
 necessities as they gave to their bodies and their estates. 
 Churches and schools were established on firm foundations, 
 their sons and daughters were trained in piety and patriotism. 
 When James Read Shields, son of Patrick Henry, came to 
 man's estate he sought and found a wife among the best and 
 most refined families of the East. Being president of the 
 bank of New Albany in the State of his birth, and a ruling 
 elder in the Presbyterian church of the same town, he mar- 
 ried Hannah Woodruff of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, 
 
 This was the fact which determined the career of the only 
 child of the marriage, who was born on April fourth of the 
 following year at his father's home in New Albany, The 
 ancestors of Hannah Woodruff for four generations on both 
 sides lie buried in the graveyard of the First Presbyterian 
 Church of Elizabeth. They were descendants of a well- 
 known Yorkshire family, which emigrated to Massachusetts 
 in 1638, went thence to Southampton, Long Island, and with 
 a number of others removed thence to the Carteret district 
 of New Jersey. They were a line of devout Presbyterian 
 church folk. Mrs. Shields was trained in the " nurture and 
 admonition of the Lord " as her parents understood it, and 
 her well-worn books of devotion were a cherished possession 
 of her son. She is well remembered by the present distin- 
 guished Chancellor of the State, William J. Magie, who 
 recalls that she was a famous Bible scholar. Her pastor, 
 the Rev. John McDowell, D. D., a Princeton graduate of 
 1 80 1, and a founder of the Princeton Seminary, received into 
 the church the grandmother of Dr. Shields and, by both 
 baptism and confession, his mother : he likewise delivered 
 the charge at the installation of her son as a minister, and 
 baptized his oldest daughter. 
 
 Samuel Woodruff, one of the same family, had long 
 since identified the family with the interests of Princeton 
 College, an institution founded to represent the religious 
 
xxiv Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 culture which, by a larger cathoHcity, had outgrown the con- 
 servative type from which it had sprung. He was a trustee 
 from its founding in 1749 to his death in 1768, and is the 
 first to have remembered that institution by a bequest. He 
 was a prosperous merchant and a pillar of the church. In 
 the founding of the college he was, of course, intimately 
 associated with all the leading spirits of the time and place, 
 in particular with Boudinot, Stockton, and Belcher the gov- 
 ernor of the province, he himself being a member of the 
 Council. The society from which the founders of Princeton 
 stood forth had a marked character, being both aristocratic 
 in feeling and ecclesiastical in its standards. Dr. Shields 
 wrote of it in this connection, as follow^s : " Between the ex- 
 tremes of Northern and Southern culture, it laid stress upon 
 forms, and titles, and costumes, while insisting on the claims 
 of virtue and piety. There was in it a touch of English 
 gentility over the harshness of the Puritan, the strictness 
 of the Covenanter, the staidness of the Hollander, the prim- 
 ness of the Quaker, the grace of the Huguenot, and the 
 gayety of the Cavalier. At one time, indeed, all these ele- 
 ments seemed to have been fused together under the elo- 
 quence of that Presbyterian clerg^nnan of the Church of 
 England, George Whitefield, who was then traversing the 
 colonies, like another Apostle to the Gentiles. The Rev- 
 erend Mr. Chandler, Missionary to the little flock of St. 
 John, wrote home to the London Society in disgust, that 
 schism was becoming a mere " ecclesiastical scarecrow," 
 churchmen and dissenters being so mixed up together 
 that they would not discriminate between " Episcopal and 
 ye leathern mitted ordination " which his neighbor, the Rev- 
 erend Jonathan Dickinson, had been defending in sundry 
 learned essays. The preceding rector, good old Mr. Vaugn, 
 had died on the same day with Dickinson, exclaiming, when 
 told that his friend was also dying, " Oh, that I had hold 
 of the skirts of brother Jonathan! " This passage has been 
 quoted because, in its literal truth, the writer was holding up 
 the mirror for himself as a sitter for his own portrait. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxv 
 
 Dr. Shields was in a marked degree what inheritance 
 made him, a man of exactly this social and ecclesiastical 
 mould. 
 
 In response to a request for a few intimate details concern- 
 ing the mother whose influence was almost paramount in 
 her father's life, Mrs. Stockton, of Morven, writes : 
 
 My grandmother's marriage was looked upon by her 
 large family connection, then living in Elizabethtown and 
 New York, as cutting her off entirely from her family and 
 almost from civilization, and so it was natural that my 
 father should have been sent to her sister, Phebe (Wood- 
 ruff) Rankin, in Newark, to be educated. 
 
 New Albany, where my father lived in 1837, was a very 
 primitive place at that time; the first Presbyterian church, 
 and the different clergymen who supplied its pulpit, were 
 the only social interests of the town. My grandmother, 
 although of English descent, was much more the type of a 
 Scotch Presbyterian, and my father has often told me of the 
 breakfasts his mother used to give to the visiting clergymen, 
 a custom still quite common in Scotland. 
 
 She also held " parlor meetings," or ladies' prayer-meet- 
 ings, at her house on Main Street, which had a beautiful 
 garden running down to the Ohio River, " planted with 
 borders and shrubberies," of which my grandmother took 
 personal care. 
 
 My grandfather has left this description of her, which he 
 wrote for his eldest granddaughter : 
 
 " She was a little below the ordinary size of women, well 
 favored and straight in her person. Her forehead high, 
 her features good, complexion fair, with a well-shaped nose 
 resting between her gray or hazel eyes — her countenance 
 on the whole was that of serenity and sense, attractive to 
 all, being entirely destitute of that doll-faced beauty that 
 is so prominent in the features of many women ; one 
 look at her invited a second and then a third ; she was 
 rather retiring and modest in her deportment ; she rose 
 early, delighted much in flowers, and employed her leisure 
 
xxvi Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 moments in reading. The Bible was her first book, then 
 the religions books and papers of the day. She was mild 
 and amiable in disposition, and very kind to those who came 
 within reach of her acquaintance; very conscientious in the 
 discharge of her duties to God and her fellow beings, be- 
 nevolent to the poor and the church ; cheerful, but not given 
 to levity. 
 
 " For upwards of thirty years we lived together in peace, 
 sharing in each other's joys and sorrows until the evening 
 of August 2ist, 1856, when she ceased to be with me." 
 
 After her death it was found that she had treasured every 
 letter her only child had ever written her, and even those 
 from her own people in which his name was mentioned. 
 
 In contrast to the austere life led by my grandmother 
 in the West, I quote from a letter written at Elizabethtown 
 in the first year of her marriage. " We have had a visit from 
 Lafayette, and a most splendid bower was erected for his 
 reception ; I blistered my hands tying greens for it, but it 
 paid with the honor of shaking hands with the general. 
 Hannah ! he looks very much like Mr, Nelson, on the hill, 
 so you can fancy you have seen him; our bower, it is said, 
 stands next to Castle Garden (the port on the battery) ; I 
 was in it one evening, previous to his arrival, and it really 
 appeared like enchantment ; it is, Hannah, indescribable ; I 
 have just finished his memoirs, which have been published 
 since his arrival here. They are very interesting." 
 
 My father was baptized by the Reverend M. R. Welles, 
 pastor of the Presbyterian Church. His early childhood 
 was very lonely ; his mother was his only companion as well 
 as teacher. W^hen he was three years old, he read the first 
 chapter of St. John's Gospel at her knee. He had many 
 salutary lessons from her. As he has somewhere written 
 he began during this time to write a journal of resolu- 
 tions and penitential confessions, such as he had read in the 
 memoirs of some precocious young saint of the day. But 
 his wise mother, pointing out its marks of conceit and vanity, 
 promptly suppressed the effusion. These lonely days play- 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxvii 
 
 ing by her side in the sunny garden readily account for his 
 shyness and reserve. He had no playmates until he went 
 to school in Newark in 1837. 
 
 In 1839 he and two of his schoolmates owned a small 
 printing press, and for a few months " The Aurora," a 
 monthly paper. Printed, Published and Edited by Shields, 
 Butler & Co., was the fruit of their leisure hours. This 
 child's paper was largely subscribed for by " The Aunts " 
 living in the East, and its poetical effusions were contributed 
 by the young ladies of the neighborhood. 
 
 My father's maternal grandmother, Mary (Mulford) 
 Woodruff, daughter of Lewis Mulford III and wife of Par- 
 sons Woodruff, was much interested in his spiritual welfare ; 
 in 1838 she writes : " Give Charles my love and tell him that 
 I was much gratified to see that he was attending to so many 
 studies, and especially the Bible class. I hope he wnll be 
 thankful that his parents can give him so good an education, 
 which is the best of gifts." When she was told that he had 
 joined the Presbyterian Church in 1841, and was to be sent 
 to college, she writes : " I think there is a blessing that 
 attended you that your child should be brought out of nat- 
 ural darkness. I hope he will press forward to the prize of 
 the high calling. I feel gratified to have one of my grand- 
 children a professional character." 
 
 She lived until she was eighty-five, and kept constantly in 
 touch with her grandson. He was expected to pay his re- 
 spects to her on coming and going to college. In 1843 she 
 writes again : " Professor McLean called here during the 
 vacation. I told him I thought Charles would be home-sick, 
 as he never had been away from home. He said if he 
 was he would send him on to spend a few days with us, 
 but as he did not come we concluded he is very well 
 contented." 
 
 While my father was in the seminary she writes : " You 
 wish to know what we think of Charles; we are all very 
 much pleased with his visit. He has improved greatly in 
 regard to his diffidence; you will no doubt be pleased to hear 
 
xxviii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 that he asked a blessing at the table with perfect confidence, 
 while Mr. Wood and Mr. Millpaugh were both present." 
 
 My father's letters gave detailed accounts of his holidays 
 spent with his aunt, Mrs. Rankin, his uncle, Archibald 
 Woodruff, at whose " establishment in Newark " his grand- 
 mother lived after her husband's death, and in New York, 
 at 20 Spring Street, with his aunt, Charity Wood, of whom 
 he was very fond. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Having been a diligent student at the New Albany high 
 school, the boy of twelve was quite ready for better training 
 than New Albany could afford. Accordingly his education 
 was not interrupted by his entrance on the work of the 
 Newark Academy, already a famous school. Four years 
 sufficed to prepare him for Princeton, as a sophomore at 
 least, and possibly a junior. The summer of 1842 he spent 
 at home, and on October 31 he started for the college, already 
 so dear to him, in company with two friends. From this 
 time onward, for some years, his letters to his mother and 
 other relatives contained many things of general interest. 
 He traveled by boat to Wheeling, thence by stage to Harper's 
 Ferry, Washington, and Baltimore, and thence by train to 
 Philadelphia, and Princeton, which he reached on November 
 9. The cost of this journey was thirty-three dollars and six 
 cents. The careful accounting is characteristic. 
 
 Presenting himself as a candidate for the junior class, he 
 was examined by Vice-President McLean and Professor 
 Topping. They found him, for so high a standing, deficient 
 in the languages, and advised him to enter the sophomore 
 class; but as they did not forbid him trying to join the 
 higher one he concluded so to do, and easily made good all 
 deficiencies. His college bill was a hundred and six dollars 
 and eight cents ; this he paid immediately and further bought 
 furniture costing fourteen dollars. He then established him- 
 self with his friend, Walter Mann, at No. 20 East College, 
 and was ready for the work and play of college life. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxix 
 
 As might be expected from one of his birth and training 
 his first impressions of Princeton relate to its rehgious char- 
 acter. More than a third of the students, he wrote, are 
 professors of religion, and many others are seriously dis- 
 posed. The religious restraint cast around them is very 
 great. Beside daily prayers in the chapel there are also 
 nightly prayer-meetings, conducted by some of the faculty 
 and pious students, lectures on Monday evenings, Bible 
 lessons, etc., etc. Within less than three weeks he had him- 
 self joined the Philadelphian Society, and had signed a con- 
 stitution drawn up in the handwriting of James B. Taylor, 
 who, in his own words, was the founder and chief member 
 of the society — a society, it may be remarked in passing, 
 which was the forerunner and almost the parent of all the 
 numerous religious associations of students in American 
 colleges. Further, the students were not permitted to leave 
 the grounds on a Sunday, except by special dispensation. 
 
 The routine of his life is graphically described : A little 
 after six in the morning we have what is called a " rouser," 
 a term most significant of its use. It consists of a most 
 melodious concert of bells and horns (one of the latter is 
 blown in each entry of the different colleges) together with 
 the howling of neighboring dogs by way of a symphony. 
 This should effectually rouse most of the students, it would 
 seem ; I have slept through it once, notwithstanding. After 
 a half an hour for dressing the college bell rings for prayers. 
 At prayer-hall the roll is called, delinquents marked, a 
 chapter read, and a prayer made by one of the tutors. At 
 eight we go to breakfast. Study hours are nine to eleven, 
 recitation till twelve, and so on for the remainder of the day. 
 The students generally walk after evening prayers till supper, 
 and we have some beautiful walks. Professor McLean's 
 prayer-meeting (comes) immediately after supper, Thurs- 
 day evenings a lecture at Dr. Rice's church from either him- 
 self, Professor McLean or Alexander alternately ( ?) in the 
 sophomore recitation room, which we of course attend. 
 After prayer-meeting Walter and I trim our study lamp and 
 
XXX Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 seat ourselves by a good grate fire to study. The sermons 
 we have in prayer-hall are of a strange order. It is a diffi- 
 cult thing to please the students, and some of the professors 
 seem to bend their efforts to obviate this difficulty. What 
 would you think of a grave metaphysical discourse (Dr. 
 Hodge of the Seminary) on the *' existence of the Deity "? 
 A sermon (Professor Dod) on the best method of study? 
 
 Throughout these and all his letters there is constant and 
 tender mention of home affairs, with never ending expres- 
 sions of affection. His first examination closed on January 
 28th, 1843. He felt some uneasiness as to gaining distinc- 
 tion in mathematics, and he did not. There is mention of 
 his regular reading of the " Observer " and the " Presbyte- 
 rian " : also of careful study in " Alexander's Evidences " 
 and " Locke's Essay." His time, he found, was almost en- 
 grossed by his studies, and by the constant, faithful per- 
 formance of his religious duties. 
 
 A letter of September 2nd, 1843, 's very interesting: I 
 have become attached to study, he writes. What in the 
 first place necessity imposed, habit has consented to, and 
 fastened upon me. The natural offspring of this is a thirst 
 after truth. We juniors are now beginning to come in 
 possession of the seniors' peculiar privileges. We have 
 a lecture in the morning (of which we are obliged to take 
 notes, and which we are obliged to transcribe neatly in a 
 large blank-book, together with drawings and illustrations, 
 to be subjected to the supervision of the professor) and in 
 the afternoon a recitation upon it. The last week we had 
 Professor Dod on architecture. He is a splendid lecturer and 
 has, besides his class, an audience of the ladies and gentle- 
 men from out in the town. I have been delighted with the 
 subject, and especially with the method in which he presents 
 it. I do not believe that, in aptness and facility of utterance, 
 there is his equal in the United States. He completely 
 carries you away and makes you feel like another being, 
 even on such a plaything as architecture. Oh, two sermons 
 which I have heard from him this session, I can never forget ! 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxxi 
 
 They have sunk into my heart. He is the greatest man that 
 ever came under my personal observation. He has his mind 
 completely under control — can do with it what he pleases, 
 and it is remarkable that he never fails of making his sen- 
 tences intelligible, is never confused and indistinct in his 
 words, has neither too many nor too few, even when most 
 hurried and dealing with most abstract subjects. He has pre- 
 ciseness of ideas — preciseness of utterance; and complete 
 mastery over his mind to a degree as near to perfection as 
 I can imagine. The wonder is that such a man would be 
 content to be cooped up in the little village of Princeton. 
 
 In another letter he thus characterizes Dr. John McLean : 
 " He is all benevolence. He has a soul large enough to take 
 in the whole world ; although most severe in his administra- 
 tion of college discipline he has not an enemy among the 
 students. They all go to him as an adviser and friend. He 
 always gives them his private reproof and warning before 
 he proceeds to more rigorous measures. He is a complete 
 exemplification of the Christian, and labors more assiduously 
 and conscientiously than any other member of the faculty 
 for the spiritual good of those who are under his instruc- 
 tions. As to his success in his professorship I cannot speak 
 so favorably, I am really afraid my knowledge of Greek is 
 not very much brightened by my college course." 
 
 The industry of the man, and the opportunities for educa- 
 tion which he enjoyed in Princeton at that time, are well 
 illustrated by his enumeration of the studies he pursued in 
 and out of college : his class-room work in mathematics in- 
 cluded mechanics, analytical geometry, differential and in- 
 tegral calculus, and the contents of Olmsted's text-book of 
 astronomy; in the classics he read the Captivi of Plautus, 
 Juvenal and the OEdipus Tyrannus; and with these he had 
 instruction in the Evidences, and in Locke's Essay, together 
 with lectures on architecture. He had also private lessons 
 in elocution and French. The spring holiday he spent in 
 Newark, where his mother was visiting with her family, and 
 in September he returned to New Albany to pass the autumn 
 
xxxii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 holiday at home. His expenses for the year were three 
 hundred and fifty-three dollars and twelve cents. 
 
 The senior year was begun by the purchase of a sylla- 
 bus of Professor Henry's lectures, Brande's Encyclopedia, 
 Hedge's Logic, and Blair's Rhetoric. The holidays were 
 spent in New York and Newark respectively; he graduated 
 on July 27th, 1844, and returned home by way of Niagara. 
 His expenses for the year were three hundred and eighty- 
 one dollars and fifty-four cents. 
 
 The letters he wrote during this period glow with a warm 
 affection for Princeton, and express a high appreciation of 
 the advantages he there enjoyed. They likewise exhibit the 
 heart-searchings of a generous mind and of a manhood de- 
 voted to duty, and scanning the future to find its leadings. 
 On the subject of his opportunities in different lines he wrote 
 at various times with keen discrimination. Toward the 
 close of the year he declared : " I can truly say that no portion 
 of my life has been to me so pleasant as that which I have 
 spent at college. The friendships formed there are like no 
 others — they are between equals, all have the same object in 
 view, and the same end to strive after ; and, therefore, they 
 are purer and freer from those temptations which an inter- 
 course with the world is likely to produce. In fact, I have 
 never known before what it was to have a real friend and to 
 separate from him. I mean, of course, such a companion 
 as similar tastes and a common interest endear to us. I 
 have really become attached to Princeton. As the days of 
 my sojourn draw to a close, and I recount the pleasant 
 friendships which I have formed, I feel confident I shall 
 leave with regret." 
 
 During this year young Shields was managing editor of 
 the Nassau Literary Magazine, and took the Alpha medal 
 for an essay in connection with other literary work in Whig 
 Hall. Chapel exercises were at five in the morning during 
 summer, and he allowed himself but six hours of sleep, such 
 was his untiring zeal in the performance of the many tasks 
 which gave him such a full and fruitful life. In one of his 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxxlii 
 
 letters he thus describes his room : " Imagine, then, after hav- 
 ing deposited carefully the dirt upon a respectable mat at the 
 door, and having received in response to your knock a couple 
 of simultaneous ' holloas ' from within, you step upon a 
 neat carpeted floor — please sit down — I must apologize for 
 the dilapidated appearance of that chair — it lost its rockers 
 and one of its arms one rainy morning in a desperate exi- 
 gency of kindling-wood — be cautious how you trust your- 
 self in that other one — its limbs are relaxing with the feeble- 
 ness of old age — however, there is that other remaining one 
 which I can recommend to you as trustworthy. Having 
 given you the necessary precautions for your safety, you may 
 now proceed in your examination with nothing to molest 
 you. You see that double cylinder stove before you. It 
 is a very convenient, economical affair, with its set of damp- 
 ers to regulate the temperature, only addicted to a curious 
 habit of letting the fire go out once or twice daily. This 
 will lead you readily to account for that hill of short wood 
 you see behind it. In the southeast corner you observe a 
 collection of old umbrellas, bandysticks, old shoes, broom, 
 etc., etc."; and so he runs on for a page or two with his 
 enumeration of collected rubbish. 
 
 There were sixty-seven members in the class, and among 
 them were many destined to be famous in after life : James 
 C. Welling, president of Columbian, now George Washing- 
 ton, University in the national capital ; the Hon. H. S. Little, 
 of Trenton; Col. Edward A. Wright, of Newark, N. J.; 
 Governor A. H. Colquit, of Georgia; the Rev, Noah H. 
 Schenck, of Brooklyn, and in the seminary Bishop Littlejohn, 
 of Long Island. Charles Godfrey Leland, though in the class 
 of 1845, was his warm friend. From the entire number of his 
 classmates about one-third were destined for the Christian 
 ministry, and it was not extraordinary that Shields, with his 
 pious zeal and profound religious nature, should have begun 
 to consider its claim upon him. As early as December, 
 1844, he became a regular attendant at the exercises of 
 trial preaching in the seminary. The faculty of Princeton 
 
xxxiv Charles Woodrnif Shields. 
 
 College was composed of men who were not only great, 
 to mention only Henry, founder of the Smithsonian Insti- 
 tute, and James Waddell Alexander, almost the foremost 
 Presbyterian divine of his day, but they were one and all, 
 lay or clerical, men of devout minds. Their influence on 
 young Shields had been, as we have noted, very profound, 
 and but a short distance away in the seminary of the Pres- 
 byterian Church were men, Alexanders and Hodges, spir- 
 itually akin to the college professors and equally fascinating 
 by their intellectual attainments. Shields expressed in his 
 letters many doubts as to his spiritual strength, earnestly 
 entreating his mother to pray that he might have more holy 
 thoughts, more heavenward aspirations. He had many 
 fits of despondency, and wrote often of disappointments, 
 of temptations, of his unfitness and unworthiness for the 
 high and sacred calling of the ministry. At last, however, 
 his decision was taken and announced. One seems to read 
 between the lines that Dr. McLean influenced him in this, 
 unconsciously to the student ; be that as it may, the earlier 
 boyish judgment of the doctor's scholarship was entirely 
 revised, and, though the appearance and manner of the 
 saintly man seemed unfortunate to the youth, he spoke in the 
 highest terms of his professor's learning in a tone utterly 
 different from the first ; and this at the time when his judg- 
 ment was ripe and he was in the midst of choosing his pro- 
 fession for life. His parents were content that their boy 
 should be a clergyman, but they were firm that it must be in 
 the church of his birth, a Presbyterian minister ; and that he 
 should pursue his theological studies at home. Although 
 there is evidence that Mr. Shields already considered taking 
 orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, as some of his 
 closest associates at Princeton actually did, yet on that point 
 he did not make a firm stand, so earnest were the represen- 
 tations of his mother; but his arguments for remaining in 
 Princeton during his theological training were so eloquent 
 and convincing that in that respect his parents yielded. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxxv 
 
 VII. 
 
 It was at the end of his senior year that a new college 
 calendar, substantially the one still in use, was adopted and 
 inaugurated. Accordingly, the holiday, after the momen- 
 tous decision was taken, scarcely afforded more than a 
 breathing space, and it was with some sense of exhaustion 
 that the laborious student entered on what proved to be the 
 most important phase of his education. His routine work 
 proved in itself a very serious task, and for a time he was 
 much depressed over his inability to take it with the cheerful 
 heart which alone goes " all the way " in a responsible and 
 solemn profession ; in fact, his health was actually jeopard- 
 ized and he was compelled to seek recreation and recuper- 
 ation in a visit to his parents of some length, before the 
 close of the first year. He returned, however, at the open- 
 ing of the second year in vigorous health, with his mind clear, 
 his faculties alert, and all doubts dispelled. Thereafter 
 there was no interruption in a long course of congenial 
 study; he pursued with ardor, not alone the regular course 
 of study, but the avocation of philosophical research which 
 was destined to become a life work. 
 
 Of the distinguished men who taught him he formed the 
 highest opinion; as was indeed inevitable for one endowed 
 as he was with a friendly and appreciative mind. Dr. Alex- 
 ander's simple talks, he wrote, talks in which he utters great 
 truths with such familiarity and plainness, or Dr. Hodge 
 in one of his convincing doctrinal discourses ; there is no such 
 thing as resisting either. Dr. Alexander is plain, simple and 
 precise, having just the qualities and manner necessary to 
 give lucid, common sense views on vexed metaphysical 
 points, and detect the folly of fine-spun theories. Dr. Hodge 
 is logical and comprehensive, just what he ought to be in his 
 branch, to give rigid and correct interpretations of Scripture. 
 Professor Addison (Alexander) I would not attempt to de- 
 scribe ; he completely stupefies me every time I hear his talk, 
 
xxxvi Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 such a stream of words, and so much meaning. He is my 
 model of a Christian scholar. 
 
 Upon one of the manuscripts of the young theologian is 
 this remark by the Old Doctor (Alexander) as he was rev- 
 erendly called : Mr. Shields has a very pleasing, plaintive 
 manner of speaking. In these days when energy and force 
 seem to be so much courted, it is very pleasing to meet with 
 that more winning and soothing style. 
 
 In the case of Dr. Shields it is true that the child is the 
 father of the man. He had not fairly entered college before 
 he began to ponder the Wie, Wo, und Wann ? of the German 
 poet. But for him the oracle was not entirely dumb ; though 
 he heard only in part and in whispers, yet he seemed to catch 
 words and thoughts, alike of weight and import. These 
 he carefully noted and pondered; almost from day to day, 
 certainly from month to month. By the time he was in the 
 Seminary and had secured his full measure of health and 
 vigor, the desire for system took possession of his very 
 soul. Fortunately, the instinct and love for history were 
 well developed in him; the air of the universities was then 
 heavy with what the jargon of the hour styled German 
 ** neologism," supposed to be lethal to all Christian faith ; 
 and for many weak heads the draught was too strong, so 
 strong that rationalistic intoxication was a common phenom- 
 enon. But Shields, with a little knot of friends, had cool 
 heads and an abundance of hard common sense. They 
 thoroughly knew much of what men had already thought, 
 and of how they had behaved in consequence. They deter- 
 mined to know more, and to give all the pressing problems 
 a thorough investigation in the light of human experience. 
 The group consisted of W. A. Lord, W. A. Dod, A. N. 
 Littlejohn, J. C. Welling, and C, W. Shields ; they were all 
 notable men, nearly every one became distinguished in after 
 life. Three of these choice spirits the present writer has 
 been privileged to know ; their learning and refinement were 
 so noteworthy that they would have been marked men in any 
 land and in any circle. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxxvii 
 
 In connection with these men, therefore, Shields began a 
 thorough and exhaustive examination of the philosophies 
 both of the past and of their own day. The philosophic 
 synthesis of systems which he had formed early in his intel- 
 lectual life appears to have served him well as a point of de- 
 parture even in his more exhaustive studies. But he pre- 
 served from first to last an open mind ; the debates of the little 
 club were continuous during the seminary course, each con- 
 tributed his share, and the conclusions of each were either 
 consciously or unconsciously modified by the results of the 
 general discussion. Two profound convictions remained in 
 Shields's mind : the unity and continuity of human thought, 
 the unity and continuity of the divine purpose as exhibited 
 in the historic church. These matters he fully explained to 
 his mother, and between the lines of his letters she seemed 
 to read his leaning toward the Episcopal Church. At all 
 events she considered the probability so great as to be, from 
 her point of view, an imminent danger, and with all her 
 weapons, ecclesiastical and personal, she combated the idea 
 in her letters. She was so far successful that her son pro- 
 posed to spend a year in Germany before entering on the 
 work of the ministry. This course was equally distasteful 
 to his good mother, who seems, from one rather doubtful 
 reference, to have dedicated her son to mission work in the 
 West. In a letter from one of his friends mention is likewise 
 made of another missionary scheme ; namely, work in the 
 foreign field. This probably has no further significance 
 than that the conscientious young minister had casually, at 
 least, considered every possibility in the dedication of his 
 life. 
 
 The result of all these deliberations was the conviction 
 that he was still too young to enter on the work of the Pres- 
 byterian ministry, and that he could spend another year at 
 Princeton with excellent results, both in ripening his mind 
 and in strengthening the foundations of his scholarship. In 
 this decision he had determined the course of his life. No 
 longer attached to the membership of a class or even of a 
 
xxxviii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 group, his mind had free course for independent develop- 
 ment, and his habits of omnivorous reading were confirmed, 
 were settled into their groove without the support of com- 
 radeship. His own feeling throughout later life was that 
 the quiet, detached, reposeful, intellectual life of this year 
 had been fertile almost beyond that of any other. Before it 
 was over he had found his line ; and from it he never devi- 
 ated to the very end. Determined on the practice of his 
 profession, at least for a time, many of the sermons he pre- 
 pared were of a marked philosophical cast. 
 
 During the holiday after leaving Princeton, which he 
 spent at New Albany, he made the acquaintance of Miss 
 Charlotte Elizabeth Bain, of Galway, New York. Later, 
 when he went to spend some time with an aunt in the city of 
 New York, while preaching in various pulpits, the acquaint- 
 ance was continued and ripened into love. On November 
 22nd, 1848, they were married in Stamford, Connecticut, 
 by the Reverend John McElroy. The happy life together 
 began in Brooklyn, where, with his wife and her sister, he 
 established himself during the time of his probation, as a 
 supply in various pulpits. 
 
 He was an accomplished preacher from the first. Licensed 
 as a candidate on February 2nd, 1847, he chose as his text: 
 " And Enoch w^alked with God and was not, for God took 
 him." One of his hearers wrote: "The introduction was 
 most beautiful, and the whole sermon was one of exceeding 
 excellence, chaining the attention of the audience through- 
 out." The first pulpit which he supplied was in Philadel- 
 phia. The proof of his great power as a preacher came in 
 the form of three calls, almost simultaneously, in 1849. 
 One was from Salem, Massachusetts ; one from Hempstead, 
 Long Island, and the third was from the Pearl Street Church 
 of New York. He was in much doubt as to which of the 
 three he should accept. After mature deliberation, in which 
 the question of his wife's health had to be carefully con- 
 sidered, he finally decided for Hempstead. Referring jocu- 
 larly to his decision, he had decided, he said, on the old 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xxxix 
 
 negro's advice : " Go where there is the most devil and the 
 least pay." 
 
 He was ordained in November and entered at once on 
 his work at a salary of five hundred dollars a year. His 
 task had been made clear in advance. Writing on the sub- 
 ject, he said : " They wisli a minister who will give himself 
 up to a great deal of social visiting. The country portion of 
 the congregation, which forms the greater part, are espe- 
 cially solicitous on this point. They seem to feel that they 
 have hitherto been much neglected, and have signified their 
 desire to the session that it should be stipulated with their 
 new pastor that he should bestow more attention upon them 
 — should go out occasionally and spend the day, etc., etc. 
 They are not a reading people," he wrote in another letter ; 
 " there are three men here who own fortunes who can scarcely 
 write their names, and there is not one family or person in 
 the village (as far as I have become acquainted) who is of 
 a congenial taste. I feel this deficiency very much, as I am 
 afraid if I remain here long I shall lapse into neglectful 
 habits of study, preaching, and so forth." It was apparently 
 as a matter of secular education for his people that early in 
 1850 he delivered a course of public lectures on architecture, 
 modelled on those of Professor Dod, which he had so greatly 
 admired. There is in one of his letters of the time an inter- 
 esting reminiscence of older customs. The clergymen in 
 attendance at a funeral were provided with certain mourning 
 insignia, among them an ample scarf of linen to be worn 
 over the shoulder. Of these Mr. Shields had so many that 
 they served as a sufficient provision for all the shirts he could 
 wear. 
 
 During the summer of 1850 there came a call from the 
 Second Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. This he 
 naturally accepted, and in November he was installed, the 
 charge being delivered by Dr. John McDowell, and the ser- 
 mon being preached by Dr. H. A. Boardman. This was a 
 very important church, and the young pastor took hold with 
 a will. During the year ending October ist, 185 1, there w^re 
 
xl Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 lield ninety-four public services, at seventy-three of which 
 the pastor preached. He Hkevvise dehvered thirty-six lec- 
 tures, and during the year twenty pews were rented. To 
 the end of his pastorate his zeal never abated, and he left 
 the active work of preacher and pastor in the full tide of 
 success. Among his leading men were such influential citi- 
 zens as Charles McAllister, Charles E. Morgan, Judge Joel 
 Jones, and Judge John K. Kane. His friends were men of 
 mark in the community, such clergymen as George and 
 Walter Stewart, Richardson, Brown, Van Rensselaer, Ches- 
 ter, Mann, Cuyler, and Engles, editor of the " Presbyterian." 
 Two of his intimate personal friends were the Hon. Furman 
 Sheppard, and Elisha Kent Kane, then in the height of his 
 renown as an Arctic explorer. Over the remains of the 
 latter, five years later, he preached a funeral sermon of 
 such power as to attract attention from the entire com- 
 munity. 
 
 In short, Mr. Shields took his place at once as a great force 
 in the city. This was the more remarkable in view of the 
 conditions then prevailing. As Bishop Henry C. Potter said 
 in his memorial address, delivered after the death of his 
 friend : " I was a boy in Philadelphia at that time, and I 
 can remember how swift we of different communions were 
 to fasten upon one another's failings, and how little love was 
 lost — or found — between us! What was most prized then 
 was a master of polemics — there is little doubt that the 
 orthodox believer, when he looked at his heterodox neigh- 
 bor, complacently thanked God that he was not as other men 
 were ! Does anybody wonder that the sensitive and devout 
 scholar turned from the ministry, in which it was often de- 
 manded that the preacher should meet such expectations or 
 be lectured by his deacons — turned, I say, from such a con- 
 ception of the office of the pulpit to the professor's chair? " 
 For fifteen years the pastor of the Second Presbyterian 
 Church was a faithful servant of his people and of his com- 
 munity, warning, admonishing, edifying, and cheering all 
 who sought his kindly offices. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xH 
 
 The life of these years was stimulating in all directions. 
 He found time to indulge himself in extensive reading, and 
 occasionally to write verses of a fugitive sort, which relieved 
 his own emotional nature and gave great pleasure to many 
 discriminating readers. But the serious side of his private 
 study was dedicated throughout the entire period to a 
 continued and careful consideration of the great problems 
 which had absorbed him in earlier years. As early as 1855 
 he published a thoughtful article on " Presbyterian Polity," 
 and a volume entitled " A Book of Remembrance." The 
 latter is a beautiful allegory of the inner life ; it had a wide 
 circulation through the Presbyterian publication board, and 
 ran through several editions. So important were his con- 
 tributions to philosophy and theology that in i860 he de- 
 livered the annual address at the Princeton Commencement 
 and received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In an ad- 
 dress delivered long afterward, at the centennial celebration 
 of the American Philosophical Society, he said that he re- 
 membered Philadelphia as a city in which his early labors 
 found generous appreciation, to which he became attached 
 by the strongest ties of his life, and which he had ever re- 
 membered, as the exiled Greek remembered his dulcis Argos, 
 the sweet home of art and letters and refinement. 
 
 This sentiment was doubtless awakened as much by recol- 
 lections of his private as of his public life in that city. 
 During the early years he had lived through the heats of 
 summer in the suburb of Torresdale. There, on August 
 9th, 1853, his wife died, leaving him a widower with three 
 children still in infancy. For eight years he devoted himself 
 to nourishing and cherishing them with double affection and 
 devotion. During the summer of 1856 he was in Newport, 
 Rhode Island, filling the pulpit of the Congregational church, 
 of which the well-known Dr. Thayer was pastor. He re- 
 membered all the simplicity of Newport living as he then 
 saw it ; no cottage life, no Ocean Drive, no Bellevue Avenue ; 
 just the old town, three large hotels, and many boarding 
 houses. The morning hours were spent in the quiet of the 
 
xlii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 modest residence, dinner was at three, and the gayety was 
 a drive after that to Fort Adams, or to the " Beaches," and 
 then to the " Glen " for tea. There he first met Miss Ehz- 
 abeth Kane, of Philadelphia, who was visiting her cousin. 
 General John van Rensselaer. Their acquaintance was des- 
 tined in time to become a romance, and it w^as to this meet- 
 ing that he always attributed his enduring affection for 
 Newport. He did not return until 1877, but the place had 
 still, even heightened charms for him ; and it was in the study 
 of a house he built for himself, on a site overlooking Ochre 
 Point, that he wrote many chapters of his Philosophia 
 Ultima. 
 
 This friendship led also to the forming of many inti- 
 macies in Philadelphia. These are worth enumerating 
 because they greatly influenced the later life of Dr. Shields, 
 affording him the pleasure and stimulus of social and intel- 
 lectual companionship, which everywhere made him one of 
 the initiated. Fernrock, the country seat of Judge Kane, 
 was the centre of a group, many members of which w^ere 
 destined to eminence in later years. Among them were 
 Miss Lilly Macalister, who, as Mrs. Lawton, held a unique 
 position in Washington society from the days of Buchanan 
 to the second administration of Cleveland ; there were the 
 daughters of Fanny Kemble, Sarah and Fanny Butler, the 
 former married to the late Owen J. Wistar, and the latter to 
 the Hon. James Lee, now Dean of Hereford, England; 
 there was Miss Charlotte Wood, wife of the late Vicar of 
 Wakefield, the Reverend Edward Bell; there were also 
 Thomas Hicks, and three medical students, J. Da Costa, 
 S. Weir Mitchell, and John K. Kane, a son of the house; of 
 course, too, there was Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, of the Navy, 
 who returned thither to recuperate from his voyages in the 
 Arctic. It is easy to understand the attractions of such con- 
 genial friends to a hard-working pastor, glad to seek relief 
 for a season from the cares of a large city church. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xHii 
 
 VIII. 
 
 In 1861 Dr. Shields published a pamphlet entitled " Phi- 
 losophia Ultima." It contained a digest of his philosophical 
 studies up to that date. It was an essay, partly historical, 
 partly critical, claiming that eventually there would issue 
 from a complete system of knowledge, which reason and 
 revelation are combining to produce, a final philosophy ; in 
 other words, that sooner or later there would be a conclusive 
 harmony of science and religion. This paper was almost a 
 defiance of the orthodox thought of America as it then was, 
 for it had no apologetic motive whatever, though it claimed 
 that the relation of apologetics to philosophy demanded the 
 most careful study from the philosophical point of view. In 
 the view of the Presbyterian Church it was erroneous to 
 make philosophy the arbiter between science and religion; 
 to emphasize the opposition of science and religion was un- 
 duly to enlarge the area of apologetics, to introduce an un- 
 philosophic element into philosophy, which at most is but the 
 handmaid of theology. The essence of Dr. Shields's posi- 
 tion was that between true religion and true science there 
 could be no conflict, but that between the " crude, unproved 
 hypotheses put forth in the name of science, and the human, 
 fallible dogmas claiming to express the Bible " there was 
 already joined a bitter conflict, and that it was a proper task 
 of philosophy to sit in judgment on the claims of both, but 
 to purge the evidence and establish the facts beneath the 
 claims. On the one hand, the importance and value of 
 certain so-called scientific hypotheses, on the other, the 
 importance and value of certain so-called religious dogmas ; 
 from a determination of these would finally issue a harmony 
 of secular and religious thought. Such was the revo- 
 lutionary position of the manifesto. Of set purpose the 
 proud title was a challenge. 
 
xliv Charles IVoodniff Shields. 
 
 IX. 
 
 In order to gain a hearing the challenger must enter the 
 lists ; these were already marked and enclosed for the appel- 
 lant, partly in the existing conditions of thought, partly in 
 the position which Dr. Shields had established in the Phila- 
 delphia community, and especially in the esteem which he 
 enjoyed at Princeton. His claim to a professor's chair was 
 manifest. Accordingly the idea engaged the attention of 
 many influential people, and the agitation took form almost 
 immediately. In due time it became evident that his chair 
 must be in philosophy, as far removed from the field of 
 Christian apologetics as was necessary to secure and keep a 
 clear perspective. The ideal situation was manifestly in 
 Princeton College, as his alma mater was then popularly 
 styled. When the Presbyterian Church located its chief and 
 oldest seminary at the doors of Princeton College, it did so 
 with the clear intention that the interaction between the two 
 institutions should redound to the advantage of both. Their 
 relations have ever been close and harmonious; yet their 
 chairs have been held by men of the most divergent views, 
 and their policies are for the most part avowedly distinct. 
 It would be no breach in custom for a graduate of both to 
 maintain in the undenominational college what the Calvin- 
 istic theology of the seminary might not admit, the more so 
 as Dr. Shields was a convinced and consistent Calvinist him- 
 self. By 1865 the matter was arranged, and in that year 
 he was made professor of the harmony of science and 
 revealed religion. This was the first chair of the kind to be 
 established in any American college. Princeton contributed 
 from its meagre funds six hundred dollars, the rest of the 
 salary was provided by subscriptions of friends to the project 
 most of whom were in Philadelphia : later, when the pro- 
 fessor inherited a modest fortune, these sums were all scru- 
 pulously repaid. 
 
 On August 25th, 1861, Dr. Shields had taken to wife his 
 dear friend Miss Elizabeth Kane, whom he had so long ad- 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xlv 
 
 mired and who had been the inspiration for much of his best 
 work. They Hved on Rittenhouse Square, and what with the 
 duties of a growing family, increased by social activities 
 incident to a new sphere, life was so full and exacting as to 
 make very difficult, if not impossible, the pursuit of philo- 
 sophical studies. The endless cares of the pastor weighed 
 heavily upon him, feeling as he did that his period of min- 
 isterial work had been faithfully absolved. It was with 
 delight that he hailed his Princeton call, and the vista which 
 it opened of congenial work and study. The last years of 
 his Philadelphia pastorate were, however, not so far absorbed 
 by public duties but that he found time to publish a Presby- 
 terian prayer-book, thus inaugurating in the church of his 
 birth the liturgical movement which has reached the stage 
 set forth by the action of the General Assembly in 1904, 
 approving the report of their committee on the order of com- 
 m.on worship. Dr. Shields's book contains a historical state- 
 ment of the work of the Savoy Conference, in which the 
 language of the English prayer-book was modified to satisfy 
 the scruples of Presbyterians with a view to the unity of an 
 Anglican Catholic church. The body of the book contains 
 all existing historical material for such a manual. While 
 the volume has never attracted general attention, yet sev- 
 eral editions have been sold, and it has been a constant re- 
 minder of the possibility in the contemporary age of what 
 was contemplated at the outset of modern history. Further, 
 the introduction gave evidence of thoroughness in historical 
 research, and displays a mastery of material in style and 
 form which did not pass unnoticed by historians. He was 
 later to be honored with the burden of historical teaching; 
 which he did not seek and which was far from being con- 
 genial to his tastes. 
 
 Dr. Shields established himself with his family in a com- 
 fortable and conveniently situated cottage, where he dis- 
 pensed a generous hospitality, spiritual, intellectual, and 
 material, for many years. For some time his income was 
 small ; but, such as it was, the gracious presence of his wife 
 
xlvi Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 and his own genial personality made his hearthstone a centre 
 of influence from the beginning. There radiated from it a 
 spirit of refinement and culture which made it a power 
 among his colleagues and his students. The first period of 
 his Princeton life was one, however, of some disappointment 
 and much sorrow. As his family grew in numbers and in 
 age, the demands upon his slender resources increased 
 steadily. Much of his work was that for which he was pre- 
 pared : the writing and delivery of lectures, the chapel 
 preaching, and the general routine of the professor's life, 
 but there was alarming and fatal sickness in his family, and 
 increased expense had to be met by exertions which though 
 remunerative did not advance the cause to which he had 
 devoted himself. As the crown of sorrow, Mrs. Shields 
 died in 1869. Again he found himself in widow-ed solitude, 
 charged with all the care which little children demand from 
 both their parents. 
 
 Always sensitive and retiring, it now seemed as if he 
 must remain a sad and discouraged recluse. For a little 
 time it was such a life that he led. But the well-spring of 
 a higher life was copious and strong within him ; as in many 
 similar instances his mind and his books provided balm for 
 his w^ounded spirit and in renewed study he found a measure 
 of consolation. At last he felt the impulse to original com- 
 position, and in the summer of 1870, working day after day, 
 far into the night, he began to set down the ideas he hoped 
 to embody in his first book. Among the younger men who 
 had enjoyed the privilege of some intimacy with Dr. Shields 
 was one who was destined to reach great distinction as a 
 biblical scholar and who is now (1905) a professor in the 
 University of Leipsic, Caspar Rene Gregory. After months 
 of solitary labor, his older friend called the young scholar 
 to his service; their intimacy grew apace and after the 
 autumn of the year they were much together in the evenings, 
 frequently, too, in the afternoons; and sometimes in the 
 mornings as well. At last Dr. Gregory came to pass long 
 periods of time, weeks together, under his friend's roof. 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xlvii 
 
 His account of the author's labors and methods gives a clear 
 insight into the genesis of the volumes, as they grew on 
 Dr. Shields's hands. 
 
 With reference to his sources, says Dr. Gregory, I was for 
 some time librarian of the Seminary Library, and I used 
 to search out all kinds of things at first hand for him. An 
 old copy of Petrus Lombardus, the Master of Sentences, 
 sticks in my memory; and philosophers of all kinds, and 
 scientific men in general. So far as I can remember, the 
 longest hunt I had, referred to Galileo; and I scarcely ven- 
 ture now to say what the last point was, save that the aim 
 was to get authentic testimony about his trial ; testimony 
 that was not in books. It is quite possible that some note 
 of mine about it is still among Dr. Shields's papers. I went 
 to a then very old and very world-forsaken, I think French, 
 monastery in Baltimore; it seems to me that the priest or 
 the monk whom I there saw was very suspicious, and that I 
 got nothing out of him. I was more successful at Phila- 
 delphia, at the Bishop's house near the Cathedral. There I 
 met a priest who, I think, had been the Secretary of the 
 Bishop at the Vatican Council ; his name escapes me at this 
 moment; I think of Hauptmann, Hausmann, or Hoffman, 
 but the chances are that it was something very different ; he 
 is probably, if still living, a dignitary of the Church, for he 
 was learned, facile, and in favor. He at once entered into 
 the spirit of the thing and, after we had rummaged around 
 for a while, he said that he thought he had seen an account 
 of the trial or some quotations from proceedings at the trial 
 in, I think, an Italian Review. This he found, and a foot- 
 note gave just what we were looking for. Dr. Shields was 
 greatly pleased when I got back to Princeton with the notes. 
 That is enough about the sources. Dr. Shields, I always 
 found willing and desirous to get back to and down to the 
 original sources. 
 
 Taking then the accessible sources, often, of course, a 
 volume or two of the given author, Dr. Shields wrote with 
 the greatest care an abstract of the opinions of the author, 
 
xlviii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 often several pages long. Such longer summaries he then 
 again reduced to shorter ones, tearing the old ones up. 
 Finally, I objected to his destruction of the preliminary work 
 and he laid these papers away; whether they still exist or 
 not I do not know. From these abstracts he proceeded to 
 the writing of the given chapter in his book. How long he 
 wrote and rewrote and tore up I cannot tell. I kept remon- 
 strating with him and insisting upon it that he must begin 
 to settle the manuscript for the press, I should say that I 
 read everything as he wrote it, or he read it to me. I 
 worked at my own Avork, then largely philosophy and his- 
 tory, at the window side of his table, a large table, doubt- 
 less still at Morven or Newport, while he worked at the 
 room-side of the table, so that we were hours together there. 
 And then we would go to chairs at each side of the little 
 wood fire, where he would read Tennyson or Matthew 
 Arnold, or something else nice, to me, or we discussed 
 heaven and earth, and the rest of creation or non-creation. 
 To go on : at last I said, *' This must stop. You must 
 give me the beginning of Volume I, and I shall copy it oflf 
 and lay it away, and that will be as if it were printed, and 
 you must let it alone and go on with the rest. And so for II, 
 and III." And we did that. How far the process actually 
 went on before I left for Leipsic, on May 9 (sailing May 
 10), 1873, I cannot now remember. I take it for granted 
 that the most of I, much of II, and a little of III (do not ask 
 me how far I, II, III reach) was done, and of course he was 
 working away on the piles of abstracts for the rest of it. I 
 put the copied-off, quasi-printed, parts into one of the 
 drawers on my side of the table. 
 
 As to persons, it should be mentioned that Dr. Welling, 
 when he first came to Princeton, lived at Dr. Shields's and 
 was thus for some time closely with him, talking over and, 
 I think, hearing everything, although I cannot now say just 
 how much he read or heard of the book. Dr. Shields did 
 not have much to do with people in general, although he was, 
 of course, ever friendly to all. Once or twice we called on 
 
A Biographical Sketch. xlix 
 
 John Miller, after he came back to Princeton, for he amused 
 and interested us. He was full of thought, and totally reck- 
 less in what he said. Once he appalled us by saying, I think 
 in the presence of his lovely wife, in the midst of a theolog- 
 ical argument : " Now, if I should murder my wife " 
 
 We knew there was no danger of it, but it was an uncanny 
 way of pointing a position. 
 
 These pleasant memories of Professor Gregory suggest 
 the character of his friend, as it was then formed and as 
 it remained substantially to the last. His scholarship was 
 marked by three qualities ; it was based on the rock of 
 original research, it was special within limits carefully re- 
 lated to the whole field, it had the clearness which Descartes 
 says is the test of truth. In his friendships he was careful 
 to select those of the strongest individuality, so that the 
 interchange of relations might increase the vital forces of 
 all concerned. Then, as now, Princeton abounded in men 
 of strong purpose and of fearless personality, utterly indif- 
 ferent to the levelling forces so active in the outer world. 
 The intercourse of such persons with each other results in 
 the sharpening of minds and wits, in the challenge and re- 
 tort, the feint and guard, which are conducive to chivalric 
 liberty, reciprocity of sympathy, and vigorous execution of 
 tasks. Busy scholars guard their privacy as a sacred thing, 
 and carefully maintain the conventions of life ; the hours of 
 leisure are correspondingly free and joyous. The atmos- 
 phere thus created was a congenial one for the training of 
 Dr. Shields's natural powers, and he throve in it despite his 
 sorrows and his cares. 
 
 Moreover, he was in hearty sympathy with the policy of 
 the university to which he belonged, a policy based on tra- 
 dition and on the conditions of its means and geographical 
 site. Established in protest against ultra conservatism, it 
 was committed to hearing the other side on all disputed 
 questions ; its constitution was founded in the liberal arts and 
 sciences, and to the cultivation of these it was irrevocably 
 committed. Whatever the future had in store, the present 
 
1 Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 path was clearly defined ; in the words of a famous son of 
 Princeton, her scholars were not to be citizens of some petty 
 principality, but freemen in the commonwealth of knowl- 
 edge. The place itself has been, from the first, a haunt for 
 men of all sections in our federal union; it bred the rebels 
 of 1776 under Witherspoon, it saw Washington's greatest 
 strategic achievement, it saw the recognition of American 
 independence, its vane pointed first South and then North in 
 the Civil War, it had first introduced science into the cur- 
 riculum of American colleges, in short, both theoretically and 
 historically it stood for liberty without license. 
 
 With such aspirations and such a past, the task of develop- 
 ment along its chosen course would have been easy for the 
 college, had its resources been adequate to its aspirations ; but 
 unfortunately such was not the case, and no member of her 
 faculty could escape the performance of work for which he 
 was known to be capable. The most conspicuous gap in her 
 course of study was the absence of all instruction in secular 
 history, except as it was given incidentally to the instruction 
 in other departments. Dr. McCosh succeeded to the Pres- 
 ident's chair at the opening of the college year in 1868. He 
 at once inspired all the friends of the university w^ith confi- 
 dence in his guidance, and delighted them with his shrewd 
 insight into the character of his task. Enthusiasm increased 
 as his projects were realized one after another, and his col- 
 leagues were ready for almost any sacrifice. In 1870, there- 
 fore, Dr. Shields assumed the work of teaching modern 
 history, the college assuming the whole of his salary. For 
 thirteen years he lectured on European and American civili- 
 zation, on English constitutional law, on philosophical his- 
 tory, and on social science. So brilliant and thorough was 
 his work, in spite of the energy which it took from his 
 chosen field of labor, that the compulsion to continue for so 
 long was really of his own making. He obtained relief at 
 the last only by sheer will-power, in the determination to 
 sacrifice a portion of his salary that he might devote himself 
 solely to his specialty. For no part of his activities is he 
 
A Biographical Sketch. H 
 
 held in more grateful remembrance by his pupils than for 
 the inspiration they received from his large and forcible 
 views of history, and for the enduring impulse he gave to the 
 development of historical studies in Princeton University. 
 
 His intellectual discouragements, therefore, were in the 
 main due to his own qualities and abilities. He neverthe- 
 less felt them keenly, and was often impatient as time flew by 
 and the field he had surveyed remained untilled. A born 
 and fearless pioneer, it seemed hard that he should not enter 
 on the task of occupying and improving his preemptions. 
 What was more, he was for long an academic preacher, 
 second to none in eloquence and edification. He held his 
 student audiences spellbound in the college chapel, and visit- 
 ing strangers thronged to hear him. A number of his most 
 famous and best remembered sermons were printed by re- 
 quest. They remind one of the " Old Doctor's " criticism, 
 Avhen the professor was yet a student. Their tone is dis- 
 tinctively that of the plaintive scholar, who has noted the 
 conditions into which he was born, and holds himself respon- 
 sible for those in which he lives. They abound in felicitous 
 phrase, in happy illustrations, and in philosophic insight. 
 They console while they instruct, they encourage while they 
 warn, they combine the fire of conviction with the charm of 
 melancholy. To the preparations of these sermons their 
 author gave lavishly of his time and his force, so much, in- 
 deed, that in them he cultivated his literary gifts to a higher 
 perfection than in either his lectures or his books. It w^as his 
 sufficient reward that his hearers were appreciative and 
 grateful. When, after many years of such service, he felt 
 compelled to devote his life to what he regarded as higher 
 duty, it was not without regret that he relinquished the 
 stimulating pleasure of regular ministerial service. 
 
 Considering the natural sensitiveness of Dr. Shields, and 
 the circumstances under which he had entered upon his duties 
 in Princeton, it was not strange that he desired to know how 
 he stood in the opinion of his public. On this point he con- 
 sulted one of his intimate friends, William Baker, the well- 
 
Hi Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 known author of several striking books, among them the 
 novel which not long since absorbed a host of critical readers, 
 " His Majesty Myself." In a letter dated November nth, 
 1866, Mr. Baker wrote: " I have only two small statements 
 to make. Whether or not you will think them worth the 
 paper and the time spent in reading this, you must decide. 
 Imprimis, Dr. Duffield accompanied me to this city. In an 
 incidental way he told me that you gave the utmost satis- 
 faction in your chair to all. He was even enthusiastic about 
 your present and future in Princeton. Since coming here I 
 have heard that Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, has been speaking 
 of your course in a manner most flattering to yourself. This 
 I have direct. Moral : Do not be so sensitive. You are too 
 self-conscious, too introspective. Forget your own existence. 
 Be so absorbed in, say, the culture of — even turnips, if noth- 
 ing else — the youth about you, as to have only a traditional 
 memory of yourself. I believe if one could know and care as 
 little for one's self as a tulip does, or a nightingale, one would 
 be that much the more fragrant and melodious for it. What 
 a sage I am, am I not ? " The recipient of this letter profited 
 much from it; for it looks at present as if he might have 
 kept it by him for a time. At all events, he eventually 
 acquired, as was just, the well earned self-confidence without 
 which men are after all broken reeds. 
 
 The high esteem and affection which was expressed to Mr. 
 Baker by Dr. Duffield, of the college, and Dr. Hodge, of 
 the seminary, in their utterances of consideration for Dr. 
 Shields were universal with all his colleagues in both insti- 
 tutions. He easily attained to respect and popularity, and 
 his eminence was never disputed. Possibly the degree of 
 confidence which his associates placed in him was most 
 clearly expressed in the fact that throughout his long connec- 
 tion with Princeton, they regarded him as the one man best 
 fitted for the most difficult of tasks, the preparation of the 
 record to be spread on their minutes concerning the char- 
 acter and services of those who by death or resignation were 
 taken from the service of the college. In him they recog- 
 
A Biographical Sketch. liii- 
 
 nized the typical Princetonian, steeped in the college history 
 and feeling, endowed with a splendid gift of expression and 
 able to gauge the proportionate value of services rendered, 
 as no other could. Besides, his human sympathy, tempered 
 by disciplined emotions, would, as it did, surely result in a 
 fine literary cast to such a record. The many such estimates 
 from his pen are alike adequate and beautiful. Were the 
 old fashion of elaborate epitaphs still in vogue, these polished 
 and terse characterizations would well commemorate virtue 
 and gladden the hearts of posterity. It is a misfortune that 
 they must ever remain inaccessible to all but the antiquary. 
 
 With the revolving years the home of Dr. Shields became 
 a centre of social importance, which afforded the highest and 
 purest pleasure to his neighbors and to strangers alike. In 
 his oldest daughter, as she grew to woman's estate, he had a 
 helper and companion abundantly fit to preside at his hos- 
 pitable table and welcome his guests to a well-ordered house. 
 The students and other young visitors made life cheerful and 
 gay. Into their amusements the head of the family threw 
 himself with zest ; for one of their most important enterprises 
 he made a dramatic version of Tennyson's " Princess," care- 
 fully studied with reference to the exigencies of the ama- 
 teur stage. It was duly acted by his children and their 
 friends under his careful management, and with such suc- 
 cess that he was persuaded to publish it in a little volume 
 which has been of use to many similar companies of young 
 folk. These, and like recreations of an elevating character, 
 gave a distinguished quality to the household. Miss Shields 
 deserves more than a passing mention. She was her father's 
 support, and a mother to his children ; a woman of most un- 
 common parts, of brilliant attainments and trenchant wit ; 
 her company was eagerly sought by her equals in age and by 
 her elders ; children were her adoring friends. After her 
 marriage she presided over her husband's home as she had 
 
liv Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 over that of lier father, and " Springdale " was a centre of 
 influence quite as important as her father's house; after her 
 grandfather's death, Dr. Shields came into his comfortable 
 inheritance, and made his home with her until her untimely 
 death. Her memory is still green with those who were 
 young in Princeton during her mature life; and men now 
 verging over the term of middle life pay hearty tribute to 
 the power for good which she exercised over those who were 
 favored with her friendship. 
 
 When her younger sister became Mrs. Stockton, it was 
 possible for Dr. Shields to purchase " Morven," the ancient 
 seat of her husband's family, and there in the companionship 
 of his children and grandchildren, he spent the remaining 
 years of his life. In this acquisition Dr. Shields took the 
 most intense delight. He wrote of it that it had been the 
 joy of Richard Stockton, scholar and statesman, who had 
 been a student at Elizabeth, where he met Annis Boudinot, 
 daughter of Elias, president of the first congress. As Mrs. 
 Stockton she came to the ancestral home in Princeton, and 
 fixed upon it the poetic name of " Morven," taken from the 
 scene of Ossian's poems. As a manorial estate it originated 
 in a grant from William Penn to an earlier Richard Stock- 
 ton, in 1 70 1, of a tract of five thousand five hundred acres, 
 embracing the present grounds of the university and the vil- 
 lage of Princeton. Nor was it a matter of little interest to 
 him and to many others, that by a coincidence, after a lapse 
 of a hundred and thirty years, branches of the Stockton and 
 Woodruff families, so closely associated in colonial times, 
 should so long after be connected by marriage, and come 
 into possession of the Morven mansion at a juncture when 
 otherwise that family seat would have passed out of a suc- 
 cession in which it had been maintained for two centuries. 
 Within its walls on the due month and day occurred a nota- 
 ble celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the grant. 
 There were gathered for the festival many descendants of 
 both stocks, and the present holders of lands whose title rests 
 in the grant. The ceremonial was that of the far-off olden 
 
A Biographical Sketch. Iv 
 
 time, as were the costumes; the arrangements, carefully 
 studied by Dr. Shields in anticipation of the event, and with 
 reference to the background of his historic house, were ad- 
 mirably carried out in all particulars, and impressed those 
 present with the dignity of their heritage, and with its 
 accompanying responsibilities, exactly as he had desired. 
 The place is as famous by its later associations as by its 
 origin, and its owner looked upon its possession as a public 
 trust. To all visitors on the high festivals of town and 
 gown alike, its doors were open for inspection; and very 
 often in lavish hospitality. 
 
 Reference has already been made to the tender associa- 
 tions which endeared Newport to Dr. Shields ; among his 
 first cares after his succession to his inheritance was the pur- 
 chase of a field on the then sparsely settled Ochre Point. 
 There he built a cottage after his own ideas, and he furnished 
 it in the exercise of his chastened and exquisite taste. From 
 1877 onward Newport was his summer home, except for a 
 single year, the holidays of which were spent in a European 
 tour, which gave him the greatest possible pleasure. His 
 visitors at Newport found him one of a select circle of 
 literary and other friends, no member of which was more 
 sought after than himself. In the companionship of emi- 
 nent men and women he found refreshment and strength ; as 
 has been said, in the quiet of his study on Ochre Point much 
 of his profoundest thinking and best writing was done. One 
 of his activities was his connection with the " Town and 
 Country Club " ; of it Mrs. Julia Ward Howe was the presi- 
 dent and he was the vice-president. Its membership is in all 
 respects remarkable, comprising the keen minds of many 
 sections of the country, and its proceedings afforded to Dr. 
 Shields a valuable stimulus ; the honor it paid him is sufficient 
 evidence of what he did for it. These and his Princeton 
 associations in winter were the sources from which he re- 
 newed his perennial youth. He was in the full enjoyment of 
 all the activities which rendered his life so rich and varied, 
 when death overtook him at Newport during his eightieth 
 
Ivi Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 year, on August 26th, 1904. He literally " fell on sleep "; 
 in a moment, without pain or warning, he was unconscious, 
 and in that state he departed this life. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Dr. Shields died in the communion and orders of the 
 Episcopal Church. The circumstances under which he 
 changed his denominational connection were as characteris- 
 tic as any other events of his life. Not far from Morven 
 stands the Princeton Inn, a hostelry founded and managed 
 by graduates of the college in order that students and their 
 friends, graduates and their families, may enjoy the ameni- 
 ties of life in quiet comfort. This purpose appealed to the 
 master of Morven in every way, as elevating the social 
 life of the undergraduates, inviting the friends of both the 
 institutions to lengthened sojourn, and bringing strangers 
 to visit with leisure the historic sights of the town and sur- 
 rounding country. Devoted to the cause of true temperance, 
 he did not hesitate to sign the application for license required 
 of hotels by the law of the State, and followed the example 
 in so doing of other neighbors, men of the first position in the 
 country and the community. For some years this fact, as was 
 to be expected, attracted no attention whatever. But when 
 one of the surges of intemperate agitation against temper- 
 ance, in favor of total abstinence, which arise from time to 
 time, lifted its crest in all the Eastern college towns, it broke 
 also over Princeton. The crusaders attacked Dr. Shields as 
 a Presbyterian minister, and sought to accumulate capital at 
 his expense. Their influence reached far, and appeared in 
 the sessions of the Presbytery to which he belonged. It 
 finally became clear that a very delicate and embarrassing 
 issue was to be joined. His first and natural impulse was to 
 meet it without compromise and stand on the ground of 
 personal liberty, which has always been that of his church 
 and of his own. He was little disturbed by the abuse and 
 vilification of fanaticism, and was quite ready to try con- 
 
A Biographical Sketch. Ivii 
 
 elusions with his opponents. In time, however, he had a 
 change of conviction. It appeared that the General As- 
 sembly of the Presbyterian Church had advised against the 
 endorsement of a license as a reprehensible complicity with 
 the liquor traffic; just as it had characterized card-playing, 
 theatre-going, and dancing as '* unscriptural, immoral, and 
 improper " ; and while the modifying circumstances of the 
 Princeton Inn might well have given him a firm standing for 
 the defence of private judgment, yet it was possible that 
 a long and protracted struggle might ensue. From this he 
 shrank, partly because of sensitiveness, partly because he 
 did not wish to involve his friends in troublesome litigations 
 in the church courts, while above all he desired to avoid the 
 scandal of Christian brethren infringing the apostolic in- 
 junction against the judgment of another man's servant. 
 He determined, therefore, to withdraw from the ministry 
 of his ancestral church, and avoid the embarrassment it 
 might cause to its many members who did not see eye to eye 
 with him. 
 
 But whither should he go? He felt bound to examine 
 himself thoroughly, and weigh the claims of all the reformed 
 churches; this he did earnestly and deliberately. The de- 
 cision which he reached might have been foreseen ; as indeed 
 it was, by many of his intimate friends. Among the many 
 elements within the fold of the Presbyterian Church in 
 America there has always been one, which was essentially 
 Scotch in its attitude toward Presbyterian ordination, hold- 
 ing their own orders to be as apostolic as any others. They 
 have also stood firmly on the historic ground of reform as 
 opposed to protest and schism. These are they who, when 
 separated from the ministrations of their own church, natu- 
 rally gravitate toward the one other communion of Protes- 
 tants which maintains a similar position. A divine-right 
 Presbyterian stands closer to the Episcopal Church than to 
 any other branch of the Teutonic church. These matters 
 were always, as we have seen, close to the heart of Dr. 
 Shields; and further, his belief in liturgical worship had now 
 
Iviii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 brought him to the conviction that all eclecticism in that re- 
 gard was vain, that the reunion of Protestant Christendom 
 could better be accomplished on the basis of the Book of 
 Common Prayer than on any other. It was certain, there- 
 fore, that his decision would fall as it did. Moreover, among 
 the clergy of the Episcopal Church he had many, many per- 
 sonal friends, and there, as he felt, was held the orthodox 
 view of temperance; the scriptural view, antagonistic to that 
 which criticised the conduct of the Son of Man and which 
 *' was invading His church, and defacing His sacrament." On 
 December 14th, 1898, he received the first orders of the Epis- 
 copal Church from Bishop Scarborough, of New Jersey, in the 
 chapel of the Good Shepherd, in the city of New York. On 
 May 28th, 1899, he was further ordained to the full ministry 
 of that communion in Garden City Cathedral by Bishop 
 Littlejohn, of the Diocese of Long Island, his lifelong friend 
 and comrade. Not long afterward he was elected a trustee 
 of the General Theological Seminary in New York. Before 
 that institution he delivered the Bishop Paddock lectures 
 on the " Evidences of Christianity,'' which form a part of 
 the following volume. His services as a preacher were in 
 frequent requisition in the pulpit of Trinity Church, Prince- 
 ton, and elsewhere. From Trinity Church, in Princeton, 
 he was buried, and from its pulpit Bishop Potter, of New 
 York, preached an eloquent discourse in memory of one 
 whose highest ideals were unity of the faith and unity of the 
 church of God upon earth. 
 
 May we suppose, said the Bishop, that it cost Dr. 
 Shields no pang to sunder ties and end companionships 
 which, in their origin, reached back for generations, and 
 were as truly a part of his mental and emotional identity as 
 anything can be? There were men whom he met every day, 
 who loved and honored him — as who that really knew him 
 could help doing ? — and who had no smallest doubt as to the 
 honesty of his motives, or the integrity of his action, in any 
 step that separated him from his earlier associates ; but who 
 could never forget that a certain action had been determined 
 
A Biographical Sketch. lix 
 
 upon by him, and that a certain step had been taken. When 
 these men met him, with whatever continuance of the old 
 warmth and cordiaHty, they knew and he knew, that there 
 was one group of subjects that were to be avoided, and one 
 realm of discussion even the outer portals of which were 
 never any more to be opened ! And yet, continued the 
 Bishop, with what gentle dignity and gracious self-re- 
 straint, through it all, he bore himself ! Yes, and with what 
 true nobility of largeness and charity did this ancient Uni- 
 versity bear herself toward him ! One can easily imagine, 
 on the part of associates and authorities from whom he* 
 separated, something of resentment, because of action on Dr. 
 Shields's part, which some of them thought inconsistent, if 
 not positively disloyal. But if they ever thought so, they 
 never said so; or if they said so, they said it with such 
 cautious reserve that it never came to outside ears. And I 
 must confess, for myself, that there has always seemed some- 
 thing especially dear and beautiful in the fact that, with 
 Princeton, its social and its intellectual life ; and best of all, 
 with that great University in which so long he was a pro- 
 fessor — that with all these he remained identified to the last ! 
 Long may his memory survive here as that of a true scholar, 
 a pure and most lovable man, who brought to great oppor- 
 tunities great gifts, and who used them, with unwearied 
 fidelity, for God and man ! 
 
 These appreciative words are strictly and literally true. 
 The attitude of the university continued in the end what it 
 had been in the beginning, what it has ever been in like in- 
 stances, sympathetic to every man who sincerely seeks the 
 truth of faith and conduct in the light given to him. For 
 example, Dr. Patton, President during fourteen years of Dr. 
 Shields's professorship, was the most outspoken critic of his 
 colleague's work in philosophy, the fearless champion of 
 the orthodoxy as held in the Princeton Seminary. His was 
 the only criticism which ever moved Dr. Shields from the 
 even tenor of his studies, and induced him to defend his 
 positions. Yet in the minute which he prepared for the fac- 
 
Ix Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 ulty on the resignation of Dr. Patton, he did not miss a 
 single one of the great milestones which had characterized 
 the passing administration; its growth in material and in- 
 tellectual equipment, the maturity which it had reached in 
 academic development, the new spirit of research, and the 
 educational method by which it had been marked. To his 
 rare logical skill, acumen, and familiarity with living issues, 
 there is also a sincere tribute. In turn Dr. Patton has put on 
 record the esteem in which he held Dr. Shields, and the 
 position he had taken. I have no reason to believe, he 
 said in the " Princeton Bulletin," that when he (Dr. 
 Shields) took orders in the Episcopal Church his views re- 
 specting the validity of his own Presbyterian ordination had 
 undergone a change; and I am confident that his Calvin- 
 istic theology underwent no revision, either before or after 
 he left the Presbyterian ministry. To those who knew the 
 circumstances it was not strange that Dr. Shields, so late 
 in life, entered the ministry of another church ; and to those 
 of us who knew, and loved, and trusted him, his change 
 of denominational relations made no difference in our sense 
 of fellowship with him. He was to us the same genial, 
 gentle, lovable, refined, and scholarly Dr. Shields that he had 
 always been ; and we were only sorry that the roll of minis- 
 ters of the Protestant Episcopal Church had been enriched 
 through our loss of a name that had long adorned our own. 
 These words of one who is now the president of the Prince- 
 ton Theological Seminary, are a fitting pendant to those of 
 Bishop Potter. 
 
 John Calvin was indeed one of Dr. Shields's heroes. The 
 aspersions cast upon the great reformer, he regarded with 
 contempt and disgust; in 1893 he published a monograph, 
 recondite in its learning and fiercely polemic in its argument, 
 which spurns the accusation that Calvin burned Servetus. 
 No one has yet risen to refute it. So strongly had the theme 
 taken hold of the writer's imagination that he saw the dra- 
 matic qualities of it in a clear light, and as an avocation he 
 composed a drama entitled, " The Reformer of Geneva," 
 
A Biographical Sketch. Ixi 
 
 which was published and widely read. Charles Dudley 
 Warner, Laurence Hutton, Weir Mitchell, Henry M. Baird, 
 and other experts like them wrote of it in unstinted praise ; 
 newspapers like the Philadelphia Press, the Christian 
 World, of London, and the New York Evening Post, 
 reviewed it sympathetically. Perhaps the highest tribute 
 came from Professor Dowden, the famous British critic. 
 He wrote: It seems as if a few hours were too short a 
 time to allow of real acquaintance with so large an out- 
 put of mind. But I have read it all with eager interest, 
 and with close attention — breaking, off last night and resum- 
 ing my reading at five this morning. It is a piece of his- 
 tory lifted into drama with, I am sure, remarkable fidelity, 
 and certainly with remarkable vividness. All the characters 
 live, and the action does not flag or falter. There is rare 
 strength and dignity, with a touch of hidden tenderness and 
 pathos, in Calvin ; and I can well believe your Servetus to be 
 the real Servetus. The love of La Fontaine and your crea- 
 tion, Idelette — a nest in the storm and rocking trees — is a 
 strenuous love, and it is duly subordinated to the tragic in- 
 terests. I seem to understand the life of Geneva better than 
 I ever did before, and I thank you for a possession of endur- 
 ing value. 
 
 XII. 
 
 This, with the other appreciations of Dr. Shields's work 
 in preaching, in teaching, and in literature, have been given, 
 lest the reader might think of him as a mere dilettante in all 
 these lines of work, so versatile was his genius and so varied 
 his avocations. The evidence adduced, to which much might 
 be added, is quite sufficient to prove the contrary. Never- 
 theless, in this age of high specialization, the wide scope of 
 Dr. Shields's interests and activities had something to do 
 with the interest taken in that which was his life work. 
 Too many concluded, on insufficient grounds, that no man 
 could do the basic and thorough work which he aimed to 
 do, when his energies were so engaged elsewhere. The 
 
Ixii Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 day of the polymath had gone, and finite powers must be con- 
 tent with knowing Httle about many things if they were to 
 grasp much about anything. Such a view, widely preva- 
 lent, is the worst heresy of our times, and is the force which 
 has debased our intellectual standards to a level on which 
 charlatanism thrives. No high standard of either knowledge, 
 judgment, or expression is possible unless set by men of 
 extensive learning, and intensive study within a broad field. 
 Moreover, professional and technical investigation, the re- 
 sults of the highest specializations, are themselves legitimate 
 subjects of examination. No scholar is in greater danger 
 than he who confines himself exclusively to work within 
 narrow bounds; and just such men suddenly, in the natural 
 and overmastering desire for generalization, are they who 
 proceed to establish great principles on insufficient data. The 
 best antidote for such rashness is in exactly the line of work 
 which Dr. Shields essayed to do, and in just the equipment 
 which he sought to provide for the comparative method as 
 applied to determining the order and value of the sciences, 
 human and natural. To judge him the court must be at least 
 as well trained in the principles of a transcendental and 
 metaphysical philosophy as he was. So far is this true that 
 it would be almost impossible to draw a jury of such suffi- 
 cient intelligence as to fit it for trying the case. In his field 
 of inquiry Dr. Shields found that, often, if not always, it 
 had been necessary to exchange the advocate for the judge. 
 Men like Locke, Descartes, Leibnitz, Berkeley, and above 
 all, Butler, were quite as much philosophers as apologetes if 
 not more so; and did not hesitate to sit in judgment on the 
 case which they themselves presented. If Dr. Shields found 
 himself compelled at times to a similar course, his capacity 
 for umpirage was due to the broad sympathies, the exten- 
 sive learning, and the inclusive experience of life, the phases 
 of which have been indicated if not described. 
 
 The passion for systematized knowledge is as old as civili- 
 zation, and the effort to unify science began with Plato. 
 From his day to this the list of writers who have attempted a 
 
A Biographical Sketch. Ixiii 
 
 classification of the sciences is unbroken. The pamphlet en- 
 titled " The Order of the Sciences,'' which Dr. Shields pub- 
 lished in 1882, was the first essay made in America to deal 
 with the question. Had the author but lived a year longer he 
 would have had the gratification of reading in Professor 
 Robert Flint's history of the subject an appreciative tribute 
 to the work. Dr. Flint had evidently not seen the later 
 modifications of the *' Order/' and the changes made in the 
 theory of their development, which was published in 
 various journals, and are now given in the author's final 
 revision, partly in this volume and chiefly in the preceding 
 one. Nevertheless, in Dr. Flint's exhaustive treatise Dr. 
 Shields is first among the American names ; and to his some- 
 what embryonic outline the most respectful consideration is 
 given, accompanied by high praise. What is even more 
 striking is the fact that the definition of philosophy as " scien- 
 tia scientiarum," a definition much disputed by Dr. Shields's 
 American critics, is adopted by the learned Scotchman as a 
 matter of course, a definition requiring no defence. 
 
 In Flint's judgment, the treatise, small and merely intro- 
 ductory as it is, ranks among the best ; and he declares that 
 while its exhibition of the scheme of scientific distribution is 
 clear and skilful, its criticism of other classifications is also 
 discriminating and incisive. In the order of time and the 
 estimate of capable critics, as well as by the further elabora- 
 tion of his subject, Dr. Shields appears to be the Nestor and 
 founder of this department of philosophy in our country. 
 Of course, Flint and Shields, alike in accepting " scientia 
 scientiarum " as a definition of philosophy, are also alike in 
 confining that definition to theoretical philosophy, ** as a 
 scheme of the sciences, as an inquiry into the nature and 
 limits of knowledge, and as a doctrine of being and becoming 
 — or, in other words, philosophy as positive, critical, and 
 metaphysical." Both were well aware that this, while the 
 most of philosophy, is not the whole of it ; that " practical 
 applicability is a necessary consequence of theoretical accu- 
 racy." The quotations are from the former of the two 
 
Ixiv Charles Woodruff Shields. 
 
 authors, but the latter has in his second volume, and in con- 
 versation, repeatedly said the same thing. Indeed, had Dr. 
 Flint ever seen Dr. Shields's second volume, he would have 
 recognized a close kinship of mind w^ith the earlier writer. 
 Neither would surrender an inch of the territory won by 
 sound theory to the pragmatic meddlers who, in their as- 
 sumptions, discard not merely the relations of the sciences, 
 but even the conditions of knowledge and the very nature 
 of both existence and causation, as immaterial to the con- 
 cept of a universe and its order. Difficulties must needs 
 arise, and they can never be composed either by observation 
 or by analysis ; there must be a synthesis, and it can never 
 be reached by apathy and neglect. 
 
 The great task which the author set for himself early in 
 life was completed in his old age when he had prepared the 
 following pages for the press. It had not occurred to him 
 to preface their publication by any apology for the book; 
 his work was no longer tentative, and had received the en- 
 comiums of so many able critics on the continent of Europe, 
 in Great Britain, and at home, that he might justly feel his 
 place to be assured. Moreover, he was a man of apostolic 
 temper, clear as to his theme and its bearing, faithful in the 
 performance of a plain duty which had been revealed to 
 him in the most searching self-examination. Not given to 
 polemics, he was nevertheless a master in attack and argu- 
 ment, fond of the fray, and the last to leave the field. To 
 the three volumes of the " Final Philosophy " he gave the 
 best of his life, and by their contents he wished to be judged. 
 It is not likely that posthumous opinion, any more than that 
 of his contemporaries, will go to the extreme of honeyed 
 panegyric. His subject is too abstruse and recondite for 
 any general agreement thereon to be easily reached; but 
 that he will be gratefully regarded as an able surveyor in the 
 field, and that he will be felt to have established many impor- 
 tant principles of procedure, seems certain to the present 
 writer. His claim to remembrance in the United States as 
 a pioneer is undoubted; and furthermore, even those who 
 
A Biographical Sketch. Ixv 
 
 cannot accept his main thesis are sure to appreciate the in- 
 cidental value of an erudition marked by sympathy, richness, 
 and a cosmic scope. 
 
 This memoir is not the place in which to detail either the 
 praise or the blame, the assent or dissent, with which his 
 most important work has been received. In fact, until now 
 the work has been incomplete, and with this volume it is for 
 the first time before the public in its entirety. There may, 
 in consequence, be some revision of opinion; if so the object 
 of this brief memoir will have been secured, provided the 
 chosen few, who alone can appreciate and judge the life 
 work of Dr. Shields, derive from it any information likely to 
 elucidate the spirit in which he began and finished his task. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 COMPILED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF E. C. RICHARDSON 
 
 BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS 
 
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 Pres. Bd. 
 
 Church unity ; five lectures delivered in Union Theological 
 Seminary, N. Y., 1896. N. Y., Chas. Scribner's Sons, 
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 Commemorative sermon on Henry Steele Clarke. Jan. 24th, 
 
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 Course in the harmony of science and religion, first part, 
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 Directory for public worship, and the book of common prayer 
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 Discourse in memory of William Darrach, M. D., May 21, 
 
 1865. 1865. 8vo., 23 p. 
 
 Discourse on Christian politics, delivered on Thanksgiving 
 
 day, 1 85 1, in Philadelphia. Phil., Deacon & Peterson, 
 
 185 1. 31 p., 23.5 cm. [8vo]. 
 Essays on Christian unity. 1892. 
 Final philosophy. N. Y., 1877. 8vo. 
 Final philosophy; 2d. ed. N. Y., 1879. 8vo. 
 Funeral discourse on Joel Jones. Philadelphia, Feb. 6, i860. 
 
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 Funeral eulogy at the obsequies of E. K. Kane. Phil., Parry & 
 
 McMillan, 1857. 34 p., i6mo. 
 Harmony of science and the Bible. Princeton, Robinson & 
 
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 Ixvii 
 
Ixviii Bibliography. 
 
 Historic episcopate ; essay on the four articles of church unity 
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 Lambeth Conference. N. Y., Chas, Scribner's Sons, 1894. 
 i2mo. 
 
 Introductory lecture on the relations of science and religion. 
 Phil., 1866. 8vo. 
 
 Liturgia expurgata; or. The Prayer-book amended according 
 to the Presbyterian revision of 1661, and historically re- 
 viewed. Phil., W. S. & A. Martien, 1864. 188 p., 
 17.2 cm. [i6mo]. 
 
 Logic applicable to religion, n. p. 103 p., 22 cm. [8vo]. 
 
 Manual for worship, 1862. 180 p. 
 
 Order of the sciences ; an essay on the philosophical classifica- 
 tion and organization of human knowledge. N. Y., 
 Scribner's Sons, 1882. 103 p., 19.2 cm. [i2mo]. 
 
 Philosophia ultima. Phil., Lippincott, 1861. 96 p., 22.5 cm. 
 [8vo]. 
 
 Philosophia ultima ; or. Science of the sciences. 3d ed., rev. 
 N. Y., Scribner, 1888-89. 2 v., 23.2 cm. [8vo]. 
 
 Preces ecclesiasticae ; the forms of public devotion instituted 
 by Calvin, John Knox, Martin Bucer, Micronius, and 
 used in the Presbyterian Church, newly collected and 
 collated. N. Y., Scribner, 1856. iii, [i] p. 23.9 cm. 
 [8vo]. 
 
 Purely instrumental character of ministerial labor ; a discourse. 
 October 18, 1850. Phil., Moore, 185 1. 24 p., 22.7 cm. 
 [8vo]. 
 
 Reformer of Geneva; an historical drama. [Princeton, pri- 
 vately printed, 1897.] 108 p., 25.8 cm. [4to]. 
 
 Religion and science in their relation to philosophy ; an essay 
 on the present state of the sciences. N. Y., Scribner, 
 Armstrong, & Co., 1875. 69 p., 19.2 cm. [i2mo]. 
 
 Scientific evidences of revealed religion. N. Y., 1900. 8vo. 
 Paddock lectures. 1900. 
 
 Sketch of the life of Elisha Kent Kane, from a new ed. of 
 " Arctic explorations." Newark, Bliss & Co. p. 749-766, 
 8vo., por. 
 
 Syllabus of the problems of natural religion as solved by 
 analogy, n. p. 103 p., 8vo. 
 
 Themes and questions from Butler's Analogy, n. p. 38 p.. 
 Svo. 
 
Bibliography. 1x1 x 
 
 United Church of the U. S. N. Y., Scribner's Sons, 1895. 
 
 xi., 285 p., 8vo. 
 What is truth? A discourse preached in the College chapel, 
 
 Princeton, N. J., Sept. 30, 1886. Princeton, Robinson, 
 
 1866. 20 p., 8vo. 
 
 EDITORIAL WORK 
 
 Bacon, Francis. Philosophical works ; ed. by C. W. Shields. 
 
 1870. 
 Presbyterian Church. Book of common prayer, ed. by C. W. 
 
 Shields. Phil., W. S. & A. Martien, 1864. xxiv, 637 p., 
 
 i6mo. 
 Presbyterian Church. Book of common prayer, ed. by C. W. 
 
 Shields. N. Y., Randolph & Co. xxiv, 637 p., i6mo. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, ist baron. Princess ; a drama adapted from 
 
 the poem of Alfred Tennyson, [by C. W. Shields for the 
 
 Princeton Dramatic Association.] Princeton, Press pr. 
 
 establishment, 1878. 28 p., 8vo. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 
 Arctic monument named for Tennyson by Dr. Kane. 10 p. 
 Cent, mag., 1898. v. 56, p. 483-492. 
 
 Doctrine of Calvin concerning infant salvation. Pres. and re- 
 formed review, 1890. v. i., p. 634-651. 
 
 Does the Bible contain scientific errors? 9 p. Century mag. 
 1893, V. 2^, p. 126. Abstract of this paper in Princeton 
 Univ. Bulletin, 1893, v. 5, p. 13-14. 
 
 Ecclesiastical situation. Churchman, 1894, June 23. Ab- 
 stract in Princeton Univ. Bulletin, 1894, v. 6, p. 101-102. 
 
 The Hon. Furman Sheppard, late attorney of Philadelphia, 
 class of 1845. Princeton Univ. Bulletin, 1895, v. 7, p. 92- 
 94. 
 
 The Hon. Samuel Woodruff, trustee of Princeton College. 
 Princeton Univ. Bulletin, 1892, v. 4, p. 2-9. 
 
 Hypothesis and dogma in the sciences. Presbyterian and re- 
 formed review, 189 1, v. 2, p. 294-606. Princeton Univ. 
 Bulletin, 1890, v. 2, p. 58-59. (Abstract.) 
 
I XX Bibliography. 
 
 Lambeth articles of church unity. Princeton Univ. Bulletin, 
 
 1894, V. 6, p. 67. (Abstract.) 
 Philosophy and apologetics. Princeton review, 1879, v. for 
 
 Jul.-Dec, p. 198-207. 
 Professor Dod's lectures on architecture. Princeton Univ. 
 
 Bulletin, 1897, v. 9, p. 63-64. 
 Reason and revelation in the sciences. N. Y., Presbyterian 
 
 Review Association [1885]. 21 p., 24 cm. [8vo]. From 
 
 the Apr. (1885) no. of the Presbyterian review. 
 Religious lessons of the deluge. Theological and literary jour- 
 nal, 1853. 
 Review of Comte's positive philosophy. Princeton review, 
 
 1858. 
 Social problem of church unity. Century mag., v. 40, 1890, p. 
 
 687-697. 
 Trial of Servetus. Presbyterian and reformed review, 1893, 
 
 V. 4, 353-389. Abstract in Princeton Univ. Bulletin, 1894, 
 
 V. 6, p. 15-16. 
 Two current fallacies in the higher criticism. Princeton Univ. 
 
 Bulletin, 1897, v. 9, p. 4-5. Summary of a paper read in 
 
 N. Y., Feb. 17, 1897. 
 United churches in the U. S. 22 p. Cent, mag., 1886, v. 34, 
 
 p. 74; 1888, V. 35, p. 254. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The aim of this treatise is both philosophical and apologetical. 
 It is designed at once as a contribution to the philosophical 
 scheme of knowledge, and as a vindication of the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 In its philosophical character it forms part of a logical 
 structure of the sciences which is set forth in the two preceding- 
 volumes, outlined for the convenience of the reader in the 
 Summary, which follows this Preface. 
 
 In its apologetical character it comprises, in the first part, 
 those religious problems which have emerged in the various 
 sciences, as first discerned by Bishop Butler, but now more 
 scientifically restated, together with some additional questions 
 which have arisen since his day, such as the Problem of 
 Theism, The Miraculous Evidence, and The Historical Evi- 
 dence, so far as they are affected by modern speculation and 
 research. In the second part, are comprised those Christian 
 evidences, peculiar to our own age, which are accumulating in 
 the physical sciences, astronomy, geology, and anthropology, 
 and in the psychical sciences, psychology, sociology, and com- 
 parative religion, and which, in the philosophical sciences, it 
 may be, are destined to yield a full demonstration of the truths 
 of revealed religion. 
 
 It should be stated that this volume, in connection with its 
 new material, contains substantially the " Bishop Paddock Lec- 
 tures on the Scientific Evidences," which here reappear in their 
 proper and final setting in the scheme of the Ultimate 
 Philosophy. 
 
 In pursuing these philosophical studies, on the apologetical 
 side of the work I have come in contact with a modern phase 
 of Biblical study, known as the Higher Criticism, so far as it 
 bears upon the Scientific Evidence. The peculiarity of this 
 criticism is, that, while apparently occupied with the mere 
 literary form of the Holy Scriptures, it has been steadily 
 involving their revealed content and reconstructing their essen- 
 
 Lxxi 
 
Ixxii Preface, 
 
 tial purport. It will be found that I have favored the utmost 
 conceivable freedom of scholarship within the legitimate bounds 
 of Biblical Criticism, but without adopting conclusions which 
 are based upon mere hypothesis and assertion; and it will also 
 be found that even to such critical hypotheses I have given a 
 fair hearing, though often seeing in them little more than an 
 antiquarian interest. 
 
 EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 The author had already put through the press, though in 
 another form, most of what is contained in this volume of the 
 Philosophia Ultima. Accordingly, in the text which follows, 
 the style, verbiage, and diction are entirely those of the author, 
 even his device of capitalization, quotation marks, and punc- 
 tuation, has been carefully retained as far as possible. Where 
 there were manifest inadvertences, they have, as far as the 
 editor knows, been rectified. The arrangement of the text is 
 altogether that of the author himself. There is but a single 
 passage, that at the close of the chapter on Theism, which has 
 been supplied by the editor, and for this reason it is enclosed 
 in brackets. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3-6 
 
 Section 
 
 I. 
 
 Section 
 
 II. 
 
 Section 
 
 III. 
 
 Section 
 
 IV. 
 
 Section 
 
 V. 
 
 Section 
 
 VI. 
 
 Section 
 
 VII. 
 
 Section VIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 IX. 
 
 Section 
 
 X. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS OF RELFGION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PROBLEMS AS STATED BY BISHOP BUTLER. 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF BUTLER, 
 
 THE EPOCH OF BUTLER, . 
 
 LITERARY DEFICIENCIES, . 
 
 LOGICAL DEFICIENCIES, . 
 
 METAPHYSICAL DEFICIENCIES, 
 
 RELIGIOUS DEFICIENCIES, 
 
 THE VALUE OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE, 
 
 THE LOGIC OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE, 
 
 THE PROBLEMS OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE, 
 
 THE NEW SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROBLEM OF THEISM, 
 
 THE MIRACULOUS 
 
 11-13 
 13-17 
 17-21 
 21-25 
 
 25-27 
 27-31 
 31-32 
 32-39 
 39-40 
 40-44 
 
 45-64 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EVIDENCE. THE MYTHICAL 
 REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 I. SUBTLE DANGERS OF THE MYTHICAL THEORY, 
 
 II. ORIGIN OF THE MYTHICAL THEORY, 
 
 III. DEFINITION OF THE MYTH, ... 
 
 IV. NEGATIVE CHARACTERS OF THE MYTH, 
 V. POSITIVE CHARACTERS OF THE MYTH, 
 
 VI. AN EXAMPLE OF A SUPPOSED CHRISTIAN MYTH, 
 
 Section VII. mythical explanation of judaism. 
 Section VIII. mythical explanation of Christianity, 
 Section IX. mythical explanation of biklical morality. 
 Section X. the theory sophisticating. 
 Section XI. pagan mythologies mere counterfeits, 
 Section XII. Christianity self-vindicatory, . 
 Section XIII. summary of refutation, 
 
 THEORY OF 
 
 Section 
 Section 
 Section 
 Section 
 Section 
 Section 
 
 66-67 
 67-69 
 69-70 
 70-71 
 71-72 
 72-74 
 74-75 
 75-76 
 76-77 
 77-78 
 78-79 
 79-80 
 80-81 
 
 Ixxiii 
 
Ixxiv 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 THE FOUR GREAT HISTORICAL FACTS, 
 THE BIBLICAL SCHEME OK HUMAN REDEMPTION 
 THE PRE-CHRISTIAN DISPERSION OF NATIONS, 
 THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATIONS, 
 THE PRE-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS, 
 UNCONSCIOUS PROPHECIES OF PAGANISM, 
 THE EPOCH OF THE INCARNATION, . 
 EXTERNAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 HISTORY OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY, 
 THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 THE PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION, 
 THE PREDICTED TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 Section 
 
 I. 
 
 Section 
 
 II. 
 
 Section 
 
 III. 
 
 Section 
 
 IV. 
 
 Section 
 
 V. 
 
 Section 
 
 VI. 
 
 Section 
 
 VII. 
 
 Section VIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 IX. 
 
 Section 
 
 X. 
 
 Section 
 
 XI 
 
 Section 
 
 XII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 82-84 
 84-86 
 
 87 
 87-88 
 88-90 
 90-91 
 
 91 
 92-93 
 
 93-94 
 
 94-95 
 
 95-96 
 
 96 
 
 PART II. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 THE LOGICAL NATURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. 
 
 Section I. present scientific crisis, 99-100 
 
 Section II. duty of united defence loo-ioi 
 
 Section III. the new scientific evidence, .... 101-103 
 
 Section IV. its logical premises 103-104 
 
 Section V. popular fallacies, 104-105 
 
 Section VI. the bible as prejudged 105-106 
 
 Section VII. the bible as mutilated, 106-107 
 
 Section VIII. the bible as ignored 107-10S 
 
 Section IX. the true scope of revelation 108-109 
 
 Section X. alleged scientific errors, .... 109 
 
 Section XI. a questionable theory, 109-110 
 
 Section XII. the fallacy proves too little, . . . no 
 
 Section XIII. the catholic doctrine, in 
 
 Section XIV. the fallacy may prove too much, . . . 111-112 
 
 Section XV. approximate truths, 112-113 
 
 Section XVI. A dangerous fallacy 113-114 
 
 Section XVII. the key-note, 114 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE LOGICAL VALUE OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. 
 
 Section I. the bible more than mere literature, . . . 116-117 
 
 Section II. the bible no mere ancient classic, . . . 117 
 
 Section III. the bible free from pagan science, . . . 117-11S 
 
 Section IV. personal f.rrancy of inspired writers, . . . 118 
 
 Section V. personal freedom of inspired writers, . . . 11S-119 
 
Contents. 
 
 Ixxv 
 
 Section 
 
 VI. 
 
 Section 
 
 VII. 
 
 Section 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 IX. 
 
 Section 
 
 X. 
 
 Section 
 
 XI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Section 
 
 XV. 
 
 Section 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Section XVIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Section 
 
 XX. 
 
 Section 
 
 XXI. 
 
 divine unity of the scriptures, 
 logical pre-requisites of biblical study, 
 
 MISAPPLIED classical CRITICISM, 
 
 abuse of THE HIGHER CRITICISM, 
 
 SCIENTIFIC PRE-REQUISITES, 
 
 UNSCIENTIFIC HIGHER CRITICISM, . 
 
 SPIRITUAL PRE-REQUISITES, . 
 
 RATIONALISTIC CRITICISM, 
 
 CONSERVATIVE HIGHER CRITICISM, 
 
 HIGHER QUALITIES OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF SCIENTIFIC AUTHORITIES, . 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF SCIENTIFIC FACTS, 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF SCIENTIFIC MARVELS, 
 
 VALUATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, 
 
 TIMELINESS OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, 
 
 PAGE 
 119-120 
 120-121 
 121-122 
 122-123 
 123-124 
 
 124-125 
 125-126 
 126-127 
 127-128 
 128-130 
 130 
 130-131 
 131-132 
 132-133 
 133-134 
 134-135 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE ALLEGED SCIENTIFIC ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Section I. are there errors in the bible? . . . 136-143 
 
 Section II. the physical teaching of the bible, . . . 143-144 
 Section III. no teaching of scripture erroneous, . . 144-145 
 
 Section IV. the physical teaching implicated with the 
 
 spiritual, 145-146 
 
 Section V. the physical and spiritual teaching alike 
 
 non-scientific, 146-147 
 
 Section VI. the physical and spiritual teaching alike 
 
 sincere 148-149 
 
 Section VII. both alike permanent, ..... 149-151 
 
 Section VIII. both alike suitable, 151-152 
 
 Section IX. the physical teaching also important, . . 152-153 
 Section X. evidential importance of the physical teach- 
 ing 153-154 
 
 Section XI. metaphysical importance of the physical 
 
 teaching, 154-155 
 
 Section XII. philosophical importance of the physical 
 
 teaching, 155-157 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY. 
 
 Section I. growth of the astronomical evidence. 
 
 Section II. testimony of astronomers, . 
 
 Section III. devout astronomers. 
 
 Section IV. revealed truths in astronomy, 
 
 Section V. critical questions, 
 
 Section VI. evidential literature, . 
 
 Section VII. astronomical hypotheses, 
 
 158-159 
 160 
 160-161 
 161-162 
 162-163 
 163-164 
 164-161 
 
Ixxvi 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Section 
 
 VIII 
 
 Section 
 
 IX 
 
 Section 
 
 X 
 
 Section 
 
 XI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIV 
 
 Section 
 
 XV 
 
 Section 
 
 XVI 
 
 Section 
 
 XVII 
 
 Section XVIII 
 
 Section 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Section 
 
 XX. 
 
 Section 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Section XXIII. 
 
 A primitive cosmos, . 
 
 A PRIMITIVE CHAOS, 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION, 
 
 OUR PLANET ALONE INHABITED, 
 
 OTHER PLANETS ALSO HABITABLE, 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF ANGELS, . 
 
 A FINAL CHAOS, .... 
 
 A PERMANENT COSMOS, 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF OLD AND NEW HEAVENS, 
 
 THE STUPENDOUS PROBLEMS OF ASTRONOMY, 
 
 ASTRONOMICAL MARVELS, 
 
 ASTRONOMICAL MIRACLES, 
 
 ASTRONOMICAL DIFFICULTIES OK FAITH, 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF DIVINE OMNISCIENCE, 
 
 PHYSICAL INSIGNIFICANCE OF OUR PLANET, 
 
 MORAL IMPORTANCE OF MAN, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 165 
 
 166 
 
 166-167 
 
 167-168 
 
 168 
 
 169 
 
 170 
 
 1 70-1 7 1 
 
 I7I-I72 
 
 172 
 
 172-173 
 
 173-174 
 
 174-175 
 
 175-176 
 
 177 
 
 177-178 
 
 Section 
 
 I. 
 
 Section 
 
 II. 
 
 Section 
 
 III. 
 
 Section 
 
 IV. 
 
 Section 
 
 V. 
 
 Section 
 
 VI. 
 
 Section 
 
 VII. 
 
 Section 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 IX. 
 
 Section 
 
 X. 
 
 Section 
 
 XI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Section 
 
 XV. 
 
 Section 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Section 
 
 XX. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM GEOLOGY. 
 
 GROWTH OF GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE, 
 
 TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGISTS, . 
 
 GEOLOGICAL FACTS AND REVEALED TRUTHS, 
 
 EVIDENTIAL LITERATURE, 
 
 GEOLOGICAL HYPOTHESES, 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE EARTH A FINISHED WORLD, 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE EARTH CHAOTIC, . 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION, 
 
 THE CATASTROPHISTS 
 
 THE UNIFORMITARIANS, 
 
 THE SIX CREATIVE DAYS, 
 
 THE CREATIVE DAYS AS COSMOGONIC ERAS, 
 
 THE CREATIVE DAYS AS LOGICAL STAGES, 
 
 CRITICAL QUESTIONS, .... 
 
 DISSOLUTION OF THE EARTH, 
 
 STABILITY OF THE EARTH, 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE OLD AND NEW EARTH, 
 
 GEOLOGICAL MARVELS AND MIRACLES, . 
 
 VALUE OF THE GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE, . 
 
 GEOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES OF FAITH, . 
 
 179-180 
 I80-1S1 
 18X-182 
 182-184 
 184-185 
 
 185 
 185-186 
 186-187 
 
 187 
 187-188 
 188-189 
 189-190 
 19O-19I 
 I9I-192 
 
 192 
 192-193 
 193-194 
 194-195 
 195-196 
 196-199 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 Section I. growth of the anthropological evidence, . 200-201 
 
 Section II. the testimony of anthropologists, . . . 201-202 
 
 Section III. anthropological facts and truths, . . . 202-203 
 
 Section IV. evidential literature, 203-204 
 
 Section V. the constancy of species, 204-206 
 
Contents. 
 
 Ixxvii 
 
 Section 
 
 VI. 
 
 Section 
 
 VII. 
 
 Section 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 IX. 
 
 Section 
 
 X. 
 
 Section 
 
 XI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Section 
 
 XV. 
 
 Section 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Section '. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Section 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Section 
 
 XX. 
 
 Section 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Section 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Section XXIII. 
 
 PACE 
 
 THE evolution OF SPECIES, 2o6-207 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE FIRST ADAM, . . . 207-20S 
 
 UNITY OF THE RACE 209-211 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE FALL OF ADAM 211-212 
 
 PHYSICAL UNITY OF MANKIND, .... 212-213 
 
 THE DIVINE IMAGE IN MAN, .... 213-214 
 
 CRITICAL PROBLEMS 214 
 
 PHYSICAL DECLINE OF MANKIND 215 
 
 PHYSICAL IMPROVEMENT OF MANKIND, . . . 215-216 
 
 THE FIRST AND SECOND ADAM 216-217 
 
 ANTHROPOLOGY AND ANGELOLOGY, , . . 317-218 
 
 MIRACLES OF ANTHROPOLOGY 2X8-219 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF EVOLUTIONISM, .... 2I9-220 
 THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL EVIL, .... 220-22I 
 /ESTHETIC IMPRESSIONS OF NATURE UPON MAN, . 221 
 
 THE SCENE OF HUMAN LIFE, .... 221-222 
 
 THE COURSE OF HUMAN LIFE 222-223 
 
 THE STORY OF HUMAN LIFE, .... 223 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF THE ULTIMATE 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 THE ULTIMATE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The following statements may serve to outline the philo- 
 sophical scheme which has been set forth in the two preceding 
 volumes, and also to indicate their claims to be considered as 
 original contributions to the study of philosophy. 
 
 I. 
 
 Philosophy has been defined as a Science of the Sciences 
 in distinction from Epistemology (or the science of knowledge), 
 which is but a psychological division of philosophy ; in distinc- 
 tion from Ontology (or the science of being), which is only the 
 metaphysical half of philosophy; and in distinction from mere 
 speculative philosophy, which does not always include the em- 
 pirical sciences or the industrial, aesthetical, and ethical arts 
 issuing from these sciences. Since this definition was made 
 in 1861, Professor Flint in 1881 has attempted a similar defi- 
 nition which is less comprehensive and wanting in some essen- 
 tial details. 
 
 II. 
 
 The method of such philosophy has been pursued as an 
 objective study of the historical and logical development of 
 the sciences, instead of a mere subjective study of the cog- 
 nitive powers of the mind, or a purely a priori attempt to 
 construct the existing body of knowledge. This objective and 
 historical method was partially pursued by Comte and Whewell 
 in their so-called " Philosophy of Sciences," but not to its full 
 and legitimate results, as they are presented in Vol. II. 
 
 IIL 
 
 In arranging the sciences as objects of philosophical study, 
 theology has been placed at tlie summit of the ascending series 
 
 3 
 
4 Principles of the Ultimate Philosophy. 
 
 of sciences as an empirical science of comparative religion in 
 distinction from the metaphysical theology of the Schools. 
 Thus placed, it appears as the flower and crown of the Sciences, 
 of astronomy, geology, biology, psychology, sociology, as based 
 respectively upon the corresponding service of mechanical, 
 chemical, organical, mental and social phenomena. The want 
 of such a place for Empirical Theology in the classifications of 
 Comte and Spencer was first discussed and supplied by the 
 author in a memoir on " The Order of the Sciences," read 
 before the Philosophical Society of Washington, and incor- 
 porated in Vol. IL, Chap. I. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In projecting a philosophical scheme of the sciences their 
 metaphysical sections have been placed in logical corelation 
 with empirical sections throughout the series from astronomy 
 to anthropology and from psychology to theology. While 
 Comte and Spencer have ignored the whole metaphysical 
 region, the German classifiers, from Kant to Wundt, have 
 recognized it, but without mapping it as systematically as has 
 been attempted in Vol. II. 
 
 V. 
 
 Into the metaphysical region has been admitted the problem 
 of revelation as consequent upon the problem of knowing and 
 the problem of being; and in solution of these problems a 
 theopneustic (divine inspiration) theory of revelation has been 
 based upon a realistic theory of knowledge and a theistic 
 theory of being. Avoiding at once the gnostic theories of 
 Schelling and Swedenborg and the agnostic theories of Spencer 
 and Huxley, a theory of perfectible science, perfectible through 
 the combined action of reason and revelation, has been advo- 
 cated in the second part of Vol. I. and in Chap. III. of 
 Vol. II. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In collecting materials for such a Theory of Perfectible 
 Science, thus based upon the harmonious action of human 
 
Principles of the Ultimate Philosophy. 5 
 
 reason and divine revelation, their past and present relations 
 have been historically reviewed and their existing products have 
 been critically surveyed. As complemental to the Histories 
 of Draper and Andrew White, the alliances as well as the 
 " conflict " and the peace as well as the " warfare " of Science 
 and Religion have been sketched in Part First of Vol. I. ; and 
 in Part First of Vol, II. both religious dogmas and scientific 
 hypotheses have been together exhibited as more or less log- 
 ically co-existent throughout the whole series of sciences. 
 
 VII. 
 
 As the full result, a Science of the Sciences has been pro- 
 jected in accordance with the true conditions of such a science 
 as stated in Vol. II., pp. 109-122 : — ( i) That it should embrace 
 all the sciences, physical and psychical; (2) that it should in- 
 clude all their contents, empirical and metaphysical; (3) that 
 it should employ both factors of knowledge, reason and reve- 
 lation; and (4) that its aim and goal should be the perfecti- 
 bility of science with the demonstrability of religion. The 
 supreme law of scientific development has been announced as 
 the converse of the law of Comte. Although the series of 
 sciences, one after another as Comte maintained, may in their 
 earliest stages be first theological, then metaphysical, at length 
 positive, yet after becoming positive, thenceforward, in their 
 mature stages, they become again more truly metaphysical and 
 at last fully theological. Compare Vol. I., Part II., Chap. II., 
 with Vol. II., p. loi, and pp. 321-324. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The second division of the Ultimate Philosophy described 
 as the art of attaining knowledge or the constructive Logic of 
 the Sciences, has been outlined on the basis of the foregoing 
 principles in three parts: ist, the Empirical Logic has been 
 referred to such masters as Comte, Whewell, and Mill; 2nd, 
 the Metaphysical Logic, to such masters as Wolff, Berkeley, 
 and Butler; and 3rd, the strictly Philosophical Logic, embrac- 
 ing both the empirical and metaphysical regions, has been 
 treated as including rules applicable (i) to the normal rela- 
 
6 Principles of the Ultimate Philosophy. 
 
 lions of reason and revelation in the sciences, (2) to the pro- 
 visional relations of hypothesis and dogma in the sciences, 
 (3) to the prospective relations of theory and doctrine in the 
 sciences. This part of the work is designed to establish the 
 claim of the Ultimate Philosophy to be considered as a system 
 of perfectible knowledge, based upon the growing harmony 
 of science and religion. 
 
 IX. 
 
 In the course of these studies some practical principles have 
 been enunciated; first, the philosophical value of apologetics 
 in upholding divine revelation as a source of metaphysical 
 knowledge within each science and throughout the scale of 
 the sciences, a principle not yet fully recognized by some of 
 the most Christian philosophers of our day; second, The 
 umpirage of Philosophy between religious dogmas and scien- 
 tific hypotheses, a principle at first questioned but since accepted 
 by intelligent divines as well as devout scientists; third. The 
 right of comparative theology, or the empirical science of reli- 
 gions to a place in the University curriculum as distinguished 
 from the place of orthodox theolog}^ in a Seminary or a school 
 of divinity. All these three principles were brought under dis- 
 cussion by the founding of a chair of The Harmony of Science 
 and Revealed Religion in Princeton University, the first Pro- 
 fessorship of the kind attempted in any American institution 
 of learning. 
 
PART FIRST. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS OF RELIGION. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS OF RELIGION. FIRST 
 STATED BY BISHOP BUTLER IN HIS GREAT 
 WORK, "THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION AND 
 NATURE." 
 
 The " Analogy " of Bishop Butler was given to the world 
 in the year 1736. In the same year of grace was born the 
 orator, statesman, and first governor of Virginia, Patrick 
 Henry, who in mature life made the Analogy his serious study, 
 published an edition of it, and bequeathed it to his coun- 
 trymen as a cure for the scepticism which had been coming in 
 with the French Alliance during the Revolution. It is prob- 
 able that this was the first American issue of the work. A 
 hundred years have passed, and another great churchman and 
 statesman, an English kinsman of Henry, Mr. Gladstone, has 
 also published the Analogy, and stood forth as its champion 
 among the leading thinkers of the age. The fresh interest thus 
 aroused in Butler's writings would seem to make this juncture 
 a fitting time in which to renew our estimate of his contribu- 
 tion to the Evidences of Christianity. 
 
 Bishop Butler has strong claims upon American churchmen 
 of all classes. In advance of modern schools of churchman- 
 ship, he illustrated much that was best in each of them. First 
 of all, he was an evangelical churchman. Bred a Presbyterian 
 non-conformist, he never lost that type of doctrinal belief which 
 is common to the Confession of Faith and the Articles of 
 Religion and expressed in portions of the Daily and Com- 
 munion offices. It underlies and pervades his whole argument, 
 especially in the chapters on the " Opinion of Necessity " and 
 the "Appointment of a Mediator." An evangelical, yet he was 
 
 9 
 
lo Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 also a Catholic churchman. A century before the appearance 
 of the Oxford tracts and the Christian Year, he enunciated 
 some of the leading principles of those epoch-making works. 
 On both rational and historic grounds he argued that the visi- 
 ble Church was essential to the perpetuation of true Qiristianity. 
 In his episcopal charge on the Importance of External Religion 
 he urged the more frequent use of the daily offices and the 
 sacraments as means of piety. By devoutly studying the lives 
 of the saints and other books of mystical devotion, by decorat- 
 ing his chapel with stained glass windows imported from 
 Italy, popularly supposed to have been presented by the Pope, 
 and especially by erecting a white marble cross over the com- 
 munion table, he incurred the most bitter persecution as 
 a suspected revert to Romanism. A Catholic among Evangel- 
 icals and an Evangelical among Catholics, he was still a liberal 
 churchman. While bowing to the authority of Scripture, he 
 declared he would not vilify reason, which is our only faculty 
 for judging of anything, even revelation itself. When invited 
 to the throne of the Primacy of all England, so disheartened 
 was he by the ecclesiastical abuses about him, he said it was 
 too late for him to " try to support a falling church," and 
 looked hopefully away to another scene where it might flourish 
 without the fetters of an establishment and the scandal of dis- 
 sent. In his plan for strengthening and extending the church 
 of England in the American Cplonies he broached some of the 
 very principles which have been reaped as the fruits of our 
 political Revolution, such as the equality of denominations, the 
 rights of the laity, the independence of the Church, the exten- 
 sion of the episcopate. If Berkeley could foresee in poetic fancy 
 the " westward course of empire," it was Butler who had that 
 glowing vision of ecclesiastical advancement which is now pass- 
 ing before our eyes. More than any other English prelate, 
 if I mistake not, he may be revered as the prophet and pro- 
 genitor of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United 
 States.* 
 
 But it is not of Butler as a churchman that I am here to 
 speak. Nor is this his only distinction. It is as a defender 
 
 * Life of Butler prefaced to the Analog^' by Bishop Fitzgerald, pp. 
 59-61. 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. Ii 
 
 of the faith, as the greatest of Christian apologetes, that he 
 has received the homage of English Christendom, All churches 
 and denominations are represented in the tribute. Bishop 
 Fitzgerald, of the Church of England, the most accomplished 
 editor of his work, has characterized it as " so original in its 
 design, so perfect in its method, so profound and yet so prac- 
 tical in its reasoning, so earnest and yet so calm in its tone, 
 so combining decision without dogmatism and caution without 
 timidity, as to be justly deemed the masterpiece of British 
 theology." Dr. Chalmers, of the Church of Scotland, could ac- 
 knowledge himself more indebted to the Analogy than to any- 
 thing else in the whole range of our extant authorship. Presi- 
 dent Wayland, of the Baptists, has made a similar acknowl- 
 edgment with reference to his own ethical writings. President 
 Emory, of the Methodists, has compared the position of Butler 
 in divinity to that of Bacon in philosophy. Among lay scholars. 
 Sir James Mackintosh pronounced it " the most original and 
 profound work extant in any language, upon the philosophy of 
 religion." Lord Brougham declared it to be " the most argu- 
 mentative and philosophical defence of Christianity ever offered 
 to the world." And the Duke of Argyll has termed it " an 
 argument the greatest in the whole range of Christian phi- 
 losophy, in its ramifications as infinite as the appearance of 
 variety, and as pervading as the sense of oneness, in the uni- 
 verse of God." It may be doubted if any modern writer has 
 been so generally accepted as an exponent of English think- 
 ing upon religious questions, or has exerted such an in- 
 fluence, directly and indirectly, in moulding its tendencies 
 and products. 
 
 The Personality of Butler. 
 
 In order fully to appreciate Butler as a philosophical apolo- 
 gete, we need to begin by recalling briefly his personality, the 
 man himself. At first sight this might appear unimportant. The 
 principle that the character of a writer will be reflected in his 
 writings does not seem to apply. If ever an author succeeded 
 in hiding himself behind his subject, and leaving us occupied 
 with the bare logical process of thought itself, it was the 
 author of the Analogy. In the dry light of his intelligence 
 
12 ScientiHc Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 there is not a tinge of idiosyncrasy or egotism. The first per- 
 sonal pronoun, when used, brings with it nothing whatever of 
 the disturbing influence of the personal equation. Had some 
 Raphael alighted upon our orb, as in Milton's Paradise, his high 
 discourse would scarcely have seemed more free from the pas- 
 sions and infirmities of mortals. This superficial judgment, 
 however, disappears on connecting Butler's work with his life 
 and his character. We can see that the young student in the 
 Presbyterian Academy at Tewkesbury, while exchanging letters 
 with Dr. Samuel Clarke on his *' Demonstration of the Being 
 and Attributes of God," is already in training as an apologete. 
 When at Oxford, he was not only gaining all needed learning 
 for his future task, but was entering the way of needed 
 preferment, through his influential friendships with Talbot, 
 who procured for him from his uncle, the Lord Chancellor, 
 the post of preacher at the Rolls in London ; and with Seeker, 
 afterward Bishop and Archbishop, who befriended him through- 
 out life, and defended his memory after death. In his *' Ser- 
 mons," which he preached before the legal audience of the 
 Rolls Chapel, he was enunciating those principles of ethics 
 which were to be made the foundation of his whole apologetic. 
 Afterward, as rector of Stanhope, in the seclusion of a rural 
 parish, with patient toil he slowly built up, like a coral reef, 
 that argument which contains the closely packed results of 
 twenty years' hard thinking on the problems of philosophy 
 and religion. Meanwhile, the world had forgotten him, and 
 when Queen Caroline asked if Butler was dead, a shrewd cour- 
 tier replied, " Not dead, but buried." He was at once drawn 
 forth from that retirement. As Clerk of the Closet to the 
 Queen, as Dean of St. Paul's, as Bishop of Bristol, and 
 at length as promoted to the princely See of Durham, he ac- 
 quired that celebrity and influence without which his great 
 work might have dropped back again into obscurity and 
 oblivion. 
 
 During all this somewhat ordinary career of student, 
 preacher, thinker, divine, and bishop, his character was un- 
 folding those sterling traits which, in spite of his studied self- 
 effacement, may be discerned on every page ; that ardent love 
 of trutli, the research for which he said he had designed to 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 13 
 
 be the chief business of his life; that candor with which he 
 stated the whole truth as he knew and believed it, without 
 over-statement or under-statement ; that courage with which 
 he faced the most adverse facts and arguments and accepted 
 the most perilous inferences; that strict adherence to his own 
 high ideals of right and reason from which he never swerved ; 
 as well as that supreme desire for the glory of God and the 
 good of mankind which is everywhere felt without being ex- 
 pressed. A glance is enough to show us that such a work 
 could only have been written by such a man. 
 
 The Epoch of Butler. 
 
 There is also a preliminary need to estimate Butler in the 
 light of his epoch, of the age in which he lived. A hasty reader 
 of his book would think otherwise. For anything that appears 
 on the surface it might have been written indifferently in the 
 fifteenth century or in the nineteenth century. It contains no 
 allusion to current events and discussions. With the exception 
 of two marginal references to Locke and to Shaftesbury, not 
 a single English author is named. The argument proceeds 
 as abstractly as the Differential Calculus, and every objection 
 is examined as imperturbably as if it were a meteorolite that 
 had fallen from some remote region of space. And yet, no 
 writer was ever in so close vital contact with his whole literary 
 environment, and no work more alive with the spirit of the 
 age in which it was produced. To see this we have but to 
 place him in his true historic setting. 
 
 Look first at the religious crisis which had been reached in 
 Butler's day. It was but fifty years since the restoration of 
 the monarchy and the act of uniformity. The profligate Charles 
 had been succeeded by the Jesuitical James and then by the 
 Calvinistic William of Orange. Presbytery had been re-estab- 
 lished in Scotland alongside of prelacy in England. Puritanism 
 had fled to the wilds of America. That Presbyterianism which 
 had once been the pride of the Universities, a power in the 
 London pulpit, and a stately figure in the manor-houses of 
 Yorkshire, was now languishing into Unitarianism under the 
 ban of dissent. The establishment, drained of spiritual life, 
 was thronged with place-hunters and time-servers. The super- 
 
14 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 ficial type of Christianity which remained was correct and com- 
 fortable. A genteel Deism, which accepted so much of reli- 
 gion as it had in common with natural religion, was leavening 
 the clergy as well as the aristocracy. The old faith, like an 
 old fashion-plate, had become pompous, pedantic, and gro- 
 tesque. Ridicule was made the test of truth, and the day for 
 serious argument seemed to have gone by. It was then that 
 Butler, somewhat like an unbidden spectre at a revel, opened 
 his treatise in these words : " It is come, I know not how, to 
 be taken for granted by many persons, that Christianity is 
 not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at 
 length, discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat 
 it, as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among 
 all people of discernment; and nothing remains but to set it 
 up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by 
 way of reprisals for having so long interrupted the pleasures 
 of the world." 
 
 Look also at some of the principal writers who preceded 
 and surrounded him on either side at this crisis. On the side 
 of Deism w^ere marshalled the opponents of revealed religion. 
 Nearly a century before, Herbert of Cherbury, the father of 
 English Deism, in his treatise on " Truth as distinguished 
 from Revelation," had maintained natural religion, the Religion 
 of the Laity and of the Gentiles, to be the one sufficient and 
 absolute religion. Charles Blount, in his " Life of Apollonius," 
 a wonder-worker of Tyana, had exalted Pagan feasts of magic 
 into comparison with the Christian miracles. Woolston had 
 delineated his so-called " Religion of Nature " as found in the 
 writings of Greek philosophers and Roman moralists rather 
 than in the teachings of prophets and apostles. And then came 
 a direct assault upon revealed religion. Toland, in his " Chris- 
 tianity not Mysterious," argued that revealed truths are neither 
 against reason nor above reason, but must be freed from every- 
 thing contradictory and unintelligible. Tindal, in his " Chris- 
 tianity as Old as the Creation," held that the natural religion 
 of mankind neither admitted nor required an external revela- 
 tion, and that the pretended Jewish and Christian revelations 
 are defective in their external evidences and in their internal 
 teachings. Collins, the first of the self-styled free-thinkers, at- 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 15 
 
 tacked the prophetical evidence ; and Morgan, as a moral phi- 
 losopher, attacked the internal evidence. At length the assault 
 grew desperate and undisguised. The polished Shaftesbury 
 wa.s sneering at the humbling doctrines and lowly graces of 
 the Christian disciple. The truculent Bolingbroke was scoff- 
 ing at the failings of Old Testament saints and the ethics 
 of the New Testament. The half-crazed Woolston was fling- 
 ing profane jests at Christian miracles and mysteries. And 
 the vulgar Chubb, over his candle-moulds, was railing at the 
 Apostles as liars and the Gospel as a forgery. 
 
 On the side of Christianity, meanwhile, were arrayed the 
 opponents of mere natural religion. During the early stage 
 of the contest, Ralph Cudworth, in his " Intellectual System of 
 the Universe," had collected with prodigious learning the evi- 
 dences of revealed religion in all Pagan literature and philoso- 
 phy. Theophilus Gale, in his " Court of the Gentiles," had 
 traced back all Greek and Roman religion to a primitive revela- 
 tion as mere borrowed light from that sacred fire. Henry 
 More had dreamed of a Platonic Trinity born of the marriage 
 of Greek Metaphysics with the divinity of St. John. But 
 soon there was need of a vigorous defence. Leslie, in order 
 to meet Herbert and Blount, produced his famous " Short and 
 Easy Method with the Deist," in which he exhibited Christi- 
 anity as the one true religion, and Judaism, Paganism, and 
 Mohammedanism, all mere natural religions, as counterfeits 
 and impostures. Toland was answered by the philosopher 
 Locke and by Archbishop Browne. Conybeare, as the antag- 
 onist of Tindal, maintained, in his " Defence of Revealed Re- 
 ligion," the insufficiency of natural religion, the necessity of a 
 revelation, and the validity of its evidences. While Chandler 
 was defending the prophetic evidence against Collins, and 
 Chapman was defending the internal evidence against Morgan, 
 Leland, in his " View of the Deistical .Writers," was massing 
 together all the Christian evidences as a rampart of the faith. 
 At last, there was a furious sally and onset upon the assailants. 
 The pugnacious Warburton, more than a match for Boling- 
 broke in savage invective, charged into the very camp of the 
 Deists with that argiimentum ad homincm, his " Divine Legation 
 of Moses," and routed them on their own ground. The erudite 
 
i6 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 Beiitley, having caught Collins tripping in his scholarship, de- 
 molished him with blows of ponderous learning. And the 
 lawyer-like Sherlock, with more ingenuity than reverence, in 
 his " Trial of the Witnesses," cited the Apostles to an imaginary 
 session of the Inn-Court, as if to convict Woolston and Chubb 
 of libel and perjury. 
 
 It was at the close of this heated debate that Butler appeared, 
 not as another advocate, but as the presiding judge, after the 
 combatants had reached the extremes of controversy. Noticing 
 them without naming them, avoiding alike the personality of 
 praise or invective, now accepting the premises of a deist, then 
 rejecting the reasonings of an apologist, carefully weighing 
 every argument, he at length summed up the whole discus- 
 sion in a tone so judicial that it has been mistaken for indiffer- 
 ence or weakness. " Those who believe," he said, " will here 
 find the scheme of Christianity cleared of objections and the 
 ^idence of it in a peculiar manner strengthened : those who 
 do not believe will at least be shown the absurdity of all attempts 
 to prove Christianity false, the plain undoubted credibility of 
 it ; and, I hope, a good deal more," 
 
 Such was the man and such the age which produced the 
 "Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Consti- 
 tution and Course of Nature." It is the mission of some books 
 to project the issues of the future and not merely to resume 
 those of the past. Had Butler's work been of the latter sort, it 
 might to-day be as dusty and worm-eaten as some of the forgot- 
 ten volumes which have just been mentioned. But, unlike them, 
 it was not only free from everything personal, local, and tran- 
 sient, but contained truth for all time as well as for its own 
 time. Instead of remaining as a piece of obsolete controversy, 
 interesting only to a former generation, it has passed into the 
 intellectual life of succeeding generations with ever-widening 
 influence. It is true that Mr. Matthew Arnold, in his " Bishop 
 Butler and the Zeitgeist," has argued that it is quite behind the 
 philosophic spirit of the age ; but there could be no more strik- 
 ing proof of its essential vitality than some recent efforts to 
 destroy it. After the lapse of a hundred and fifty years it 
 has been exciting fresh discussion and demanding readjust- 
 ment to the highest and best thinking of our epoch. 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. ly 
 
 A history of this criticism would be interesting and instruc- 
 tive. I can only notice some of the deficiencies which have 
 been alleged against Butler; and then, some of his perma- 
 nent contributions to apologetic science. I speak of deficiencies 
 rather than of defects. The former are mere neglects or 
 omissions which do not impair the quality and effect of a work : 
 the latter are blemishes or fallacies which inhere in the rea- 
 soning and mar and vitiate it. It will be found, I think, that 
 Butler has some deficiencies, but only a few defects. 
 
 Literary Deficiencies. 
 
 The literary deficiencies which have been alleged are the 
 first to strike the reader. His style has been much criticised. 
 Bolingbroke had his fling at its obscurity. " She studies," he 
 said of Queen Caroline, " with much application the Analogy 
 of Revealed Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature. 
 She understands the whole argument perfectly, and concludes 
 with the Right Reverend Author that it is not so clear a case 
 that there is nothing in Revealed Religion. Such royal, such 
 lucrative encouragement, must needs keep both metaphysics 
 and the sublimest theology in credit." To all which John 
 Wesley incisively replied, that the Analogy was too deep for 
 the men against whom it was written. 
 
 Obscurity, however, may be due to defects of language rather 
 than to profundity of thought, as ripples can hide the bot- 
 tom of the clearest lake. It is not easy to defend Butler's 
 style from such superficial blemishes. His English is now 
 somewhat archaic; his diction is at times too idiomatic and 
 harsh, and his sentences are often long, involved, confused, 
 and perplexing. One finds that he must turn back and read 
 them again in order to take in the full meaning. The constant 
 effort to understand him at length becomes tiresome. Butler 
 himself seems to have been made aware of the difficulty of 
 his style and defends it from the charge of obscurity : " I 
 must take leave to add, that those alone are judges whether 
 or no and how far this is a fault, who are judges whether 
 or no and how far it might have been avoided — those only 
 
 who will be at the trouble to understand what is here said 
 Vol. in— 2 
 
1 8 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 and to see how far the things here insisted upon and not 
 other things might have been put in a plainer manner." 
 
 And it must be granted that he bears well the test to which 
 he appeals. Let anyone try to put Butler's ideas into clearer 
 words and he will find it no easy task. In this respect he 
 is the despair of his editors and commentators. It should be 
 remembered that his works were carefully revised by his 
 friend Archbishop Seeker, and it may be added that his letters, 
 unlike his more elaborate writings, are charming in their sim- 
 plicity and ingenuousness. 
 
 Writers, who admit that he is obscure, have explained the 
 defect in various ways. Mr. IMark Pattison thinks it due to 
 the multiplicity of details which he wrought into the complex 
 structure of his reasoning in his effort after logical precision. 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen would explain this paradox by referring 
 it to the density with which he packed his ideas, as a lonely 
 thinker using phrases and arguments unfamiliar to the ordi- 
 nary reader. The best defence has been suggested by one of 
 his most studious editors : " There is a rough likeness," says 
 Dr. Steere, " between the style of the Analogy and that of 
 a legal document, and it goes deeper than might have been 
 expected; for what makes a deed obscure to the uninitiated? 
 Chiefly the attempt on the part of the framer to exclude all 
 ambiguity. It looks like irony, but it is true that no written 
 thing, when examined, is clearer than a legal document, and 
 the object, the attained object, of all those obscure phrases 
 is to avoid the possibility of being misunderstood. . . . 
 Thus it is that careful students of Butler's works gener- 
 ally come, in the end, to have a sort of relish for his peculiar 
 style." 
 
 When we have maintained that Butler writes " good sinewy 
 Saxon," with vigor, simplicity, accuracy, propriety, and dig- 
 nity, we must still admit, I think, that there is some remain- 
 ing obscurity in his style which is not in his thought or in 
 his theme. " It is an instance," says Mackintosh, " of the im- 
 portance of style. No thinker so great was ever so poor a 
 writer. Indeed the ingenious apologies which have been lately 
 attempted for the defect amount to no more than that his power 
 of thought was too much for his skill in language. How general 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 19 
 
 must the reception have been of truths so certain and momen- 
 tous ; with how much more clearness must they have appeared 
 to his own great understanding, if he had possessed the dis- 
 tinctness with which Hobbes enforces odious falsehood on the 
 charm of that transparent diction which clothed the unfruitful 
 paradoxes of Berkeley." 
 
 Butler has also been charged with a lack of imagination in 
 the treatment of his theme. He lends some color to the charge 
 by characterizing the imagination as " that forward delusive 
 faculty, ever obtruding beyond its sphere and the author of all 
 error ; " and once he dismisses a false analog)^ between the 
 decay of vegetables and living creatures, with the remark tha"t it 
 is " sufficient to afford the poets very apt allusions to the flowers 
 of the field." There is in fact not a single poetical quotation 
 in his whole treatise, and only now and then a metaphor. He 
 has none of the negligent beauties of a writer to whom orna- 
 ment comes unsought as the fruit of reading and culture. His 
 constructive skill is that of the mere intellect rather than that 
 of the free imagination. 
 
 This absence of the play of fancy will be regarded as a defect 
 according to the point of view. One who would like to have 
 his Euclid done into verse, or the Thirty-nine Articles inter- 
 spersed with bon-mots and epigrams, might wish that the 
 Analog}^ had more rhetorical embellishment. If Butler's taste 
 was different, it was not because he was wanting in a sense of 
 the beautiful. In his Sermons he defines and vindicates the 
 ideas of order, beauty, and harmony as consistent with virtue 
 and religion and a reflection of the Divine character itself. 
 And in one of his chapters he likens the conviction produced 
 by the collected evidences of Christianity to " what they call the 
 effect in architecture or other works of art." It is the only 
 glimpse that he gives us of an extravagant fondness for ele- 
 gance in building and decoration which led him to expend 
 large portions of his princely income upon the see-houses of 
 Bristol and Durham, somewhat to the scandal of his contem- 
 poraries. His devotion to this most imaginative of the arts 
 would indicate no lack of the imaginative faculty. That rere- 
 dos in his chapel hints of an aesthetic ritualist, who did not 
 dislike such symbolism as may be expressive of evangelical 
 
20 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 doctrine. Mr. Bagehot, in his " Literary Studies," forgetting 
 or not knowing of these artistic tastes of the ascetic bishop, 
 comments severely upon the prosaic atmosphere of the Anal- 
 ogy : " If the world were a Durham mine or an exact square, 
 no part of it more expressive than a gravel-pit or a chalk- 
 quarry, the teaching of Butler would be as true as it is now." 
 Turn away from this picture to a stately chamber wainscoted 
 Avith cedar and brilliant with storied windows, where the patri- 
 archal prelate is seated, his white hair flowing to his shoulders 
 and a divine placidity animating his countenance, while Mr. 
 Eems, the precentor of St. Paul's, is playing for him upon the 
 organ. Is this a Durham coal-pit or chalk-quarry or even an 
 exact square? 
 
 There have been some hints of a want of originality in 
 Butler, which have only a plausible color. Mr. Gladstone has 
 been at pains to collect them. Hallam, it seems, has detected 
 certain portions of Bishop Cumberland's treatise on the " Laws 
 of Nature," though greatly modified, in the chapters on the 
 Natural and Moral Government of God. Fitzgerald finds in 
 Foster's " Reply to Tindal " a remarkable anticipation of the 
 chapter on the Want of Universality in Revelation; and he 
 also quotes and explains a striking sentence from Berkeley's 
 " Minute Philosopher " which suggests the very phraseology 
 of ButJer: "It will be sufficient if such Analogy appears 
 between the dispensations of grace and nature (although much 
 should be unaccountable in both) to suppose them derived from 
 the same author, and the workmanship of one and the same 
 hand." A Dublin professor of divinity. Dr. Bernard, had 
 printed a paper on " The Predecessors of Butler," among whom 
 he names Wilkins, Colliber, and Shaftesbury as writers to 
 whom he is specially indebted. Agreeing with such critics, Mr. 
 Mark Pattison goes so far as to declare that the merit of the 
 Analogy lies in its lack of originality, as a mere rearrangement 
 and summary of all the actual and possible opinions which 
 came within the scope of the argument. There is no need to 
 defend Butler from such charges. Anyone who will take the 
 trouble can find scattered through his pages in abundance the 
 ideas and phrases of preceding and contemporary writers. 
 Butler himself says, in one of his prefaces, "A subject may be 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 21 
 
 treated in a manner which all along- supposes the reader 
 acquainted with what has been said upon it both by ancient and 
 modern writers and with what is the present state of opinion 
 in the world concerning such subject." Like many another 
 great author he reproduced the results of his reading uncon- 
 sciously without a thought of plagiarism. Had he endeavored 
 to connect them with marginal references and citations, his page 
 would have been encumbered with more notes than text. He 
 did not choose thus to leave his masterpiece standing among 
 the chips of the workshop. 
 
 Of all the literary deficiencies alleged, it may now be said 
 that at their worst they are superficial and unimportant. The 
 truth is, that Butler had no literary ambition. Though 
 tempted by the grandest of themes, he simply wrote to be 
 understood. Though gifted with an architectonic genius, he 
 preferred the severe Doric to the ornate Corinthian in the con- 
 struction of his argument. Though the most original of think- 
 ers, he did not disdain the thoughts of the humblest writers. 
 
 Logical Deficiencies. 
 
 The logical deficiencies alleged against Butler, like the liter- 
 ary deficiencies, pertain to the form rather than the substance 
 or purport of the Analogy. As a piece of reasoning it has often 
 been admired. Someone likens every sentence of it to a well- 
 considered move in chess. Apart from its high religious pur- 
 pose or rather in connection with that purpose, it has long 
 served as a mental gymnastic for the training of Christian 
 thinkers in the English universities and American colleges, 
 ranking in educational value with the higher logic and mathe- 
 matics. Mr. Mark Pattison, though he inconsistently removed 
 it from its place among the Oxford studies, commends " the 
 solid structure of logical argument, in which it surpasses any 
 other book in the English language." Nevertheless, some objec- 
 tions have been brought against it, which are primarily logical 
 in their nature. 
 
 It has been accused of a fallacious use of the ad hominem 
 argument. Dr. Martineau speaks quite bitterly of its irritating 
 eflfect upon the believers in natural religion, and declares that 
 
22 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 it hurts and browbeats all who take any ground between theism 
 and orthodox Christianity. It should be remembered, however, 
 that in reasoning from the premises of the deist, Butler could 
 have intended nothing personal to them as individuals or as a 
 class, since he agreed with them as far as they went, and their 
 system of natural religion was almost as generally accepted in 
 that day as the Copernican system of astronomy in our day. 
 In like manner, he argued upon the premises of the Necessi- 
 tarian or Fatalist only in order to convince him that his prem- 
 ises were untenable, and to bring him, as well as the Libertarian, 
 under the obligations of religion. So also he reasoned upon 
 the theories of prudence and benevolence, because they might 
 contain moral elements not inconsistent with his own theory 
 of essential virtue. Always, indeed, his manifest aim was not 
 so much to succeed in an argument as to arrive at the whole 
 truth. 
 
 Butler has also been charged with the fallacy of the argument 
 ad ignorantiam. It may be granted that Mr. Stephen finds an 
 instance of it, perhaps the only instance of a flaw in Butler's 
 reasoning, where he argues from our ignorance of the whole 
 system of things, that animals, like infants, may survive death 
 as undeveloped moral agents and find some unknown place and 
 purpose in the future economy. With less pertinence Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold complains of his frequent appeals to our igno- 
 rance as based upon assumed knowledge of an unknowable 
 Deity; whereas he bases such appeals upon the facts of our 
 situation, upon the incompetency of reason and the incompre- 
 hensibility of the universe. He shows that the Christian scheme, 
 like the scheme of nature, in its immensity and complexity, 
 transcends our utmost capacity of thought, and almost loses his 
 patience with a caviller who fancies that he knows enough of it 
 to criticise it. " Let reason be kept to," he exclaims, " and if 
 any part of the Scripture account of the redemption of the 
 world by Christ, can be shown to be really contrary to it, let 
 the Scripture, in the name of God, be given up. But let not 
 such poor creatures as we, go on objecting against an infinite 
 scheme that we do not see the necessity or usefulness of all its 
 parts, and call this reasoning." 
 
 He has been charged with fallacies of analogy. His daring 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 23 
 
 comparison of the loss of souls to the waste of seeds in Nature 
 becomes as revolting as Mr. Goldwin Smith has depicted it, 
 if pushed beyond the exact point of the comparison — which is 
 that souls, like seeds, were designed, not for destruction, but 
 for perfection. The terrible impression of the ruin of so many 
 moral agents may be lessened when the circumstances in which 
 the analogy fails are brought into view, viz. : that souls, unlike 
 seeds, are free moral agents which may be saved from destruc- 
 tion ; that souls, unlike seeds, will be saved according to their 
 own action and opportunity ; and that souls, unlike seeds, can- 
 not be lost in the dreadful ratio of millions to one, if the 
 immense majority of mankind, the heathen and infants, be 
 included with believers in the number of the saved. 
 
 The fallacy of the pctitio principii has also been charged 
 against Butler. Mr. Arnold seems to accuse him of begging 
 the question by assuming what he is trying to prove — the exist- 
 ence of a future life of which we have had no experience. It 
 would be enough to reply, that he offers his analogical argu- 
 ment as supplemental to the " proper " or " natural and moral 
 proofs of immortality." Strictly speaking, however, we can 
 have no experience of anything future ; no more of our future 
 life in this world than of our future life in another world. But 
 we can reason from our present experience to the probability 
 of either, with greater or less degree of evidence. From our 
 experience of a former state of life in the womb and in our 
 infancy we can anticipate the state of mature age, and after 
 death a still higher state of being as unlike the present as man- 
 hood is unlike infancy or unlike the embryo before birth. And 
 then, on the basis of this proved immortality, we can argue f roni 
 our experience of moral rewards and punishments in this world 
 and from the observed tendencies of virtue to prevail over vice, 
 that the divine government, though imperfect here, will be 
 completed hereafter in another world, where existing hinder- 
 ances will have disappeared. In the same manner Butler has 
 anticipated Mr. Arnold's objection to theism as an implicit 
 assumption wanting in the element of experience. All such 
 objections are reducible to the absurdity of maintaining that we 
 can prove nothing which we have not experienced. 
 
 Butler's reliance upon probable evidence as sufficient to deter- 
 
24 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i, 
 
 mine belief and practice has been much questioned as tending 
 to a rcductio ad absitrdiiin. Mr. Leslie Stephen accuses him of 
 representing " doubt as a ground of action ; " and the ridicule 
 of Matthew Arnold becomes so merry as to become contagious : 
 " If I am going to take a walk out of Edinburgh, and thought 
 of choosing the Portobello road, and a travelling Menagerie 
 is taking the same road, it is certainly possible that a tiger may 
 escape from the Menagerie and devour me if I take that road ; 
 but the evidence that he will is certainly, also, much lower than 
 what is commonly called probable. Well, I do not, on that low 
 degree of evidence, avoid the Portobello road and take another." 
 Had the ingenious critic only read the first paragraph of the 
 work before him, the tiger of his logic would have appeared 
 there rampant : " We cannot indeed say a thing is probably 
 true upon one very slight presumption, because, as there may be 
 probabilities on both sides of a question, there may be some 
 against it, and though there be not, yet a slight presumption 
 does not beget that degree of conviction which is implied in 
 saying a thing is probably true." 
 
 Butler's critics have also depreciated his general conclusions 
 as meagre and unsatisfactory. They dwell upon a supposed 
 " breakdown " of his argument, its " puny insignificant out- 
 come," and his own judgment of its inconclusive character, and 
 draw pathetic pictures of him at the close of his treatise as seated 
 in mournful dejection or staggering like a blind giant out of 
 Doubting Castle. It is simply astonishing that critics of such 
 intelligence should so mistake faith for doubt, candor for con- 
 cession, and courage for weakness. If Butler proved anything, 
 he proved all that he meant to prove. From his first page to his 
 last page he is ever insisting that a demonstrative proof of 
 Christianity is in the nature of the subject unattainable; that 
 imperfect beings must be guided by probability ; that satisfac- 
 tory evidence is not possible to such a creature as man ; and 
 that the evidence of religion is the same in kind and degree as 
 that upon which w^e proceed in other investigations and in all 
 the affairs of life. " What men require," he says, with some- 
 thing like scorn, " is to have all difficulties cleared, which is 
 the same as requiring to comprehend the divine nature, and the 
 whole plan of Providence from everlasting to everlasting." 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 25 
 
 Yes, the Analogy may be a logical failure to those who will 
 believe nothing until you can prove everything. 
 
 Metaphysical Deficiencies. 
 
 The metaphysical deficiencies which have been alleged are 
 felt only by a certain class of metaphysical minds. It is not 
 surprising that the German divine, Tholuck, familiar with the 
 efforts of his countrymen to solve the problem of the universe 
 by sheer speculation, such as the Theodicy of Leibnitz, should 
 remark upon the jejune, commonplace reflections of the Anal- 
 ogy and complain of the reading of it as " a perpetual going 
 afoot over sand." Bishop Fitzgerald aptly rejoins that tiresome 
 as this mode of travelling may be, it is better than for one to 
 mount a hippogrifif for an adventurous excursion through the 
 air and find his journey soon ended, not on the sand, but in the 
 sea. Butler himself has shown very clearly that we have no 
 faculties for such speculations, and discarded from the outset 
 " the idle and not very innocent employment of forming imagi- 
 nary models of the world and schemes of governing it." It is 
 true, that one English philosopher, Mark Pattison, has so far 
 agreed with the German critic as to say that Butler's work 
 " diverts the mind from the great outlines of scientific and 
 philosophic thought and fastens it on petty considerations, being 
 in this respect the converse of Bacon's ' Novum Organum.' " 
 But it is strange that so well read a critic should have forgotten 
 how large a space is filled by religion, both natural and revealed, 
 in the philosophy of Bacon, and how imperiously he would 
 fasten the mind upon the pettiest details at the very opening of 
 his great work. " The capital precept for the whole under- 
 taking is this, that the eye of the mind be never taken off 
 from things themselves, but receive their images truly as they 
 are. And God forbid that ever we should offer the dreams of 
 fancy for a model of the world." 
 
 At the same time, it will be found that Butler, while keeping 
 the speculative propensity within due limits, has necessarily 
 glanced at some of the deeper metaphysical problems which 
 underlie both nature and religion, such as the being of a God, 
 the existence of the soul, the freedom of the Will, the nature 
 of Virtue. In his treatment of these problems, he is thought 
 
26 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 by Leslie Stephen to be a mere child as compared with Hobbes, 
 Hume, or Jonathan Edwards, But the young student at 
 Tewkesbury, who was admitted to the honors of equal combat 
 with the veteran metaphysician of his day, Samuel Clarke, can 
 scarcely be thought wanting in metaphysical ability, had he 
 chosen to exert it. Nor does he suffer in this respect by com- 
 parison with his recent critics. 
 
 Take, for example, their criticism of his theistic premises. 
 Mr. Arnold tells us that they are so antiquated that he does 
 not care two straws for them. But he gives us no means of 
 estimating his own agnostic premises, not even a marginal 
 reference to Herbert Spencer, nothing but his mere dictum 
 that Butler's conception of an intelligent Author of Nature and 
 moral Governor of the world is anthropomorphic, a quasi- 
 human agent with a will and character. When Butler asks 
 why a tree does not require an intelligent designer as much as 
 a house, he thinks it enough to answer with the agnostic Topsy 
 that it " just grow'd," or has resulted from " a tendency to 
 grow." The theistic proof from necessary being, or essence, 
 he terms puzzling, and would not have religion founded upon a 
 puzzle, but would replace the puzzle with a so-called " stream 
 of tendency making for righteousness," which is no better foun- 
 dation for religion, or rather no foundation at all. Butler's 
 theism was neither a puzzle nor a metaphor, but based on com- 
 bined reason and experience. It was enough for his purpose 
 to refer to its " accumulated evidence ; from the argument of 
 analogy and final causes, from abstract reasonings, from ancient 
 tradition and testimony, and from the general consent of man- 
 kind ; " the old ontological, cosmological, teleological, and his- 
 torical arguments, which have worn so well in time past, and 
 are likely to wear well in time to come. 
 
 As another example of his metaphysical presuppositions, take 
 his theory of free-will and immutable morality. Mr. Arnold 
 suggests that Butler's moral government of the world might go 
 on rewarding and punishing men without the annexed notion 
 of an anthropomorphic Governor, and with only the everlasting 
 " stream of tendency " to drive the grinding mill, as it turned 
 out saints or villains with impartial accuracy. But what would 
 then become of man's freedom, and the good or ill desert of 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 2/ 
 
 actions? Mr. Stephen tells us intrepidly, as a fatalist and an 
 atheist. He says that " Free Will is the device by which most 
 theologians justify God's wrath with the work of His own 
 hands," and exclaims, " How can He judge us after He has 
 made us? " As if anticipating such objections Butler has said : 
 ** I have argued upon the principles of the Fatalists, which I do 
 not believe ; and have omitted a thing of the utmost importance 
 which I do believe, the moral fitness and unfitness of actions, 
 prior to all will whatever: which I apprehend as certainly to 
 determine the Divine conduct as speculative truth and false- 
 hood necessarily determine the Divine judgment." In other 
 words we can no more imagine God making right wrong than 
 making two and two less than four. And hence He is supremely 
 moral, as well as rational, within the sphere of human freedom. 
 If, then, it be granted that Butler is deficient in some forms 
 of false metaphysics, and has purposely excluded some meta- 
 physical questions from his argument, yet, so far as he has 
 touched upon them, he has shown the hand of a master, and 
 kept himself in line with the best metaphysical thought of the 
 present day. 
 
 Religious Deficiencies. 
 
 The alleged religious deficiencies are the last to be noticed. 
 And they are the most serious. If the Analogy fails to induce 
 religious belief and practice, it fails in its chief aim, and is a 
 total failure. Few critics have gone to so extreme a judgment 
 concerning it, but special objections have been made to it which 
 are of a religious nature. The philosopher Maurice has fancied 
 that Wesley could not find in it his peculiar doctrine of deprav- 
 ity and regeneration. Its tone or spirit has been complained 
 of by some orthodox writers, like Chalmers, Malcolm, and 
 Emory, who have regretted a lack of evangelical savor or senti- 
 ment. Mr. Goldwin Smith, as an appreciative critic, speaks of 
 its dry-light of intellectuality as wholly wanting in religious 
 feeling and sympathy. Mr. Matthew Arnold misses in it his 
 " sweet reasonableness," and declares that the total impression 
 left by Butler upon his mind is not exactly that of a saint. The 
 absence of mere saintly phrases is very happily explained by 
 Mr. Gladstone as due to the habit of reserve which characterizes 
 
28 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 the English type of piety. It may also have been due, in 
 Butler's apologetic, to good sense and good taste, as well as to 
 temperament. At the symposia of Queen Caroline, he had seen 
 enough of the loose deism of fashionable circles to know when 
 mere preaching or sermonizing would be misplaced and useless. 
 Addressing philosophers, he used the tone and speech of phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 A lack of convicting or converting power has also been 
 charged, but the charge is not well sustained by the instances 
 cited. The famous saying of Pitt that Butler raised more doubts 
 in his mind than he solved, when traced to its source, proves 
 to have been reported at second hand, and in its authentic form 
 only meant that Butler's abundant candor brought to light 
 many difficulties of which Pitt had never dreamed — which 
 might be said of almost any book of evidences. In the same 
 careless manner it has been reported that the philosopher, James 
 Mill, was made an atheist by reading the Analogy; the fact 
 being that for a while it held him back from atheism until, at 
 length, he lapsed into something like agnosticism. The great 
 Unitarian divine and thinker. Dr. Martineau, declared that he 
 never knew anybody converted by Butler's Analogy, and opened 
 the fiercest of all the attacks upon it in these words : '* To ques- 
 tion Butler's perfection is in the eyes of churchmen little short 
 of the sin against the Holy Ghost." He was followed by his 
 pupil. Miss Hennel, embodying his objections in an '* Essay on 
 the Sceptical Tendency of Butler's Analogy." And two or 
 three other critics have since joined in the refrain, that the 
 Analogy is an incentive to atheism and irreligion. I can give 
 only a few samples of their strictures. 
 
 Such censors charge that it undermines the proper evidences 
 of natural religion. Miss Hennel and Mr. Arnold both hint 
 that Butler accepted blindly deistical premises which are dis- 
 carded in our day, and built all religion on an abstract theistic 
 argument of Clarke which once had currency. But Butler, in 
 accepting the deistical premises, has carefully indicated the 
 sources of their proof, and distinctly asserted that he built up 
 all religion upon solid facts, and not upon abstract reasoning?, 
 which he had examined and rejected. Dr. Martineau argues 
 that by importing the difficulties of natural religion into revealed 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 29 
 
 religion Butler laid upon the former a tremendous weight which 
 it cannot bear. But Butler, before proceeding to the problems 
 of revealed religion, summarized, with masterly fulness and 
 force, the evidences of natural religion, and thus made firm the 
 ground upon which he stands. Mr. Stephen, commenting upon 
 Butler's argument for reconciling the opinion of necessity with 
 the religion of nature, declares : " No evasion can blind us to 
 the true bearing of his statement. God made men liable to 
 sin ; he placed them where they were certain to sin ; he 
 damned them everlastingly for sinning. This is the road by 
 which the Analogy leads to Atheism." Now, in his very intro- 
 duction, Butler has maintained that the end of the Creator is the 
 virtue and happiness of his creatures, though it may not be 
 possible to accomplish this end without something of hazard, 
 sufifering, and sin on their part ; and in one of his most power- 
 ful chapters he has shown that the unfolding scheme of Nature 
 and Providence affords ever-increasing evidence of the wisdom 
 and goodness of the Creator in promoting the virtue and happi- 
 ness of his creatures. This is the road by which the Analogy 
 leads away from Atheism. 
 
 The censors have also charged that Butler has obscured the 
 peculiar evidences of revealed religion as well as natural 
 religion. Dr. Martineau declares that the darkness, the nega- 
 tion, the sorrows of natural religion are made, not simply to 
 reappear in Butler's Christianity, but to constitute it and be the 
 only soul it has. On the contrary, Butler has shown that the 
 difficulties of religion are inherent in the pre-existing constitu- 
 tion of man and nature, that they necessarily reappear in Chris- 
 tianity, no longer, however, as distressing enigmas, but as 
 problems in solution, as evils of sin to be remedied by grace, as 
 marks of Divine justice to be effaced by Divine love. Mr. 
 Bagehot, like Dr. Martineau, complains of Butler's critique of 
 revelation as antecedently improbable, and maintains that reve- 
 lation to serve its purpose should be a perfect remedy for 
 human ignorance, should avoid paradoxes and mysteries, and 
 should throw light upon the actual world in which we live. On 
 the other hand Butler has shown that we are incompetent 
 judges of what a revelation should contain ; that to ask for a 
 more perfect revelation would end in demanding omniscience 
 
30 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 itself; that its mysteries and paradoxes are inherent in the 
 themes of rehgion ; that they are no greater than the riddles of 
 science and common life, and that they often serve as trials of 
 faith. Both Dr. Martineau and Mr. Stephen have bitterly 
 commented upon Butler's view of a vicarious Saviour as the 
 central doctrine of revealed religion, and have denounced it 
 as exhibiting the innocent punished for the guilty and placing 
 injustice upon the very throne of the universe. Against such 
 strictures Butler has shown that the revelation of a vicarious 
 Saviour is in strict analogy with the whole existing constitu- 
 tion of human society — that parents suffer for their children, 
 patriots suffer for their country, philanthropists suffer for their 
 kind ; and so, that the Christ crucified as being at once the 
 greatest of sufferers and the greatest of benefactors, the Divine 
 Saviour of a lost world, has placed infinite Love upon the 
 throne of the universe. 
 
 I have sketched the merest outline of an argument which is 
 embarrassing in its richness and fulness. It is not enough to 
 read it. It should be studied and pondered. The fault of 
 Butler's censors is that they have not mastered it, whether from 
 inattention or whatever cause. We can admire the genius and 
 culture which have made them eminent in other walks of litera- 
 ture and philosophy where they have achieved deserved fame. 
 Dr. Martineau stands foremost among English philosophic 
 divines, and Mr. Arnold has written poems that will live as 
 long as the language. Nevertheless, the fact remains that these 
 critics plainly show ignorance of certain portions of the Anal- 
 ogy, and as plainly have detached other portions from some 
 needed logical connection. And hence their objections are of 
 no effect. We may accept the judgment of Mr. Gladstone — 
 " The catapult has beaten on the walls of the fortress : it has 
 stood the shock. The tempest has roared around the stately 
 tree, and scarcely a leaf or twig has fallen to the ground. My 
 confidence is strengthened not only in the permanence of But- 
 ler's fame, but much more in the permanence and abundance of 
 the services he has yet to render to his country, to his kind, and 
 perhaps to Christendom, as a classic of thought in the greatest 
 of all its domains, the domain of religious philosophy." 
 
 This discussion has largely anticipated Butler's apologetic 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 31 
 
 services, as well as prepared us to appreciate them; and it 
 only remains to set them forth as the results of the inquiry. 
 I shall mention his four principal services : 
 
 The Value of Christian Evidence. 
 
 The first relates to the value of Christian evidence. The 
 need of some valuation of it was great in his day, and it is still 
 great in our day. Nothing is more common than for the 
 inquirer into the truth of Christianity to set up some false 
 standard of proof and then demand a kind or degree of evi- 
 dence of which the case does not admit and which is simply 
 impossible, Butler has enjoined the one true standard as a 
 preliminary study. 
 
 In the first place, he has defined the logical value of Christian 
 evidence. It is not demonstrative evidence, but probable evi- 
 dence. This is the first word and the last word of his apolo- 
 getic. Demonstrative evidence carries immediate full convic- 
 tion, while probable evidence admits of degrees from the lowest 
 presumption up to the highest probability or moral certainty. 
 The ebb and flow of the tide, for example, when observed for 
 the first time, would be barely presumable, but, having been 
 repeatedly observed by mankind through many ages, it has 
 become morally certain. Thus it is that the evidences of Chris- 
 tianity are a vast accumulation of presumptions or probabilities 
 which have been amassed by successive generations until they 
 now approach high probability in many minds, and in some of 
 the finest minds of the race have reached moral certainty. 
 
 In the second place, he has defined the ethical value of Chris- 
 tian evidence. There is a moral element in our opinions. We 
 are responsible for our belief. If Christianity admitted of 
 demonstrative proof as clear as that two and two make four, 
 disbelief would be an act of insanity for which no one would 
 be responsible. But since Christian Evidence is only probable 
 evidence, there will always be a residuum of doubt in the most 
 believing minds, and therefore always room for faith and the 
 need of faith. As to this deficiency in Qiristian evidence, be it 
 great or small, Butler has shown: (i) That it is not peculiar 
 to Christianity, but belongs to all matters of opinion; (2) that 
 
32 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 it is easily explained by the nature of religion and the narrow 
 scope of our faculties; (3) that it is incident to our state of 
 probation and especially needed for the discipline of specu- 
 lative minds, inquiring into the truth of religion, which other- 
 wise could not be tested and disciplined ; (4) that it does not 
 release us from the obligation of continued inquiry; and (5) 
 that after all it may be largely our own fault and part of our 
 highest accountability. No more practical contribution to Chris- 
 tian apologetics has been made in any language than Butler's 
 chapter on the " Supposed Deficiency in the Proof of Chris- 
 tianity ; " and none has been more strangely overlooked or 
 misunderstood by his critics. 
 
 The Logic of Christian Evidence. 
 
 His second service relates to the logic of Christian evidence. 
 To ascertain the kind of logic or reasoning applicable to the 
 problems of religion is a primary need of the apologete. For 
 the want of it the greatest Christian advocates, in his time as 
 in our time, have tried to chop iron with a wooden axe ; to 
 settle religious questions by mere efforts of abstract thought or 
 feats of deductive logic. Discarding all reasoning from ideal 
 premises, Butler has confined the mind to realities, to facts 
 and the relations of facts, by means of that form of inductive 
 logic known as Analogy, which consists in reasoning from 
 known facts to others like them. 
 
 He first defines Analogy in general, as used in common life 
 and ordinary inquiries. Its foundation, its measure, and its 
 utility are discussed. As to the foundation of Analogy, it rests 
 upon likelihood. A thing is probable or likely when it is like 
 some other truth already known or some other event hitherto 
 observed : like it, in itself, or in its evidence, or in its circum- 
 stances. If the likeness includes its mere circumstances, the 
 likelihood is a rhetorical analogy or simile, as when we speak 
 of the mother country. If it embraces its evidences to the 
 mind, it is a moral analogy, as when the life of Qirist is made 
 credible by comparing it with the story of Caesar. If it extends 
 to its essential properties, it is a strictly inductive or scientific 
 analogy, as when Newton likened the gravitation of the earth 
 toward the sun to the fall of an apple toward the earth. Some- 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 33 
 
 times all three kinds and grades of analogy may be combined 
 in the same compared objects. Inductively, we may reason that 
 the planets are revolving globes like our earth ; morally, we may 
 argue that they are inhabited by angels somewhat resembling 
 men ; metaphorically, we may call them sister worlds in the 
 family of heaven. It is evident, however, that a strictly scien- 
 tific analogy must be based objectively upon observed facts 
 rather than upon our own subjective reasonings and fancies; 
 and that the convincing force of such an analogy will depend 
 upon the frequency and fulness of our observations. It will 
 yield us a presumption or an opinion or a full assurance that an 
 event will happen, according as like events have been observed 
 sometimes or commonly or always to happen. We thus become 
 assured that a child in twenty years will reach the stature of a 
 man, because we have observed that children always grow to 
 manhood. We form opinions as to the manner in which differ- 
 ent persons will act in given circumstances because we have 
 observed how they commonly act and with what motives. We 
 acquire presumptions for or against natural events according as 
 we have observed nature extensively or partially. In the climate 
 of England we presume from analogy that there will be frost 
 next January and ice some time in the winter. In the climate of 
 Siam, however, the King presumed from analogy that water 
 must always be soft and yielding, and denounced the Dutch 
 Ambassador as a liar for telling him that it became so hard in 
 Holland that an elephant might walk upon it. Sir Walter Scott 
 in the " Talisman " represents Kenneth as reasoning from the 
 wider analogy of both climates in order to persuade Saladin 
 that a hundred knights had ridden for miles upon a lake as if 
 it were crystal. " Heat," said he, " in your country often con- 
 verts the soil into something as unstable as water : and so in my 
 land cold often converts the water itself into a substance as 
 hard as rock." It is by thus correcting and completing our 
 observations of phenomena that our analogical reasoning 
 becomes sound and conclusive. 
 
 As to the measure of Analogy, we may now see that it relates 
 to finite beings and yields only imperfect information. To an 
 infinite intelligence, able to embrace the past, the present, and 
 
 the future within its scope, everything must be absolutely cer- 
 VoL. in-3 
 
34 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 tain, and nothing could be merely probable. But to us, prob- 
 ability is the very guide of life. At every step we act upon such 
 evidence. If we waited for demonstration or certainty, we 
 could not act at all, but would be literally distracted with 
 doubt and uncertainty. In many instances we must act upon 
 a bare presumption and sometimes only upon an even chance or 
 balance of presumptions. In our speculative pursuits, also, 
 we must form our opinions by weighing probabilities and ascer- 
 taining resemblances to truth. Our whole lives thus proceed, 
 more or less consciously, upon observed analogies. He must 
 be simply omniscient and omnipotent who could dispense with 
 analogical reasoning. 
 
 Several questions may here arise which, if settled, would be 
 more interesting than practical. We may inquire into the meta- 
 physical ground of analogy and base it in some profound corre- 
 lation of subject with object, of mind with nature, ultimately 
 of nature with God. As to its psychical process, we may dis- 
 tinguish it from the intuition which seizes demonstrable truth, 
 and describe it as a subtle mental habit of generalizing our 
 observations and storing them in unconscious memory. As to 
 its logical method, we may trace it as an inductive reasoning 
 from facts to principles rather than a deductive reasoning from 
 principles to facts. Butler starts such questions only to waive 
 them as irrelevant, difficult, and unessential. Certainly they 
 are not essential in practice. As the farmer need not be a 
 chemist, nor the artisan a physicist, though proceeding respec- 
 tively upon chemical and physical principles, so common men 
 may and do reason analogically in all the afifairs of life without 
 being logicians, psychologists, or metaphysicians. Not fully 
 conscious of this latent reasoning in our minds, we do not 
 always appreciate its force and utility. But could we stop and 
 retrace it, divested of all present impressions, so familiar a cer- 
 tainty as sunrise and sunset would appear to have been but one 
 long elaborate accumulation of probabilities. Beattie, in his 
 " Essay on Truth," illustrates this by supposing " a man 
 brought into being at maturity and placed on a desert island. 
 He would abandon himself to despair when he first saw the 
 sun set and the night come on, for he would have no expectation 
 that ever the day would be renewed. But he is transported with 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 35 
 
 joy when he again beholds the glorious orb appearing in the 
 east and the heavens illuminated as before. The second night 
 is less dismal than the first, but is still very uncomfortable on 
 account of the weakness of the probability produced by one 
 favorable instance. As the instances grow more numerous the 
 probability becomes stronger and stronger, yet it may be ques- 
 tioned whether a man in these circumstances would ever arrive 
 at so high a degree of moral certainty in this matter as we 
 experience, who know not only that the sun has arisen every day 
 since we began to exist, but also that the same phenomenon 
 has happened regularly for five thousand years without failing 
 in a single instance." 
 
 It is no fair objection to the use of Analogy that it is some- 
 times abused by rhetoricians in imparting verisimilitude to error 
 and falsehood. The orator Quintilian spoke of it as making 
 the doubtful resemble the unquestioned and proving things 
 uncertain by means of the certain. And because Butler adorns 
 his title-page with this motto, it has been absurdly imagined that 
 he meant to ofifer his whole treatise as a mere artificial discourse 
 without much regard to its essential validity, even when thus 
 employed in the art of rhetoric. Analogy has its uses in repell- 
 ing captious objections, in allaying honest doubts, and in pre- 
 disposing the mind to faith and knowledge by assimilating new 
 and strange truths to those which are old and familiar, and by 
 collecting probabilities where demonstration in the nature of the 
 case is not possible. For purposes of illustration, proof, and 
 conviction it has ever been a potent instrument. But Analogy 
 has much higher uses, as employed in the art of logic, and 
 especially in the logic of the sciences. Through the whole 
 inductive procedure it aids the mind in classifying facts, in gen- 
 eralizing their laws, and in advancing to near and remote 
 discoveries. It has been well termed the soul of induction. 
 Without it no amount of mere observation and experience 
 could ever yield us true science. 
 
 Nor can it be justly objected that this art of logic as yet is 
 too imperfect to enable us to discriminate between mere rhe- 
 torical and strictly scientific analogy. There are at least a few 
 simple rules for testing analogies, such as the following : That 
 our knowledge of the objects compared should be sufficient or 
 
36 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 that their ascertained properties should exceed their unascer- 
 tained properties ; that they should be of the same species, their 
 resemblances exceeding their differences; that the judgment 
 should be founded upon the resemblances alone ; that the resem- 
 blances taken together should afford cumulative probability; 
 that the anticipations of the analogy should be verified by 
 experience ; that there should be a concurrence of other relevant 
 analogies. When several of these rules apply, the analogy is 
 sound and valuable ; when they all apply, it will amount to a 
 strict induction and carry probability toward moral certainty. 
 Moreover, in default of these or any other rules, it should be 
 remembered that the most practical scientists, like men in com- 
 mon life, often reason better than they know, without being able 
 to give a philosophical account of the logical process by which 
 they have reached their grandest discoveries. Indeed, even if 
 the whole logic of science be pronounced obscure and inscru- 
 table, its actual fabric, together with all popular knowledge, 
 would still remain founded upon analogical reasoning. 
 
 Now, since religion no less than science deals very largely 
 with facts, and since analogy is a reasoning from facts to others 
 like them, it follows that analogy may be as applicable to the 
 problems of religion as to those of science. Certainly there is 
 nothing in religious facts themselves to forbid its application. 
 Rather may they be deemed more accessible than other facts, 
 since they lie within the scope of consciousness as well as obser- 
 vation and have been accumulating through ages of recorded 
 history. Nor can there be any presumable obstacle in the mere 
 analogical process of tracing uniformities and resemblances 
 among facts. It would be strange if the most intimate and 
 intelligible phenomena with which we can deal, the phenomena 
 of religion, should prove wholly inscrutable and anomalous; 
 while physical phenomena around us, even the most remote 
 and recondite, are exhibiting law and order. That our wills 
 and passions, like the personal equation of the astronomer, may 
 disturb a religious investigation, is a mere circumstance not 
 in the facts themselves as detached from our personality. All 
 prepossessions aside, it will be found, as we proceed through 
 the realms of nature and of religion, that the one is no more a 
 medley or a chaos than the other. Professor Drummond has 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 37 
 
 even argued that the laws of the spiritual world are not simply 
 homogeneous, but identical with the laws of the natural world, 
 the same in theology as in physiology, in the saint as in the 
 reptile. This, however, may be loading analogy with more 
 than it can carry. To prove the reign of law in religion as well 
 as in nature, it is not necessary to identify their respective laws, 
 any more than it would be necessary to identify the laws of 
 mechanics and chemistry or the laws of chemistry and ethics in 
 order to vindicate their logical correspondence. All that strict 
 analogy requires is that in both cases the laws should be found 
 suitable to the special phenomena observed. Though religious 
 laws be wholly unique, they might yet be correlated with psy- 
 chical laws, as psychical laws are already correlated with 
 physical laws ; and thus render the most varied phenomena 
 analogous throughout the universe. 
 
 Religious analogy, in an unscientific form, dates from very 
 ancient times. As artlessly practiced, it might be claimed 
 for some of the Psalms of David and the Proverbs of Solo- 
 mon, as well as the Parables of our Lord. As a philosophical 
 method its first crude attempt maybe discerned in the scriptural 
 allegories of the Greek Church fathers concerning the works 
 of Creation. Origen, for example, sagaciously remarked that 
 one might well expect to find the like difficulties in Scripture 
 and Nature, if both have proceeded from the same author. 
 The later schoolmen, also, sought for endless correspondences 
 between the two volumes of Creation and Revelation. With 
 the rise of the inductive method, devout naturalists began to 
 unfold the analogical argument for theism in the physical 
 sciences. But it was reserved for Bishop Butler to pursue that 
 argument with logical precision and fulness throughout the 
 entire realm of the sciences, psychical as well as physical. 
 Starting with the current theism of his day, he essayed to 
 bring the whole system of natural religion into logical corre- 
 spondence with the known constitution and course of nature, 
 rendering the doctrine of a divine government, future state, 
 and present probation as scientifically probable as received the- 
 ories in physic3, physiology, and ethics. Then, advancing from 
 these premises, he proceeded in like manner to bring the whole 
 scheme of revealed religion into analogy with the constitution 
 
38 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 and course of humanity, exhibiting the peculiar doctrines of 
 sin and redemption as but the logical sequel and complement 
 of the whole previous argument. At length, having thus 
 unfolded a harmonious system of nature and religion, by the 
 same analogical reasoning he indicated its cumulative evi- 
 dences as not less obligatory in ethics than conclusive in phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 The superiority of religious analogy may be shov^n by com- 
 paring it v^ith mere religious speculation upon the origin 
 and object of the universe. In regard to the origin of the 
 universe, there have been endless attempts to build the world 
 upon hypothesis, upon assumed principles, which are them- 
 selves false or, if true, are misapplied in defiance, sometimes 
 in ignorance, of the actual structure and course of nature. 
 From the time that Descartes endeavored to show how God 
 might have made the world out of vortices, the history of 
 philosophy has been filled with nebulous cosmogonies and ideal 
 universes, mere creations of fancy, vanishing one after another 
 like brilliant bubbles amid the solid pyramids of our empiri- 
 cal knowledge. In place of such hypothetical constructions. 
 Analogy takes the world as it finds it, combines reasoning 
 with observation, proceeds from facts to principles, and from 
 that portion of the divine government which is near and visi- 
 ble infers that which is remote in space or time. Instead of 
 receding from religion to nature, it would advance from nature 
 to religion, as Laplace advanced from the terrestrial to the 
 celestial mechanics, as Bunsen advanced from the terrestrial 
 to the celestial chemistry, as Chalmers advanced from the ter- 
 restrial to the celestial ethics, and as Butler, before them all, 
 advanced from the known scheme of creation to the revealed 
 scheme of redemption. 
 
 There has also been much religious speculation upon the 
 object or design of the universe, with which religious analogy 
 stands in contrast. Ever since Leibnitz set the fashion in his 
 " Theodicy," philosophers have been busy imagining a world 
 better or worse than the world with which we are acquainted, 
 and thus charging upon the Creator an optimism or a pes- 
 simism alike inconsistent with the virtue and happiness of His 
 creatures. Butler declares that we have no faculties for this 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 39 
 
 kind of speculation; that if we should take the happiness or 
 virtue of creatures to have been the worthy end of their crea- 
 tion, we could not imagine either attained without the other; 
 that if we should assume both ends to have been included in 
 the plan of a wise and good Creator, we could form no judg- 
 ment as to the fittest means for accomplishing such ends; in 
 short, that the best world which the wisest man might devise 
 would be full of absurdities and miseries not found in the world 
 which exists and with which alone we have to do. 
 
 Having thus defined Analogy as applicable to religious prob- 
 lems, and shown the superiority of such Religious Analogy 
 to all forms of religious speculation which would desert the 
 actual world as we find it, and wander off into vague imagi- 
 nations concerning the origin and object of the infinite uni- 
 verse, and having used it strictly throughout his treatise, he 
 finally defends it from those who would object to it as meagre, 
 inconclusive, and unsatisfactory. 
 
 Naively, without pretence of logical terms and methods ( for 
 logic had not been perfected in his day), Butler has originated 
 a definition and use of what is now called inductive logic, 
 within the religious domain of philosophy, which, after the lapse 
 of a hundred and sixty years, remains unimpaired and unsur- 
 passed. 
 
 The Problems of Christian Evidence. 
 
 His third service relates to the problems of apologetics. 
 Besides seeking probable evidence by analogical reasoning, we 
 need to take up the problems of religion in their due logical 
 order and connection. Otherwise we shall ever be going back 
 upon our own path to prove over again what we have assumed 
 as proved, or perpetually tearing up the foundations while 
 building the superstructure of our argument. Many an objec- 
 tion has been fancied to exist on one page of Butler, which 
 has been found answered on another page before or after it. 
 He has precluded such criticism by the exact method with 
 which he arranged and treated the entire series of actual and 
 possible problems of religion. 
 
 In the first place, he has clearly distinguished the empirical 
 or inductive problems from the metaphysical; those which 
 
40 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 emerge in the region of fact and experience from those which 
 he largely in the region of thought and speculation. He has 
 even relegated some of the latter to an Appendix of Disserta- 
 tions on Personal Identity and the Nature of Virtue. He has 
 made the distinction so sharp that much of his reasoning holds 
 equally with an atheist or a theist, a materialist or a spiritualist, 
 a fatalist or a libertarian, a deist or a Christian, an infidel 
 agnostic or a Christian gnostic. And he has thus kept for 
 himself a pathway clear and firm through the regions of prob- 
 able evidence. 
 
 In the second place, he has taken up the inductive prob- 
 lems in a series, each problem preceding and supporting the 
 next following : the problem of theism preceding and support- 
 ing the problems of all religion ; the problem of a future life 
 preceding and supporting the problem of a divine government; 
 the problem of a revelation in general preceding and support- 
 ing the problem of the Christian revelation in particular — and 
 so on, in one concatenated course of reasoning. 
 
 Had he been versed in the distinctions of modern meta- 
 physics and the rules of strict logic, he could not have pro- 
 jected more clearly and fully the problems of apologetics, 
 through all coming time and all possible stages of intellectual 
 progress. 
 
 The Nezv Scientific Evidence. 
 
 His fourth and crowning service relates to the new scientific 
 evidence beginning to appear in our day. As every age has 
 its own form of incredulity, so it has its peculiar form of evi- 
 dence growing out of the conflict of Christianity with such 
 incredulity. The conflicts of Christianity in past ages with 
 Judaism, with Paganism, with Greek Philosophy, with Northern 
 Barbarism, with Mohammedanism, with modern Rationalism, 
 have yielded vast masses of evidence, much of which is still 
 extant and influential, but some has already been stored away 
 as antique trophies in the arsenal of Christian Apologetics. 
 Now, in the present age of science, the so-called conflict of 
 religion with science, as it issues in their growing harmony, 
 is yielding a new class of scientific evidences of Christianity 
 to be added to the miraculous, the prophetic, the historical 
 
CHAP, I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 41 
 
 evidences of former ages. To this new class of evidence But- 
 ler has led the way as a forerunner and even as a master 
 builder. 
 
 First. He has conceived religious problems in a thoroughly 
 scientific spirit. Though living at the dawn of that scientific 
 age which is shedding upon us its meridian light, he imbibed 
 its method and committed himself, albeit unconsciously, to its 
 inductive process in the sphere of religion, as Bacon did in 
 the sphere of nature. Like Bacon he announced his intention 
 to study " the conduct of nature with respect to intelligent crea- 
 tures ; which may be resolved into general laws or rules of 
 administration, in the same way as many of the laws of nature 
 respecting inanimate matter may be collected from experi- 
 ments." And the pages of Bacon do not afford a more scien- 
 tific conception of the course of nature as governed by general 
 laws, ascertained and yet ascertainable, than do Butler's chap- 
 ters on the schemes of nature and of Christianity. 
 
 Second. He has treated religious problems, if implicitly, yet 
 in a most scientific manner by applying to them the inductive 
 logic. Though never using the technical terms of science, he 
 has in fact discussed the questions of immortality, divine gov- 
 ernment, and probation as questions of physiology and psychol- 
 ogy, of ethical and social science. A few devout naturalists 
 had begun to unfold the analogical argument in the physical 
 sciences; but it was reserved for Butler to pursue that argu- 
 ment with logical precision and fulness throughout the entire 
 series of sciences, mental as well as physical. 
 
 Third. By establishing the analogy of nature and religion 
 he has laid a logical foundation for the harmony of science 
 and revelation considered as the human and divine factors in 
 producing our knowledge. The second part of his treatise is 
 pregnant with principles of biblical criticism yet to be developed 
 and applied to the problems emerging between science and 
 the Bible. For example, the primary principle that Scripture, 
 though non-scientific, is not anti-scientific; that it neither 
 teaches science nor anything contrary to science ; that its pop- 
 ular and phenomenalistic language, whether in the sphere of 
 theology and ethics or in the sphere of astronomy and physics, 
 cannot impair its revealed truth when fully ascertained — this 
 
42 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 principle has been set forth with as much clearness as cau- 
 tion — 
 
 "And therefore, neither obscurity, nor seeming inaccuracy of style, 
 nor various readings, nor early disputes about the authors of poetical 
 parts, nor any other things of the like kind, though they have been 
 much more considerable in degree than they are, could overthrow the 
 authority of the Scriptures ; unless the Prophets, Apostles or our Lord 
 had promised that the book containing the Divine revelation should be 
 secure from those things." 
 
 Again, the principle that the so-called conflict of religion 
 and science is only a conflict of the dogmas of the one with 
 the hypotheses of the other ; that our knowledge of Scripture 
 may still be as imperfect as our knowledge of nature ; and that 
 we must look for their growing harmony in their gradual com- 
 pletion — this momentous principle is set forth with as much 
 courage as clearness — 
 
 " As the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet understood, so if it ever 
 comes to be understood, before the restitution of all things, and with- 
 out miraculous interpositions, it must be in the same way as natural 
 
 knowledge is come at — by the progress of learning and liberty 
 
 Nor is it at all incredible that a book which has been so long in the 
 possession of mankind should contain many truths as yet undiscovered. 
 For, all the same phenomena, and the same faculties of investigation 
 from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have been 
 made in the present and last age, were equally in the possession of 
 mankind, several thousand years before. And possibly it might be in- 
 tended that events as they come to pass, should open and ascertain the 
 several parts of Scripture." 
 
 Once more, the principle that in the sphere of revelation, as 
 in the sphere of science, we must accept facts as we find them, 
 whether we like them or not, and that we can no more object 
 to the revealed system than to the solar system, on a priori 
 grounds — this scientific principle of Christian evidence has been 
 enjoined with discriminating rigor : 
 
 " Though objections against the reasonableness of the system of 
 religion cannot indeed be answered without entering into consideration 
 of its reasonableness : Yet objections against the credibility or truth of 
 it may. Because the system of it is reducible into what is properly 
 matter-of-fact ; and the truth, the probable truth of facts may be shown 
 without consideration of their reasonableness." 
 
 " And therefore, though objections against the evidence of Chris- 
 
CHAP. I.] Problems of Bishop Butler. 43 
 
 tianity are most seriously to be considered, yet objections against 
 Christianity are, in a great measure, frivolous." 
 
 " But this is urged, as I hope it will be understood, with great cau- 
 tion of not vilifying the faculty of reason, which is the candle of the 
 Lord within us ; though it can afford no light where it does not shine ; 
 nor judge where it has no principle to judge upon." 
 
 Fourth. He has given prescient hints, albeit unwitting-ly, 
 of a coming harmony of science and religion and consequent 
 growing proof of Christianity. They lie scattered through 
 his work, like chiselled stones yet to be set in the temple of 
 knowledge. They may be found in the region of every science. 
 In astronomy, he has remarked upon the scientific exactness 
 of our knowledge of the heavenly bodies as compared with our 
 knowledge of our own bodies. In geology, he hinted at a 
 predominance of brute creatures in some other globe which we 
 now know existed in our own globe during its prehistoric 
 period. In biology, a hundred years ago he discerned that law 
 of development throughout living nature evolving embryos into 
 animals, even animals into moral agents, which evolutionists 
 are now verifying. In psychology, he traced the mental habits 
 and moral affections with a precision which has not since been 
 surpassed. In sociology, he projected on an inductive basis 
 that ideal reign of virtue of which speculative philanthropists 
 are still dreaming. In theology, the science of religions, he 
 has exhibited that consensus and dissensus of revealed religion 
 with all natural religions, which divines and philosophers are 
 only beginning to apprehend. There is scarcely a great 
 scientist with whom he might not be compared in scientific 
 rigor. Newton did not more inductively argue from the 
 analogy of the falling bodies to the law of universal gravita- 
 tion than did Butler from the inherent prevalence of virtue over 
 vice to a universal law of rectitude. Darwin did not more cau- 
 tiously trace the combined effect of organism and environment 
 in the past evolution of animal species than did Butler the 
 correlation of character and condition in the moral education 
 of the immortal spirit. Huxley has not more strenuously main- 
 tained a strict necessitarianism in the laws of nature than has 
 Butler striven to reconcile such necessitarianism with the obli- 
 gations of religion. A few years since Tyndall delighted the 
 scientific world by depicting the whole course of nature, strata, 
 
/}4 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 florse, faunae, human races, all as the orderly evolution of a 
 fiery cloud; but Butler long ago proclaimed from the height 
 of his great argument that the whole course of Christianity 
 itself, from its genesis to its apocalypse, may appear in the view 
 of superior intelligences but one majestic unfolding of divine 
 wisdom as much regulated by general laws as the roll of the 
 seasons or the growth of a flower. In a word, the system of 
 religion as conceived and indicated by him is as thoroughly 
 scientific both in its outline and in its evidence as the Coper- 
 nican system of astronomy or any other theory of exact 
 science. 
 
 Lastly, besides thus exhibiting Christian evidence as scientific 
 evidence, Butler, building better than he knew, has constructed 
 a substantial portion of Philosophy itself, considered as the 
 science of knowledge or the science of the sciences. His Anal- 
 ogy serves as a logical buttress on the religious side of philos- 
 ophy corresponding to the Organum of Bacon on the physical 
 side of philosophy. Viewed together they are opposite seg- 
 ments of that ascending arch of human and divine knowledge, 
 whose keystone is yet to support the Cross as at once the 
 consummation of philosophy and the full illustration of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROBLEM OF THEISM. 
 
 Metaphysic Theism, or Metaphysic Theology as it may 
 be termed when reduced to a system, comprises that theistic 
 theory of the universe which is afforded by general metaphysic 
 science. Having already largely treated it in previous chap- 
 ters, we need here only recapitulate its elements as preliminary 
 to a clear understanding of the whole logical task before us. 
 These refer to the idea and the nature of God, together with 
 his relation to the world. 
 
 As to the idea of God, we may hold it to be innate or tradi- 
 tional or both as combined. If it be innate, we may look for 
 its germs in the human constitution everywhere, especially 
 in the spontaneous feeling of dependence upon an eternal 
 Somewhat which becomes an object of fear and worship, 
 whether it be an idol or an ideal, the fetich of the savage or 
 the Absolute of the philosopher, or howsoever it may be 
 conceived. If it be traditional we may trace it back to a 
 primitive revelation, as part of the divine image which was 
 impressed upon man at his creation but which among pagan 
 and savage races has been defaced and lost, whilst among 
 Hebrew and Christian nations it has been restored and purified. 
 If both views be combined, we need find nothing absurd or 
 irreverent in the hypothesis, that the divine image or true 
 idea of God has been produced in man by an evolutionary 
 process rather than by a creative fiat. Some anthropologists 
 arc now endeavoring to develop the psychical as well as 
 physical characteristics of mankind from the animal species 
 during long pre-adamite time, through the various stages of 
 
 45 
 
46 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 ghost worship, devil worship, angel worship, nature worship, 
 toward the worship of one national deity or supreme ruler 
 of gods and men. Such religious germs in the favored race 
 of Adam may have been quickened and unfolded into the 
 divine likeness by an objective revelation from which other 
 co-adamite races have lapsed into idolatry and animality. We 
 may even suppose this evolution meanwhile to have gone for- 
 ward historically under that divine revelation, differentiating 
 the God of Israel from the God of the heathen and at length 
 manifesting that pure Christian idea of God in comparison 
 with which the gross anthropopathy of the Old Testament, 
 seems now but little removed from that of the higher Gentile 
 religions. Be all this as it may, the idea itself as now extant, 
 however it may have been produced, even if at first it be taken 
 as a mere fiction or abstraction, is at least susceptible of close 
 study and will bear the strictest tests of logical definition. 
 As we have hitherto shown, the theistic conception instead of 
 involving any of the contradictions charged upon it, is the 
 strongest, clearest and most consistent conception of which 
 the human mind is capable. 
 
 As to the nature of God, we may maintain that it is like 
 or unlike or but partly like the nature of man. If our idea 
 of deity corresponds to any reality, we can cognize that reality 
 as a spirit or person like ourselves, having the personal attri- 
 butes of will, intelligence and consciousness. If there be no 
 such correspondence we can only cognize some vague Power 
 or Principle or Being wholly unlike ourselves and devoid 
 of all the personal attributes as we know them. But if there 
 be at least a partial correspondence we can then cognize the 
 divine personality as somewhat like the human in kind, though 
 unlike in degree ; as having the personal attributes but having 
 them without defect and limitation. A sound agnosticism may 
 thus concur with a pure anthropomorphism in recognizing 
 beyond our conditioned will a Will that is absolute, beyond 
 our finite intelligence an Intelligence that is infinite, beyond 
 our bounded consciousness a Consciousness that embraces the 
 universe. In other words, on the supposition that there is 
 such a Divine Person, so intimate and homogeneous a reality 
 cannot be wholly unknowable. As we have elsewhere argued. 
 
CHAP. II. J Problem of Theism. 47 
 
 the nature of God, though incomprehensible, is yet cognizable 
 in greater or less degree. 
 
 As to the relation of God to the world, we must weigh the 
 claims of deism and pantheism. According to the former, 
 the divine personality is wholly distinct from the universe and 
 ever remains independent of its development. According to 
 the latter it is merged in the universe and even shares its 
 development. Between such extremes we may endeavor to 
 reconcile the transcendence with the immanence of God in 
 the idea of his independence. The highest and best thinking 
 of all ages has ever thus sought to conserve the truth of 
 pantheism in distinction from the error of deism ; to conceive 
 the Creator as inhabiting yet controlling his own creation; 
 and to admit Him capable of making, unmaking and remaking 
 creation after creation with the power of absolute will and the 
 ease of infinite thought. Speculative and paradoxical as such 
 a view may appear, it has its analogy and miniature in our own 
 finite consciousness of the Infinite. As we have already main- 
 tained, the phenomenal universe is not a necessary but a 
 voluntary manifestation of the divine personality. 
 
 Let it be observed that as yet we have not endeavored to 
 prove Theism, but only to define it and to state the conditions 
 of the problem. We have simply premised that the idea of 
 God, however obtained, is thinkable ; that, if there be a God, 
 his nature as a person is more or less knowable ; and that He 
 is to be thought and known as in the world yet not of it. 
 With these definitions in mind we are now ready for a logical 
 estimate of the theistic proofs, both in general and in detail. 
 In general, they are depreciated by the atheist, the agnostic 
 and sometimes by the theist himself. The atheist of course 
 opposes them with his own different theory of the universe. 
 The ancient materialism of Democritus, Epicurus and Lucre- 
 tius thus resisted even polytheism with the notion of a fatalistic 
 or fortuitous origin of the world. The modern materialism 
 of Helvetius, D'Holbach and La Mettrie in like manner sub- 
 stituted mere physical nature for a personal deity. The more 
 scientific materialism of Haeckel, Buchner and Vogt bases even 
 physical nature in a godless eternity of maker and force. The 
 crude pantheism of ancient times was little better than nature 
 
48 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 worship. The pantheism of Bruno was the mere deification 
 of a materiaHstic universe. The more refined pantheism of 
 German ideahsts, like that of the Hindoos, often aimed to 
 obhterate the distinction between God and the world and at 
 length to render the creation an abortion. At such an extreme, 
 the pessimism of Schopenhauer boasts of having destroyed 
 the last vestige of theism. The positivism of Comte and 
 Harrison, and the secularism of Holyoke and Bradlaugh are 
 maintained by avowed atheists who glory in the name. There 
 is no end to the systems of thought which may be found 
 practically associated with atheism. The single fact, however, 
 that all of them may also be found more logically associated 
 with theism by Christian thinkers renders their detailed exami- 
 nation unnecessary at this point in the argument. 
 
 The agnostic would preclude the proof of theism by a scep- 
 tical theory of knowledge. A line of philosophers from Hume 
 to Huxley has sought to ignore the whole region of theism as 
 inaccessible to our faculties. Mr. Herbert Spencer at length 
 brought the tendency to a crisis by maintaining that the idea 
 of the God Absolute is logically inconceivable and the corre- 
 spondent reality a mere inscrutable force devoid of all personal 
 attributes. At the same time such sceptics resent the charge 
 of atheism and lay claim to a species of morality and reUgion, 
 based upon a feeling or apprehension of the Unknowable 
 Infinite. Without questioning their honesty, we need here 
 only refer to the fact that the negative truth of agnosticism 
 as maintained by thinkers like Hamilton is held by divines 
 like Mansel to be consistent with the positive truth of theism 
 and even of revealed theology. 
 
 There are two classes of theists that disparage the proof of 
 theism on logical grounds. According to one class, such 
 proof is inapplicable and superfluous. The existence of God 
 can neither be proved nor denied, but must simply be assumed 
 as an intuitive truth having the marks of spontaneity, necessity 
 and universality. Atheism as a theoretical conviction of the 
 understanding is impossible. It only appears as a practical 
 godlessness of the fool who saith in his heart, There is no 
 God. Against this view several objections may be urged : 
 First. If it be an intuitive truth, it may at least be ascertained 
 
CHAP. II.] Problem of Theism. 49 
 
 as such and become confirmed and illustrated. The primary 
 belief in the reality of an external world is thus excogitated 
 and defended against sceptical idealists. Second. The natural 
 cognition of God, at least in a full form, cannot claim the 
 three marks of an intuitive truth. It does not spring up in 
 all minds without reflection as an overpowering reality; it 
 is wanting in many savage tribes not otherwise deficient in 
 human faculties; and it is honestly doubted by some sane 
 intellects. Third. The vast accumulation of theistic arguments 
 in Pagan and Christian literature shows that mankind has not 
 ranked a belief in God with self-evident truths and mathe- 
 matical axioms. 
 
 On this account, another class of theists has been inclined 
 to treat the proof of theism as practically worthless. Their 
 contention is, that since it falls short of demonstration it cannot 
 carry conviction to all minds, but in some minds may only raise 
 doubts without solving them. Belief in God is not a product 
 of reasoning, but a moral sentiment or inspired impulse, like 
 virtue or love, which cannot be enforced by mere logic. There 
 are several answers to this objection. First. Although the 
 proof of theism be not demonstrative, yet demonstrative proof 
 can be claimed for scarcely any of our opinions, and is for- 
 bidden by the very nature of religious faith, which must always 
 imply more or less doubt. Were it otherwise, atheism could 
 not be sin or even folly, but mere imbecility or dementia. 
 Second. If unsophisticated believers do not need the proofs 
 of theism, yet speculative inquirers crave them for the satis- 
 faction of their own intellectual wants as well as to repel the 
 cavils of sceptics. Third. Whatever may be said of their prac- 
 tical value, they are at least logically important in a system 
 of theology founded upon natural theism and constructed out 
 of other related truths and doctrines. Fourth. They are, also, 
 philosophically important in that ultimate system of knowledge 
 which must be based upon a theory of revelation as well as of 
 cognition and embrace religious or metaphysical together with 
 empirical science in a rational harmony. It is in this latter 
 point of view, as an essential part of the logic of the sciences, 
 that we are here concerned with them, and shall now proceed 
 to examine them in detail. 
 
 Vol. in— 4 
 
50 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 It is usual to distinguish two kinds of sources of theistic 
 proofs; the a priori, derived from intuition and speculation, 
 and the a posteriori, derived from experience and observation. 
 The former by reason of their refined and subtle nature have 
 always had a fascination for contemplative spirits and gifted 
 intellects, enamored of the ideal and the perfect ; but have 
 seldom figured in serious controversy with atheists. They have 
 rather been discussed among theists themselves as in a sort 
 of spiritual tournament for the recreation of their own faith. 
 Theologians also sometimes use them in confirmation of plainer, 
 more practical proofs, and metaphysicians value them as pos- 
 tulates in their systems of thought. They merit attention here 
 not so much for their probative force as for their power of 
 logical definition in separating weak from strong arguments 
 and in affording the full conception together with the full 
 proof of God as the Supreme Reason of the world. Naturally, 
 they will fall into three groups, the ontological, the cosmo- 
 logical and the psychological, corresponding to the three chief 
 provinces of general metaphysics. They are often found mixed 
 together in the same argument; but it is desirable to treat 
 them as distinctly as possible. 
 
 The Ontological argument is based upon the idea of reality 
 and the relation of God to existence. It claims that God is 
 the essence of reality. He exists necessarily. We cannot 
 even conceive Him fully without assuming his existence. His 
 peculiar perfection is self-existence. Of all beings He alone 
 is absolute, infinite and eternal. Such reasoning might be 
 historically traced from its germs in Greek philosophy to its 
 full flower in modern thought. Plato thus argued for God 
 as the one perfect archetype, or ideal True and Good and Fair, 
 more real than any of his approximate images in the actual 
 world. Augustine, in the same spirit, held God to be that 
 one absolute truth of which in men we can find only dim 
 and broken reflections ; and declared that He exists more truly 
 than He is thought. Boethius from our knowledge of the 
 imperfect inferred the reality of God as absolute perfection. 
 At length Anselm, in his Proslogion, cast the reasoning into 
 syllogistic form, maintaining that our idea of God as a perfect 
 being includes his necessary existence as his most unique 
 
CHAP. II.] Problem of Theism. 51 
 
 perfection, and that we cannot even conceive of his non- 
 existence without a logical contradiction. After the Refor- 
 mation the argument was re-stated and enriched with new 
 features yielded by the new speculative thought of the time. 
 Descartes argued that the Anselmic idea of a Perfect Being 
 existent in thought not only requires his corresponding existence 
 in fact, but is involved in our consciousness of imperfection 
 and could only have been produced by a Perfect Being in 
 our minds. Spinoza with geometrical technicality elaborated 
 the conception of God as the one infinite substance of which 
 all finite existences are but modifications. Samuel Clarke, in 
 his Demonstration of the Divine Being, maintained that both 
 space and time must be necessary and infinite because not in- 
 conceivable and that they can only be conceived as predicates 
 of one infinite and necessary substance, the self-existent God. 
 Christian Wolf based his demonstrated theism upon the idea 
 of one absolute substance; and a line of German thinkers, 
 such as Schelling, Hegel, Baeder, Krause, from the same 
 postulate proceeded to unfold elaborate systems of theistic 
 ontology. 
 
 At the same time, the ontological reasoning has been eagerly 
 discussed at every stage of its development. On the one hand 
 is has been treated as a mere sophism or logical fallacy. The 
 Platonic proof was neglected by the schoolmen, as only a pro- 
 fane speculation. The argument of Anselm was assailed by his 
 contemporary, Gaunilo, who, in a treatise entitled "A Plea for 
 the Fool" (or Atheist), ridiculed it as of no more force than if 
 one should maintain the existence of a perfect island because he 
 could imagine such an island. Duns, Scotus, Occam, and after- 
 wards Leibnitz objected to the Anselmic and Cartesian proof 
 that it presupposes and assumes the feasibility of the Perfect 
 Being whose existence is to be proved. Locke as a materialist 
 held that the universal substance of Descartes and Spinoza 
 could only lead out to the eternity of matter rather than of 
 mind. Kant, in his critique of the Wolfian argument, sought 
 to render it not only inconsequent but self-contradictory by 
 maintaining that the mere subjective idea of an infinite and ab- 
 solute God cannot necessitate the fact of his objective exist- 
 ence, but is itself a negative generalization from the finite and 
 
52 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part r, 
 
 conditioned. Coleridge adopted the former part of this criti- 
 cism; and Hamilton and Mansel, pursuing the latter part of 
 it, argued that the very effort to frame such an idea of God, 
 though it may not affect his reality, transgresses the logical laws 
 of the understanding and whelms it in impotences of thought. 
 Reid, in like manner, had suggested that the ontological reason- 
 ings of the school of Clarke, though the speculations of men of 
 superior genius, may have been only the wanderings of imag- 
 ination beyond the limits of the human understanding. Brown, 
 with more boldness^ characterized them as relics of the mere 
 verbal logic of the schools, and as absolutely void of force ex- 
 cept for their tacit assumption of the physical argument, with- 
 out which they would have led us to doubt rather than to be- 
 lieve the existence of a God; even Chalmers, always unwilling 
 to support a good cause with weak arguments, maintained that 
 Clarke had confounded a logical with a physical necessity of 
 existence and failed to prove his main thesis of the non-eternity 
 of matter. And Thomson, in his Burnet essay, declared that 
 one must have been equal with God to possess an a priori 
 demonstration of his necessary existence. Some American 
 divines, like Edwards, Hodge, Strong and Bowne, view the 
 ontological argument as more specious than valid and in 
 practice of little force or value. 
 
 On the other side, it has been sometimes claimed as a truism 
 or logical demonstration. Anselm himself so stated it in syllo- 
 gistic form and pleasantly replied to his friend Gaunilo, that 
 the idea of an island does not, like the idea of God, include 
 the elements of absolute perfection and necessary existence, 
 and that if he could conceive of an island involving such ele- 
 ments he would make him a present of it. Aquinas added the 
 Augustinian to the Anselmic proof. After the Reformation 
 Herbert of Cherbury revived the Platonic proof in support of 
 his mystical deism. The Cambridge Platonists blended it with 
 the Cartesian proof. Cudworth argued not only that all finite 
 minds and truths are but ectypal reflections of one archetypal 
 Mind and Truth, but that the idea of such a perfect being could 
 never have been feigned by politicians, poets or philosophers 
 and must only have been produced by that divine logos who en- 
 lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Stilling- 
 
CHAP. II.] Problem of Theism. 53 
 
 fleet added that the clearness of the idea in conception is one of 
 the strongest evidences of its reahty. Howe approved it as a 
 strict demonstration. The Cartesian proof also with variations 
 figured in the works of Malebranche, Fenelon and Bossuet. 
 The logical consistency of the divine perfections was claimed 
 by Mendelsohn as proof of their reality. The more positive 
 argument of Samuel Clarke was widely accepted and defended 
 among English and Scottish theists. Newton evidently agreed 
 with it, as in one of his scholia, he formally stated that God is 
 not eternity and infinity but eternal and infinite, not duration 
 or space but endures and is present, and by existing always 
 and everywhere constitutes time and space, eternity and infinity. 
 Wollaston, in his Religion of Nature, argued ingeniously that 
 matter cannot, like God, be eternally self-existent, since it is 
 more or less restrained in space and time. Richard Fiddes, in 
 his Speculative Theology, argued that all actual existence 
 implies God as a necessary existence. Moses Lowman, in his 
 Argument for the Perfection of God A Priori, maintained 
 that necessary existence by its very definition cannot but be 
 actual existence, always and everywhere, and therefore can 
 only belong to the one absolute and eternal God. Dean Hamil- 
 ton attempted to demonstrate the existence of one Supreme 
 Unoriginated Being whose non-existence is impossible because 
 not contingent and all whose attributes are eternal and immu- 
 table. In our own time, Gillespie, in his Argument A Priori, 
 has maintained the premises of Clarke, that infinite space and 
 time, as necessarily existent, imply the necessary existence of 
 an infinite and eternal Being. As to the Hegelian proof of 
 absolute deity it need only be said that it has been used in 
 support of the strictest theism by German thinkers, like the 
 younger Fichte, Ulrici and Weisse. Dorner rated it with the 
 highest proof, averring that an absolute Being cannot but be 
 thought as existent and potential with all being and thought. 
 Cousin blended it with the Cartesian proof by arguing that 
 the finite reason must be correlate with an Infinite Reason, as 
 a positive and objective reality. Among American divines, 
 Buel and Winchel have favorably stated the different onto- 
 logical arguments, whilst Shedd has not only vindicated 
 the Anselmic proof clearly and strongly, but declared it to 
 
54 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 be of uncommon importance in the present age of materialism 
 and physical science. 
 
 Between the extremes are the devout thinkers who have 
 sought more carefully to sift the truth from the error of the 
 reasoning. Dugald Stewart very justly observed that the sub- 
 lime conceptions of immensity, eternity, and necessary existence 
 as set forth in the ontological argument may at least yield 
 an earnest of our immortality and animate us in the pursuit 
 of wisdom and virtue by affording us the prospect of an 
 indefinite progression. Chalmers, mediating between the mod- 
 esty of Reid and the rashness of Brown, whilst depreciating 
 the transcendental generalities of the argument, still recom- 
 mended it as at least worthy of study and having for a certain 
 class of minds the force of conviction. Bishop Littlejohn, 
 without claiming for it the effect of demonstration, suggests 
 that it establishes the antecedent probability of other and 
 less pretentious lines of reasoning, that it shows at least the 
 tendency of human thought towards God ; and presents the 
 idea of God as consistent with the loftiest exercise of reason. 
 Professor Flint has forcibly shown that the a priori reasoning 
 not only has logical validity, but in its essence leaves to the 
 Atheist the only alternative of absolute scepticism. Lotze, 
 without admitting that such proof of a God is a strictly logical 
 deduction of the intellect, maintains that it must ever carry 
 with it a spontaneous feeling or apprehension of his irre- 
 sistible reality. As the result of the whole discussion we 
 now have before us the fact that all parties of thinkers, atheists 
 as well as theists, unite in admitting the existence of some abso- 
 lute and infinite Being, however widely they may differ as to 
 the essential properties of such a Being. 
 
 The Cosmological or Etiological argument is based upon 
 the intuition of causality and the relation of God to the world. 
 It claims that God is the First Cause of the universe. As 
 alone self-existent he must be the source and ground of all 
 other existence. The world, as an effect or event, can only 
 find in him its efficient cause and sufficient reason. Such 
 argumentation in a crude form is of ancient date. Some of 
 the early Greek cosmologists speculated upon the universe 
 as ever changing, transient and contingent. Aristotle may 
 
CHAP. II.] Problem of Theism. 55 
 
 be styled the founder of the cosmological argument. Among 
 the fathers Diodorus of Tarsus argued that the world as 
 variable and mutable must have had one original immutable 
 cause. John of Damascus formulated the reasoning, drew the 
 distinction between the created and uncreated and from the 
 ever varying creation inferred the one unchangeable Creator. 
 Hugh of St. Victor reasoned that the soul must have been 
 created ; could not have been created out of matter, but out 
 of nothing; and must have been created by an independent 
 and eternal Creator. Thomas Aquinas included in the cosmo- 
 logical argument the Aristotelian notion of a Prime Mover, 
 the idea of an efficient First Cause, and that of its intrinsic 
 necessity or independence of the world. After the Refor- 
 mation the reasoning acquired new and more speculative 
 features. The school of Descartes indulged in cosmical specu- 
 lation on the assumption of Deity as a first cause ever operating 
 through all secondary and occasional causes by sustaining or 
 concurring with them. Leibnitz and Wolff enhanced the rea- 
 soning with the idea of a sufficient cause or adequate reason 
 such as can only be found in God as a necessarily existent 
 being, the one absolute and eternal ground of the whole chang- 
 ing universe. The causal argument was a favorite with the 
 early English physicists and natural theologians. According 
 to Bacon God is the highest cause of all second causes, as 
 the chain of nature was tied to Jupiter's chair. Newton, 
 Wollaston, Grew, Charnock, Foster, Boyle, Locke, argued that 
 the entire series of contingent causes without an independent 
 First Cause would be without rational support and consistency, 
 as Sterling has said, like a stark serpent hanging by a hook 
 in the dark. The Scottish thinkers and divines reinforced 
 the argument for a First Cause of the world with the ideas 
 of efficiency, potency, originating force, creative energy ; and 
 such reasoning ever since has figured largely in the natural 
 philosophy and theology of our time. 
 
 During the latter part of its history the cosmological proof 
 has been keenly criticised, chiefly on metaphysical ground. 
 At the head of its assailants was David Hume, who objected 
 first, that it is a mere begging of the question, the contingency 
 of the world being the very thing to be proved; second, that 
 
56 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part r. 
 
 its axiom of causation is only observed sequence, since for 
 anything we could tell a priori the fall of an apple might 
 extinguish the sun or the wish of a man control the planets; 
 third, that if the world be due to a series of efficient causes, 
 they simply produce one another, and it would be absurd to 
 demand any other efficiency of a supposed First Cause ; fourth, 
 that the material universe itself may be the eternal and neces- 
 sarily existent being which is demanded for the argument. 
 After Hume, and stimulated by him, came '' the all-demolish- 
 ing " Kant, who maintained that the cosmological proof is 
 only a masked form of the ontological, since it reasons from 
 the vague idea of general existence as contingent to that of 
 necessary existence, and from the mere idea of necessary exist- 
 ence to that of an absolutely real and perfect Being; second, 
 that the causal judgment is a purely subjective process in the 
 mind with no basis in the objective world of phenomena; 
 third, that the alleged impossibility of an infinite series of 
 contingent causes is a pure assumption easily met by the denial 
 of the alleged necessary first cause of the series ; in a word, 
 that the entire reasoning is a mere nest of dialectical assump- 
 tions, inconsistent with the Kantian idealism. Following Ham- 
 ilton as he followed Kant, Herbert Spencer (and John Fiske) 
 has admitted the reality of a First Cause only to pronounce it 
 logically unthinkable. This criticism of Hume and Kant has 
 been resumed and carried farther on physical as well as meta- 
 physical grounds. The younger Mill has objected that the 
 cosmological argument though largely metaphysical can only 
 be a conclusion from experience ; that experience suggests 
 an infinite series of causes as more probable than a first cause ; 
 that science has disclosed permanent as well as changeable 
 elements in nature, such as indestructible matter, continuous 
 motion, persistent force which may be eternal and uncreated, 
 and consequently that no first cause is needed for a world 
 which has no beginning. The Rev. Stanley Gibson, in his 
 Religion and Science, seems to have conceded to such critics 
 that the material universe with all its store of energy may 
 be infinite or if finite may involve a reconcentration of its 
 diffused energy, and in either case its present condition may 
 have been produced by unknown natural forces and laws, 
 
CHAP. II.] Problem of Theism. 57 
 
 operating- through an indefinite past. Professor Wundt has 
 argued against the theory of a hmitation or creation of the 
 universe that it would interfere with the scientific principle 
 of physical causation and make room for the miraculous as 
 well as anomalous. Indeed, many physicists with more or 
 less avowed atheism, have abandoned the idea that the world 
 is contingent and represent the universe as eternal, though 
 subject to endless evolutions and dissolutions in its history. 
 
 The cosmological argument has been defended on the same 
 grounds where it was assailed. The metaphysical objections 
 of Hume and Kant have been met by Reid, Stewart, Calder- 
 wood and McCosh, who maintained that efficient causation is 
 based upon intuition as well as observation ; that an infinite 
 regress of second causes with no all-powerful First Cause im- 
 parting to them efficiency would hang the world upon nothing 
 by a rope of sand; and that the alleged contradictions in the 
 conception of such an absolute First Cause are the mere 
 fictions of a false idealism. Dr. Sterling, in his Gifford Lec- 
 tures against the Kantian criticism, vigorously maintains that 
 the ideas as well as the facts in the cosmological argument 
 are independent of the ontological argument and combine to 
 render the contingent universe a mere footstool to the absolute 
 necessity of God. Dr. Row also enforces the reasoning from 
 a premise of Herbert Spencer that the assumption of a First 
 Cause of the Universe is a necessity of thought. Among 
 American divines Prof. Diman has forcibly argued against 
 Hume and Mill that all changes imply causal agency as well 
 as observed coincidence and demand an efficient First Cause 
 of the otherwise baseless and disconnected phenomena of 
 nature. Dr. Shedd defends the argument on the ground that 
 every finite object implies original non-existence and therefore 
 creative power in the cause of the whole finite universe. Dr. 
 Mahan, in his Natural Theology, has maintained that the 
 order and arrangement of nature, having hud a beginning in 
 time, imply a cause thereof which is out of nature and above 
 nature as well as adequate to produce nature together with all 
 its order and arrangement. Dr. Charles Hodge has assailed 
 the sceptical principles of Hume, Brown and Mill ; maintained 
 the axiom of causation to be as self-evident as personal identity 
 
58 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 or any external reality ; and from the contingency of the world 
 as geologically and historically proved to be an effect in time, 
 has inferred an extra mundane First Cause. In like manner 
 the physical objections to the cosmological argument have 
 been met on their own ground and with their own weapons. 
 The recent doctrines of matter and force as held by Clerk 
 Maxwell, Thomson and Reid, have been used against Stuart 
 Mill, Tyndall and Wundt, to prove that the visible and tem- 
 poral universe must have an invisible and eternal cause as 
 the source of all its stores of varied energy. Flint, though 
 content to leave the argument on its metaphysical premises, 
 reasons from the molecules as manufactured articles, from the 
 vortex rings as impelled atoms, and from spent energies as 
 once potential, in short from all nature as a transient effect, 
 to the necessity of one omnipotent, self-existent, extra mundane 
 cause. Dr. Archibald Hodge, in like manner, cites the same 
 physicists to prove that the material universe cannot be eternal 
 and self-existent and holds that even the primeval fire-mist 
 of the evolutionist logically requires for itself an adequate 
 pre-existing cause. Indeed, the mass of theologians still main- 
 tain that a Creative Cause, if not inconsistent with evolution, 
 is at least an antecedent necessity to it, as well as to the 
 universe of which it is predicated. 
 
 The grains of truth in the cosmological argument have 
 been carefully sought for by a few discriminating thinkers. 
 Chalmers, in his Natural Theology, warily bringing the Scotch 
 verdict of not proven, maintained that if the matter of the 
 world be eternal the order of the world is temporal, thus 
 requiring a Fashioner of the latter and therefore a Creator 
 of the former. Dorner considered the argument inconclusive 
 as applied externally to the relation of God to the world, but 
 valuable as applied internally to the relation of the world to 
 God who originates and produces the world within the sphere 
 of his own activity. Dr. Martineau, in his Study of Religion, 
 after metaphysically defending causality in God as universal 
 and omnipotent, maintains not only his total immanence in the 
 universe, but also his partial transcendence as being capable 
 of producing an infinite variety of other universes. Flint 
 also holds that the First Cause must be not only in and 
 
CHAP. II.] Problem of Theism. 59 
 
 all through the universe, but also out of, anterior to, and 
 above the universe. Prof. Bowne, in his Philosophy of Theism, 
 though far from claiming the cosmological argument as demon- 
 strative, takes a causative world-ground to be the universal 
 postulate which cannot be denied without undermining all 
 reality in man as well as nature. Prof. Schurman, in his 
 Wakely lectures at Andover, carefully rejects the creational 
 form of argument, but retains for its kernel the idea of an 
 eternal dependence of the world upon God as its intra mundane 
 cause in distinction from the popular conception of an extra 
 mundane Creator. Without citing more authorities we may 
 now conclude that deists and pantheists, atheists and theists, 
 can agree that there is some one eternal cause of the world, 
 however much they may differ as to the proper attributes of 
 such a Cause. 
 
 The Psychological proof, sometimes called Anthropological, 
 is based upon the intuition of personality and the relation of 
 God to the soul. It presents God as the one absolute person, 
 the source and ground of the human spirit, the necessary 
 complement of our finite reason, will and consciousness, the 
 embodiment of all mental and moral excellence. Man at his 
 best and highest estate is but the shadow, the image, the 
 epitome of God. We may sooner doubt our own existence 
 than doubt his existence. Such reasoning has its roots deep 
 down in human nature, as well as far back in human history, 
 though its full flower has appeared only in the later meta- 
 physical thought of our time. Springing from a spontaneous 
 tendency to personify external objects, it has struggled upward 
 from the grossest fetichism of savage tribes to the refined 
 anthropomorphism of philosophers and divines. The ancient 
 polytheism was but a varied personification of human powers 
 and passions which for ages had the form of actual personality. 
 Xenophanes said, that if the animals could think they would 
 conceive a deity in their own likeness ; and it would seem that 
 the gods and goddesses of the Greeks and Romans could not 
 have been thought less real to them than their own virtues 
 and vices. Even the Epicureans depicted the gods in human 
 forms though without human relations ; and while the Stoics 
 represented deity as the universal force and reason, yet they 
 
6o Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 arrayed him in an ethereal robe of humanity. After the purer 
 conceptions of Christian theology became prevalent, theistic 
 proofs and illustrations were still drawn from a crude psy- 
 chology by Melito of Sardes, who wrote a treatise on the Body 
 of Deity; by Tertullian, who held to a refined corporeity of 
 God as well as man ; and by Audaeus, who found a divine 
 image in the human frame. Among the schoolmen some of 
 the higher psychological arguments were derived by Hugo 
 St. Victor from the spiritual nature of man ; by Abelard from 
 the monitions of conscience ; and by Raimund, from the moral 
 necessity for a Supreme Judge of human actions. Since the 
 Reformation the reasoning has been enriched by the growth 
 of psychologic science. The English physicists and divines, 
 who have already been noticed, attributed psychical volition 
 as well as mechanical energy to the First Cause and deduced 
 all the other divine attributes both mental and moral as corol- 
 laries of the ontological proof. By the German thinkers a 
 basis for theism has been sought in the ideals of an absolute 
 Ego or infinite Mind or primordial Will or supreme Reason, 
 which have not only been treated as metaphysic entities, but 
 maintained as divine realities, having their reflection in our 
 own reason, will and consciousness. In this manner the con- 
 ception of God as an infinite and absolute person has at length 
 been reached as the very goal of speculative thought. 
 
 Like the other arguments the Anthropological has been 
 keenly discussed, especially during its recent history. By its 
 assailants the whole theistic conception has been gradually 
 stripped of every element of personality. Kant, as a meta- 
 physician, challenged Natural theologians to name a divine 
 attribute which is anything but a name, apart from anthro- 
 pomorphism. Comte, who led the assault in the name of 
 physical science, simply ignored a personal God as a mere 
 anthropomorphic fetich or myth and even rejected the notion 
 of a First Cause as a metaphysic fiction. Herbert Spencer, 
 whilst assuming a First Cause, argued from the premises of 
 Hamilton that its infinity and absoluteness are inconsistent with 
 the limitations of personality. And John Fiske, in his Cosmic 
 Theism combining the reasonings of Comte and Spencer, 
 claims that the deanthropomorphizing process of science has 
 
CHAP. II.] Problem of Theism. 6i 
 
 left us the conception of God only as an absolute Being or 
 Persistent Force devoid of anything like human volition or 
 consciousness. " Physicus," in his Candid Examination of 
 Theism, argues that the First Cause cannot be volitional, but 
 must be mechanical, since our notion of volition is derived 
 from muscular energy, which is only a form of physical force. 
 Among German metaphysicians in the schools of Kant and 
 Hegel, Schopenhauer has maintained that the Absolute will 
 is mere irrational force, and von Hartmann has associated 
 it with mere unconscious reason. Dr. Paul Carus, in the 
 Open Court, ingeniously describes the Infinite as a mere 
 mathematical abstraction or material quality, which has no 
 religious significance, and cannot be attributed to a personal 
 God, conceived as an individual being, or great world-ego 
 swayed by interests and passions in the government of the 
 universe, like a powerful monarch. Many other thinkers of 
 the present day might be cited as showing the same subtle 
 tendency to retain the personal names of Deity, whilst depriv- 
 ing him of all personal attributes or resolving them into mere 
 psychical illusions. Their view is expressed by Barret in his 
 Physical Ethics, when he stigmatizes the anthropomorphic 
 theism as worse than the idolatry of wood and stone since it 
 is the worshipping of a mere creation of our own minds as 
 if it were the creator. 
 
 At the same time, however, the argument has been main- 
 tained by its defenders on the very grounds where it is assailed. 
 We confess, said Jacobi, to an anthropomorphism inseparable 
 from the conviction that man bears the image of God; and 
 maintain that besides, this anthropomorphism, which has 
 always been called Theism, is nothing but atheism or fetichism. 
 As we have seen on previous pages, the so-called religion of 
 humanity devised by Comte may be viewed as itself but a 
 caricature of the true anthropomorphism. From the same 
 Hamiltonian premises taken by Spencer it was argued by 
 Mansel that it is our duty to think of God as a person, while 
 inconsistently believing Him to be infinite; and by Alexander 
 Hodge that we may positively know God to be infinite, though 
 we can only conceive his personality as indefinitely great. 
 Against the deanthropomorphizing process of science alleged 
 
62 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 by Fiske, it has been urged by Cocker, Diman and Schurman 
 that its votaries are still personifying nature as God and 
 reasoning back to a potential First Cause which is but a 
 disguised form of an old theistic argument. If our idea of 
 a volitional First Cause be derived from that of our own 
 physical or muscular energy, Dr. Row replies that it also 
 carries with it the inseparable idea of a permanent self or 
 conscious personality in every act of origination. While some 
 German metaphysicians have been treating the absolute will 
 and reason of the world as mere impersonal entities, others 
 like Schelling and Krause from the same premises have vir- 
 tually anthropomorphized the universe itself as an Absolute 
 Ego of whom they have evidence by direct intuition, or 
 through the very process of self-consciousness or in the com- 
 monest acts of cognition. Nor have the speculations of 
 monists and agnostics availed to refine away this divine idea 
 into a mere human idol of the popular theology. It lives in 
 practical connection with the most daring anthropopathy. 
 Many divines and Old Testament preachers of the day, though 
 defining God as infinite and absolute in all his perfections, still 
 attribute to Him mere human passions and frailties and at 
 times seem to depict Him as little more than an absolute 
 monster of anger, jealousy and cruelty. 
 
 From both extremes of absurdity, the argument has been 
 rescued by the judicious theists who carefully sifted its truth 
 from its error. Dr. Charles Hodge, whilst admitting with 
 Mansel that anthropomorphism is the indispensable condition 
 of all human theology, still maintains that it is as true in 
 philosophy as in divinity; because the anthropomorphizing 
 tendency is original and universal in fetichism and polytheism 
 as well as monotheism; because the reality of a personal God 
 is as much required by the veracity of consciousness as the 
 reality of an external world ; because we are constitutionally 
 forced to attribute to Him personality as well as infinity, and 
 psychical as well as mere physical perfections; and because 
 we everywhere read his personality in the works of nature 
 as well as in the words of Scripture. Professor Flint guards 
 the anthropomorphic principle by showing that man is the 
 image, but not the measure of God, since man is like God in 
 
CHAP. II.] Problem of Theism. 63 
 
 the kind of attributes which are possessed but unHke in the 
 degree in which they are possessed ; and since his utmost 
 knowledge of God must ever fall short of a full comprehension. 
 As to our apprehension of God as an infinite and absolute 
 power Professor Calderwood takes the ground taken in these 
 volumes, that our conception of his personality, though inade- 
 quate, involves no contradictions, and our cognition of Him, 
 though partial, is real as far as it extends. Such theism is very 
 ably protected on its pantheistic side by Professor J. McBride 
 Sterret in his " Study of Hegel," on the assumption of a self- 
 conscious Absolute person before the world-process, in whom 
 nature and man appear, not as discordant and irreconcilable 
 with God, but as forming one organic whole without losing 
 their relative dependent reality. On the deistical side, Lotze 
 has argued that the divine personality, unlike the human, is 
 not subject to the limitations of a non-ego and does not need 
 the contact and stimulus of the cosmic whole of which it is 
 a part; but is ever self-sufficing and self-knowing. Dorner 
 also represents the Absolute Being as Absolute Life, at once 
 factor and product in the universe. Accepting the ultimate 
 generalizations of the physicist, Dr. Martineau reasons meta- 
 physically that the first psychological source of theism is the 
 recognition of a living Will as the cause of all phenomena, 
 and that to that psychical Will must be ascribed the physical 
 unity and wisdom of universal nature. Professor Schurman 
 argues that such intelligent and voHtional Being would account 
 for the phenomena of the material rather than the moral world, 
 and predicts that the cosmic theism of secular science will yet 
 coalesce with the anthropic ideals of Judaism and Christianity 
 in a new anthropocosmic theism exhibiting God as at once 
 spirit and love. Upon such grounds. Professor Purinton, 
 in his Christian Theism, maintains that without personality 
 God would be inferior to man, however mighty his cosmical 
 power may be; and as the human reason calls for a Perfect 
 Reason, and the human conscience for a Perfect Righteous- 
 ness, so the human heart calls for a Perfect Love. Indeed, 
 it would not be difficult to show that the Christian ideal of 
 divine philanthropy in the redemption of mankind fills up 
 our highest conception of an infinite and absolute Being, whose 
 
64 Scientific Probletns of Religion. [part i. 
 
 love, like his power and wisdom, is devoid of all human limi- 
 tations, infirmities and passions. But without anticipating later 
 arguments, we may here conclude that the most opposite 
 schools of thought, deistical and pantheistical, even atheistical 
 and theistical, can unite in recognizing through and beyond 
 the human consciousness an Absolute Will or Reason, to be 
 treated either as a mere personification or as a true personality. 
 If now we bring together the three classes of a priori proofs 
 we shall find that their strength is in their union. Take 
 each of them by itself, and it will seem weak and inconclusive. 
 The ontological argument alone will yield only the empty 
 notion of an infinite Being without causal relation to the world 
 and without personal relation to man. [The cosmological 
 argument alone will prove the existence of a single eternal 
 cause, whatever may be the attributes of that cause. The 
 psychological argument concludes that the single Absolute 
 Will is either a personality or at least a personification. — Ed.] 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MIRACULOUS EVIDENCE. THE MYTHICAL 
 THEORY OF REVEALED RELIGION, 
 
 When Injfidelity denounced Christianity as an imposture, 
 neither her philosophic probability nor her historic credibihty 
 was seriously invaded. Such an hypothesis was inconsistent 
 both with Reason and with Fact. When it attempted to strip 
 away from her the seal of miracles, her historic credibility 
 alone was invaded, but the structure was left still reposing 
 upon a philosophic basis. The problem remained how that 
 which was so true in philosophy should yet be so false in 
 history. And to have solved this problem by a subtle compro- 
 mise seems to be the peculiar boast of our modern metaphysical 
 era. That compromise is, no longer to deny that anything 
 has happened, but in the glare of modern science to reveal 
 what could not have happened and to throw uncertainty over 
 what may have happened. In other words, the contention is, 
 that there is in the sacred narratives an historic portion, that 
 there is also a non-historic portion, and that, taken together, 
 they form a mythic medley of incidental facts and popular 
 legends. The voice of Infidelity now is, not that Christianity 
 is a fabrication (that would outrage all history), not that 
 she is a true history (that would outrage philosophy), but 
 (the sole remaining hypothesis) that she is only a gorgeous 
 mythology, descending to us from the twilight eras of time, 
 and gathering around it in its solemn progress through the 
 ages her group of gray-haired shepherds, her priests and kings 
 and prophets, her Messiah and Apostles. The Infidelity of 
 Voltaire and of Hume stood aside from Christianity — the one, 
 
 from the seat of the scorner, reviling her; the other, from 
 Vol. in— 5 g- 
 
66 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 the imagined height of Philosophy, gracefully compassionating 
 her. The Infidelity of Strauss would fain stand at her very 
 altars, in the garb of a modern Plato whose insight has reached 
 beyond existing superstitions and fables to an airy and 
 thoughtful system of which they are but the gross and vulgar 
 expression. When the two former assailed us, the one with 
 its scoffs, and the other with its subtleties, we could lay our 
 hand upon the open Bible and feel safe, returning only grief 
 and pity. But when the latter would banish that book to the 
 upper shelf with Hesiod and Homer and lead us back into 
 the peopled gloom of antiquity, so twining the horrid visage 
 of error with an alarming semblance of truth that for the 
 time we are at a loss to distinguish our Jehovah from a 
 Hebrew Jupiter, our Moses from a Hebrew Solon, our Jesus 
 from a Jewish Socrates, it is hard to say whether indignation 
 or dismay is the predominant feeling. 
 
 Subtle Dangers of the Mythical Theory. 
 
 It would, perhaps, be difficult to exaggerate the dangers 
 which are to be apprehended from this latest form of Infidelity. 
 One of them, appearing at first sight, is its logical consistency. 
 Unlike the illogical systems which have preceded it, it is 
 based upon a philosophy which is legitimately consequent in all 
 its conclusions, and which seems to conduct to the inevitable 
 results of all true metaphysics. Accordingly, we do not find 
 in the work of Strauss any of that partiality and inconsequence 
 and confusion of a man who scarcely knows what he believes, 
 but is blindly struggling against what he is unwilling to believe, 
 but there is everywhere that calm, unostentatious consciousness 
 of power, that high philosophic candor and confidence, belong- 
 ing to one who has swept the whole field of conjecture and 
 settled his conditions of belief beyond recall. 
 
 Another source of apprehension is to be seen in the appalling 
 analogies which it so cunningly detects between Christianity 
 and the contemporary mythologies. It has ever been the 
 main effort of infidelity to confound her with the false systems 
 of religion that have prevailed in the world — and no species 
 of error is so formidable as that which appears as a counterfeit 
 of truth, for " the similarity," to quote another distinguished 
 
CHAP. III.] The Miraculous Evidence. 6y 
 
 German, " is that caricature resemblance the ape bears to 
 man and which has led so many naturalists into error — a 
 resemblance founded upon no real affinity, upon no internal 
 sympathy of organic conformation, but which is merely the 
 likeness of a spiteful parody, such as we may suppose an 
 evil spirit to have devised to mock the image of God, the 
 masterpiece of creation." But the chief cause of alarm is to 
 be found in the fascinating scientific garb in which it descends 
 from the heights of learning, masking its latent hostility under 
 honest pretensions and even under a Christian name. It offers 
 such a ready solution of the internal difficulties that perplex 
 even the believer, and would bridge over by such an airy and 
 graceful structure that painful chasm which has been so long 
 widening between the disclosures of modern Science and the 
 simple revelations of the ancient Book which contains our 
 faith. It does not, therefore, professedly aim at the entire 
 demolition of Christianity as an objective system of belief and 
 practice, as a public religion for the State, a gospel for the 
 pulpit and the cottage. It would considerately leave the his- 
 toric and miraculous Jesus to the people — perhaps they need 
 such — but the true and proper Christianity it would reserve 
 in the form of a certain Esoteric System of Doctrine for 
 philosophers. 
 
 Origin of the Mythical Theory. 
 The mythical theory of interpretation primarily owes its 
 origin to the prevailing philosophy in Germany. When that 
 philosophy had become widely diffused and developed itself 
 in its true character, it became necessary either to avow some 
 sort of coincidence with real Christianity, or to deny historical 
 Christianity altogether. That division of the school who 
 expressed their infidel sentiments undisguisedly both by pro- 
 fession and conduct could have resort to the latter expedient. 
 That section, however, who are more moral in their conduct 
 and who couched their belief under a refined and abstruse 
 phraseology could combine both expedients, resolving the gos- 
 pel narratives into mere historical or symbolical envelopes of the 
 ideas of their own peculiar system. In this exigency neither 
 of the two existing methods of interpretation could serve them. 
 
68 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 On the one hand was that of the orthodox, or Supernaturalists, 
 those who explained the sacred writings Hterally, admitting 
 both inspiration and miracles. This plainly controverted not 
 only their philosophy but also the discoveries of science. On 
 the other hand was that of the Rationalists or Naturalists, those 
 who though they denied miracles and inspiration, yet attempted 
 by the most ingenious exegetical devices to accommodate 
 Scripture to the discoveries of science in order to preserve 
 the historic form. This involved too many evident absurdities 
 to afiford a permanent ground of conviction. The mythical 
 method of explication was all that was left — that which would 
 sacrifice the historic form in order to preserve absolute truth. 
 This system had already been to some extent in application. 
 At first only the primitive history of the Hebrews was aban- 
 doned as mythic, that being deemed a just and valuable conces- 
 sion to all antiquity, sacred and profane. Gradually the mythic 
 element was admitted into the whole Old Testament in order, 
 as it was thought, to enhance the dignity and value of the 
 New. In like manner by successive concessions the Gospels 
 suffered a similar process of mutilation. At first only the 
 youth and infancy of Jesus were admitted to be legendary. 
 The narratives of that period of his history, it was maintained, 
 could not have been written contemporaneously, as He had 
 not then excited sufficient attention, neither could they have 
 been written during the later portion of His history, as they 
 plainly have in view Christ not as suffering and struggling 
 but as glorified. They were therefore composed after the 
 resurrection; but at that period their author could have no 
 resource but tradition which was colored by the Messianic 
 fictions generally prevalent. In making this concession, the 
 historical integrity of the narratives relating to Christ's public 
 life was intended to be left unmolested, and that portion 
 continued to be interpreted according to the principles of the 
 Naturalists. Soon, however, the conclusion of the history suf- 
 fered encroachment for like reasons, and the Ascension into 
 heaven was granted to be fabulous, the interval between the 
 Baptism and Resurrection alone being declared of true historic 
 worth. Thus, as expressed by one critic, " men entered into the 
 history of the Evangelists by the triumphal arch of the myth, 
 
CHAP. III.] The Miraculous Evidence. 69 
 
 and went out by a like door, but for all the intermediate space 
 they were compelled to content themselves with the crooked and 
 hard road of the Natural Explication." When we consider 
 v/hat that Natural Explication was, which was applied to the 
 uninvaded portion, with what ineffective ingenuity it labored 
 to resolve miracles and apparitions of angels, and demoniacal 
 possessions, etc., into mere natural phenomena superstitiously 
 misinterpreted by the wonder-loving populace, it would seem 
 that Strauss only perfected the incomplete work of his prede- 
 cessors when he made that declaration, so welcome to all 
 expectant Germany, that Christianity is mythology. He claims 
 the admission of the mythic element into the whole of the 
 Gospel history — and his critique of the life of Jesus is an in- 
 genious effort to separate the non-historic portion and detect 
 the various forms which it has assumed. The plan of his work 
 is first to vindicate the possibility of myths in the New Testa- 
 ment from extrinsic and intrinsic sources; then to state the 
 distinctive characters of the myth and directions for detecting 
 it ; and then to apply these to the special incidents recorded in 
 the life of Christ, aiming against the Orthodox interpretation 
 on the one hand by a laborious compilation of all the internal 
 critical objections, and against the Naturalist on the other by 
 an ingenious exposure of the hollowness of their artifices. We 
 shall endeavor to give a sketch of his theory, a statement of its 
 defences, and some of the methods of refutation — premising 
 that it will be necessary to use language sometimes more novel 
 than reverent. 
 
 Definition of the Myth. 
 
 The myth is variously defined, and distinguishable into 
 various sorts. It is not to be confounded with voluntary and 
 fraudulent fiction. All idea of premeditation or invention is 
 to be excluded from the process of its formation, as it is the 
 gradual production, not of an individual, but of entire societies 
 and of successive generations, or if it be the conception and ex- 
 pression of an individual he is only the interpreter of a far more 
 general popular conception, and acts in obedience to vast na- 
 tional impulses that have long moved and are moving simul- 
 taneously upon all. That such fables should have been believed 
 
70 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 in ancient times seems strange to us only because the faculty 
 of producing them has nothing analogous to it in modern 
 intelligence. With regard to the different kinds of myths, 
 they are said to be such as involve the exposition of a fact, 
 or of an idea under the historic form. When the basis of 
 a narrative is fact, /. e.^ real events embellished and colored 
 by prevailing opinions with regard to the divine and super- 
 natural, it is called historic mythos ; when the basis is a simple 
 thought or a novel idea it is philosophic mythos — the latter 
 is the invention of a fact by the aid of an idea, the former is 
 the intuition of an idea in a fact and by the aid of a fact. 
 The Grecian Hercules and the Hebrew Samson may have had 
 their origin in some real character, and may therefore be 
 considered historic myths. The apparitions of the pagan 
 mythology and those which occur in biblical history are classed 
 as philosophic myths. These two species of myth are often 
 complicated together so as almost to elude analysis — as, for 
 example, the account of the transfiguration, the historical 
 substance of which was the extraordinary impression made 
 by Jesus upon his contemporaries and upon the following 
 generations ; and the philosophic portion of which was that the 
 Messiah was expected to resemble Moses and Eli, and as a 
 consequence the illumination of his face — an expectation 
 which in his time had its cause in the writings partly mythic 
 and partly historic of the Old Testament. 
 
 Negative Characters of the Myth. 
 
 A brief summary of the directions which are given by 
 Strauss for discriminating between the ideal and historical 
 element will aid our conceptions. The myth, then, has a 
 negative and a positive character, (i) It is not history, (2) 
 it is fiction, a product of the intellectual tendency of a certain 
 society. It is not history when the events related are incom- 
 patible with the known universal laws which regulate the 
 order of events. Of these laws several may be mentioned. 
 One is that it is held to be inconsistent with all just philo- 
 sophical ideas and all experience worthy of faith that the 
 Absolute Cause should interfere with second causes ; all celes- 
 tial voices, all divine apparitions, human miracles or prophecies, 
 
CHAP, III.] The Miraculous Evidence. yi 
 
 or acts of angels or demons are to be deemed as violation 
 of this and therefore fabulous. A second law is that there 
 should be some natural order of development in the succession 
 of events narrated. The sudden transition of the partisans 
 of a great man, after his death, from the most profound 
 discouragement to the most lively enthusiasm is cited as a 
 violation of this. A third law is that the psychological features 
 of men then were identical with those of men now — they 
 could not have felt, thought, and acted in any other way than 
 we ordinarily think, feel, and act. The bargain of the Sanhe- 
 drin Jew with the guard at the tomb whom he knew to be 
 faithless, or the incapacity of the human memory to retain 
 and reproduce discourses such as those in the Gospel of John, 
 are ranged in this category. These last two laws, however, 
 Strauss observes, are to be used prudently, as subordinate to 
 the first only and conjointly with other criteria. 
 
 But, secondly, a narrative is not to be held as history, when 
 it not only fails to agree with the laws which regulate events, 
 but to harmonize with itself and with other narratives. It 
 is alleged that there are sometimes positive contradictions; 
 sometimes important discrepancies as to time, place, number 
 of persons, name, and basis of the narrative ; sometimes 
 the re-occurrence of scenes and discourses that could scarcely 
 have happened with such slight variations. Sometimes, too, in 
 cases when there is what we deem a silence rather than dis- 
 agreement, it is asserted that it can be proved the second 
 narrator would have written of such things had he known 
 them, and would have known them had they happened. Such 
 are a few of the negative characters of a myth. 
 
 Positive Characters of the Myth. 
 
 The positive characters of the myth — /'. e., that it is fiction — 
 appear (i) in the form or (2) in the basis. If the form is 
 poetic, the actors in it exchanging discourses of a hymn-like 
 character, lengthy, and with a kind of inspiration not to be 
 expected from their situation and ignorance, we are warranted 
 in suspecting its historic worth, remembering that legendary 
 poetry loves the most simple form and an appearance com- 
 pletely historic. But the chief criterion is to be sought in the 
 
72 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 basis of the narration. If that remarkably accord with certain 
 ideas prevalent when the narration is born, and which seem 
 rather to be the product of preconceived opinions than the 
 results of experience, a mythic origin is to be ascribed. Taken 
 separately, Strauss would regard these indications of a non- 
 historic character as scarcely satisfactory. They must be made 
 to concur in a particular case. Thus the history of the Magi, 
 and the Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem, agree in a 
 striking manner with the Jewish idea with regard to the star 
 of the Messiah predicted by Balaam, and with the precedent 
 of the sanguinary order given by Pharaoh. But that alone 
 would not suffice to convince us of its mythic character. When 
 to it is joined, however, that what is there said of the star con- 
 tradicts natural laws; that what is attributed to Herod con- 
 tradicts psychical laws; that Josephus, who gives so many 
 details concerning Herod, preserves, with all other historical 
 documents, perfect silence touching the massacre at Bethle- 
 hem, and that the visit of the Magi with the flight into Egypt 
 according to one Evangelist, and the presentation of the infant 
 in the Temple according to the other, reciprocally exclude each 
 other — but little room is left for doubt. 
 
 An Example of a Supposed Christian Myth. 
 
 This is a sufficient exposition of the elaborate rules which 
 have governed Strauss in his interpretations. A single instance, 
 the first one in his book, of his method of applying them, will be 
 given — the Annunciation and Birth of John the Baptist. He 
 first attempts to undermine the literal explication of the Super- 
 naturalists. The apparition of the angel to Zacharias, he says, 
 shocks all modern conceptions. The whole doctrine of angel- 
 ology seems to vanish before him like mist. The names and 
 ranks of celestial spirits, he attempts to prove, are neither of 
 IMosaic, nor of any pure Hebraic origin, being first mentioned 
 explicitly in Daniel, and plainly derivable from the Religion of 
 Zoroaster as the Jewish rabbins themselves confess. The whole 
 belief in angels is now a dead tradition, belonging, first, to the 
 idea which all early antiquity formed of the relation of God to 
 the world, that of a Monarch surrounded by his court of min- 
 isters, which idea is obsolete, and, second, to the desire and 
 
CHAP. III.] The Miraculous Evidence. 73 
 
 necessity of those primitive times to account for natural phe- 
 nomena by the intervention of supernatural causes and agents, 
 which desire and necessity modern research has dissipated. 
 The discourse and conduct of the celestial apparition he deems 
 equally shocking to reason. Zacharias's natural incredulity is 
 punished with dumbness, whilst Abraham's in the Old Testa- 
 ment, which is far more heinous, is left unnoticed, and whilst 
 Mary, too, puts the same question to Zacharias that Sarah did 
 to him. This inconsistency then cannot belong to God, nor to 
 the celestial being, if there be such ; nor to a wilful fraud of the 
 narrator, but to the great national preconceptions of the Jews. 
 If, then, the account be not a literal history, what idea must be 
 substituted in place of the one thus destroyed ? will the natural 
 explication suffice ? Strauss then exhibits the absurdity of the 
 artifices of the Naturalist, such as that Zacharias whilst engaged 
 in the Temple service was brooding, in a dreaming state, over 
 his childless condition, and this subjective image in his mind 
 combining with some optical illusion in the cloud of incense 
 threw him into a trance in which he saw the apparition and 
 heard the voice, and from the stupor occasioned by which he 
 never recovered until the marvellous coincidence of the birth of 
 John with the incidents of his dream produced a reaction into 
 his natural state, etc. If, then, these occurrences be neither 
 supernatural nor natural, what are they ? Strauss then attempts 
 to show that the mythic explication is the only consistent and 
 satisfactory one. He reminds his readers that the Jews 
 delighted to represent great men as the sons of mothers long 
 sterile [e.g., Isaac, Samuel, Samson, etc.] ; to prescribe a name 
 for them and a Nazarite regimen ; to herald their birth by an 
 angelic apparition and to represent them as precursors and types 
 of their long-expected Messiah. Hence the barrenness of 
 John's mother, the celestial messenger Gabriel, the prescribing 
 the name John, the abstinence from strong drink, his mission 
 as forerunner, the hymn of Zacharias in the Temple after the 
 circumcision of his son, similar to that of the mother of Samuel 
 when she committed her son to the high-priests, etc. The only 
 important deviation from the Jewish herotype is the dumbness 
 of the priest. This, however, is easily disposed of. To ask 
 for a sign and guarantee of any prediction was common among 
 
74 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 the ancient prophets, as was also the temporary loss of a sense 
 inflicted as extraordinary punishment by a celestial apparition, 
 Saul lost his vision until Ananias restored it, and Daniel the 
 power of speech until the angel touched his lips. But we need 
 not enter further into the details of this appalling dissection. 
 " To sum up [remarks this subtle critic, with a quiet effrontery 
 that after a while becomes characteristic and familiar], we are 
 here upon a ground purely mythico-poetic and all the historic 
 reality which can support or conserve itself with certainty is 
 reduced to this ; John the Baptist by his subsequent works and 
 by their relationship with the works of Jesus made an impres- 
 sion so powerful that the Christian legend was written to 
 glorify in this manner his birth, and connect it with that of 
 Jesus." 
 
 Mythical Explanation of Judaism. 
 
 Such is a specimen of the formidable bearing of modern 
 criticism in its infidel form. Jesus was only a Jewish Socrates. 
 By the unexampled grandeur of his teachings and his acts he 
 persuaded a class of his compatriots that he was the Messiah ; 
 and that vast mass of national fictions and popular legends, 
 which had been accumulating by ages of fruitless expectation, 
 gathered around him and his history, the one modifying the 
 other. Christ did not fulfil prophecy — he fulfilled tradition. 
 Prophecy was but that natural desire to discern futurity which 
 was common to all antiquity, but which among the Hebrew 
 people was modified by a sort of Chinese deep-rooted national 
 vanity and by a specialty and separateness from other nations, 
 of which it had for ages felt conscious, and which led it not 
 only ever to project over the whole future the disk of its own 
 vast self, begetting hope and expectation by the successive 
 accretions of centuries, but also obstinately to exclude what 
 might have tended to dissipate all this, the light of contem- 
 poraneous civilization. Hence when the first Christian com- 
 munity, with a few recruits from its own soil, wheeled off to 
 the Gentiles, carrying with them all its golden cloud of glorious 
 old myths and legends, it was left desolate amidst the ruins of 
 its grandeur ; its national hope was frustrated ; that vast hidden 
 power of moral cohesion, which was its life, was almost lost, 
 and with no centre of political interest and glory around 
 
CHAP. III.] The Miraculous Evidence. 75 
 
 which to rally it wandered abroad, scattered and peeled, cling- 
 ing feebly to its ancient traditions, yet from both internal and 
 external repulsion ever refusing to amalgamate. It became 
 the wonder and scorn of the nations. 
 
 Mythical Explanation of Christianity. 
 
 In vain do we appeal from the theory to that mighty his- 
 torical experience which the world has had of the efficacy and 
 truth of Christianity for eighteen centuries. We receive, in 
 cool and confident reply, some such jargon as this: Religion 
 differs from Philosophy by giving to the conscience the same 
 formation of absolute Truth, but under the form of an image, 
 and not under the form of an idea. A myth then is absolutely 
 necessary to mediate between the two, to give the idea life and 
 permanent subsistence in the minds of the ignorant and sen- 
 suous — hence all religion is associated with mythos. Now that 
 vast spirit which animates universal humanity is perpetually 
 engaged in the development of ideas in individual and con- 
 crete forms — the infinite in the form of the finite. In Grecian 
 Humanity it developed itself mainly in forms of the ideas of 
 the True and the Beautiful. Hence Homer, Plato, and Phidias ; 
 hence, too, those inseparable philosophic myths of Jupiter and 
 Hercules and Apollo. And has the world outgrown its his- 
 torical experience of these — are they not still enthroned in our 
 literature, transformed into our mighty poems and orations, 
 visibly embodied in our pictures and statues and temples ? Can 
 we emancipate ourselves from them? Turn now to Hebrew 
 humanity. Its mission was the sterner task of developing the 
 great ideas of the Just and Holy. Hence, the exalted con- 
 ception of Jehovah, immutable and timeless, I-am-that-I-am — 
 external to man and history. Hence Moses and the Law issued 
 from Sinai. Hence the idea of the race in the concrete form 
 of one individual whose fate and personality should be the 
 occasion of awakening in the consciousness of men the con- 
 ceptions and motives of the holy Jesus, sinless and humble, 
 suffering, struggling, triumphant. Hence, too, the inseparable 
 historic myths connected with all this — the necessary interven- 
 tion of angelic apparitions, messengers of a God distinct from 
 the world. Hence prophecies and miracles and signs and won- 
 
y6 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 dcrs. Neither has the world yet cast off its historical experi- 
 ence of all these. The pure law that lived in the mythical and 
 poetic envelopes of the Hebrew book has passed into our con- 
 stitutions and social corporations ; and the grandeur and holi- 
 ness of the true Christ is still worshipped under its old sen- 
 suous images and primitive legends. And can we, need we, 
 emancipate ourselves from all these ? We will have our Homer 
 and our Apollo, and we will let the people have their historical 
 and miraculous Christ. They may worship the son of God in 
 the form of a single man ; we will worship universal man as 
 the son of God, the infinite race as sinless — sinful only in the 
 finite individual. 
 
 Mythical Explanation of Biblical Morality. 
 
 Do we further object that the Biblical history is essentially 
 distinguished from all profane mythology by its high moral 
 worth, and by its superior credibility? With regard to 
 morality, they have their answer ready. After a few remarks 
 concerning the modern misconception of pagan fables, and the 
 amount of pure ethics to be found in pagan literature, and a 
 running allusion to the divine orders given to the Israelites to 
 steal and carry away the jewels of the Egyptians, Strauss con- 
 cedes superior moral worth to the New Testament. Never- 
 theless — what then? If an immoral divine narrative is neces- 
 sarily false, a divine narrative the most moral is not necessarily 
 true. With regard to its credibility, the argument is also 
 exceedingly ingenious. As an offset to the absurd myths of the 
 Greeks and Brahmins, the plagues of Egypt, the burning bush, 
 and the marvellous histories of Balaam, Joshua, and Samson, 
 are adduced — and the result of the comparison is that Biblical 
 fable is removed from Greek and Indian fable only by a slight 
 degree in point of extravagance, and that granting their 
 superior worth does not prove Biblical history necessarily true, 
 nor exclude from it the mixture of inventions. Moreover, it is 
 asserted that this very superior credibility can be accounted for 
 philosophically. That which at once shocks our belief in the 
 character of the Greek gods is that they are clothed with 
 attributes incompatible with our idea of what is truly divine. 
 They themselves have a history, are born, married, beget chil- 
 
CHAP. III.] The Miraculous Evidence. ^y 
 
 dren, perform great exploits, endure the evils of labor, triumph 
 and are conquered. In the Old Testament Biblical history, 
 however, there is no history of God — His people only have a 
 history. But still this furnishes no guarantee of its historic 
 worth — for though the Hebrew conception of God is less gross 
 than that of other nations, yet that conception itself is not per- 
 fect inasmuch as it represents God as distinct from the universe, 
 an artist, at best limited and finite ; and it does violence to a 
 true philosophic conception of the world, whose chain of causes 
 and effects are made to suffer interventions of the Deity, by 
 miracles and supernatural appearances. Strauss labors most 
 ingeniously to establish this point. The belief of it, he says, is 
 so " firmly rooted in the conscience of the modern world, that 
 in actual every-day life to think or to maintain that the Divine 
 Actor has manifested himself in an immediate manner is to 
 earn the reputation of a fool or an impostor." 
 
 Such is the way in which the intrinsic objections to the possi- 
 bility of Christian myths are disposed of by this subtle critic. 
 The extrinsic objections are met with like ingenuity. The 
 belief of the Christian that his religion is historic and not myfh- 
 ologic is balanced by the like belief of the faithful Mussulman 
 in Mahomet, and of the Jew in Moses ; and the authenticity of 
 the evangelical books, by a laborious investigation of the early 
 writings of the Church, is left shrouded in uncertainty. 
 
 The Theory Sophisticating. 
 
 We have now given a sketch of this insidious system of inter- 
 pretation. When we recover from the temporary shock of 
 doubt and alarm and rescue our Bible from its rude handling 
 and endless mutilations ; when we sit down in the quiet mood of 
 true devotion and read the simple, unaffected life-like narratives 
 of the fisherman of Galilee, and notice the effect which they 
 have had and have upon our hearts and the hearts of others, 
 with what readiness does the mountain of mist vanish ! If, 
 therefore, an Infidel, after such perusals and observations, 
 should deliberately and habitually regard Christianity as only 
 one of the world's mythologies, it would be almost useless to 
 argue with him. Error has had the same effect on him that an 
 ingenious counterfeit of a true coin might be supposed to have 
 
78 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 upon one who refused to apply, or was incapable of applying, 
 all the possible tests of its genuineness ; who saw only the 
 external form, the image and the superscription, but who had 
 not taken it into his hand and felt the weight of the living ore, 
 nor penetrated it by the searching ordeal of experience, and 
 who would not receive the witness of those who had thus tested 
 it. Or if, like Strauss, he profess to have attained to a sort of 
 philosophic Christianity without miracles and inspiration (to 
 continue the metaphor of the coin), he is like one who would 
 mutilate its marvellous form and divine image, because there 
 were skilful counterfeits that bore a very exact resemblance, or 
 who would entirely melt it down, and remould it into a new 
 shape, thereby not only mixing it with base alloy, but frustrat- 
 ing the very design of its circulation among the people. The 
 very fact that all the false religions of antiquity claim a miracu- 
 lous attestation, if it does itself presuppose a true miraculous 
 religion, of which they are the counterfeit, is at least explicable 
 upon the hypothesis of such a religion. 
 
 Pagan Mythologies Mere Counterfeits. 
 
 From this point of view the mythologies of profane antiquity 
 may be regarded as so many brilliant distortions of those float- 
 ing traditions of the true God, which were carried away from a 
 period beyond the reach of all profane written history, when the 
 race was dispersed into its great family branches. And con- 
 temporaneous with early Christianity emerging from the twi- 
 light of her own types and symbols, they may be considered 
 as dwelling around her like misshapen golden mists, that begirt 
 the rising orb as it ascends to the zenith of its unclouded efful- 
 gence. That zenith was the associated grandeur of godhood 
 and humanity in the person of our Lord. Then all type and 
 symbol vanished — then all visible manifestation of Jehovah in 
 form of angel, priest, or prophet was ended, receiving its com- 
 pletion in the true Angel that came down from heaven, in the 
 true Prophet of God, and the Priest with his true sacrifice — 
 then, too, all miracle died with that last great miracle. Mean- 
 while there are whole peoples that still dwell in the twilight of 
 cast-off mythologies, deluded by shadowy systems of false 
 angels and priests and prophets and miracles, unmindful that 
 
CHAP. III.] The Miraculous Evidence. 79 
 
 the great orb has already arisen ; but the time shall oome when 
 they shall all melt away before it, when the nations of the whole 
 earth shall sun themselves in its glory. Thus not only does 
 Christianity present herself as true history, but she vindicates 
 her claim to it, in that she alone offers a true science of all 
 history, in that all history is else but a splendid chaos. What 
 would this riddle of six thousand years of human existence be 
 without the revealed key to its solution? What would this 
 world be, past and to come, without Christ as a sustaining key- 
 stone, in the arch of universal history, spanning the gulf of time 
 from the Apostasy to the Restoration ? * 
 
 Christianity Self -Vindicatory. 
 
 This theory of Strauss, at best only teaches us not to rely 
 exclusively, or with too much confidence, upon the empirical 
 proofs of Christianity — not to loiter in the outer court, the 
 open area of its external evidences, where there is so much 
 common ground for Infidel and Christian, but to point within 
 to the high mysteries and sovereign truths there enshrined ; to 
 make men feel the need of Christianity rather than to amuse 
 them with speculations about its origin. Many of the saints 
 in heaven knew naught of the historical proofs of Qiristianity. 
 They believed in miracles because they believed in Christ, and 
 not in Christ on account of His miracles. No man was ever 
 led to Christ by the evidences of Christianity. No man cometh 
 except the Father draw him, neither will they be persuaded 
 though one rose from the dead. The testimony ot miracles is 
 complete in itself and conclusive, but the true ground of all 
 rational conviction is in the truth as self-vindicatory, as testified 
 in us by the Holy Spirit, and as perpetually re-established by the 
 most endearing witnesses from our own experience. So long as 
 we take this ground we are safe. Armed with this faith we can 
 enter the domain of history fearlessly, prepared to find Chris- 
 tianity in the form of accredited facts, both deeds of God and 
 deeds of men, miracle or narrative. But when we present our- 
 selves in that field devoid of such armor we are liable to be 
 vanquished; with that armor miracles themselves become an 
 
 *This argument is more fully unfolded in the next chapter, that on 
 the Historical Evidence of Revealed Religion. 
 
8o Scientific Problems of Religion. [part I. 
 
 all-conquering weapon in our hands. The whole case simply 
 stated is this: We believe in the Christian faith, because it 
 manifests itself to us now as real, and because also in all the 
 past we find it in the form of actual historic phenomena, duly 
 accredited — it is time then to show that it accords with all sound 
 philosophic speculation. 
 
 Summary of Refutation. 
 
 The refutation may be thus summarized: 
 
 In the first place, this mythical theory is incompatible with 
 the known character of Christ and His apostles and the integrity 
 of their biographers, the authors of the Gospels. We might 
 more easily believe that they were impostors, fabricating mirac- 
 ulous stories as cunningly devised fables, than that they had 
 deluded themselves into believing mere legends as miracles. 
 
 In the second place, the mythical theory is incompatible with 
 the historic stage of development which had been reached by 
 Jew and Gentile, at the time when the supposed Christian 
 legends were formed. Such legends or myths only arise in the 
 credulous infancy or childhood of nations. The Jews had 
 already become sceptical as to the alleged miracles of Christ 
 and His apostles, and the Greeks had passed beyond the myth- 
 making period into that of Philosophy, denying even the super- 
 natural origin of their own national mythology. 
 
 In the third place, it is incompatible with all the circum- 
 stances attending the origin of Christianity. There was too 
 short an interval between the death of Christ and the procla- 
 mation of His Gospel for such a mass of myths to have been 
 developed, much less sincerely accepted. It is simply incredible 
 that in the space of a few months or even years a Christian 
 mythology should have grown up such as only centuries or ages 
 could produce. Moreover, it was but a small body of disciples 
 consciously accepting doctrines and miracles of recent origin 
 and opposed to popular beliefs, and not a vast nation uncon- 
 sciously forming legendary miracles and doctrines which had 
 been bequeathed from one generation to another, in accordance 
 with traditional faith and popular fancy. 
 
 Finally. The time in the world's history when Christ 
 appeared was too enlightened to admit of the formation of a 
 
CHAP. III.] The Miraculous Evidence. 8i 
 
 current mythology. It was at the highest epoch of Greek cul- 
 ture and of Roman power that the Christian religion emerged 
 from an obscure province of the empire upon the stage of Gen- 
 tile civilization. Not only was the jealous Jew denouncing 
 Christ as a false Messiah, but the sceptical Greek and the 
 indifferent Roman were in no mood to accept Him as a new 
 incarnate deity. Such a thing as the formation of Christian 
 legends, if it could have taken place in a corner, could not have 
 occurred in the view of the whole civilized world. Christianity 
 openly challenged universal scrutiny and was at length accepted 
 in its supernatural character, even by its adversaries and perse- 
 cutors. It was only two or three centuries afterward that infidel 
 attempts were made to compare it with the mythical religions 
 which it had superseded. And in that first encounter with the 
 mythical theory it came off victorious, and for centuries after- 
 ward has maintained its supremacy. It is too late now to class 
 Christianity with the pagan mythologies which it once encoun- 
 tered and over which it long since triumphed, logically as well 
 as morally, on their own chosen field and with their own 
 weapons. 
 
 Vol. m— 6 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF REVEALED 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Universal history is the circumstantial evidence of revealed 
 religion. It has all the cogent qualities of circumstantial evi- 
 dence. It is the evidence of facts which cannot be falsified, 
 and of facts innumerable, cumulative, and convergent in their 
 significance. It at once explains revealed religion and is 
 explained by it. 
 
 The Four Great Historical Facts. 
 
 On a general review of human history four universal facts 
 become conspicuous. First, the existence of evil in the world. 
 Second, of a plurality of races and nations. Third, of different 
 forms of civilization. Fourth, of diverse systems of religion. 
 This condition of mankind finds its only adequate explanation 
 in the early histories of Holy Scripture. There, with an hiero- 
 glyphical brevity suggestive of the omniscience which it veils, 
 clews to the whole complex enigma of history are furnished 
 the inquirer. 
 
 The first fact, this moral and physical disorder, this abound- 
 ing crime and disaster, this tragic hue in the whole drama of 
 human existence, is traced back to the first tragedy in the 
 Garden of Eden. Whether interpreted literally or allegori- 
 cally that tragedy presents all history as scarred with the traces 
 of a demon of evil who first effected the fall of man and nature. 
 History, in the light of this revelation, is but the arena of a 
 foretold struggle between the seed of the serpent and the seed 
 of the woman.* 
 
 * Throughout this paper historical phenomena are presented in the 
 82 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Historical Evidence. 83 
 
 The second fact, the assemblag-e of nations, which appears 
 upon that arena, emerging all from a fabulous antiquity and 
 darkening the whole retrospect with a mass of extravagant 
 fiction, is explained as but the scattered family of one original 
 progenitor ; and their generic likeness, amid endless specific 
 diversity, is reconciled by the record of their early dispersion at 
 the Tower of Babel, a miraculous confusion of tongues by 
 which it was effected being still an accompaniment and expla- 
 nation of the phenomenon. 
 
 The third fact, the subsequent appearance of the race in 
 different states of barbarism and civilization, is represented as 
 a divinely ordered result. That portion of mankind which by 
 the primitive impulse was scattered in a migration of ages, 
 gradually lost both the memory and the intellectual heritage of 
 their early ancestry or else sank naturally into historical insig- 
 nificance. But that portion of mankind who were not destined 
 to practise this nomadic habit, coalesced into states and empires, 
 or modifying the original civilization which they carried away 
 with them in the dispersion, formed new civilizations in their 
 new social circumstances. 
 
 The last of the four facts, the existence of idolatry and super- 
 stition, is then easily explained. That primitive revelation or 
 natural formation of conscience, which among the Jews was 
 preserved pure and perfected in Christianity, in the Gentile 
 world either spread out and was lost in vast putrefaction, as 
 among savage tribes, or in co-existence with its various forms 
 of civilization gave birth to mighty and progressive systems of 
 error — a growth of diseased and monstrous strength, as if in 
 huge demoniacal caricature. The literal interpreter finds in 
 them all the satirical intent of the primal deceiver. To such an 
 interpreter it is no marvel that our modern philosophy has been 
 so cunning in the detection of these congenial analogies — no 
 marvel that in its profane attempt to scale the heavens whence 
 it looked down from the height of speculation upon history 
 conjured up as a diabolic panorama of all the kingdoms of the 
 
 Scriptural language appropriate to the religious point of view which is 
 supposed to be taken. Such language is often more or less meta- 
 phorical ; but, as we have seen in our discussion of Anthropology, it 
 is quite reconcilable with scientific facts and theories as to the physical 
 origin and moral evolution of the human race. 
 
84 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 world, it saw the visage of error so strangely blended with a 
 semblance of truth ; it saw Jehovah but as an Israelitish Jupiter, 
 Moses but as a Hebrew Solon, Jesus as but a Jewish Socrates, 
 without miracle and without deity. These superficial resem- 
 blances are only such as denote a counterfeit, and they are 
 accompanied with dissimilarities which indicate the absence of 
 the genuine. Confessedly without any national art, the cor- 
 rective of poetical absurdity, the Jewish religion was not only 
 devoid of any Brahminical monsters, not only devoid of any 
 such popular conceptions, but it was possessed of religious 
 symbols infinitely more consistent than those of the fanciful 
 Greeks. Confessedly without science or philosophy, its sacred 
 books contained doctrines which the most profound meta- 
 physics of other nations never equalled, and records of facts 
 without which all other history falls into chaos. The pure 
 supernaturalism of the Hebrews and its mythical correspondent 
 were not both " the product of a certain intellectual direction 
 of society." The latter was a product of Satan, wrought out of 
 the corrupt material of human nature ; the other was a product 
 of Divine Providence wrought in spite of that material. 
 
 The Biblical Scheme of Human Redemption. 
 
 But the Bible furnishes something more than a mere expla- 
 nation of the great conspicuous facts of human history. It 
 does something more than account for the present moral and 
 intellectual condition of the divided race of mankind. It 
 contains also a revelation of that " mystery which from the 
 beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all 
 things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the princi- 
 palities and powers in heavenly places might be made known 
 by the Church His manifold wisdom according to the eternal 
 purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." To that 
 eternal purpose each of the four universal facts of history 
 bears intelligible relation. The first fact, the apostasy, though 
 antecedent to all history, was that which determined its whole 
 subsequent course and aspect. What the career and destiny 
 of man might have been in his pristine state is, of course, a 
 purely hypothetical question. What they are, however, in con- 
 sequence of the apostasy the Scriptures clearly reveal to us — a 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Historical Evidence. 85 
 
 vast judgment to end in mercy and a long process of restora- 
 tion through divine love. Apart from the personal significance 
 of Christ crucified to the individual, which is excluded from 
 our present inquiries, that greatest event of all time had also a 
 wider social significance, a relation to the whole race in all its 
 eras. It was that which made its end consistent with its 
 beginning — the sustaining keystone in that arch of divine pur- 
 pose spanning the gulf of time from the Apostasy to the Res- 
 toration, from the Creation to the Judgment. 
 
 The course of Divine Providence throughout history does not 
 therefore present itself to us as a series of occasional gracious 
 interferences in the life of an abandoned race, nor yet as a mere 
 systematic display of vindictive justice, but as a consistent 
 whole, connected in its outline and details with the work of 
 human redemption — as the gradual fulfilment of that promise 
 blended with the primal curse in Paradise. Why its fulfilment 
 should have been so protracted, can only be explained by a 
 scriptural view of the divine justice and mercy, though even 
 here lowly conjecture might not be wholly at fault. Why the 
 particular plan devised for its accomplishment should have 
 been selected, is not our concern, but that plan as revealed to 
 us in the Bible, and as realized in history, we may reverently 
 inspect for the encouragement of our faith. Its outline is in- 
 dicated by the three remaining facts which have been enum- 
 erated, viz., The division of the fallen race into tribes and 
 nations, their subsequent career through various stages of civi- 
 lization, and their appearance under diverse religious systems. 
 These are existing historical problems which originated in 
 the earlier eras of time. They receive their solution in its later 
 eras. They are intimately related to the scheme of human re- 
 demption during the pre-Christian period and during the post- 
 Christian period. 
 
 Here let the eye assist the mind by means of a tabular view 
 of the chronological eras, the divine dispei>sations, and the 
 social stages embraced in the vast scheme of human redemption. 
 
 Chronological Eras. Divine Dispensations. Social Stages. 
 
 The Pre-Diluvian. Justice (J). Experiment. 
 
 The Pre-Christian. Forbearance (J-M). Preparation. 
 
 The Christian. Mercy (M-J). Appropriation 
 
 The Millennial. Love (M). Fulfilment. 
 
86 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 Without seeking numerical accuracy we may divide the Bibli- 
 cal history into four great eras: the pre-diluvian era, extend- 
 ing from the Apostasy to the Deluge; the pre-Christian era, 
 extending from the Deluge to the Incarnation ; the Christian 
 era, extending from the Incarnation to the Millennium ; the 
 Millennial era, extending from the Millennium to the Judg- 
 ment. As Divine Providence in human history displays the 
 attributes of Justice and Mercy, there are four dispensations 
 corresponding to the four eras : a dispensation of absolute 
 Justice without Mercy; a dispensation of Justice with in- 
 creasing Mercy; a dispensation of Mercy with decreasing 
 Justice ; a dispensation of absolute Mercy or Love. And since 
 human society has been constituted with capacities for religion, 
 politics, science, and art, in a word for civilization, there are 
 four social stages corresponding to the four divine dispen- 
 sations: a stage of experiment ending in failure; a stage of 
 preparation for Christianity ; a stage of appropriation of Chris- 
 tianity; and a stage of fulfilment in a perfected Christian 
 civilization. 
 
 The pre-diluvian civilization is depicted briefly in the sacred 
 narrative as an abortive experiment. Glimpses are afforded 
 us of the origin of the arts, of religions, and of cities. A few 
 historic figures are named, flitting like colossal phantasms 
 across the scene, and then it closes in darkness. The first 
 murder has borne its fruits. The intermarriage of the descend- 
 ants of Seth and Cain, the children of God with the children 
 of men, has issued in a giant progeny of sin and debauchery, 
 requiring the cleaning baptism of the deluge. "And God 
 looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh 
 had corrupted His way upon the earth. And God said unto 
 Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me ; for the earth is 
 filled with violence through them ; and behold, I will destroy 
 them with the earth." 
 
 During the pre-Christian era, however, the world was made 
 ready for the present Christian era by means of divine dispen- 
 sations and through social stages of culture, all having a 
 preparatory relation to the Christian Religion. 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Historical Evidence. 87 
 
 The Pre-Christian Dispersion of Nations. 
 The primitive separation of mankind during the pre-Chris- 
 tian period was such a preparatory dispensation. Like many 
 other divine dispensations, it had indeed a proximate as well 
 as a prospective design. Proximately in its relation to the 
 men of that age, it was a mixed mercy and judgment, both 
 a just punishment of their impiety and the frustration of a 
 demoniacal intent of renewing the primeval disorder. Pros- 
 pectively, in its relation to Christianity and to future ages, it 
 was an indication of what would thereafter be the mode of 
 the divine conduct of the race. To speak in the style of the 
 Scripture narrative itself, it was the result of that compas- 
 sionate soliloquy uttered over the new-born earth after the 
 frustrated experiment of the antediluvian world : " And the 
 Lord said in His heart, I will not any more curse the earth for 
 man's sake." It was the scheme adopted by infinite wisdom in 
 this exigency. The ungodly portion of the race was not again 
 to be destroyed, nor was the heterogeneous mass as a united 
 body to be elevated to the reception of the promised blessings. 
 It was to be separated, sundered, and its several portions to 
 pass through a vast historical ordeal, ultimately receiving the 
 promised blessings, but only after long preparations, by 
 fragments, and during successive periods of probation. The 
 divided races and nations were still to be detained in their 
 tedious banishment under a providence of divine mercy 
 and judgment, by their own mutual collisions chastising and 
 being chastised. Jehovah was to select one of them which 
 by a supernatural course of means and processes He should 
 employ as an instrument for perfecting that form of saving 
 truth which He designed should be the ultimate possession of 
 all. With the others He was to deal contemporaneously after 
 His ordinary methods; so adjusting them as to territory, con- 
 dition, and period that they should subsequently appear at 
 the right historical juncture prepared for the then impending 
 task. 
 
 The Pre-Christian Civilizations. 
 
 The forms of civilization developed by the dispersed nations 
 during the pre-Christian period were also a Providential prepa- 
 
88 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 ration for Christianity. To afford an intellectual preparation 
 for Christianity might be regarded as the particular work 
 assigned to the Gentile world, to that portion of it which was 
 not reserved in a barbaric and savage state with other and 
 more remote designs. The Jewish nation in contradistinction 
 does not seem to have inherited any dowry from the primitive 
 civilization or to have formed any national civilization of its 
 own. In its passage from Sinai to Zion it was too busy with 
 sterner tasks to rear temples and frame philosophies. It was 
 given to it to lay the foundations of that imperishable structure 
 into which all the gathered nations were to bring their glory 
 and honor. For the completion of that structure, however, 
 for the reception and diffusion of Christianity the Jewish peo- 
 ple were disqualified both by their inveterate religious beliefs 
 and by their national vanity. Whilst, therefore, it was a just 
 judgment which wrested from them their ancient heritage of 
 divine truth, it was an expedient of infinite wisdom which had 
 prepared an adequate Gentile civilization for the emergency — 
 which had elevated certain Gentile nations to such an intel- 
 lectual condition as had already in its reaction effected the de- 
 struction of much superstition and error and at the same time 
 prepared the world for the pure spiritual system now entering 
 upon its mission of mercy. 
 
 The Pre-Christian Religions. 
 
 The growth of false religion during the pre-Christian period 
 was also prospective in its bearing upon Christianity. Whilst 
 the Jews under a supernatural economy were slowly elaborat- 
 ing that true religion which was yet to be the inheritance of 
 the whole world, other contemporaneous nations, possessing 
 higher civilization, indeed, but struggling against infernal 
 might, only exhibited abortive attempts, strewing the pathway 
 of time with the monuments of their baffled strength — melan- 
 choly failures over which the angelic spectators of human his- 
 tory might bend with shadowing wings in compassion and 
 awe. These were the incidental but necessary aggravations of 
 their mysterious judgment, the wild and piteous bewilderment 
 of the instincts of a fallen humanity struggling bravely forth 
 for its lost Creator if haply it might feel after Him and 
 
CHAP. IV.] Tlie Historical Evidence. 89 
 
 find Him. To every age, to every people were propounded 
 the same dread problems which within the sphere of reve- 
 lation were in course of slow solution, the same consciousness 
 of guilt, the same longing for divine help, the same fearful 
 looking for of judgment. Each has striven with these prob- 
 lems in its own way and left them unsolved ; each has had its 
 own method of shrouding their fearful import, its art to give 
 them some practical expression in the myth and the legend, 
 or some architectural embodiment in the temple and the tomb, 
 its philosophy to weave them into some airy and thoughtful 
 metaphysics behind the grosser popular faith, its government 
 to subordinate them to some species of political idolatry. 
 
 At the head of the nations, hoary with wisdom, appeared 
 Egypt, the first of them called to the task, but overpowered 
 and yielding in patient agony beneath it. The priest of the 
 Nile as he wandered amidst avenues of frowning sphinxes felt 
 the burden of mysteries which puzzled the patient man of Uz 
 and his comforters. But what diverse solutions are left us as 
 recorded in the inspired Hebrew poem and as wrought in the 
 Egyptian tomb. In the one perplexity at the anomalies of 
 Providence is relieved by some faint hope of an ultimate ad- 
 justment, disgust with life ennobled and sanctified, and awe 
 of death dispelled by some dim prospect of after glories. In 
 the other these feelings having no such support upon which 
 to reach forth and fasten, ineffectually baffled on all sides, seem 
 to have quietly exhausted themselves in a mighty despair. 
 Forests of colossal statues, solemn groups of gigantic sphinxes, 
 bewildered the awed worshipper in that dark religion, each look- 
 ing down upon him as the stern keeper of the riddles which 
 it was not for him to solve. The abodes of the dead received 
 the architectural glories belonging to the palaces of the 
 living. 
 
 From Egypt the same problems in the course of Providence 
 passed to Greece, and were in like manner left unsolved in her 
 philosophy as well as in her mythology. The goal of all her 
 elaborate speculation was an altar to the Unknown God which 
 the apostle to the Gentiles found in the midst of her temples 
 and statues. The same problems as transmitted in Roman 
 civilization were treated as insoluble with only a more practical 
 
90 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 form of scepticism. When Jesus presented Himself as an in- 
 carnation of truth, the Roman governor, Pilate, could only turn 
 away with the incredulous sneer — What is truth? And after 
 the Roman arms had been carried triumphantly throughout 
 the known world, the mythical gods of the provinces were 
 stored in the Pantheon as mere trophies of Caesar. 
 
 Unconscious Prophecies of Paganism. 
 
 Paganism, however, besides being thus incidentally a melan- 
 choly experiment and failure, was also in its prospective bearing 
 upon Christianity a vast unconscious prophecy. Built upon 
 the same essential wants in human nature, possessed perhaps 
 of some heritage of the primitive revelation, it could not be 
 entirely without confused presentiments, instinctive pre-assur- 
 ances of the coming glory. Truth was there, traditional and 
 innate and prophetic, though in putrefaction and hideous cari- 
 cature. It gleamed in brilliant distortion through the most 
 splendid mythologies, it lay in spectral fragments beneath the 
 darkest superstitions. In spite of fiendish malice the Jehovah 
 of the Jews was in some way the God of the Gentiles. The 
 kingly Messiah of the chosen people was still the desire of 
 the nations, and that Providence which illumined its future 
 with His prophetic image did not fail to project some faint 
 halo of it over the deeper gloom of theirs. They, too, in a 
 distorted form had their religious symbolism, their imagined 
 revelations from Deity by priest and oracle, their monstrous 
 avatars, their writhing Prometheus, their sacrifices, animal and 
 human — instincts perverted by infernal satire as they reached 
 helplessly forth toward Golgotha and Calvary. They were 
 the Satanic distortions of God's image as reflected in man yet 
 to be restored to unity in the perfect humanity of his divine 
 son, the anomalies of a dispensation of judgment yet to be 
 solved by a dispensation of grace. Regarded as contemporane- 
 ous with Christianity emerging from the twilight of her own 
 types and symbols, they were the huge golden clouds which 
 begirt the rising orb as it went up through a world of dark- 
 ness to its meridian splendor. Then all types and symbols 
 were to vanish. Then while heathenism sat exhausted with 
 the riddle of the world unsolved, in unconscious expectation of 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Historical Ezndence. 91 
 
 its solution, while philosophy was already in the melancholy 
 twilight yearning for the day-spring, 
 
 " Holy with power 
 He on the thought-benighted sceptic beamed, 
 Manifest Godhead, melting into day 
 What floating mists of dark idolatry 
 Broke and misshaped the Omnipresent Sire." 
 
 The Epoch of the Incarnation. 
 
 At this central epoch of history its whole aspect in the eyes 
 of witnessing principalities and powers may be said to have 
 changed. Infinite love had stooped into the abyss of time and 
 reconciled the world to God. God had so loved the world that 
 He gave His only begotten Son that the world might have 
 everlasting life. And now heathenism though still so wide- 
 spread, civilization though still feeble, the nations though still 
 severed and hostile, humanity though still corrupt, and nature 
 though still disordered, sustained a different relation to the 
 Divine reconciler, the Father as represented by the Son. The 
 enigmatical prophecy of past providence was to evolve its slow 
 fulfilment in the providence of the future. That vast hidden 
 current of divine purpose, upon which the scattered race had 
 so long floated in divergence from the origin of history, now 
 began its slow convergence toward the issue of history. The 
 ages of experiment and preparation with reference to Chris- 
 tianity were to be succeeded by the ages of appropriation and 
 realization. 
 
 This, too, was to be a tardy and gradational process, not by 
 a simultaneous movement of the body of mankind, but in pre- 
 destined portions, through successive stages and during long 
 eras. The judgment of the nations was not yet complete, nor 
 was the whole world ready for mercy. Christianity herself 
 was not yet prepared for her ultimate work of social as well 
 as individual regeneration. She had come forth from Judea 
 a fragmentary mass of doctrines and institutions, needing both 
 internal consolidation and external naturalization. These two 
 objects were to be attained both contemporaneously and suc- 
 cessively, the one helping forward the other. 
 
92 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 External History of Christianity. 
 
 As to the external naturalization of Christianity among the 
 nations, this object could not be fully attained by the first 
 Gentile civilization which she appropriated. It was largely 
 composed of the rubbish of ancient error, and sank beneath 
 her more massive spiritual forces. The admixture of a sterner 
 ingredient was needed in order that civilization might be fitted 
 to receive Christianity. " He that hath made of one blood all 
 nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath 
 determined the times afore appointed and the bounds of their 
 habitation," from the primeval summits of history had fore- 
 seen the exigency and prepared the requisite expedient. It 
 was then, with the fall of the Roman Empire, that the hardy 
 nomadic portion of mankind in northern Europe, so long re- 
 served in a savage state, casting off after a brief struggle 
 its cumbrous mythology as but the extravagant dreams of its 
 youth and infancy, was moved by a divine impulse to invade 
 southern Europe and became the rightful heir of that Grecian 
 and Roman civilization under a Christian form which might 
 else have languished in imbecility and decay. 
 
 Let it be here observed, in passing, how wonderfully the sov- 
 ereign Father of mankind conducts a system of specific dispen- 
 sation among the various tribes and kindreds which compose 
 His human family. We have seen His great primitive act of 
 territorial adjustment in regard to the whole race at the out- 
 set of its history. At that early period He is represented as 
 having sundered the race into different nations and scattered 
 them abroad over the world, in plain fulfilment of His design 
 that they should dwell on all the face of the earth. The proc- 
 ess of their division and dispersion is described as due to 
 miraculous dispensations. He had confounded their language 
 at the Tower of Babel, and by this expedient at once frustrated 
 their tendency to concentrate and sent them forth under the 
 impulse of a migratory habit which adheres to them for ages, 
 until such time as the earth shall have been sufficiently covered 
 with population. But this species of divine supervision did not 
 cease with the great primitive act of territorial adjustment. As 
 He dealt at the outset with the race as a whole, so did He 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Historical Evidence. 93 
 
 thenceforward continue to deal with its several portions during 
 all their subsequent dispersion and progress. He conducted 
 each to its destined locality and enclosed it within its own physi- 
 cal environment. He determined the bounds of their habitation. 
 With respect to one particular nation, the chosen people, He 
 had carried out this process of colonization in a miraculous 
 manner. He had violently extricated them from their Egyptian 
 bondage; designated prophetically the land which they were 
 to inhabit; conducted them thither by a pillar of cloud and 
 fire ; extirpated the original owners of the soil and estabHshed 
 them in its secure and permanent possession. 
 
 History of American Christianity. 
 
 In like manner the dispensations of Divine Providence to- 
 ward the American people indicate the same prescience. It ap- 
 pears in the circumstances attending their settlement upon this 
 continent. The remaining hemisphere of the world was discov- 
 ered at the time appointed and ordered as the bounds of their 
 habitation. It may be regarded as a pre-destined theatre for 
 the later acts of history. It emerges into the view of mankind, 
 if not with the same supernatural aspect as the miraculous land 
 of promise, yet with equally marvellous signs of Divine Provi- 
 dence. No train of direful plagues opened the way for the 
 liberation of the American colonists like those which loosened 
 the fetters of Egyptian bondage. No celestial prodigy heralded 
 their passage through the wide waste of waters like that which 
 guided the emigrating tribes of Israel through the wilderness — 
 no extraordinary interpositions attended the removal of the 
 savage tribes of North America such as attended the extermi- 
 nation of the Canaanitish aborigines. Yet the facts which have 
 resulted are as remarkable as if they had been thus miracu- 
 lously produced. The fugitives from European oppression 
 enter a domain which has evidently been held in reserve for 
 their use, and the primitive inhabitants vanishing before their 
 superior prowess, leave them in undisturbed possession. No- 
 where else in modern history do we find the Ruler of nations 
 conducting a people to a territory which has not been already 
 pre-occupied for some important purpose, and where the pre- 
 occupants have not at length settled down into joint and peace- 
 
94 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 able possession with their conquerers and finally given birth to 
 an amalgamated civilization. 
 
 As Christian Europe became the heir of Greek and Roman 
 culture, so Christian America has become the heir of Christian 
 Europe. By such far-reaching and world-wide dispensations 
 has Divine Providence led to the external establishment of 
 Christianity among the nations of the modern world. 
 
 The Internal History of Christianity. 
 
 Meanwhile the other preliminary mentioned, the internal con- 
 solidation of Christianity as a doctrinal system, she was des- 
 tined to attain through a long refining ordeal of persecution 
 and dissension. Her faith and worship were to come to her as 
 the distilled issue of the errors of thousands of decayed sys- 
 tems. But as she emerged from that ordeal into purity of 
 doctrine and form at the Reformation, she gave release to 
 the intellectual and political powers so long joined to her in 
 unnatural bondage. They started at once into rapid and flour- 
 ishing growth, so that now she appears upon the broad stage 
 of the world in a young and vigorous civilization, astir with 
 vast preparations for her final task. That task is the bestow- 
 ment of salvation upon the rest of the Gentiles according to 
 primeval promise. The ancient realm of heathenism, where 
 the god of this world has so long reigned in gloomy grandeur, 
 is now for the first time appearing upon the arena of gen- 
 eral history, though still covered with the outworn myths 
 and superstitions which linger as the morning clouds of that 
 Sun of Righteousness so far above them and beyond them. The 
 religious aspect of our era presents the two phases of Chris- 
 tianity and heathenism, the one possessed of all the moral, in- 
 tellectual, and political forces of the world, the other superan- 
 nuated, decaying, and powerless. All mankind are at length 
 visibly marshalled as if for the triumph of Christianity, pre- 
 senting a void of practical atheism through which it may pass 
 unobstructed, as in Africa, or a mass of ancient superstitions 
 already yielding to its pressure, as in western and southern 
 Asia, or a corrupt Christianity still in the ordeal of persecu- 
 tion, as in eastern Asia, or within the bounds of Christendom 
 held in check by a Protestant civilization, as in Europe and 
 
CHAP, IV.] The Historical Evidence. 95 
 
 America. In other words, the lines of general history, from 
 its middle epoch, seem to be converging toward a solution of 
 the first of its primitive problems. In the approaching destruc- 
 tion of idolatry and superstition, Christianity as the one abso- 
 lute and universal religion seems marching towards its tri- 
 umph over all false religions, resuming their truths while it 
 rejects their errors, according to scriptural promise. 
 
 The Prospects of Christian Civilisation. 
 
 But the removal of religious error from the world will also 
 affect, as well during its process as at its issue, the solution 
 of the next problem of general history — the destination of the 
 different civilizations of mankind. Viewed as disconnected 
 from Christianity, civilization is itself an embodiment of in- 
 terests which intimately concern her in her earthly state as 
 organized in the Church. It was that pure adjunct to heath- 
 enism which she inherited from it and by which she shall yet 
 overcome and possess it. During the earlier Christian eras 
 she suffered the accompanying civilization to have a false un- 
 hallowed alliance; worship was resolved into mere art; reve- 
 lation was drawn as a veil of superstitious reverence over 
 the eye of science ; the State was made the powerless instrument 
 of the Church ; but now in the present era these several earthly 
 powers are in a state of greater or less indifference and an- 
 tagonism. The question arises, is this to be the intellectual 
 and political condition of the world when Christianity has her 
 destined prevalence ? Is art always to be but a prostitution of 
 beauty to error and superstition? Is science still to widen the 
 gulf between the revelations of the Scriptures and the revela- 
 tions of nature ? Is geology ever to wander like a busy gnome 
 exulting over the mistakes of Genesis? Is biology to destroy 
 the divine image in man and reduce him to the image of an 
 ape ? Is philosophy to swallow up the divine knowledge in her 
 speculative cosmogonies and theogonies or leave it to vanish 
 in sheer nescience ? Is the State always to protect and tolerate 
 the Church? Is government to be but a necessary barrier 
 against invasion? Are the nations to exhaust their resources 
 in a system of costly armaments and waste them in destructive 
 warfare ? In a word, is all civilization to continue but a mighty 
 
g6 Scientific Problems of Religion. [part i. 
 
 assemblage of misdirected powers? — or rather may we not 
 say that all these are only the rightful ministers and co- 
 workers of Christianity, emancipated indeed from her present 
 control, yet still held in safe abeyance and moving with per- 
 verted potency within the lesser sphere of which her own 
 grander sphere is but inclusive. Shall she not yet reappropriate 
 them and transfuse them with her own spirit? May we not 
 look for the time, however distant, when art shall be resolved 
 into worship ; when this widening gulf between science and reve- 
 lation shall be bridged over by increasing knowledge and faith ; 
 when the State shall be merged and lost in the Church, and the 
 nations no longer held in antagonism of mutual repulsion 
 shall be tranquillized by a reign of universal love and peace ; 
 when the pure socialism of the early Christians shall no more 
 be presented only in hideous caricature, and that diffuse philan- 
 thropy, which is now but an aimless instinct, shall be elevated 
 into a feeling definite and self-knowing, clothed with intelli- 
 gence and beauty? Indeed, can we not already discern vast 
 social tendencies which must sooner or later issue in the tri- 
 umph of a Christian science over error, of a Christian art over 
 nature, of a Christian state over slavery, of a Christian civili- 
 zation over heathen barbarism throughout the earth? 
 
 The Predicted Triumph of Christianity. 
 
 The transition of prophecy into history, it may be, is miracu- 
 lous only in prospect. We look forward to the Second Advent 
 of Christ, the Millennial Reign of Peace, and the Judgment 
 of the World as a pageant of rapidly succeeding events, de- 
 picted upon the prophetic canvas as 
 
 " foreshortened in the tract of time." 
 
 But the regeneration of mankind, like the creation of the 
 world, may be a long evolutionary process through successive 
 stages and periods of civilization. Be this as it may, call it 
 a pageant or a process, or a process issuing in a pageant, the 
 time must come when the goal of history shall be reached in 
 the universal triumph of Christ as the Saviour of the World. 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF RELIGION. 
 
 Vol. 1II-7 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LOGICAL NATURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC. 
 EVIDENCE. 
 
 After the lapse of nineteen centuries the Christian religion 
 is again on the defensive. In the present instance it has been 
 driven to its defences by an assault more desperate than any 
 it has ever before sustained. It is an assault made falsely in 
 the name of Science and with scientific weapons. The assail- 
 ants have arrayed against it those bodies of human knowl- 
 edge which are most certain in their nature and popular in 
 their impression. Astronomy, they tell us, now declares no 
 other glory in the heavens than that of Newton, Laplace, and 
 other discoverers of their laws. Geology has shown us that 
 the earth was not created in six days, but has been self-evolved 
 through unmeasured time. Anthropology is teaching us that 
 man was not made in the image of God, but emerged in the 
 likeness of an ape. The other, higher sciences, psychology, 
 sociology, comparative religion, they assure us, are taking a 
 like offensive bearing against the ethical and religious teach- 
 ing of the Bible. And to all these successive attacks, it is 
 claimed that the Christian religion has offered but a feeble and 
 ineffectual resistance; that it has hitherto retreated before 
 every advance of science ; that its miraculous evidences have 
 already been reduced to mere myths and legends ; that its most 
 essential doctrines are being steadily undermined by scientific 
 research ; and that it is only a question of time when it shall 
 be left without any defence and without anything worth de- 
 fending. 
 
 Present Scientific Crisis. 
 
 At such a crisis it would be idle to disguise the fact that 
 the defenders of the Faith are not presenting an unbroken 
 
 99 
 
100 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 front to its assailants. The line of defence may be firm at the 
 centre, but at the extremes it is unequal. At the extreme left 
 appears the new school of biblical critics, conceding, step by 
 step, the ground invaded in the name of science. For the 
 avowed interest of Christian truth they are admitting that the 
 Bible teaches false astronomy, false geology, false anthropol- 
 ogy, even defective ethics and theology, and now that all that 
 remains to be contended for in Holy Scripture is a certain 
 essential faith to be somehow distilled from its errors by means 
 of learned criticism, or perhaps new dogmatic definitions by the 
 Church. At the extreme right remains the elder school of 
 biblical students, denouncing such concession as weakness or 
 treachery. Taking their stand on the Canonical Scriptures with 
 the doctrine of plenary inspiration they are insisting that the 
 teaching of the Bible is to be held true in astronomy, in geology, 
 in anthropology, no less than in ethics and theology, and that 
 the whole book, without a show of compromise, must be main- 
 tained as containing and being the very Word of God written. 
 Meanwhile, those who stand at the centre between these 
 extremes, can see that, if the right wing has been too rashly 
 advanced, yet the left wing has already wavered and broken 
 away, with banners trailing in the dust, amid the exultation and 
 derision of their foes and the indignation and dismay of their 
 friends. 
 
 Duty of United Defence. 
 
 Now while it is our duty to repel all assailants of revealed 
 religion, it is also plainly our duty, as far as possible, to make 
 common cause with all its defenders. We should endeavor to 
 stand with and stand by even those apologetes who may seem 
 to us mistaken or misguided. If we may, if we can, we should 
 rally them back to positions which perhaps they have too 
 hastily deserted. For the sake of that Book which is the source 
 of our common Christianity and civilization, and for the sake 
 of that Church which originally produced it and has faithfully 
 kept it through the ages and triumphantly borne it as a standard 
 never lowered before any foe, we cannot but beg them to keep 
 in line as true defenders and not as mere critics of the Word of 
 God. To this end, speaking for myself, I would hope to com- 
 plement their opinions instead of antagonizing them, and seek 
 
CHAP. I.] Nature of Scientific Evidence. loi 
 
 to conserve all that is just and sound in their authorities and 
 methods. If they have read with admiration Dr. Draper's 
 " History of the Conflict between Science and Religion," I 
 would remind them that there is another counterpart history, 
 which Dr. Draper did not write, of that true religion and true 
 science, between which there never has been and never can be 
 any conflict. If they have been charmed with the scholarly 
 pages of Dr. Andrew White's " Warfare of Science with The- 
 ology," I would remind them that Dr. White does not show 
 that science has ever waged warfare with revealed religion, 
 but only with some theological dogma or tenet which has 
 usurped the authority of revelation or invaded the sphere of 
 science. If they have followed our learned brother Dr. Briggs 
 in his luminous " Biblical Studies " so far as to look for 
 scientific errors in the Bible, I would remind them that Dr. 
 Briggs himself has found some scientific truths in the Bible, 
 and that it is not even thinkable that its divine Author could 
 have revealed anything contrary to the most advanced human 
 science. In a word, if they are beginning to fear that modern 
 science casts some doubt or discredit upon the traditional 
 Christian Evidences, as they figure in our standard treatises, I 
 would invite them to consider another class of evidences, which 
 modern science itself is affording, and which, in the strictest 
 sense, deserves to be called pre-eminently the Scientific Evi- 
 dences of Revealed Religion. 
 
 The New Scientific Evidence. 
 
 The general evidences of Revealed Religion date from its 
 very origin, and have been accumulating for thousands of years. 
 Before the Christian era, they served practically to distinguish 
 the true revealed religion from the false natural reli-gions of 
 the ancient world. Since the Christian era, after coming in 
 contact with Gentile culture, they have assumed logical form as 
 a growing body of truth, handed down from generation to gen- 
 eration through nearly twenty centuries of time. It will be 
 found that each age or critical period of civilization has had 
 some peculiar conflict with Christianity, and as the result some 
 issuing contribution to its evidences. Its successive conflicts — 
 first with Judaism in the life of our Lord ; then with Paganism 
 
I02 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 in the age of the Apostles ; then with philosophy in the age of 
 the Church fathers ; then with Mohammedanism in the age of 
 the schoolmen ; then with Italian naturalism, English deism, 
 French atheism, and German rationalism since the age of the 
 Reformers — have yielded vast masses of evidence, much of 
 which is stowed away in its apologetic literature as the logical 
 trophies of its conquering march through the centuries. In like 
 manner in this pre-eminently scientific age we are involved 
 in a seeming conflict between Science and the Bible, with its 
 issuing contribution of Scientific Evidence. 
 
 The origin of the Scientific Evidence, as we know it, dates 
 from the time of the Reformation, which included a revival of 
 Science as well as of Religion. It is true that in the first 
 Christian age there were some prelusive strifes between Greek 
 philosophy and the theology of the Church fathers, but the 
 issue was a mere conquered peace which was false and pre- 
 mature. It is true, also, that in the middle ages a few enlight- 
 ened schoolmen asserted the rights of free scientific inquiry, 
 but their efforts seemed only to strengthen an ecclesiastical and 
 dogmatic bondage which was becoming intolerable. It was not 
 until the Reformation had liberated both religion and science 
 that they both sprang at once into new relations, sometimes 
 hostile, sometimes indifferent, but often friendly and fruit- 
 ful. Pre-eminent among the forerunners and leaders of the 
 last named harmonizing movement, stands the great apologete. 
 Bishop Butler. In a former chapter I claimed for Bishop Butler 
 the singular merit of having contributed to the General Evi- 
 dence of Revealed Religion the beginnings of that Scientific 
 Evidence which is peculiar to our epoch. It was shown that he 
 made this contribution by conceiving religious problems in a 
 thoroughly scientific spirit; by applying to them the scientific 
 method known as the inductive logic ; by laying a logical foun- 
 dation for the harmony of Science and revelation in the analogy 
 of nature and religion ; by enunciating principles applicable in 
 the Scientific interpretation of the Bible ; by giving prescient 
 hints of a coming agreement of the Bible with Science and 
 consequent growing proof of Christianity; and by building up, 
 albeit unconsciously, a substantial part of the philosophic struc- 
 ture of Science itself. Without renewing these discussions I 
 
CHAP. I.] Nature of Scientific Evidence. 103 
 
 pass at once to our next topic, the logical nature of the Scientific 
 Evidence. 
 
 Its Logical Premises. 
 
 As all reasonable evidence involves facts or principles upon 
 which it is based and from which it proceeds, we need to define 
 clearly, if but briefly, the premises of Christian Evidence in 
 general, but especially the evidence before us. In the first 
 place, since there could be no revelation without a God to reveal, 
 we must assume, not indeed as unproved, but as at least prov- 
 able, some theistic theory of the world as affording the condi- 
 tions of intelligent communication between the absolute reason 
 of God and the finite reason of man. The sceptical philosopher 
 who regards Jehovah as a mere mythical personage, like Jupi- 
 ter, or a bare abstraction termed the Unknowable, would simply 
 make a revelation metaphysically impossible or logically incon- 
 ceivable. But, as a matter of fact, nearly all schools of thinkers, 
 even some agnostics, allow a theory of absolute being, more or 
 less consistent with the idea of revelation. Theism in some 
 form underlies the best thought and belief of mankind, and in 
 starting with theism we take ground common alike to philoso- 
 phy and religion. 
 
 Besides this universal tenet, we must still further assume, as 
 in the process of proof, the existence of a divine revelation in 
 the Holy Scriptures. The evidence of this revelation, as we 
 have said, has been accumulating for ages until now it amounts 
 to the highest probability in many minds, and in some minds to 
 moral certainty itself. It has been tested by the searching criti- 
 cism of each successive generation ; and it equals the best- 
 reasoned science in the kind if not in the degree of its certitude. 
 The burden of disproving it rests upon the objector to it. If 
 it is to be hereafter called in question at every step of this 
 inquiry, we shall only be ever returning upon our own path and 
 make little or no progress toward any good result. Rather let 
 it be our aim to advance with and beyond the Miraculous, 
 Prophetical, and Historical evidences of former ages, to the 
 new Scientific evidence of our own day. 
 
 As a third premise, it is quite logical to assume the integrity 
 of the canonical Scriptures as containing divine revelation in 
 distinction from all other sacred writings. It is more than 
 
104 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 twenty centuries since the Old Testament Canon was closed, 
 and about fifteen centuries since the completion of the New 
 Testament Canon. During all that time the consent of Chris- 
 tendom in them both has been practically unanimous. The 
 genuineness of the sacred books would seem fairly presumable. 
 While free discussions of the canonicity of each book may still 
 be allowable and of the highest importance among expert 
 scholars and divines, who are specially fitted and called to 
 purge the Canon from spurious ingredients, yet if we admit 
 them rashly and crudely into our popular lectures and treatises 
 we shall only be perpetually tearing up the foundations upon 
 which we are trying to build. As an oriental scholar, you may 
 endeavor to trace all the sacred books of the East, including the 
 Bible, to a primitive tradition or universal revelation, but it is 
 still a fact that the maxims of Confucius or the Zend-Avesta 
 were not included within the Canon. As a Church antiquarian, 
 you may value highly the apocryphal and patristic writings 
 which were discarded after full trial ; but the Book of Tobit or 
 the Epistle of Barnabas has not been restored to the Canon. As 
 a Christian thinker, you may believe that devout genius differs 
 only in degree from divine inspiration ; but the Imitation of 
 Christ or the Paradise Lost has not yet been exalted into 
 the Canon. As a Biblical critic, you may doubt the inspiration 
 of some of the Sacred Books, but the Song of Solomon or the 
 Epistle of Saint James has not been ruled out of the Canon. 
 Whatever may be your private opinions on such points, yet as a 
 loyal churchman, to say the least, you will accept the Canon 
 as it stands and find in it the written Word of God. Some 
 things may be considered as settled by the wisdom of the 
 Christian ages and the general consent of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Popular Fallacies. 
 
 After thus defining the premises of the new Evidence as 
 including theism, a revelation, and the Canon, it becomes 
 important next to repel certain fallacies which assail it at the 
 present time and may thwart its direct and full effect upon the 
 mind. These fallacies should be challenged at the threshold, 
 not, as I have said, with the view of offending any apologists 
 
CHAP. I.] Nature of Scientific Evidence. 105 
 
 who may practice them, but simply to clear away all rubbish 
 from the common ground where we are to stand together in 
 defence of the Faith. I shall state them in the popular form 
 under which they have become current. 
 
 The first fallacy relates to the aim and scope of revelation. 
 It is expressed in the dictum, " The Bible was designed to 
 teach nothing but religion and morals." This is a specious 
 sophism. That the Scriptures principally teach matters of 
 faith and duty lying within the realm of theology is obvious 
 enough ; but it does not follow that they may not also, inciden- 
 tally and secondarily, teach some other matters lying within 
 the realm of other sciences. The fallacy is false in its premise, 
 false in its process, and false in its product. 
 
 The Bible as Prejudged. 
 
 Its premise is a masked form of rationalistic prejudgment. 
 Bishop Butler, while ever commending reason as our only 
 faculty for judging anything, even revelation itself, is careful 
 to make reason a critic only of the evidences of revelation, not 
 of its contents ; and he has a masterly chapter on " Our inca- 
 pacity of judging what were to be expected in a Revelation." 
 In the nature of the case, the aims and topics of any divine 
 communication lie beyond the reach of human faculties. A 
 Revelation, in any proper sense of the word, implies our pre- 
 vious ignorance of its whole purpose and purport. If we could 
 know a priori what the Bible should teach us and how it should 
 teach us, we should need no Bible at all, and we might soon 
 prove that the one we have is not worth having if we approach 
 it in this spirit. Such prejudgment, moreover, may become not 
 merely irreverent, but irrational. It is as unphilosophical to 
 prejudge the phenomena of Scripture as the phenomena of 
 Nature ; to prescribe the course of revelation as the course of 
 science. Experience has shown, as Butler proves, that in either 
 case we are liable to infinite mistakes; and especially in the 
 latter case, that we could not even furnish a good inventory of 
 the wants which a revelation should supply. Men have absurdly 
 hoped to find in the Bible exact rules of life and business, full 
 political codes, elaborate systems of divinity, precise informa- 
 
I06 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 tion concerning the future life, a panacea for bodily ills, a talis- 
 man against harm, a fortune-book to conjure with, in short 
 almost anything that it does not contain. And we are quite 
 as likely to preclude from it what it does contain. It is but a 
 truism to say that the Bible was designed to teach simply what 
 it is found to teach. And if it is found to teach geological 
 truth in the first chapter of Genesis, as well as theological truth 
 in the first chapter of St. John, we can only infer that it 
 was designed to teach such truth in each instance. In a word, 
 the design and full purport of Holy Scripture are not the 
 proper problems of Introductory Criticism, but are simply 
 questions of devout Exegesis ; and the very last questions 
 rather than the first. Not until we have thoroughly studied 
 the Bible in all its actual contents and possible relations can we 
 affirm that it was never designed to teach scientific as well as 
 religious facts and truths. 
 
 The Bible as Mutilated. 
 
 But the sophism before us is as fallacious in its procedure 
 as in its premise. Sometimes, instead of starting as a prejudg- 
 ment, it claims to have been a sort of generalization on the face 
 of the Bible, to the eflfect that it is manifestly a book of religion 
 and morals, and therefore teaches nothing else. Very soon, 
 however, this mere crude generalization becomes a foregone 
 conclusion, to which all the contents of Scripture are 
 thenceforth to be adjusted. As superficial investigators will 
 choose the facts of Nature, so they will choose the texts of 
 Scripture, to suit their favorite hypothesis, while ignoring or 
 distorting all the rest. And the worst of the mistake is, that 
 the hypothesis often contains a large amount of truth with its 
 error, and explains many of the relevant facts, though not all 
 of them. In this way, good men, from the best motives, in 
 order to exalt the religious teaching of the Bible, will wholly 
 neglect or reject its physical teaching as connected therewith. 
 Selecting certain portions of Scripture supposed to be purely 
 ethical and theological in their purport, they will disparage all 
 remaining portions as unimportant or quite worthless, because 
 astronomical, geological, or historical in their bearing. And 
 having thus exscinded scientific truths, they will go on to 
 
CHAP. I.] Nature of Scientific Evidence. 107 
 
 mutilate religious truths, culling proof texts around their 
 favorite tenets, Calvinistic or Arminian, Baptist or Methodist, 
 Presbyterian or Episcopalian, Protestant or Catholic, until the 
 only divine standard of unity is made a source of endless dis- 
 sension throughout Christendom. 
 
 " This is the Book where each his dogma seeks. 
 And this the Book where each his dogma finds." 
 
 In short, the fallacy before us, as applied in the study of the 
 Bible, tends to narrow its scope even as a book of religion and 
 morals. 
 
 The Bible as Ignored. 
 
 A mutilated Bible can only bring cumulative evils in its train. 
 It is not strange therefore that reasoning so false in its premise 
 and in its process should be also false in its product. Not only 
 are the Holy Scriptures marred and wrested by its unscientific 
 treatment of their phenomena; but it engenders a growing 
 breach between divine knowledge and human knowledge, 
 with an issuing conflict of opinions and interests in every 
 region of civilization. History shows us that if we may err 
 by seeking too much in the Bible, we may also err by finding 
 too little in it. Time was when the former error prevailed. 
 Revelation was claimed as the ancient fountain of all knowledge 
 both in Pagan and in Christian philosophy. The whole cyclo- 
 paedia of the natural sciences was derived from Genesis, the 
 Book of Job, and the Psalms, with their so-called Mosaical 
 Mathematics, Scripture Geology, Biblical Physics, Sacred Zo- 
 ology, and all the rest. And by consequence religion itself 
 became allied with superstition and conceit, while science was 
 enslaved and philosophy degraded. But ever since the Refor- 
 mation we have been reacting toward the other extreme of find- 
 ing too little in the Bible. The springs of all philosophy are 
 now sought outside of revelation in the mere human reason 
 alone. Great Christian thinkers in our day no longer feel their 
 intellectual need of a revelation in framing their theories of 
 knowledge and systems of science as they may still feel their 
 spiritual need of it in moulding their faith and practice. Imag- 
 ine such thinkers standing with St. Paul before the Athenian 
 altar to the Unknown God ! Then, imagine his trenchant chal- 
 
io8 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 lenge, " Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto 
 you ! " 
 
 And the result is that the natural sciences are now openly 
 detached from Holy Scripture, if not arrayed against it, as no 
 longer consistent with its teachings. It is to be held as 
 important in its theology and ethics, but worthless in its astron- 
 omy, geology, and physics. Even the higher psychical sciences 
 are beginning to assert a like independence in the form of a 
 naturalistic ethic, and a comparative theology or science of 
 religions divested of miracle and prophecy and discharged of 
 all Scriptural ideas. Let the breach go on, and the whole circle 
 of the sciences will break into mere splendid fragments of 
 knowledge, philosophy will sink into hopeless nescience and 
 imbelief, and the discredited Bible will become the jest of the 
 pulpit as well as of the club and the newspaper ; no better than 
 was the derided oracle, or augury, amid the decaying culture of 
 Greece and Rome. 
 
 The True Scope of Revelation. 
 
 It is plain that such evils can be checked only by taking a 
 new point of departure and changing the entire mode of pro- 
 cedure; by approaching Holy Scripture as containing an 
 attested and accepted revelation ; by submitting our human 
 reason to the dictates of the divine reason in the divine Word, 
 with at least as much docility, patience, and candor as we prac- 
 tise in a scientific inquiry in the realm of Nature; by laying 
 aside all prepossessions as to its aims and uses, and keeping 
 ourselves within its own divinely prescribed limits ; and there 
 awaiting a full inductive investigation of its contents. Such 
 an investigation will show that, while the Bible mainly traverses 
 the realm of the mental and moral sciences with its revelations, 
 yet it also extends into the realm of the natural sciences, and 
 includes more or less of their ground and material within the 
 scope of its teaching. It thus includes astronomy in connection 
 with its revealed doctrine of creation and the angels ; geology 
 in connection with its revealed doctrine of the Sabbath and of 
 the old and the new earth ; anthropology in connection with its 
 revealed doctrine of the First and the Second Adam ; psychol- 
 ogy in connection with its revealed doctrine of regeneration and 
 
CHAP. I.] Nature of Scientific Evidence. 109 
 
 resurrection ; sociology in connection with its revealed doctrine 
 of Christian brotherhood and the Church; and the science of 
 comparative religion in connection with its most peculiar doc- 
 trines, the incarnation, the trinity, and the atonement. There 
 is, in fact, no science which is not more or less included within 
 the scope of revelation as found in the Scriptures. 
 
 Alleged Scientific Errors. 
 
 Another popular fallacy relates to the content of revelation. 
 We now hear it said on all sides, " The Bible contains scientific 
 errors in distinction from its religious truths." The dictum, 
 as often joined to the before-mentioned fallacy, becomes mere 
 reasoning in a circle and begging of the question. At one time 
 it is assumed, as a sort of axiom, that the Bible was not designed 
 to teach scientific truth, and thence inferred that its scientific 
 teaching is erroneous. At another time it is assumed, as a 
 matter of fact, that its scientific teaching is erroneous, and 
 thence inferred that it was never designed to teach scientific 
 truth. And so with each turn of the circle the fallacy grows, 
 that the Bible contains scientific errors. We can only escape 
 from the vicious circle by thoroughly testing its covert assump- 
 tions.* 
 
 A Questionable Theory. 
 
 At the first glance, it will be seen that it is based upon a 
 questionable theory of inspiration. It assumes that the divine 
 guidance of the sacred writers was limited and variable, so 
 limited as to make them inerrant only in religious matters, but 
 in all other matters, especially scientific matters, to leave 
 them exposed to their own erring faculties and to the errors 
 of the unscientific ages in which they lived and wrote. This 
 theory of inspiration is held by reverent minds from the 
 best motives. It would loyally exalt religious truth over all 
 scientific truth in importance, and judiciously separate the 
 essential Word of God from a supposed erroneous book which 
 merely envelops and contains it. Unfortunately, however, it 
 not only prejudges the purport of revelation, but proposes a 
 false discrimination between scientific Scripture and religious 
 
 * This question is more fully discussed hereafter in the chapter on 
 The Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 
 
no Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 Scripture which is simply impossible, if only for the reason 
 that all religious truths involve some scientific facts, and all 
 scientific facts involve some religious truths, in endless com- 
 plexity. Moreover the inspired writers themselves never thus 
 discriminate between the divine teaching in different spheres 
 of human interest. Nor can such discrimination be made by 
 any devout exegete. Logically, if not morally, we are as much 
 bound by the geological writings of Moses as by the theological 
 writings of St. Paul, even though we should like neither or 
 think one less important than the other. In point of fact, as 
 will hereafter be more fully shown, each kind of truth is impor- 
 tant in its own time and place, and both are so implicated and 
 combined in the Biblical system that they must stand or fall 
 together as in a massive arch which, if any segment be removed, 
 would tumble into ruins. 
 
 The Fallacy Proves too Little. 
 
 But besides thus sheathing a mere assumption the fallacy 
 before us is a sword which will cut both ways. It will prove 
 too little or too much according to the strictness with which 
 it is applied. It will prove too little, if the meaning merely be 
 that the Bible does not teach science, nor use the technical 
 phrase of science, but couches its revelations in the language 
 of appearance common to all men in all ages, though not always 
 scientifically accurate. Its astronomy thus speaks of a sunrise 
 and sunset. Its geology describes the earth as made in six 
 days, each with a morning and an evening. Its anthropology 
 depicts man as formed out of the ground like a clay image. 
 Its historiography has seeming discrepancies as to events, dates, 
 and numbers. And it also contains allegories, parables, and 
 other literary forms which lack scientific exactness. Let such 
 inaccuracies or discrepancies be accounted as errors, and every 
 scientific text-book will be found full of them. In fact no book 
 could possibly be written without them. The Bible, considering 
 its antiquity, is remarkably free from them. Many of them can 
 be readily explained. But even granting all of them, any list 
 of them that has ever been made would appear as mere 
 specks in the pure marble of its shrine or spots upon its sun 
 of truth. 
 
CHAP. I.] Nature of Scientific Evidence. iii 
 
 The Catholic Doctrine. 
 
 It may be well to observe, in passing, that this is no mere 
 Protestant invention or new Presbyterian tenet ; it is Catholic 
 doctrine. Fifteen centuries ago said St. Augustine : " To those 
 books which are already styled canonical I have learned to pay 
 such reverence and honor as most firmly to believe that none 
 of their authors has committed any error in writing. If in that 
 literature I meet with anything that seems contrary to truth, 
 I will have no doubt that it is only the manuscript which is 
 faulty, or the translator who has not hit the sense, or my own 
 failure to understand it." The Greek Church fathers, as well 
 as the Latin schoolmen, emphatically deny the possibility of 
 errors in the Canonical Scriptures. The Roman Church has 
 simply exalted the Pope as an infallible interpreter of the infal- 
 lible Bible. The Anglican Articles admit that Churches have 
 erred, but not that the Scriptures have erred, leaving that point 
 undefined. And though it be true, that the first Protestants 
 held the Bible to be infallible, yet it is also true that the falli- 
 bility of the Bible is largely a notion of Protestant growth; 
 and has become one of the extreme issues of the Reformation. 
 In opposition to all past catholic teaching, some Christian 
 writers in our day are maintaining, not only that the Church is 
 fallible, but that the Bible is fallible, and that the individual 
 reason is practically an infallible interpreter and judge both of 
 the Bible and of the Church. The result is that certain textual 
 and literary difficulties which have long been known within 
 the circle of Christian scholars are now bruited abroad in the 
 Church as proofs of a general errancy of the inspired writings.* 
 
 The Fallacy May Prove too Much. 
 
 We have seen that the fallacy before us proves so little of 
 Biblical error, in one view, as to prove scarcely any at all, at 
 least none of a scientific nature. But it will prove entirely too 
 much, if it is consistently and thoroughly applied, and the lack 
 of scientific phrase and accuracy is not confined to the physical 
 realm of revelation, but as rigorously extended throughout its 
 
 * The diflferent forms of infallibilism are more fully presented and 
 discussed in my Philosophia Ultima, vol. ii., pp. 372-91. 
 
112 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 spiritual realm. The Bible no more teaches the science of the- 
 ology than any other science, and its anthropomorphism in the 
 one sphere is quite as unscientific as its phenomenalism in the 
 other. If it be an error to say that the sun rises and sets, then 
 it is an error to say that Jehovah hath his throne in the heavens 
 and thundereth marvellously with his voice. If it be an error 
 to say that in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, then it 
 is an error to say that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand 
 years, and a thousand years as one day. If it be an error to say 
 that Jehovah formed man out of the ground, in the image of 
 God, then it is an error to say that Jehovah repented that He 
 had made man and cursed the ground for his sake. And such 
 theological errors are much more flagrant than such astronomi- 
 cal or geological errors. In the light of modern culture, what 
 were the Biblical pictures of the curtained heavens, or of the 
 dramatic week of creation, as compared with the Biblical 
 picture of Jehovah as countenancing slaughter and slavery and 
 polygamy, or as a jealous God, angry with the wicked every 
 day, and holding aloft a cup of wrath from which to pour out 
 famines and wars and pestilences over the earth? 
 
 Approximate Truths. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that the whole fallacy lies in admit- 
 ting that there is any error whatever in either class of state- 
 ments. The so-called errors are simply approximate truths or 
 partial revelations adapted to a rude age and people, and yet to 
 be completed and explained by later revelation or scientific 
 research. The gross anthropomorphism of the Old Testament 
 was thus explained by our Lord and his Apostles consistently 
 with the purer and fuller theism of the New Testament. And 
 the crude phenomenalism of the same Scriptures has been like- 
 wise explained, and is now used consistently with the more 
 exact and complete science of our day. In neither case was any 
 error once committed; in neither case is any error now con- 
 veyed. Men still speak truthfully, as they always have spoken 
 truthfully, and always will speak truthfully of a sunset and a 
 sunrise which are apparent physical motions, no less than of a 
 wrath and a love of God, which are seeming human passions. 
 
 As to all the alleged errors of the Bible within the domain of 
 
CHAP. I.] Nature of ScieniiHc Evidence. 113 
 
 religion or science, it is enough to say in general that tliey ap- 
 pear as errors only when detached from their proper connection 
 in the Holy Scriptures considered as a gradual revelation, by 
 means of which the chosen races of mankind have been edu- 
 cated and developed, from the rudiments of Judaism to the doc- 
 trines of Christianity, and from primitive barbarism to modern 
 civilization. And as to the alleged scientific errors in particular, 
 it should further be said that they seem precluded by the fact 
 that the Author of Scripture is also the Author of Nature, and 
 any seeming contradiction between them must be due either to 
 some false induction from Nature or to some wrong exegesis 
 of Scripture. 
 
 A Dangerous Fallacy. 
 
 It will be seen that I have not assumed any existing doctrine 
 of inspiration, plenary or limited, verbal or ideal; and that I 
 am not now advocating any special theory of the errancy or 
 inerrancy of Holy Scripture. I am simply maintaining, for the 
 purpose of this discussion, that those who do hold an extreme 
 theory of scientific errancy should hold it consistently and take 
 the consequences. They must be prepared to hear of error in 
 the religion of the Bible as well as in its science; in fact, of 
 worse error in its religion than in its science ; and, also, much 
 greater evidence of its religious error than of its scientific error. 
 Such has been the actual,- as well as logical result in some 
 schools of Christian learning. For this reason it is very unfor- 
 tunate that the word " error " has become so current in connec- 
 tion with the sacred writings. As applied to their mere literary 
 imperfections, or seeming inconsistencies, or typical rites and 
 obsolete precepts, it is misleading. As used in Biblical study it 
 opens the door to destructive criticism ; and in common life it 
 leads to irreverence and unbelief. Begin by admitting error 
 into the written Word of God, in any strict sense of the word 
 " error," and the book might continue interesting as a body of 
 Hebrew and Greek literature, beautiful as " a well of English 
 undefiled," perhaps instructive as a thesaurus of pious themes 
 and mottoes, but as a Canon, as an authoritative rule of Chris- 
 tian faith and practice, as a criterion of any essential truth, it 
 would become, sooner or later, not worth the paper on which it 
 Vol. ni— 8 
 
114 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ir. 
 
 is printed. Nor will an intelligent public long listen to preach- 
 ers who declare their very texts to be erroneous. 
 
 The Key-note. 
 
 The only just, wise, and safe position for us to take is, that 
 while our human interpretation of the Scriptures is always falli- 
 ble and often errant, as we know to our cost, yet the divine 
 revelation contained in the Scriptures, so far as ascertained and 
 ascertainable, cannot but be infallible and inerrant, the very 
 Word of God. 
 
 And this is especially the true position to take in regard to 
 the relations of science and revealed religion. The Bible is 
 neither a scientific book nor an antiscientific book. It does not 
 teach science, nor does it teach anything contrary to science. 
 It does not teach any theories in astronomy, geology, and other 
 sciences ; nor does it teach any errors in astronomy, geolog}% 
 and other sciences. On the contrary, as will hereafter be 
 shown, it does teach some astronomical, geological, and other 
 scientific facts, both natural and supernatural, and also certain 
 extra-scientific truths or revealed doctrines which are logically 
 essential to the sciences themselves in any complete philosophy 
 or system of perfect knowledge. This is the key-note of all 
 our discussion ; and the proofs of it will accumulate as we 
 proceed. 
 
 The whole question has a practical side which should not be 
 forgotten. As " the witness and keeper of Holy Writ," the 
 Episcopal Church is distinguished by the abundance of Holy 
 Scripture which she provides in her liturgy. The lessons, psalms, 
 epistles, and gospels read in a single day sometimes exceed the 
 amount read in a whole week in other communions. And this is 
 in accordance with apostolic precept and divine command. St. 
 Paul reminded a young divinity student that from a child he 
 had known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make him 
 wise unto Salvation and to render the man of God perfect, 
 thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The same Apostle 
 warned him as a custodian of the Faith to avoid oppositions of 
 science falsely so called, and to beware of such philosophy as 
 is vain and deceitful, after the rudiments of this world and not 
 after Christ. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE LOGICAL VALUE OF THE SCIENTIFIC 
 EVIDENCE. 
 
 We approach the last and most serious of the popular falla- 
 cies which are now hindering the appreciation and reception of 
 the scientific evidence of revealed religion. I shall crave the 
 liberty of discussing it without reserve and with that directness 
 which the importance of the subjects demands. If I do not 
 carry with me the full consent of all minds, I may at least hope 
 to stimulate inquiry and to present some aspects of the Biblical 
 question which seem to have been forgotten or undervalued at 
 the present juncture and yet are needed before coming to a 
 final judgment. 
 
 The two fallacies already noticed refer to the scope and to 
 the content of revelation, the one excluding scientific truth 
 from its scope, the other including scientific error in its con- 
 tent. The fallacy now to come before us refers to the form of 
 revelation and tends to depreciate its value. We meet with it 
 in a current phrase everywhere repeated as if it were an axiom : 
 " The Bible is literature, to be studied as we study other litera- 
 ture." Having been charged with error by some of its own 
 friends, perhaps it is not surprising that it should sink toward 
 the level of mere human writings, or that, in the literary excess 
 of our timeSj it should be overrun with a species of criticism 
 which is largely aesthetic, sometimes rhetorical in its aim and 
 spirit. We seem threatened with " a book religion," in a new 
 sense of the phrase. A fresh literary interest in the Bible per- 
 vades even the secular press. One might almost fancy the Book 
 had lost its unique sacrcdness as he hears applied to it the tech- 
 nical terms once confined to the productions of ordinary liter- 
 
 115 
 
ii6 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 ature, and reads in his morning paper of Hebraic myths and 
 legends and Biblical dramas and lyrics and idyls and the rest. 
 I am not about to say that there is anything positively false in 
 this phase of Biblical study or that it is not in itself deserving 
 of unstinted praise or that it may not even be a healthy symp- 
 tom in the present diseased state of opinion. I would simply 
 give it its due place and importance, as it bears upon the ques- 
 tion of connecting the Sciences with the Bible as evidences of 
 revealed religion. 
 
 The Bible More than Mere Literature. 
 
 The assertion that the Bible is literature is true — but it is 
 not the whole truth. The Bible is more than mere literature. 
 It is divinely inspired literature as collected within the sacred 
 Canon in distinction from all other literature, ancient and mod- 
 ern. In a limited though not the most important sense it is a 
 literary product or rather a collection of literary products, 
 resembling in some respects the productions of the masters of 
 literary art. Its chronicles, proverbs, psalms, prophecies, gos- 
 pels, and epistles may be likened, as they have been often very 
 favorably likened to certain corresponding literary types with 
 which it is now the fashion to class them and sometimes to con- 
 found them. But at that point the superficial resemblance ends. 
 It does not extend to the revealed content enveloped in these 
 literary forms, the divine purport of the human language. 
 There is still a fundamental difference between literature and 
 Scripture. In distinction from all other books, this volume 
 contains the accredited mind and will of God, otherwise un- 
 known and unknowable by any unaided genius of man. While 
 the poet and the philosopher only voice the common human 
 heart and conscience, the prophet and the apostle claim to 
 bring us divine ideas in inspired words ; and, if we admit the 
 evidence of their claim, it becomes not merely undevout, but 
 illogical, to read the prophet Isaiah as we would read the poet 
 Virgil, or the apostle John as we would read the philosopher 
 Plato. As I have elsewhere said, when St. Paul stood among 
 the masterpieces of Greek art and literature at Athens, he 
 quoted a saying of Aratus and Cleanthes with the polite 
 acknowledgment, " As certain of your own poets have said " ; 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 117 
 
 but when he cites a text from Moses and David, it is with the 
 devout preamble, "As the Holy Ghost saith." 
 
 The Bible no Mere Ancient Classic. 
 
 If the literary forms of the Bible suffer in comparison with 
 those of the ancient classics, it is because they were produced 
 by a somewhat rude people whose government was a theocracy, 
 whose art, so far as they had any, was subordinated to religion, 
 and whose literature was made a vehicle of divine revelation. 
 There is no evidence that prophets and apostles studied mere 
 rhetorical effect, like poets and orators. And, therefore, the 
 two cannot be classed together. As to content and purport, the 
 Genesis of Moses is not to be named with the Theogony of 
 Hesiod ; nor the prophecies of Isaiah with the Iliad of Homer; 
 nor the story of Jonah with the adventures of Ulysses; nor 
 the psalms of David with the Odes of Horace ; nor the parables 
 of our Lord with the fables of ^sop. Under greater beauty of 
 form there is an essential difference in matter which stamps the 
 classical writings as merely human works. While Greek sages 
 and Roman poets fancifully claimed the aid of the Muses, 
 Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles spoke as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The Bible Free from Pagan Science. 
 
 And this divine import of the Holy Scriptures, in contrast 
 with all other ancient writings, appears even in the sphere of 
 science as well as in the sphere of religion. Although the 
 Hebrew prophets may have been, and doubtless were, greatly 
 inferior to the Assyrian, Egyptian, and Greek sages in scientific 
 knowledge, yet their expressions betray none of the grotesque 
 absurdity which disfigures the astronomy or geology of their 
 contemporaries as found in the sacred books of the East, or even 
 in the more artistic mythology of the Greeks. Compare the 
 confused and trivial cosmogony of the Chaldean tablets with 
 the lucid and stately method of Genesis. Compare the gross 
 Egyptian picture of the earth as a chaotic Qgg conceived by the 
 sable-winged bird of Night, with the simple statement of the 
 Divine Spirit's agency in creation. Compare the fanciful feats 
 of Hellenic gods and goddesses in producing plants, animals. 
 
Ii8 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 and men, with the sublime fiats of the one Creator of heaven 
 and earth. Compare the trivial fables of Prometheus and Pan- 
 dora with the profound teaching of the story of Adam and 
 Eve. Why is it that the Books of Moses have outlived scientific 
 discovery and criticism, while those of Orpheus, Hesiod, and 
 Thales have long since lost all scientific interest and value? 
 How comes it that these " semi-barbarous Hebrews," as they 
 have been contemptuously styled, have so exceeded the science 
 of their own time, and even their own personal knowledge, that 
 they have written what is still true for our time, and is likely 
 to be true for all time to come ? It is simply because they were 
 under divine guidance even when moving in the realm of nat- 
 ural science, and spake as the Spirit gave them utterance. 
 
 Personal Errancy of Inspired Writers. 
 In thus accepting the sacred writers as organs of the Holy 
 Spirit we do not need to palliate any of their faults and vices 
 as committed outside of the divine communications. Why 
 should we doubt the inspiration of sinning David or erring 
 Peter, when we behold a Bacon or a Shakespeare, notwithstand- 
 ing their personal failings, made the Providential instrument 
 of conveying immortal truth and benefit to mankind? Their 
 personal errancy is quite apart from their official teaching, and, 
 instead of tingeing Holy Scripture with errors, sometimes only 
 enhances its truthfulness by contrast, as when a royal psalmist 
 so freely confesses his own sins and the shameful lapse of an 
 apostle is so fully portrayed by an evangelist. Even if the 
 author of Genesis shared the geological errors of his age, as 
 he may have done, yet there is no trace of them imparted in 
 the revealed history of creation as we can now read and 
 interpret it in the light of modern science. 
 
 Personal Freedom of Inspired Writers. 
 
 Nor need we imagine any loss of the individuality and free- 
 dom of the inspired writers as exercised within the divine 
 communications. Was Isaiah less fervid or Paul less logical 
 because filled with the Holy Ghost? Do we not sometimes 
 see ordinary minds inspired and governed by some superior 
 mind, yet acting as freely and characteristically as if their own 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 119 
 
 masters? We could not, if we would, conceive of prophets and 
 apostles as mere machines or automatons without thought and 
 volition ; and never, even while receiving their divinest mes- 
 sages, do we lose sight of their human peculiarities, whether 
 it be an austere reformer who is proclaiming the vengeance of 
 Jehovah, or a well-bred scholar who is reasoning out the mys- 
 teries of godliness. Though we accept Genesis as a work of 
 the Holy Spirit, we are not blind to the dramatic form of the 
 divine story of creation or to the allegorical drapery in the 
 inspired picture of primeval man. 
 
 Divine Unify of the Scriptures. 
 
 Still less may we find any difficulty in the varied idiosyn- 
 crasies of the inspired writers, their diversities of idiom, style, 
 diction, purpose, temperament, and environment ; in short, the 
 manifold human element which appears on the face of Holy 
 Scripture. As a collection of writings by different authors, 
 in difTerent ages, under different circumstances, the Bible 
 has been called " a library." But it is a library selected by 
 divine wisdom, preserved by divine Providence, animated by 
 divine intelligence, organized and unified by divine purpose, 
 and unfolding one divine scheme of individual and social 
 regeneration from the primeval promise of redemption to the 
 fulness of millennial glory ; from the genesis of the heaven 
 and earth in the ages past to the apocalypse of the new heaven 
 and the new earth through the ages to come. To revere the 
 divine truth and glory of such a book is not bibliolatry. The 
 true bibliolater is your mere litterateur admiring only certain 
 lyric, dramatic, and epic beauties which are but as the jewelled 
 crown, sceptre, and robe of the Spiritual Monarch who wears 
 them whilst reigning in the hearts of mankind. 
 
 We have still to consider the inferential fallacy that the 
 Bible should be studied " as we study other literature." This, 
 also, expresses only half of the truth. It is true enough that 
 the student of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures needs the 
 same literary appliances which are needed in the study of the 
 Greek and Latin classics, such as grammar, lexicon, text-book, 
 critical skill, literary taste, and that linguistic tact which comes 
 as a gift or with long practice — in other words, the furniture 
 
I20 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 of tlie art of Higher Criticism. But this is not all that he 
 needs. Ke needs pre-eminently certain other qualifications 
 which are not needed in the study of any other book, ancient 
 or modern. 
 
 Logical Pre-reqnisites of Biblical Study. 
 
 At the outset, he needs logically certain postulates or princi- 
 ples without which his whole literary equipment will be worse 
 than useless. The Bible in its presuppositions is so funda- 
 mentally different from all other literature that it cannot be 
 judged by the same literary standards. It assumes the exist- 
 ence of the one true God on every page ; it claims to be a 
 miraculously attested revelation to man from the beginning to 
 the end of the world, and it has been set apart by the whole 
 Church as a genuine product of the Holy Spirit. And such 
 premises are not mere traditional prejudices or dogmatic 
 obstructions, but rational presumptions, imbedded in the very 
 phenomena of Scripture itself, and supported by the best his- 
 torical evidence which the world affords. They are not found 
 in any contemporaneous literature, Assyrian, Egyptian, 
 Grecian, or Roman. A critic repudiating them, an atheist, an 
 agnostic, a denier of miracles, inspiration, and the historic 
 canon, is simply a critic who has already prejudged the whole 
 case. His attitude, to say the least, is illogical and unreason- 
 able. He is ignoring the only true premises of the whole argu- 
 ment. It is as if he were about to discuss a treatise on physics 
 without regard to the mathematical axioms from which it 
 proceeds, and which it everywhere involves. He may be fully 
 competent to criticise classical authors; but he is not fully 
 competent to criticise the Holy Scriptures. And he shows his 
 incompetency as soon as he enters the field of biblical criticism. 
 He brings his sceptical spirit with him, he comes in search of 
 superficial analogies between heathen mythology and revealed 
 religion ; and naturally enough he finds in Jehovah only an 
 Israelitish Jupiter, in the prophetic revelations mere Hebrew 
 oracles, in all the Bible stories nothing but Jewish myths, and 
 in the whole miraculous history of revealed religion a purely 
 natural development of universal religion embellished with 
 Syrian conceits and oriental fancies. This is the logical and 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 121 
 
 inevitable result of using the higher criticism without regard 
 to the essential distinction between classical and biblical liter- 
 ature.* 
 
 Misapplied Classical Criticism. 
 
 And a like mistake is made by some Christian scholars of the 
 same school, who, though accepting the fundamental principles 
 of biblical literature, will proceed to forget them or even pro- 
 test continued belief in them while undermining them. When 
 such critics come upon a seeming discrepancy or verbal inac- 
 curacy, instead of endeavoring to explain it or retaining it 
 simply as a still unexplained difficulty, they will straightway 
 proclaim it as an " error," implying incompetency or deceit in 
 an inspired writer. If they regard the story of Eden as a 
 spiritual allegory they do not directly connect it with the Holy 
 Spirit as its real author, but incorrectly style it " a myth " or 
 mere human fable, and sometimes rashly trace it as such to a 
 Persian or Chaldean origin. They seem to handle a sacred 
 book as if it were a literary forgery to be self-convicted by 
 means of its grammatical solecisms and anachronisms, and 
 would, if they might, reconstruct the entire canonical Scriptures 
 as if they were some chance miscellany that has drifted down 
 to us on the stream of profane tradition. While theoretically 
 accepting the Holy Scriptures as inspired of God, they practi- 
 cally treat them as they might treat the works of Homer or 
 of Livy. 
 
 The principle that the rules of classical criticism should 
 govern biblical criticism was first judiciously broached by 
 Ernesti, the German Cicero, but pushed to rash extremes by 
 Eichhorn, De Wette, and Herder. It does not follow even on 
 philological or literary grounds that a good critic in one 
 language will be a good critic in another language, and with 
 reference to another class of themes. The great Bentley him- 
 self was a striking example to the contrary. After he had 
 vanquished all his opponents in the famous " battle of books " 
 by triumphantly proving that the Epistles of Phalaris and the 
 Fables of ^sop were forgeries, he might have remained the 
 acknowledged master of the critical art, had he not been 
 
 * This subject is more fully treated heretofore in the paper on the 
 false Mythical Theory of Revealed Religion. 
 
122 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 tempted in a rash moment to try his pen upon the great English 
 epic of Milton. He fancied that there were certain literary 
 blemishes in the Paradise Lost, which must have been inter- 
 polated by the amanuensis or the redactor of the blind old poet, 
 and which might be removed by his own critical sagacity and 
 conjecture. What havoc was wrought by such emendation 
 may be shown by one or two specimens. On etymological 
 grounds the infuriate legions of Satan were made to draw their 
 " blades " instead of their " swords," and brandish them 
 toward the " walls of heaven," not toward the " vault of 
 heaven," according to Milton's grander conception. Topo- 
 graphical inaccuracies were found in the scene of Raphael's 
 leave-taking, 
 
 " So parted they; the angel up to heaven, 
 From the thick shade; and Adam to his bower." 
 
 Bentley argued that Adam could not have left his bower, and 
 substituted the ponderous reading, 
 
 " So parted they; the angel up to heaven: 
 Adam to ruminate on past discourse." 
 
 The well-known line, suggesting the dim interior of Hell, 
 " No light, but rather darkness visible," 
 
 was elucidated so as to read, 
 
 " No light but rather a transpicuous gloom." 
 
 Disraeli tells us that there are a thousand such critical emenda- 
 tions in Bentley 's Milton; and exclaims, " Let it remain as a 
 gibbet on the high-roads of literature and serve as a terrifying 
 beacon to all conjectural criticism." The school of Bentley, 
 however, still survives in some biblical critics of acknowledged 
 learning, who naively think to prove their points by imagining 
 a redactor behind every difficult text, translating the divine 
 name Jehovah as " Jahveh," calling the first section of the 
 canon the " Hexateuch," and ascribing its various portions to 
 the initials of imaginary writers. 
 
 Abuse of the Higher Criticism. 
 
 The method of the Higher Criticism is sound enough when 
 rightly used and applied within reasonable limits. Its value, 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 123 
 
 though sometimes exaggerated, is undisputed in determining 
 the date, structure, and authorship of ancient writings, whether 
 sacred or profane ; and in this age of Hght and hberty it is prac- 
 tically as unfettered as the wind. The question of its free use 
 by biblical scholars is a false issue. As a matter of fact, it is 
 already freely used by biblical scholars of all classes, by the 
 most orthodox as well as by the most infidel. But it is also 
 abused and perverted and may lose the essential qualities of 
 Christian scholarship. When it is applied to the Scriptures 
 regardless of their divine origin and claims, it cannot but 
 become fallacious and destructive; and when its crude results 
 are forced into popular sermons to the unsettling of the com- 
 mon faith, it becomes, if not a breach of clerical ethics, yet a 
 strange inconsistency and just cause of oflfence. 
 
 Scientific Pre-requisites. 
 
 In the second. place, the biblical student needs scientific aid, 
 scientific in distinction from literary appliances. Unlike all 
 other ancient books the Bible is found to embrace the whole 
 field of the sciences, physical and psychical, in manifold con- 
 nection with its revealed doctrines ; and no mere literary critic 
 is competent by mere literary methods to settle questions lying 
 partly or wholly within the province of any of these sciences. 
 Without astronomical knowledge he cannot tell whether the 
 astronomical scriptures are in accord with the discovery of 
 suns and planets. Without geological knowledge he cannot 
 tell whether the order of the creative days agrees with the 
 order of the earth's strata. Without ethnological knowledge 
 he cannot tell whether the Mosaic genealogies include or 
 exclude pre-Adamite and co-Adamite races of mankind. With- 
 out archaeological knowledge he cannot tell whether the Mosaic 
 cosmogony was of Hebrew or Chaldean origin, or derived from 
 primeval tradition still more ancient ; nor whether the Elohist 
 and Jehovist sections were original writings or compiled docu- 
 ments ; nor whether Moses wrote the whole or parts of the 
 books which have always borne his name. Without historical 
 science he cannot tell whether the Mosaic codes formed a logi- 
 cal or chronological series ; nor whether they date before or 
 after the Babylonian exile. And without some knowledge of 
 
124 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 psychology, sociology, and comparative religion he cannot even 
 approach the higher problems of the soul, the Church, and the 
 future of Christianity. In a word, no amount of mere literary 
 criticism, however learned and acute, can settle these and other 
 complex scientific questions connected with the Old and New 
 Testaments, but extending quite outside of Hebrew and Greek 
 literature, into other fields of modern scientific research. 
 
 Unscientific Higher Criticism. 
 
 Moreover, though we dare not say that the literary spirit is 
 peculiarly errant, yet it is fair to say that it has hitherto 
 greatly needed more of the scientific spirit to check and guide 
 it. Its vagaries for the last hundred years, especially in the 
 schools of Germany, have made it the scandal of Christian 
 learning as well as of common-sense. Some of us began 
 acquaintance with it nearly fifty years ago, when we were 
 young and eager students of divinity, and we cannot now be 
 charged with ignorance of it by those who are hailing it as a 
 novelty. Nor, indeed, is it necessary for anyone to master all 
 its details, in order to see that it has lacked the inductive 
 method of true science; that it has proceeded from assumed 
 facts, with inadequate hypotheses, to illegitimate conclusions, 
 and that it is largely mere critical conjecture based upon criti- 
 cal conjecture, brilliant erudition without solid knowledge. 
 Upon its polychrome Bible might be written what Bossuet 
 wrote upon a charming treatise of Malebranche, " pulchra, 
 nova, falsa." Its fascinating symbols, E, J, P, and D, howso- 
 ever combined, still figure in an unsolved problem, for the 
 simple reason that the personages indicated by them, the Elo- 
 hist and the Jehovist, the Deuteronomist and the Priestly Codi- 
 fier, with the ubiquitous Redactor, are purely ideal, without 
 even the despised evidence of tradition to make them real. 
 Indeed, for the sake of such mere modern fancies, it has set 
 aside the historical evidence of the entire Jewish and Christian 
 Church, the direct testimony of the nearest inspired and con- 
 temporary writers, and the biblical knowledge of our Lord 
 himself, to say nothing of his divine knowledge. And now, as 
 the result of all this literary guesswork, it offers us, in place of 
 the received canon, a medley of pseudonymous fragments 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 125 
 
 behind which the true authors and editors, it would seem, have 
 been masquerading as inspired prophets and apostles for 
 thousands of years. In all reason and frankness it is time to 
 protest against such speculations among Christian scholars. 
 Not because they are beyond the right and liberty of research 
 (this is a false issue) ; not because they are necessarily ration- 
 alistic or heretical (this some critics deny) ; not even because 
 they are unwelcome (we might almost wish some of them were 
 true) ; but simply because they are unscientific; because they 
 are contrary to the literary phenomena and the historical facts ; 
 because, even if true, they would add but little to our stock 
 of biblical knowledge ; because, in a word, they are either not 
 proved or not worth proving. We take the ground of the 
 Higher Criticism against them. We will believe them when 
 we can believe that Shakespeare did not write the dramas of 
 Shakespeare, or that the Waverley novels had an unknown 
 redactor in Sir Walter's private secretary, or that the Anglican 
 Prayer-book was a post-exilic production of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers. 
 
 Spiritual Prerequisites. 
 
 But besides scientific aid, the biblical student also needs 
 spiritual aid before and above all literary requisites. The Bible 
 should not be studied as we study other books, for the eminent 
 reason that unlike any other book, ancient or modern, it claims 
 to be a product of the Holy Spirit and requires for its full com- 
 prehension the inward illumination of its divine author. No 
 mere grammatic or literary study can exhaust the infinite mind 
 of the Spirit which the natural mind receiveth not. It is old- 
 fashioned doctrine, but it is doctrine which has been tested, 
 that spiritual discernment rather than aesthetic taste is the 
 primary requisite of biblical study. Having that requisite, a 
 reader of our English Bible, though ignorant of Hebrew and 
 Greek and as devoid of literary culture as a Bunyan or a 
 Moody, may become mighty in the Scriptures, versed in those 
 divine mysteries which were in the bosom of God at the begin- 
 ning of the world and which our Lord declared had been 
 hidden from philosophers and sages and revealed unto men 
 as unsophisticated as babes. On the other hand, the most 
 accomplished literary critic, if destitute of these primary 
 
126 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 graces of reverence, docility, and faith, will betray a fatal lack 
 of spiritual insight, and will find in the Scriptures only what 
 he finds in other ancient books, attractive myths and legends, 
 sagas and folk-lore, excellent moral and religious maxims, 
 together with abundant mistakes, absurdities, and errors; in 
 short a Bible without miracle or prophecy or inspiration or 
 authority. Have we not seen him thus invading the shrine of 
 revealed truth unabashed, and taking prophets and apostles 
 by the beard? No wonder that the deep things of the Spirit 
 vanish under his critical dissection of the letter. The 
 Wounded Dove flees from his scalpel. He has cut the divine 
 documents as with the pen-knife of Jehudi. "And it came to 
 pass that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut 
 it with the pen-knife, and cast it into the fire that was on the 
 hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on 
 the hearth." * 
 
 Rationalistic Criticism. 
 
 It is not merely naturalism, hostility to the supernatural and 
 miraculous, which must be charged against such critics : it is a 
 false rationalism. It is a rationalism which is itself irra- 
 tional. It is a rationalism which perverts our God-given 
 reason and will not take the place of right reason, lowly 
 yet exalted, before the One Absolute Reason. It is a rational- 
 ism which does not even recognize the limitations of reason, 
 but would attempt transcendental problems, which a revelation 
 alone could solve and has solved. It is a rationalism which 
 refuses to submit the finite mind of man to the infinite mind 
 of God as revealed by his Holy Spirit in his Holy Word. It 
 is a rationalism which reveres neither the inspired Bible nor 
 the illumined Church, but is ever handling the word of God 
 deceitfully and evaporating the creeds and forms of the Catho- 
 lic Faith. And its mere naturalistic tendency is not so much 
 to be dreaded as its unbelieving spirit. Let it explain away, 
 if it can, the whole supernatural element of the Bible, as now 
 popularly conceived. Let it exhibit, if it will, every miracle as 
 a natural event, and the entire evolution of revealed religion 
 from Genesis to the Apocalypse as a natural process under 
 natural laws, as Bishop Butler long ago conceived it ; but let it 
 ♦Jeremiah, xxxvi. 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 127 
 
 not touch with rash hand that divine revelation which the 
 miracles attest, around which the supernatural shines, of which 
 prophets and apostles are the heralds, and before which the 
 tallest seraph in glory reverently bows, alike with the little 
 child at its mother's knee. 
 
 Conservative Higher Criticism. 
 
 At this point it is important and only right to discriminate 
 carefully between the Reverent and the Rationalistic schools 
 of biblical study, known as the Conservative and Radical wings 
 of the Higher Criticism. The former disclaim the rash and 
 destructive conclusions of the latter and are fairly distinguish- 
 able from them by having the spiritual requisites which we 
 have just noticed. Some of them use the Higher Criticism 
 learnedly in defence of the traditional authorship and his- 
 toricity of the sacred records, exhibiting their substantial con- 
 sistency without the aid of hypothetical documents, scribes, 
 and redactors. Others contend that the inspiration and author- 
 ity of the Scriptures can be conserved, though it be proven 
 that they were largely an accretion or collection of sacred 
 traditions, documents, and codes compiled by pious hands, 
 before and after the time of Moses, to whom they were popu- 
 larly attributed by our Lord and his apostles. Still others also 
 maintain that revealed religion need lose none of its super- 
 natural character and claims, if it be shown to have had a 
 history or a development since the Exodus, which seems for- 
 bidden by literal statements of the sacred narratives, but may 
 be traced in them by a literary expert versed in Hebrew 
 antiquities. Without inquiring how far these views are self- 
 consistent, sound and valuable, I shall endeavor scrupulously 
 to give them due consideration and weight, and be ready to 
 welcome such critics in the ranks of sincere defenders of the 
 faith on the basis of the principles laid down in the previous 
 discussion. These principles are, that the Bible extends its 
 revelations within the realm of the physical sciences as well 
 as the psychical sciences ; that it is to be held no more erroneous 
 in the one realm than in the other ; and that for its proper 
 study it requires scientific knowledge and spiritual insight no 
 less than literary scholarship. A biblical critic who accepts 
 
128 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 these principles and stands firmly upon them may speculate as 
 he likes in regard to the historical origin, the editorial arrange- 
 ment and the literary qualities of the sacred books. He may 
 maintain, if he wishes, that the Pentateuch was a sort of in- 
 spired mosaic derived from primeval revelations through 
 Babylonian tablets, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Hebrew docu- 
 ments. He may argue, if he choose, that the Levitical and 
 Deuteroncmical codes have been rearranged by inspired redac- 
 tors with more regard to logical than to chronological order and 
 accuracy, as in modern statute-books. He may hold, if he will, 
 that the prophetical scriptures were restricted by their inspired 
 authors to the environment and foreground of Jewish history 
 with no conscious reference to the future church or the general 
 history of mankind, to which they have been found applicable. 
 He may describe the divine allegories in Scripture as Hebrew 
 myths, the Psalms as oriental lyrics and class the literary 
 forms of Holy Scripture generally with pagan productions to 
 which they bear a vague outward resemblance. In a word he 
 may adopt any critical hypotheses, conjectures and surmises, 
 which seem to him plausible, provided he still accepts the Holy 
 Scriptures as containing an objective revelation from God to 
 man, which is absolutely unique, infallible and authoritative in 
 all its ascertained teaching, whether that teaching be found 
 within the sphere of Science or of Religion and though it be 
 not stated scientifically or technically in either of these spheres. 
 
 Higher Qualities of the Scientific Evidence. 
 
 Having thus cleared the Scientific Evidence from the current 
 fallacies which hinder its due appreciation, we are now ready 
 to examine its logical qualities more directly. In general, it 
 may be said to share the qualities of science as distinguished 
 from ordinary vague knowledge. First of all, it shares the 
 certitude of science. Like all true science it is founded upon 
 unquestioned facts rather than upon assumed principles. When 
 we argue from the Divine wisdom and goodness, that a revela- 
 tion should be made, we assume principles which are not gener- 
 ally admitted ; and when we argue from miracles and prophe- 
 cies, that a revelation has been made, we assume facts which 
 are still questioned; but when we show that astronomical 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 129 
 
 facts or geological facts are in agreement with corresponding 
 truths in Holy Scripture, we show that the Author of Scrip- 
 ture is also the Author of Nature, and has made known noth- 
 ing in the one volume contrary to what has been found in the 
 other. The proof of natural religion is largely a matter of 
 abstract reasoning, and the proof of miracles and prophecies 
 is mainly a matter of historic testimony; but the glory of 
 Jehovah as magnified by astronomy and unfolded by geology 
 is purely a matter of Scientific evidence. 
 
 This evidence also shares the impartiality of science. It is 
 a just boast of true science that it is absolutely unprejudiced 
 and disinterested ; that in its quest for facts it will not be gov- 
 erned by authorities, traditions, or precedents, however vener- 
 able ; that it is neither swayed by the passions and infirmities 
 of mortals nor turned back from its course by persecution, 
 torture, or death itself ; and that when it reaches its conclusions 
 it seems to have no regard for human interests the most dear 
 or sacred, but becomes impassive as nature and merciless 
 as fate. History shows us that it has often forced its own 
 votaries to abandon their most plausible hypotheses, reverse 
 their cherished opinions, and at length accept the very results 
 from which they had recoiled. History shows us, too, as in the 
 case of Galileo, that it has sometimes compelled even divines, 
 priests, and popes with infallible claims to reconstruct their 
 long-established interpretations of Scripture, but, after seem- 
 ing to menace Scripture itself, has only opened new and larger 
 views of its meaning and left it like a sun cleared of clouds, to 
 shine with increased radiance and glory. Now when astron- 
 omy thus becomes a w-itness to the truths of revealed religion, 
 it is no interested advocate pleading a cause, no specious apolo- 
 gist defending a claim, but it is Science itself giving evidence 
 at the bar of Omniscience. 
 
 This evidence still further shares the cumulative power and 
 fulness of Science. As we study the sciences philosophically 
 we find that they are not mere scattered fragments of knowl- 
 edge, but a linked series helping one another forward in a 
 general progress toward perfect knowledge. We find also 
 that as thus arranged they have a common ground with the 
 Bible where their own discovered facts become accordant with 
 Vol. in— 9 
 
130 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 revealed truth as fast as they attain scientific exactness and 
 clearness. Into this common ground, therefore, they enter 
 not as wrangling disputants with chance testimony, but as 
 competent witnesses with an ever-growing consistency pointing 
 forward to the ultimate demonstration of the whole Word 
 of God by the reason of man and the perfect coincidence of 
 human Science with divine Omniscience. 
 
 But the high qualities claimed for the Scientific Evidence 
 may appear more clearly as we now proceed to define its 
 sources and the various forms in which it is afforded. These 
 are fourfold, to be here announced necessarily in general 
 terms, but hereafter to be more specially and fully illustrated : 
 
 The Evidence of Scientific Authorities. 
 
 First. The chief authorities in each science can be cited in 
 favor of revealed religion. Much of the current evidence of 
 Scientific knowledge rests upon authority and testimony. We 
 are in the position of laymen or learners in respect to the 
 Masters of Science, and accept the results of their researches, 
 sometimes without understanding the processes by which such 
 results have been reached, and often without mastering the 
 details of such processes, even if made intelligible to us. We 
 thus believe the scarcely credible discoveries which have been 
 made in astronomy or in geology, though ourselves unable to 
 verify them. When, therefore, leading men of science declare 
 their discoveries to be not in conflict with the truths of the 
 Bible, and hold their religious faith consistently with their 
 scientific knowledge, this is testimony of the highest authority. 
 If there were any necessary antagonism between science and 
 revealed religion, then such men would be the first to feel and 
 show it and the last to quit the battle against the Faith ; but on 
 the contrary, as a class, with exceptions which only prove the 
 rule, they have given their united and unequivocal evidence 
 in support of revealed truths. It will be found that the history 
 of the sciences is full of such personal evidence of scientists 
 
 themselves. 
 
 The Evidence of Scientific Facts. 
 
 Second. The ascertained or demonstrated portions of each 
 science can be shown to be already in harmony with revealed 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of ScientiHc Evidence. 131 
 
 religion. After centuries of research and criticism, we possess, 
 especially in the physical sciences, large bodies of exact knowl- 
 edge, resting upon observed facts, susceptible of demonstrative 
 proof, and no longer challenged as admitting of a doubt. The 
 portion of astronomy known as celestial mechanics rests upon 
 such a certain basis ; and the portion of geology known as 
 terrestrial physics is approximating a like certitude. Now if 
 these well-ascertained facts of science stood in glaring con- 
 trariety with any revealed truths to which they are directly 
 related, this would tend to show that the author of Scripture 
 is not also the author of Nature, or that the human authors 
 of Scripture had communicated divine knowledge in a form 
 inconsistent with human knowledge. But instead of this result 
 it is found that the two portions of knowledge, the divine and 
 the human, logically require one another, that neither can 
 do without the other, and both together serve at once to 
 support science and illustrate revelation. As we review the 
 sciences we shall find them yielding this species of evidence 
 in proportion to their maturity as bodies of certain knowledge. 
 
 The Evidence of Scicntiiic Theories. 
 
 Third. The problematical or hypothetical portions of each 
 science can be provisionally adjusted as in sufficient harmony 
 with revealed religion. In distinction from the demonstrated 
 portions of scientific knowledge, the whole field of investiga- 
 tion is covered with masses of unsolved problems for the solu- 
 tion of which men of science have framed various conflicting 
 hypotheses or tentative constructions of fact, all of which 
 cannot be true, though each may have elements of truth. 
 Astronomy and geology, for example, are filled with such 
 problems and hypotheses concerning the origin, the develop- 
 ment, and the destiny of the heavens and the earth, and astron- 
 omers and geologists are accordingly divided as in hostile 
 camps upon a battle-field. Now it is not " the business of the 
 reconcilers " — as Mr. Huxley is pleased to term us — to rec- 
 oncile scientists among themselves, nor need we be troubled 
 to reconcile their mere conflicting speculations with any revealed 
 truths which they may seem to menace. All that we need 
 do or can do is to exhibit the problem of opinion, to state 
 
132 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 the relative agreement or disagreement which would ensue 
 when all the facts are known and the true theory has been 
 obtained. And we shall find, in regard to these conflicting 
 hypotheses, that while some of them would leave existing inter- 
 pretation of Scripture undisturbed, others would only require 
 that interpretation to be modified favorably, and that, whichever 
 hypothesis may ultimately prevail, the essential truths of re- 
 vealed religion will remain unimpaired, if not enhanced and 
 illustrated. The history of the more advanced Sciences will 
 show us how a scientific evidence which at first seemed hostile 
 has at length become friendly and all the more conclusive 
 because tried and purged in the fires of controversy. 
 
 The Evidence of Scientific Marvels. 
 
 Fourth. The marvels of modern science may serve to explain 
 and illustrate the miracles of revealed religion. It would 
 seem that the supernatural signs and wonders by means of 
 which Christianity originally obtained credence in the world 
 have become incredible to some persons who fancy that the 
 Science of our day has demonstrated their intrinsic impossi- 
 bility or shown that there is nothing analogous to them in 
 modern experience. While it is true that such miracles are 
 no longer wrought because no longer needed to attest the 
 claims of inspired writers, the book of Revelation having been 
 closed and the canon completed, yet it should not be forgotten 
 that science itself is unfolding before us more stupendous 
 marvels than any miracles recorded in the Old or New Testa- 
 ment, and is thus by the achievements of man rendering the 
 wonderful acts of God more easily conceivable and more credi- 
 ble. It is showing us that what is possible with man cannot 
 have been impossible with God. You may have deemed it im- 
 possible that iron should swim, as Elisha caused an axe-head 
 to swim in the brook by means of a wooden staflf; yet per- 
 haps you crossed the ocean last summer in a huge iron bowl 
 which swam at the rate of twenty miles an hour. You may 
 sometimes have thought it incredible that our Lord should 
 have raised Lazarus from the dead, yet before experience it 
 would have been no more credible that men should talk to- 
 gether across the Atlantic and girdle the globe with their 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 133 
 
 instantaneous thought. Miracles could not have happened? 
 Miracles do happen ! In some cases science even helps us 
 to conceive how a miracle may have been wrought through 
 divine knowledge and skill in due consistency with natural 
 laws. In fact, there is no modern science within whose 
 province ancient miracles did not occur, which now have their 
 parallels in its own marvels and achievements. While, then, 
 some sceptics are ever invidiously telling us that the age of 
 miracles is past, science itself is showing us that the age of 
 miracles has come again. 
 
 Valuation of the Scientific Evidence. 
 
 It only remains to estimate the value of the Scientific Evi- 
 dence. And let it first be remarked that its value is imperfect 
 only in so far as science itself is still imperfect. If it consists 
 largely of probable evidence rather than of demonstrative proof, 
 it is because all science rests largely upon such evidence, being 
 mainly an empirical collection of facts ; and if it be more com- 
 plete in some sciences than in others, it is because some 
 sciences are more complete than others, according to their dif- 
 ferent stages of advancement toward perfect knowledge. 
 These distinctions being always premised, its value will appear 
 in three respects. 
 
 It is valuable in relation to other Evidences, the Miraculous 
 and the Prophetical, the External and the Internal. Without 
 it, indeed, other evidences would be w^eak or worthless. No 
 ancient miracles or prophecies would now have any evidential 
 value if science could falsify them as the myths and legends 
 of a former rude age and people ; still less would any external 
 evidence of this dubious kind uphold a supposed revelation 
 containing scientific errors and absurdities, such as appear 
 in the Chaldean tablets or the Book of Mormon. But when 
 science is found to explain miracles and prophecies as quite 
 possible and credible expressions of divine power and knowl- 
 edge, when astronomy and geology are seen illustrating the 
 divine perfections revealed in Scripture, and when each science 
 appears coming into agreement with revealed doctrines as 
 fast as it approaches scientific completeness, then there will 
 be a convergence and accumulation of all the evidences, both 
 
134 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 external and internal, toward the highest degree of moral 
 certainty. 
 
 It is valuable in relation to the scientist himself. All science 
 is, in one good sense, agnostic toward religion. At the end 
 of its empirical research it comes to a metaphysical void, where 
 its torch goes out, and any further light must be the light 
 of a revelation. Were there no evidence of a revelation, 
 agnosticism might be justified and unbelief become sane and 
 rational. But when such evidence is at hand, evidence strictly 
 scientific in its sources and quality, evidence as scientific as 
 the evidence of the solar system or of the theory of evolution, 
 then there is no longer any room for reasonable doubt and 
 ignorance. Such scientific evidence will have come to the 
 modern scientist craving knowledge, as of old the prophetical 
 or philosophical evidence came to the Greek seeking wisdom, 
 and the miraculous evidence came to the Jew requiring a sign. 
 
 It is valuable in relation to all the interests of civilization. 
 We must not forget that our whole civilization is essentially 
 Christian and has its roots deep down and far back in revealed 
 religion. Our art is full of Christian ideals. Our philosophy 
 is saturated with Christian thought. Our jurisprudence is 
 transfused with Christian Ethics. Our States are irradiated 
 with Christian Churches. Our philanthropies are Christian 
 Charities. Kill or sap the roots of this w'ondrous culture with 
 agnosticism and unbelief, and all its goodly flower and fruit- 
 age will wither away. But support it with scientific evidence, 
 animate it with scientific faith, and fresh life will flow from 
 its roots into all the branches. Our art will repent and return 
 from the husks and the swine. Our philosophy will unite 
 revelation with reason in the search for perfect knowledge. 
 Our politics will aim to preserve law with liberty, and social 
 with individual rights. Our Churches will have become united 
 with our States in the one Catholic Faith. And our philan- 
 thropy will ever keep its face toward the predicted reign of 
 universal love and peace. 
 
 Timeliness of the Scientific Evidence. 
 
 Need it be added that the value of this evidence is timely 
 and practical? We live in an age of science, in the chief 
 
CHAP. II.] Logical Value of Scientific Evidence. 135 
 
 epoch of science. During the last three centuries science has 
 made greater progress than in the previous twenty centuries ; 
 and during the last fifty years, greater progress than in the 
 previous three hundred years. It is entering the new century 
 like a conqueror with his trophies. It has gained vast posses- 
 sions in astronomy, in geology, in chemistry, in physics, in 
 the mental sciences, and it has brought with it marvellous in- 
 ventions — the rail-car, the steamship, the telegraph, the pho- 
 tograph, the spectroscope, the lucifer match, electric lighting, 
 Roentgen rays, anaesthetics, antiseptic surgery. Justly there- 
 fore its votaries have become the idols of the people, to be 
 applauded as heroes while living, and when dead to be en- 
 tombed among kings, nobles, warriors, and poets, as bene- 
 factors of the race. Unhappily, however, as if intoxicated 
 with all this success and worship of science, some rash hands 
 are driving her car of triumph as a war-chariot into the sacred 
 domain of religion, across the fair pastures of the Church. And 
 now, in this seeming conflict with science we can only over- 
 come scientific unbelief with scientific evidence. It is a battle 
 which can only be fought with the weapons of Science. And 
 the victory, when it comes, will be a victory of Science, her 
 last and noblest victory. Not the mere physical comforts, 
 which she is multiplying among us ; not alone the arts of 
 utility and beauty which she is nourishing ; not even the humane 
 charities which she is promoting, will be her crowning achieve- 
 ment, but, over and above these, and as the primal source of 
 them all, will be her own demonstration of the truth, the 
 beneficence, and the glory of the Christian religion. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ALLEGED SCIENTIFIC ERRORS OF 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 At the threshold of the scientific evidences we meet the 
 general question, Does the Bible contain scientific errors? 
 The question may be treated mainly as a philosophical ques- 
 tion, in its bearings upon science as well as upon religion. Un- 
 happily, it has become mixed with several side issues, which 
 should be detached from it and thrown out of the discussion. 
 As it is to be presented here, it will have nothing to do with 
 the current disputes in dififerent churches, or with the defi- 
 nition of any type of orthodoxy, or even with the formal 
 vindication of Christianity itself. These are important issues 
 in their own time and place. But there is a larger, if not 
 higher, view of the main issue which they involve, and which 
 they may even hide from our sight. All schools of philoso- 
 phy, as well as all churches and denominations, have a common 
 interest in inquiring whether the Bible can yield us any real 
 knowledge within the domain of the various sciences. Indeed, 
 all men everywhere will become practically concerned in that 
 inquiry, if the oldest and most highly prized book in the 
 world is now to be set aside as a mixture of truth and error, 
 obsolete in science, if not also in morals and religion, and of 
 little further use in the progress of civilization. 
 
 The way to the question should be cleared by several distinc- 
 tions and admissions. Let us first distinguish mere literary im- 
 perfections from scientific errors, and frankly admit the exist- 
 ence of the former in the inspired authors. They were not 
 trained rhetoricians or even practised writers. They show the 
 greatest variety of culture and of style. The rugged simplicity 
 136 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 137 
 
 of the prophet is in contrast with the refined parallelism of the 
 Psalmist. The evangelists did not write pure Greek. It has 
 been said it would be difficult to parse some of the sentences 
 of St. Paul. Many of the Old Testament metaphors seem 
 gross to modern taste, and there are certain didactic por- 
 tions of Leviticus which are too natural to be read in public 
 worship. Nevertheless, to reject the teaching of inspired 
 writers on such aesthetic grounds would be like denying the 
 mathematics of the " Principia " because Newton wrote bad 
 Latin, or repudiating some medical classic as unfit for the 
 drawing-room. The literary blemishes of Holy Scripture, 
 as seen by fastidious critics, do not touch its revealed con- 
 tent or divine purport, but may even heighten it by the force 
 of contrast. 
 
 We may also distinguish and admit certain historiograph- 
 ical defects in the inspired authors. The prophets and evan- 
 gelists were not versed in the art of historiography, and did 
 not write history philosophically nor even always chronolog- 
 ically. Their narratives have many seeming discrepancies as to 
 events, dates, places, names, and figures. The line of the patri- 
 archs is yet to be traced, amid conflicting chronologies., with 
 historical accuracy. Persons and events do not always appear 
 to synchronize ; as when it is stated in the Book of Kings that 
 Ahaziah was forty years old on coming to the throne, and in 
 Chronicles that he was twenty-two years old. The Evangelists 
 Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell the story of the crucifixion of 
 Christ with differing motives and details which have not yet 
 been fully harmonized. Such things are simply unavoidable 
 in all historical composition. At the present date of anti- 
 quarian research, neither the dynasties of the Pharaohs, nor of 
 the Caesars, nor even of the popes have been clearly ascer- 
 tained. No one can read Bossuet's Universal History, or 
 even Bancroft's History of the United States, without losing 
 himself in chronological puzzles. The English historians, 
 Clarendon, Neal, and Burnett narrate the execution of Charles 
 L with substantial agreement, but from the most varied dog- 
 matic points of view. There are obvious misprints in some 
 editions of Hallam's Constitutional History, which could not 
 have been in his manuscript. There may be trifling mistakes 
 
138 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 in some English translations of Neander's Church History, 
 which are not in the German, as well as grave misconceptions 
 in some of his critics, which are neither in the English nor in 
 the German. In like manner, as to any supposed inaccuracies in 
 the Chronicles and the Gospels, the fair presumption is that 
 they are not errors of the inspired text, but mere errors of 
 transcription, or errors of translation, or errors of interpreta- 
 tion, or, simply, still unexplained difficulties. It is the business 
 of historical criticism to harmonize standard historians, not to 
 impeach them ; and thus far such criticism, as applied to the 
 sacred historians, instead of impugning the scientific accuracy 
 of Holy Scripture, has only confirmed it by unexpected coinci- 
 dences and ever-growing certitude. 
 
 We should still further distinguish some traditional glosses 
 in the inspired writings. The original autographs, and their 
 first transcripts, have long since been lost, and our existing 
 text of the Hebrew and the Greek must have become corrupt 
 through the negligence or design of copyists and editors. Even 
 the vowels, points, accents, spaces, verses, and chapters, 
 which have been added as aids to the sense, have also proved 
 a source of faults and mistakes, especially in the numeral let- 
 ters. The Book of Samuel is made to say that the Lord smote 
 fifty thousand men in a village of less than five thousand 
 inhabitants ; and the Chronicles seem to state that King Jehosa- 
 phat raised more than a million fighting men out of a district 
 not half as large as Rhode Island. King David is said to have 
 saved more silver coin for the decoration of the temple than 
 could have been in circulation. The Trinitarian proof-text, 
 " There are three that bear record in heaven," seems to have 
 been interpolated in some late manuscripts for a purpose. It 
 is even alleged that there are spurious claims of authorship in 
 the titles and contents of the sacred books. David, we know, 
 did not write all the Psalms ; and we are now told that Moses 
 did not write the Pentateuch, nor Isaiah the whole Book of 
 Isaiah. In short, the entire Bible gives internal evidence, it is 
 claimed, of anonymous fragments compiled by unknown hands. 
 References are made in it to lost documents, such as the books 
 of Jasher, Nathan, and Gad, the Wars of Jehovah, and the 
 Visions of Iddo. There are two accounts of the creation, 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 139 
 
 two versions of the commandments, three distinct codes in 
 Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, besides any number of 
 parallel, detached, and repeated passages throughout the 
 Scriptures, suggesting to some critics a mere patchwork of 
 loose chronicles, proverbs, psalms, prophesies, gospels and 
 epistles. 
 
 Certainly all these phenomena have been common enough 
 in secular literature. The Greek and Latin classics, and even 
 standard English authors, are marred with textual corruptions, 
 such as the loss or change of a word or letter, or even part of a 
 letter, sometimes running a single number up into the thou- 
 sands, and sometimes reversing the meaning of a whole sen- 
 tence or turning it into nonsense. The text of Xenophon 
 is full of them. The Epistles of Cicero have them by the hun- 
 dred. The single play of Hamlet fills two large octavos of the 
 Variorum edition of Furness. There have also been some 
 pseudographs more or less innocent. The antique manuscripts 
 of Chatterton deceived the practised eye of Walpole. Literary 
 critics of the last century eagerly discussed the question 
 whether the poems of Ossian had not been forged by their 
 professed editor, James McPherson. It has long been a moot 
 point who wrote the letters of Junius. Moreover, we have had 
 fine examples of literary compilation and reproduction without 
 a taint of forgery or plagiarism. Froissart's Chronicles of 
 Knights, Kings, and Fair Women " were personally collected 
 by him in France, England, Scotland, and Spain, and inscribed 
 upon illuminated parchments, which are still extant. Bishop 
 Percy, the accomplished redactor of the Reliques of Ancient 
 English Poetry, not only recovered many manuscript ballads, 
 but by his skilful emendations of them adapted them to 
 modern taste and fancy. The materials of Froissart and 
 Percy were at length wrought, by the masterly pen of Sir 
 Walter Scott, into poems and novels which are read where- 
 ever the English tongue is spoken. And if Judge Holmes or 
 Mr. Ignatius Donnelly could prove that Shakespeare did not 
 write Shakespeare, but only recast and arranged the trage- 
 dies, histories, and comedies which bear his name, that incom- 
 parable book, with all its archaisms, anachronisms, and 
 solecisms, would remain the masterpiece of genius that it is, 
 
140 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 and men might still quote Shakespeare, as John Randolph used 
 to say, " to prove anything worth proving." 
 
 Perhaps, also, the Bible might be the Bible still in its most 
 essential import, although its long-reputed authorship should 
 now be discredited. It may be conceivable that such a Bible 
 could have survived its own literary errors as a trophy of the 
 most devout scholarship. But if quite conceivable, it is not yet 
 certain, nor very probable. The plain statements of the in- 
 spired writers themselves, their apparent indorsement by our 
 Lord and his apostles, and the consistent tradition of three 
 thousand years, still stand opposed to the conjectures of learned 
 criticism. And such conjectures are not sustained by all the 
 literary precedents and analogies. The title of a famous author, 
 like Homer or Shakespeare, represents the judgment of his 
 nearest contemporaries and successors, and grows with the 
 lapse of time until it becomes too certain to be easily set aside. 
 
 Such claims for Moses and Isaiah were not even questioned 
 during more than twenty centuries. It would seem rather 
 late now to overthrow all this external testimony by mere 
 internal criticism of their accepted writings. Any traces of 
 compilation in the sacred books need conflict as little with 
 their received authorship as the like use of documents and 
 fragments in acknowledged works of genius. It is as easy to 
 conceive that Moses could compose or compile the Elohistic 
 and Jehovistic records of Genesis with their different names 
 of God, as that Shakespeare composed or compiled both King 
 Lear and Richard III., though the former, quite consistently, 
 has only the pagan names of Jupiter, while the latter is full 
 of the Christian names of our Lord. As yet, there is no 
 more critical demand for two Isaiahs in the Isaianic proph- 
 ecies than for a dozen Homers in the Homeric poems. In fact, 
 the sacred writers are not half as fragmentary and composite 
 as well-known English historians, poets, and philosophers. Nor 
 do marks of editorship always weaken the genuineness and in- 
 tegrity of a standard treatise. The postscript of Joshua, at the 
 close of the Pentateuch, concerning the death of Moses may 
 have been read by the ancient Hebrew as we now read a bio- 
 graphical note to the works of Bacon. Passing allusions to 
 other books of Kings and Chronicles may have seemed like the 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 141 
 
 conscientious references of a Hume, a Prescott, or a Motley 
 to well-known official records ; and explanatory remarks and 
 parenthetical hints, easily distinguishable by their connection, 
 may have been like helpful annotations upon the text of a 
 Milton or a Butler, with the difference that, in Hebrew manu- 
 scripts, they could not be put within brackets or in the mar- 
 gin. Indeed, a competent editor, like Ezra the Scribe, might 
 canonize otherwise unknown writers, as a Niebuhr or a Grote 
 could sift crude annals and sanction the most obscure authors, 
 or as some rare genius might detect for us the apocrypha of 
 Shakespeare. Not even such tell-tale signs as new words, late 
 idioms, or local phrases could wholly discredit a renowned au- 
 thor \Yhose writings have come down to us through all the 
 vicissitudes of language and literature. The several codes of 
 Moses, if framed before the conquest of Canaan, would have 
 been no more ideal than the Republic of Plato; and any 
 later Hebraisms or Chaldaeisms appearing among them since the 
 Babylonian exile need be no more puzzling than Anglicisms 
 or Americanisms among the feudal forms and Norman phrases 
 of a recent edition of Blackstone. If the first and second 
 parts of Isaiah are in any sense prophetic, to refer them to 
 different authors at different periods, merely because of differ- 
 ences of theme, style, and diction, would be like assigning a 
 double authorship to Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained ; or 
 arguing from a modernized version of Chaucer that he could 
 not have written the Canterbury Tales; or claiming Childe 
 Harold as an Elizabethan poem because of its few archaisms 
 and Spenserian stanza. In all Hebrew literature, early, middle, 
 and recent, there is no stumbling-block like that of Lord Ten- 
 nyson singing in the Yorkshire dialect as well as in the purest 
 English. Sometimes the feats of genius may perplex us even 
 more than the marvels of inspiration. Besides, it should not be 
 forgotten that while the Bible is literature, and very good lit- 
 erature, yet it is not to be treated as uninspired literature, and 
 judged by mere aesthetic rules alone, much less classed with the 
 pseudonymous fragments which have become the puzzle and 
 the scandal of critics. More than forty years ago that prince 
 of biblical scholars, Joseph Addison Alexander, thought that 
 such treatment of Isaiah had already reached its limit, with 
 
142 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 the promise of " no further invention, unless it be that of read- 
 ing the book backward or shuffling its chapters hke a pack of 
 cards." The higher criticism may have its duties as well as 
 its rights, and it is not one of its rights to impose mere specu- 
 lative conclusions upon us as scientific verities. Without at 
 all undervaluing any of its assured results, we may still hope, 
 as we watch the brilliant tournament of learning and genius, 
 that the combatants will at length fight their way around the 
 field of conjecture back to the traditional belief from which 
 they started, and which is still the common-sense judgment of 
 mankind. That judgment is, that if there be any evidence 
 at all of inspiration in the sacred writers, such evidence favors 
 their long-established authorship as well as canonicity, and their 
 consequent accuracy, no less than their veracity, as organs of 
 divine revelation. 
 
 We are now ready for several conclusions. Neither the 
 literary imperfections, nor the historiographical defects, nor the 
 traditional glosses of Holy Scripture can of themselves, at their 
 worst, impair its scientific integrity or philosophic value, if it 
 have this value. Such mere errata may yet be corrected or ex- 
 plained, and prove in no sense permanent errors, much less 
 essential untruths. They are wholly superficial and transient, 
 not of the abiding essence of the revealed Word. They may, 
 indeed, and they often do, raise presumptions against the 
 claim of inspiration in the minds of hostile critics; but 
 they are not the proper pleas of the friendly critics who look 
 for scientific errors in an inspired Bible. Such critics take the 
 dangerous ground that the Bible teaches nothing but religious 
 truth, and may even teach such truth in connection with scien- 
 tific error. This is dangerous ground: because it is ground 
 lying inside the limits of an accepted revelation; because it 
 involves not so much the mere human form, as the divine con- 
 tent, of that revelation ; and because it exhibits that divine 
 content as an amalgam of fact and fiction, truth and error, 
 knowledge and superstition. It is dangerous ground, also, 
 because it opens the way for hostile critics to proceed quite 
 logically from scientific errors to religious errors in the Bible, by 
 arguing that if it teaches false astronomy and crude physics, 
 it no less clearly teaches bad ethics and worse theolog>\ And 
 
CHAP, III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 143 
 
 it is dangerous ground in philosophy as well as in religion, 
 since it would deprive her physical no less than her psychical 
 provinces of their chief source of transcendental knowledge, 
 and abandon her whole metaphysical domain to the empiric, 
 the agnostic, and the sceptic. Literary and textual obscurities 
 there may be upon the surface of Holy Writ, like spots upon 
 the sun, or rather like motes in the eye ; but scientific errors in 
 its divine purport would be the sun itself extinguished at noon. 
 Such a Bible could not live in this epoch. 
 
 Happily, however, these grave issues are not yet upon us; 
 and it would be very ignoble, as well as unwise, to array mere 
 prejudices or unacceptable consequences against an opposing 
 argument, without squarely facing its logic. 
 
 The Physical Teaching of the Bible. 
 
 Let us first clearly distinguish the physical teaching from 
 the spiritual teaching of the Bible, as it may be roughly out- 
 lined in its own language. We shall find that while the 
 Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concern- 
 ing God and what duty God requires of man, yet they sec- 
 ondarily teach some other matters of human interest lying 
 within the scope of science as well as religion. In other words, 
 although the Bible mainly traverses the realm of the mental 
 and moral sciences with its revelations, yet it also extends into 
 the realm of the physical sciences and includes more or less 
 of their ground and material. In astronomy it teaches that in 
 the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ; that wis- 
 dom was with Him when He prepared the heavens; that by 
 understanding hath He established them and garnished them 
 by His Spirit; that the heavens declare His power and faith- 
 fulness and glory ; that He is worshipped by the whole host of 
 heaven in the very heaven of heavens ; and that they are the 
 abode of the Father and the angels, unto whom in all heavenly 
 places is now made known His manifold wisdom upon earth. 
 In geology it teaches that in six days Jehovah made the sky 
 and land and sea, plants and animals and man, and saw that all 
 was very good ; that He rested on the seventh day to make 
 it the type and pledge of a Sabbath for man ; that the whole 
 earth is full of the riches of His wisdom and goodness; that 
 
144 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 every rainbow betokens His ordained succession of seed-time 
 and harvest, summer and winter, throughout the year; but 
 that, nevertheless, as the earth was once destroyed by water on 
 account of sin, so it will yet be renewed by fire as an abode 
 of righteousness. In anthropology it teaches that God formed 
 man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him 
 a living soul ; that he was created in the image of God, with 
 dominion over the beasts, but a little lower than the angels, 
 in a state of innocence ; that mankind became so corrupt as to 
 require the judgment of the flood ; that thereafter ensued dif- 
 ferent races, languages and arts, with one peculiar race chosen 
 for their redemption, and that the degraded humanity of 
 the First Adam, of the earth earthy, is yet to be succeeded 
 by a regenerate humanity of the Second Adam, the Lord from 
 heaven, through the resurrection of a celestial body. Without 
 going on to cite its more spiritual teaching in psychology, in 
 sociology, and in theology, and without answering objections 
 before we meet them, we are to confine our attention to this 
 physical teaching, portions of which are now before us, and 
 to inquire if in any sense, to any degree, it can be regarded as 
 scientifically erroneous. 
 
 No Teaching of Scripture Erroneous. 
 
 Let it first be observed that the general distinction between 
 errant and inerrant Scripture is not made by Scripture itself. 
 As a theory of inspiration it is modern and extraneous. It has 
 arisen from the supposed need of adjusting an ancient book 
 to the science and culture of our time. Its good motive is not 
 to be questioned nor can its plausibility be denied. That 
 divine truth should have been offered to us in a setting of 
 human error does not seem at first sight wholly without 
 analogy or precedent. If Nature has its flaws and monsters, 
 why may there not be faults and mistakes in Scripture? If 
 the development of science has been mixed with error, why 
 not also the delivery of revelation? There is even a grain of 
 force in such reasoning as applied to any mere textual or 
 literary difficulties yet to be removed or explained. But 
 the moment it is applied to the sacred authors themselves 
 it breaks down. It was not their theory of their own inspira- 
 
CH.'.P. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 145 
 
 tion. If anything is plain in their writings, it is plain that 
 they claim to be making divine communications under an un- 
 erring guidance. Our Saviour, too, sanctioned the claim in 
 His own use of the Hebrew Scriptures, and renewed it for 
 the Christian Scriptures. At length the apostles went forth 
 maintaining it amid the masterpieces of Greek and Roman lit- 
 erature. When St. Paul, in an assembly of Athenian phi- 
 losophers, quotes from Aratus and Cleanthes sentiments also 
 quoted by Cicero and Seneca, it is with the polite acknowl- 
 edgment, " As certain of your own poets have said," but 
 when he quotes from Moses a sentiment afterward quoted 
 by David, it is with the devout preamble, " As the Holy 
 Ghost saith." Now it is simply impossible to associate such 
 statements with an erroneous communication from God to 
 man in any sphere of truth, physical or spiritual. The only 
 escape from them is to except them from the physical sphere, 
 or limit them to the spiritual sphere. But no such exceptions 
 or limitations can be found. As judged by their own claims, 
 the Scriptures, if inerrant at all, must be accounted inerrant 
 as to their whole revealed content, whatever it be and wher- 
 ever found, whether in the region of the natural sciences 
 or in that of ethics and theology. 
 
 The Physical Teaching Implicated with the Spiritual. 
 
 The Bible also shows that its physical teaching is implicated 
 with its spiritual teaching in the closest logical and practical 
 connections, with no possible discrimination between the one 
 as erroneous and the other as true. The full import only of 
 these connections can be discerned by profound study. Ordi- 
 narily we lose sight of them. We are so prone to detach 
 Scripture from Scripture that we often neglect or slight large 
 portions which do not at once strike our fancy or interest. 
 We ask, what is the use of Genesis, with its dry genealo- 
 gies, or Leviticus, with its obsolete ritual, or the Prophets, 
 with their mystical visions? Why read the Old Testament at 
 all, when we have its fulfilment in the New? Or why even 
 take much thought of the Epistles, while we have their core 
 in the Gospels? The words of Christ contain the essential 
 
 truths, and these are so few that they may be read running. 
 Vol. ni— 10 
 
146 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 All the rest we are ready to discard as mere surplusage. So 
 might some masterpiece of dramatic art seem full of irrele- 
 vant scenes and dialogues until its plot has been analyzed 
 and its details tested upon the stage. The devout student 
 of the Bible, intent on searching its full contents, will soon 
 find that the seeming medley is in reality a living organism, 
 with its nearest spiritual truths in logical dependence upon 
 its remotest physical facts, and the one in practical relation to 
 the other. He will see its astronomical revelation of a Creator 
 of the heavens and earth, not only distinguishing the true 
 Jehovah from the mere local and national deities of antiquity, 
 but identifying him with the maker of suns and systems in 
 our own time, and thus disclosing the foundations of revealed, 
 in all natural, religion, together with the revealed command- 
 ments against heathenism, idolatry, and profaneness. He will 
 see the geological revelation of the six days' work, not merely 
 upholding the narrow Sabbath of the old economy, as com- 
 manded from age to age, but projecting the larger Sabbath 
 of the new economy as yet to be realized in the millennial 
 age of peace, and so connecting the whole history of the earth 
 with the history of man. He will see the anthropological 
 revelation of God's lost image in man as at once demanding 
 and sustaining the atonement and the incarnation, together 
 with the whole human half of the decalogue, and the predicted 
 regeneration of both earth and man in the resurrection. 
 Throughout the realm of the sciences he will see the author of 
 Scripture revealing himself as the author of Nature, and 
 building the one upon the other. The whole psychical super- 
 structure of religious doctrines and ethical precepts will appear 
 to him reposing upon its physical foundations in the pre- 
 existing constitution of nature and humanity. Remove but 
 one of those foundation stones, and that superstructure will 
 totter. They stand or fall together. Historically, too, as well 
 as logically, the concession of any scientific error has led to 
 the downfall of the whole biblical system of doctrine. 
 
 TJic Physical and Spiritual Teaching Alike Non-Scienfiftc. 
 
 It is seldom remarked that both the physical and the spiritual 
 teaching are alike given in a non-scientific form. Often it 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 147 
 
 is said — and said truly enough — that the Bible does not teach 
 astronomy or physics as a science. But neither does it teach 
 theology or ethics as a science. The method and phrase of 
 science are no more, no less, wanting in its physical than in 
 its spiritual revelations. If the former are presented as a 
 mere crude mass of facts and truths without law or order, so 
 also are the latter ; and it will be no harder to find the epochs 
 of geology in the first chapter of Genesis than the persons 
 of the Trinity in the first chapter of St. John. If it be 
 granted that the physical truths of Scripture are couched in 
 the popular and phenomenal language of the times when it 
 was written, so also are its spiritual truths veiled in the 
 anthropomorphic and even barbaric imagery common to all 
 rude peoples ; and when the Psalmist tells us, " The sun 
 knoweth his going down," he is no worse astronomer than 
 he is theologian when he declares, " He that sitteth in the 
 heavens shall laugh at the kings of the earth." If it be urged 
 that we have left far behind us the contemporary astronomy 
 of the Old Testament, with its spangled canopy of heaven 
 wrought as a marvel of handiwork, how shall we defend its 
 contemporary theology, with its manlike deity so often de- 
 picted seemingly as a monster of anger, jealousy, and cruelty? 
 If we are told that we have outgrown its physics, with their 
 cisterns in the earth and windows in the sky opened and 
 shut by angels, what shall be said for its ethics, so long 
 charged with polygamous patriarchs and pro-slavery apostles? 
 If we are warned against a few devout scientists who are en- 
 deavoring to harmonize their geology with the Mosaic cos- 
 mogony, is there to be no warning for this scandal of great 
 churches and denominations at the present moment adjusting 
 their metaphysics to the Pauline divinity ? Is modern theology 
 any more accordant with Scripture than modern geology? 
 In short, there is not an objection to the non-scientific char- 
 acter of the physical teaching which will not recoil with 
 greater force against the spiritual teaching. Whoever, for 
 this reason alone, affirms scientific errors in the biblical astron- 
 omy and physics, must be prepared to admit them also in the 
 biblical theology and ethics. 
 
148 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 The Physical and Spiritual Teaching Alike Sincere. 
 
 Nor can it be said that the spiritual teaching is any more 
 reconcilable with popular fallacies than the physical teach- 
 ing. It has been maintained that the divine author of the 
 Scriptures accommodated them to the physical errors of their 
 own times, for the sake of the moral and religious truths to 
 be conveyed. There was no need to correct the false astron- 
 omy of the ancient Jews, so long as the phenomenal sunrise 
 and sunset were still true for them and for their age. It was 
 only important to give them true ideas of God and duty, and 
 to leave them to their unaided reason in other matters of mere 
 science and culture. Our Lord Himself is supposed to have 
 thus connived at the story of Jonah, the belief in demoniacal 
 possessions, and even the tradition of the Mosaic author- 
 ship of the Pentateuch. He did not come to teach natural 
 history, or medical psychology, or the higher criticism. It 
 was enough for His purpose that He could make the entomb- 
 ment in the whale's belly prefigure His own resurrection, prove 
 His Messiahship by seeming to cast out devils, and enforce 
 His teachings with the great name of Moses. But the risk 
 of such reasoning is that it might prove too much. It might 
 soon bring down the maxim, " False in one thing, false in 
 everything else," upon the head of any teacher who only once 
 should thus deceive his disciples and teach them to deceive 
 others. In the examples given, it would leave the most 
 momentous truths resting through all coming time upon a 
 basis of prejudice, superstition, and falsehood. Moreover, 
 it could be applied logically, as it has been applied actually, 
 to doctrines the most essential ; and in the end would reduce 
 Christianity to mere natural religion as adapted to Judaism. 
 It is a matter of history that the so-called theory of accom- 
 modation has thus run its course in the schools of criticism. 
 Be it observed, however, that the theory itself is not here in 
 dispute, for the purpose of this argument. You may adopt it 
 if you like; and treat the history of Jonah as a mere night- 
 mare vision with a good moral, the demoniacs as cases of 
 lunacy and delirium, and the literary claim of Moses as an old 
 Jewish legend. But in that case you must be ready to find 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 149 
 
 pious frauds and innocent fables throughout the Bible, and 
 can no longer hold it to be false only in physics and not also 
 in religion and morals. If it were once true for its own 
 time, it would soon cease to be true for our time. 
 
 The Physical and Spiritual Teaching Alike Permanent. 
 
 Here it should be noticed that both the physical and the 
 spiritual teaching alike have a permanent and universal im- 
 port, as well as local and temporary reference. Usually this 
 is admitted as to the biblical theology, despite its antique and 
 rude imagery. We have read the Old Testament forward 
 into the New, and the New Testament backward into the Old, 
 until the God of justice in the one seems consistent with the 
 God of mercy in the other, and all anthropomorphism disap- 
 pears in a divine ideal of infinite purity and love. But as to 
 the physical sciences, it is sometimes held that the prophets 
 and apostles were so dominated by their environment that 
 they not only shared the scientific errors around them, but 
 may even have expressed those errors in their inspired writ- 
 ings as freely as they have exposed their own frailties and 
 idiosyncrasies. Otherwise, it is said, no revelation could have 
 been received by them or made through them to their own 
 age and country, or indeed to any other age or country. 
 There is a show of truth in such statements. Certainly it 
 would be very absurd to treat the sacred writers as mere 
 amanuenses without thought or individuality; and quite im- 
 possible to take them out of their proper setting in the un- 
 scientific ages when they lived, and from among the uncultured 
 peoples whom they taught. It is not even necessary to suppose 
 their own personal knowledge greater than that of their con- 
 temporaries, outside of the divine communications. But neither 
 is it necessary to suppose them acquainted with the entire pur- 
 port of those communications. They may have spoken bet- 
 ter than they knew. They may not have been fully conscious 
 of their messages, as applicable in other eras and stages of 
 culture. Even in pagan literature the great poets, sages, 
 and philosophers, though writing solely for their own time, 
 have unconsciously written for all after-time. So Homer sang 
 in ancient Greece ; and the ages have been listening ever 
 
150 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 since. So Euclid, two thousand years ago, sketched Hnes and 
 angles which to-day save the sailor from shipwreck and regu- 
 late the commerce of nations. So Plato reasoned in the 
 academy, with little thought beyond his own disciples; 
 and the world's philosophy is still sitting at his feet. No 
 more marvellous would it be had David discerned a divine 
 glory in the heavens which astronomy now illustrates, or 
 Moses perceived a divine order of creation which geology is 
 confirming. Inspiration may at least be supposed to equal 
 genius. Moreover, the claim of inspiration being allowed, 
 the sacred authors at once appear as organs of another and 
 higher intelligence than their own. Avowedly, they often 
 speak of divine mysteries which they knew only in part, and 
 sometimes of a distant past or future which they neither had 
 seen nor could see. Moses, in his vision of the creation, dur- 
 ing six days could not have reviewed the whole physical devel- 
 opment of the globe; and Isaiah, in his vision of redemption, 
 could not have foreseen, beyond his own foreground, the whole 
 moral career of mankind. Yet behind the words of both 
 Moses and Isaiah was an Omniscience embracing the entire 
 course of nature and of history. No violence would be done 
 to their personality by supposing them the mouthpiece of 
 such Omniscience. As voiced by its greatest teachers, science 
 itself acquires an ever-widening vision of which they had not 
 dreamed. Nor need any mystical sense be claimed for the 
 sacred text in order to give it so large scope and fulness. 
 It is not the mere learned exegete or visionary saint who is 
 now reading between the lines of prophets and apostles. It 
 is the strict scientist who is returning from every conflict 
 with the phenomenal language of the Bible, to interpret that 
 language, as he has learned to interpret the phenomena them- 
 selves, in a richer sense and with a wider application. That 
 the heavens declare the glory of God has become only more 
 true since a Newton and a Herschel have illuminated them 
 with suns and planets. That heaven and earth were made 
 in six days is none the less true because a Dana and a Guyot 
 have been retracing those days of Jehovah as long cosmogonic 
 eras. That man was created in the image of God might still be 
 true even though devout biologists should yet prove him to 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 151 
 
 be but the full flower of the planetary life as well as the 
 highest ideal of the Creator. Only the young and crude 
 sciences, wrangling among themselves, are at seeming vari- 
 ance with the Scripture. The older, more complete sciences 
 are already in growing accord with it. Hence it is that the 
 revealed Jehovah still reigns in the astronomical heavens, in- 
 stead of having been left far behind us as an Israelitish Jupiter 
 in the skies of Mount Zion. For this reason Genesis is 
 still repeating the story of the earth instead of becoming the 
 forgotten myth of some Hebrew Hesiod; and for this reason 
 Jesus Himself is no mere Jewish Socrates of the schools, but 
 the Divine Teacher of mankind. In a word, it is because 
 the Bible, though non-scientific, is not anti-scientific, that it 
 is as true for our time as it was true for its own time, and is 
 likely to remain true for all time to come. 
 
 The Physical and Spiritual Teaching Alike Suitable. 
 
 We come next to the more positive argument that the 
 physical teaching, like the spiritual, has been adapted, both 
 in kind and degree, to our wants and capacities. It may be 
 objected to the foregoing view that, after all, as a matter of 
 fact, we get our theology from Scripture, and our natural 
 sciences from nature, and that a mere absence of scientific 
 errors from Scripture does not prove the presence of any 
 scientific verities. This is true, and yet not true. As to the- 
 ology, it is true that when considered as a metaphysical science 
 of God and divine things its material is mainly to be found 
 in the Bible; but it is not true that as an empirical science 
 of religions it may not find material outside of the Bible in 
 the religious history of mankind. As to the physical sciences, 
 it is true that they are derived mainly from nature as bodies 
 of empirical knowledge ; but it is not true that they can 
 find no metaphysical ground and material in the biblical revela- 
 tions concerning physical facts. On the contrary, a thorough 
 investigation will show that, as we ascend the scale of the 
 sciences, from the simple to the complex, the revealed material 
 increases with our increasing moral needs and decreasing 
 mental equipment. In astronomy, on its metaphysical side, 
 we shall find, at least, some revealed matter, such as a creator 
 
152 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 of the heavens, whose immensity, eternity, omnipotence, immu- 
 tability, and glory they declare; in geology, a little more 
 revealed matter, such as the divine order of the material cre- 
 ation, the divine wisdom and goodness which it illustrates, 
 with some moral crises which mark its history ; in anthropol- 
 ogy, yet more revealed matter, such as the creation of man 
 in the divine image, his vicegerent dominion over nature, his 
 primitive innocence, together with some glimpses of his early 
 history, the origin of races, languages, and arts, and their 
 adjustment in a scheme of universal providence. And so 
 on, through the higher mental and social sciences, we shall 
 meet an ever-growing volume of revealed facts and truths, 
 until we reach the topmost science of theology, where the 
 revealed material becomes transcendent in kind and infinite 
 in extent. Could we here pursue such inquiries, it might be 
 shown that this apportionment of so large an amount of 
 spiritual teaching with relatively so small an amount of phys- 
 ical teaching is not only in strict accordance with the pre-exist- 
 ing constitution of the human intellect, but is itself a proof 
 of the divine wisdom which has presided over the whole 
 revelation. 
 
 The Physical Teaching Also Important. 
 
 It only remains now to add that the physical teaching in its 
 own place and for its own purpose is quite as important and 
 valuable as the spiritual teaching. In proving this, there is 
 no need to belittle the great religious themes of Scripture, or 
 to deny a religious aim and purport, even in its physical reve- 
 lations. Such facts as the origin of the heavens, the formation 
 of the earth, and the constitution of man have a physical side, 
 which has been, indeed, revealed to us in connection with re- 
 ligious truth. Nevertheless, they are, at least, separable in 
 thought for special study under their scientific aspects and 
 in their scientific connections. As a matter of fact, they are 
 thus treated by physicists and by some divines. Without foist- 
 ing into the Bible any occult meaning, or forcing it out of its 
 due sphere of influence, we may investigate its correlations 
 with astronomy, geology, anthropology, and other sciences, 
 considered as subsidiary and complemental to divine revela- 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 153 
 
 tion; and the field of such correlations will widen the further 
 we investigate them. Moreover, true as it may be, that re- 
 ligion is the chief topic of revelation, yet it is still true that 
 it touches other great interests of humanity, and serves other 
 high purposes. Although never designed to teach the arts 
 and sciences, it has in fact always promoted them in every 
 stage of their progress. While the furtherance of science, 
 the perfection of philosophy, and the growth of civilization 
 cannot be ranked as its chief ends and issues, yet they may 
 at least be classed as its incidental fruits and trophies. In 
 this guarded sense we shall find that the physical portion of 
 revelation, small though it seem to be, is of the greatest benefit 
 to science, philosophy, and general culture. 
 
 Evidential Importance of the Physical Teaching. 
 
 There is, first of all, its apologetical or evidential value, to 
 which a passing glance should be given. Civilization is in- 
 terested in the defence of Christianity ; and whatever makes a 
 divine revelation valuable, either in philosophy or in religion, 
 becomes enhanced by the proof of its harmony with human 
 science. When the chief authorities in any science are found 
 favoring such harmony ; when its established truths already 
 illustrate it, and its hypotheses can be hopefully adjusted to- 
 ward it ; and when all the sciences are seen taking this general 
 direction according to their different stages of advancement — 
 we gain new evidence of revelation, the highest, perhaps, that 
 can be afforded. It is science itself becoming an unwitting, 
 and sometimes an unwilling, witness at the bar of Omni- 
 science. It is evidence which is strictly scientific in its logical 
 quality and force, since it is derived from the facts of nature, 
 as agreeing with the truths of Scripture. In this age of the 
 arts and sciences it is as timely as the evidence yielded in 
 the age of miracles and prophecies. It meets the modern 
 scientist seeking wisdom, as that evidence met the ancient 
 Jew requiring a sign. It even explains miracles and fulfils 
 prophecies, and thus crowns and completes all former evi- 
 dences. Without it, indeed, they would themselves fall worth- 
 less to the ground. As no miracle could ever prove a false- 
 hood, and no prophecy could perpetuate nonsense, so no 
 
154 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 amount of miraculous and prophetical evidence accumulated 
 in past ages could uphold a Bible containing scientific errors 
 in the face of modern science. Herein lies the peril of the 
 hour. The timid or rash apologetes who are spiking their 
 guns on the outer bulwarks of scientific evidence, and fleeing 
 into the citadel of orthodoxy to repair its walls, may yet find 
 themselves in conflict with enemies whom they had thought 
 to admit as friends within the ramparts. Schleiermacher 
 long since forewarned us of that " bombardment of derision, 
 amid which they will be ceremoniously interred in their own 
 fortifications." Not by weak concessions to science in this 
 day of abounding science is the Bible to be vindicated. Only 
 by strengthening and insisting upon its scientific proofs can it 
 retain its power, either at the centre of Christian civilization 
 or in the logical crusade of the missionary among heathen 
 religions and philosophies. 
 
 Metaphysical Importance of the Physical Teaching. 
 But the direct value of revelation, not only as scientifically 
 attested, but as itself a source of scientific verity, lies more 
 within the present inquiry. As such value is largely meta- 
 physical, it may not be readily appreciated by the unthinking 
 reader, who terms anything metaphysical which he does not 
 choose to understand; or by the superficial thinker, who 
 scorns all metaphysics but his own; or even by the special 
 scientist, who abjures metaphysics for the sake of some little 
 fragment of empirical knowledge. But to the profound in- 
 quirer, even though he eschew the scholastic metaphysics, it 
 is becoming every day clearer that all physics at length 
 run out into metaphysics, and that every physical science at 
 bottom rests upon some hidden metaphysical basis, under- 
 neath the facts or phenomena with which it deals, down in a 
 recondite region of realities and causes which divine reve- 
 lation alone can disclose. The Bible, indeed, does not teach 
 the empirical part of any such science, its body of phenomena 
 and laws ; but it does teach its metaphysical complement, the 
 divine ideas expressed in those phenomena, and the divine 
 causes of those laws. In astronomy it does not teach celestial 
 physics, the figures, motions, and orbits of planets, suns, and 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 155 
 
 stars throughout infinite space and time; but it does teach 
 that divine immensity, eternity, and omnipotence of which 
 the whole celestial system is but a phenomenal manifestation, 
 and without which it would be a stupendous anomaly. In 
 geology it does not teach terrestrial chemistry, the birth and 
 growth of the earth through all its eras and phases, with all 
 its strata, florae, and faunae; but it does teach that divine 
 power, wisdom, and goodness which are the source, method, 
 and issue of the whole terrestrial development, and without 
 which it would be at once causeless and aimless. In anthro- 
 pology it does not teach the human organism, with its laws of 
 heredity and environment, and of the evolution of races, 
 languages, and arts ; but it does teach those divine ideals 
 through which man has been passing from the image of an 
 ape to the image of God, and without which he would be a 
 mere failure and paradox. And in the higher mental and 
 social sciences, while it does not teach any psychical proc- 
 esses and laws, it does teach all needed spiritual truth and 
 knowledge. As yet, indeed, these subtle connections between 
 the rational and revealed material of each science have not 
 come clearly into general view; much less have they been 
 logically ascertained and formulated. Nevertheless, the large- 
 minded leaders in all the sciences are at least seeking some 
 more rational ground for them than sheer ignorance or clear 
 absurdity ; and not a few of them are finding it practically by 
 studying the works of God together with his Word. 
 
 Philosophical Importance of the Physical Teaching. 
 
 At the highest point of scientific contact with the Bible 
 appears its value in philosophy considered as the supreme 
 science of knowledge or science of the sciences. Here the full 
 appreciation is not only difficult, but barred by prejudice and 
 distaste. We have become so accustomed, wisely enough, to 
 treat philosophy as a secular pursuit, and have so just a dis- 
 like to any crude admixture of religion with science, that we 
 may be in danger of the other extreme of leaving at least one- 
 half the philosophic domain under the rule of scepticism and 
 ignorance. Often, because unwilling to mingle sacred speech 
 with scholastic jargon, we may seem to accept theories of 
 
156 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 knowledge which ignore or exclude revelation, as if there 
 were no such aid to reason. Possibly our agnostic friends, 
 with whom we agree up to a certain point, may sometimes 
 have fancied the fastidious reserve to mean doubt of any 
 philosophy taking religion as well as science within its scope. 
 If this be so, it is time to say, in the frankest English, that 
 while they are building their knowledge upon faith, we are 
 building our faith upon knowledge. It is time to remind 
 them that the little they do know, they know only in part; 
 that the most exact science of which they can boast is filled 
 with crude hypothesis and vague conjecture ; that it has been 
 reared through ages of error by a fallible logic; that it de- 
 pends upon an assumed order of nature which is broken every 
 time they lift a stone from the earth ; that it rests ultimately 
 upon universal conceptions which by their own showing are 
 self-contradictory ; in a word that, apart from the despised 
 metaphysics and the neglected Bible, it is mixed with credulity 
 and based on absurdity. 
 
 It is time also, on our part, to insist that, although we 
 cannot know everything about God, and the soul, and the 
 unseen world, we may at least know something; that the other- 
 wise Unknowable has been made known to us by an intelli- 
 gible revelation ; that this revealed knowledge has been built 
 up for us within the region of facts, through ages of experi- 
 ence, before science was born ; that it not only comes to us 
 with scientific evidence, but supports each science, and 
 throughout the sciences yields material without which they 
 would fall, like falling stars, into a chaos and void — in a word, 
 that the inspired Bible is a radiant source of divine knowledge, 
 chiefly within the psychical sciences, but also within the phys- 
 ical, and therefore essential to the completion of philosophy 
 itself as the crowning science of the sciences. Such a philoso- 
 phy will see no scientific errors flecking that sun of truth which 
 thus lights up its domain, but only paradoxes to dazzle it, 
 should it too rashly gaze, and mysteries to blind it with 
 tears. 
 
 It is more than half a century since this discussion began 
 in the schools of Germany, and less than half that time since 
 
CHAP. III.] Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible. 157 
 
 it passed into the Church of England. In our own country 
 it seems destined to become popular in its course, as well 
 as academic and ecclesiastical. The daily press already reflects 
 a growing interest in questions of biblical criticism, which 
 hitherto have been kept within the province of scholars and 
 divines. Parties are forming, as if some great battle for the 
 truth of Holy Writ were at hand. Its defenders, it is to be 
 feared, are as yet but poorly equipped and marshalled. Their 
 opponents boast of the highest culture of the time ; have the 
 exultant sympathy of the whole unbelieving class; and even 
 claim, however unwarrantably, some orthodox allies. In the 
 first onset, doubtless, they will win a brilliant victory. Then 
 may come a great uprising of the Christian masses, as moved 
 by that Holy Spirit who first inspired His Holy Scripture. 
 Whoever shall stand apart from them in such a crisis will not 
 be shunning a religious question alone. In his place he will 
 be deserting some other related interest of humanity. The 
 thinker will be deserting that which for ages has set the 
 problems of philosophy. The scholar will be deserting that 
 which has built up the universities of Christendom. The artist 
 will be deserting that which has yielded the purest ideals 
 of genius. The scientist will be deserting that which has 
 kindled the torch of research. The man of letters will be 
 deserting that which has moulded our English speech and 
 literature. The man of the world will be deserting that which 
 has lent to society refinement, and purity, and grace. The 
 merchant, the lawyer, the doctor will be deserting that which 
 is the ethical basis of their callings. The patriot and the states- 
 man will be deserting that which has given us our freedom and 
 our laws. And the philanthropist will be deserting that which 
 is the very keystone of civilization. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY. 
 
 On entering the field of the Scientific Evidence we are at 
 once impressed by its vast extent and embarrassed with its 
 varied materials. It is as vast as the domain of science itself, 
 embracing both the physical sciences, astronomy, geology, an- 
 thropology, and the psychical sciences, psychology, sociology, 
 comparative theology; and it is as varied as the contents of 
 Holy Scripture, extending into the Old Testament as con- 
 nected mainly with the physical sciences, and into the 
 New Testament as connected chiefly with the psychical sciences. 
 It would be impossible, in a few chapters, to traverse this en- 
 tire field of investigation, and exhaust all its riches of proof and 
 illustration. We must confine ourselves to the physical sci- 
 ences, astronomy, geology, anthropology; and from these 
 sciences we shall be able to cull only a few specimens of the 
 evidence which they so abundantly afford. 
 
 Growth of the Astronomical Evidence. 
 
 Astronomy, as the oldest of the exact sciences, was the 
 first to come into seeming conflict with revealed religion, and 
 has been the first to yield it a large body of striking evidence. 
 In its early stages, as cultivated by the Greeks, it was repelled 
 as false science by the Church Fathers, who continued to ex- 
 pound the astronomical psalms in a strictly literalistic manner 
 and descanted upon the Glory of God in the heavens as there 
 displayed by a star-spangled curtain or canopy stretched over 
 the earth. In its later stages, during the reign of the Ptole- 
 maic theory, it was accepted by the schoolmen who derived 
 the same biblical argument, in a purely phenomenalistic manner, 
 158 
 
CHAP, IV.] The Evidence from Astronomy. 159 
 
 from an illuminated dome of crystalline spheres, which were 
 supposed to revolve around the earth with the sun, moon, and 
 stars attached to them as means of producing the wonderful 
 vicissitudes of day and night, summer and winter. But in the 
 modern stage of the science, with the rise of the Copernican 
 theory of the solar system, the discovery of the rotundity of our 
 planet and its orbital motion around the sun, the whole ortho- 
 dox conception of heaven, earth, and hell was revolutionized ; 
 the literalistic and phenomenalistic interpretation of Scripture 
 was abandoned; the ancient canopy of the sky was rent in 
 twain; the great dome of the crystalline heavens was dashed 
 to pieces ; and there issued a breach between the Bible and as- 
 tronomy, more alarming than any that now seems to yawn 
 between the Bible and other sciences. It was as if the very 
 throne of God had been removed from the firmament, the 
 abode of the angels destroyed, and anything like a revelation 
 to our little world made impossible. Galileo was compelled 
 upon his knees to abjure his discoveries as deadly heresies. 
 Nevertheless, as the new astronomy gradually compelled assent 
 and admiration, efforts were made to readjust it to the Scrip- 
 tures by a more scientific interpretation, which should magnify 
 divine revelation in consistency with the popular and phenom- 
 enalistic language in which it had necessarily been conveyed. 
 It was found that, after all, the rationale of the biblical argu- 
 ment, which the fathers and schoolmen had so crudely con- 
 ceived and imperfectly used, remained unimpaired, and in fact 
 could now be based upon more unquestionable premises, and 
 unfolded with a more wonderful richness and potency. The 
 divine glory in the heavens, being no longer obscured by a false 
 astronomy and a false exegesis, began to shine forth with all 
 the added brilliance of myriads of suns and planets, and the 
 Scriptures acquired a fuller meaning indicative of the omni- 
 science which had inspired them. The result is, that a science 
 which at first so seriously menaced revealed truth is now yield- 
 ing it abundant evidence. We shall find by adducing a few 
 specimens, that it affords each of the four species of evidence 
 which were described in the introduction. 
 
i6o Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 Testimony of Astronomers. 
 
 The first is the testimony of the chief authorities of the sci- 
 ence. It is not surprising that astronomers, as a class, should 
 be devout and Christian. The grandeur of the starry universe, 
 and the impotence of human reason to comprehend it, conspire 
 to lift their thoughts toward the Creator as its only adequate 
 cause, and justify the poets' verdict that any intellect must be 
 abnormal that can resist such impressions — " An undevout as- 
 tronomer is mad." Certainly the exceptions can be better ex- 
 plained by some idiosyncrasy, or defect of training, or inveter- 
 ate prejudice, than by any supposed sceptical tendency in the 
 science itself. If Lalande could jestingly dismiss religious con- 
 siderations from the field of astronomy, he spake as an atheist 
 and a revolutionist rather than as the accomplished astronomer 
 that he was. It is said that Laplace never mentioned the 
 name of the Supreme Being without a reverent gesture, and 
 when, therefore, the French King remarked that he seemed 
 to have allowed no place for a God in his cosmogonic specula- 
 tions, it was simply, as a strict scientist, not as an atheist, he 
 replied, that he did not need the hypothesis of a God in so 
 purely empirical and inductive an inquiry. The examples of 
 unbelieving astronomers have been few, and many of them, 
 when historically traced, will be found to have been less astron- 
 omers than unbelievers who have made their little knowledge 
 do service to their prejudices. 
 
 Devout Astronomers. 
 
 On the other hand, we find that nearly all the great names 
 in the science have been harmoniously associated with the Chris- 
 tian faith. The chief discoverer of modern astronomy, Coper- 
 nicus, lived as a faithful priest, and died requesting that his 
 epitaph might be the prayer of the penitent thief on the cross, 
 " Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy Kingdom." 
 Galileo did not abjure the Holy Gospels upon which he was 
 forced to abjure the opinion of the earth's mobility. Kepler, as 
 he cried Eureka at the close of his researches into the motions 
 of the planet Mars, declared that he could wait a century for a 
 reader, since the Almighty had waited thousands of years for 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Evidence from Astronomy. i6i 
 
 a discoverer. Newton, after discovering and proclaiming the 
 law of God in the heavens, turned devoutly to study that other 
 law of God revealed in his holy Word. The Herschels, 
 father and son, had their tomb inscribed to that divine faith- 
 fulness which is established in the heavens and on earth, and 
 in their family maintained from one generation to another. 
 The brilliant and versatile Arago did not deem it unscientific 
 to support his celestial speculations with religious truths and 
 arguments. The late Stephen Alexander thought of himself 
 as a child spelling out the divine story of the stars, and 
 crowned his life-long studies with a matured confession of his 
 faith. And the great living astronomers, with scarcely an 
 exception, have let it appear that Christian truth is either theo- 
 retically or practically combined with their astronomical knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Revealed Truths in Astronomy. 
 
 The second source of evidence is found in the perfect agree- 
 ment of astronomical facts with revealed truths. This will ap- 
 pear by simply bringing the two together and observing their 
 correlations; in other words, connecting what has been certainly 
 discovered with what has been surely revealed in reference to 
 the heavenly bodies. On the one hand, it has been discovered, 
 contrary to all appearances, that our earth is a huge globe or 
 planet poised in space with the moon as its satellite; that the 
 sun and stars are also great globes, but immensely larger in 
 size and inconceivably distant; that the stars are innumerable 
 companies of these suns, planets, and satellites, under fixed 
 mechanical laws, careering, with incredible swiftness, through 
 orbits and periods, practically infinite in space and time. On 
 the other hand, it has been revealed, in the common language 
 of appearances, that the heavens declare the glory of Grod ; that 
 by his understanding hath he made them and garnished them by 
 his spirit ; that his throne is over the heavens, and in the heavens 
 hath he established his faithfulness; and that he is the High 
 and Lofty One who inhabiteth eternity and whom the heaven 
 of heavens cannot contain. Now, is there any contrariety be- 
 tween these scientific facts and these religious truths? Are 
 they not rather the logical complements or counterparts of one 
 another? In the view of philosophy as well as of faith, what 
 
 Vol. IU— 11 
 
1 62 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 were the vast celestial mechanism without some sufficient 
 cause, such as the revealed Jehovah, to give it rational sup- 
 port and consistency? And what were that revealed Jehovah 
 without some adequate illustration of his infinite attributes, such 
 as astronomy alone can afford ? Take either without the other 
 and see what would remain. Take astronomy without the 
 Bible and there would remain a mere causeless and purpose- 
 less mass of worlds, sun, planet, and satellite, whirling blindly 
 through the ages toward nothingness. Take the Bible without 
 astronomy, and there would remain the infinite and absolute 
 Jehovah enthroned in the skies of our little planet as the only 
 scene of his abode. But bring the two together, and at once 
 the author of Scripture becomes the author of nature with all 
 his revealed attributes in full manifestation ; with his immensity 
 extending through the boundless regions of celestial space ; with 
 his eternity unfolding through the endless periods of celestial 
 time ; with his omnipotence expending its potential energy 
 in the tremendous forces and velocities of the celestial orbs; 
 with his immutability expressed in the mechanical and physical 
 laws which govern these ceaseless movements ; and with his 
 omniscience displayed in a universe of order and beauty and 
 grandeur which all our science has but begun to apprehend. 
 Astronomy thus yields overwhelming evidence in favor of re- 
 vealed religion. 
 
 Critical Questions. 
 
 And this evidence is quite independent of any question raised 
 by literary criticism as to the origin, composition, and inspira- 
 tion of the Bible itself. The most extreme ground may be taken 
 in regard to such questions. Let it be assumed that Genesis, 
 the Book of Job, the Psalms, and other scriptures which contain 
 astronomical allusions were written by unknown authors, or 
 compiled from pre-existing documents, or derived from some 
 primeval revelation in the form of mere legendary fragments. 
 Yet the fact remains that in this ancient book alone can be found 
 that pure sublime theism which astronomy now requires, veri- 
 fies, and illustrates. Let it also be granted that our modern 
 astronomy was wholly unknown to the sacred writers, whilst 
 they were freely speaking as organs of revelation, and that the 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Evidence from Astronomy. 163 
 
 psalmist beheld in the firmament nothing more than a star-lit 
 expanse or an embroidered canopy wrought by the Divine fin- 
 gers. Yet it will still be true that in the light of science his 
 inspired words have acquired an infinite meaning which no mere 
 human genius could foresee and of which he may never have 
 dreamed when he exclaimed, " The heavens declare the glory 
 of God." 
 
 The demonstrated portion of astronomy, known as descrip- 
 tive astronomy or celestial mechanics, affords evidence of those 
 revealed attributes of Jehovah which imply his relations to the 
 material universe, to illimitable space, time, matter, and force, 
 such as immensity, eternity, omnipotence, immutability, omni- 
 science, together with some incidental proofs of the divine wis- 
 dom and goodness in the adaptation of the celestial system to 
 our planet and its inhabitants. 
 
 Evidential Literature. 
 
 With the rise of the modern astronomy such conceptions were 
 inevitable, if not irresistible in all religious literature. The 
 earlier astronomers themselves, such as Copernicus, Kepler, 
 and Newton, did not scruple to mingle pious reflections with 
 their scientific discoveries. Richard Bentley, the first Boyle 
 lecturer, in his sermons on the Confutation of Atheism, from 
 a survey of the origin and frame of the world, expounded the 
 Principia of Newton against the Epicurean doctrine of eternal 
 matter and motion, at the same time unfolding scientifically that 
 ancient proof of the divine beauty and order of the firmament, 
 the cosmos and mundus, which kindled the adoration of Plato 
 and Cicero no less than of Moses and David. William Derham, 
 the learned Canon of Windsor, whose once popular Astro- 
 theology seems to have been the first distinct treatise of the 
 kind, also demonstrated the being and attributes of God from a 
 survey of the heavens, especially enlarging upon the usefulness 
 of the celestial "globes" as then for the first time becoming ap- 
 parent in their ascertained figures, motions, orbits, and attrac- 
 tions. The versatile Whiston, in like manner, treated of the 
 Astronomical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, 
 on the basis of the Newtonian philosophy. And the same 
 argument was continued by Ray and Paley. Dr. Whewell, in 
 
164 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part il 
 
 his Bridgewater Treatise on the Connection of Astronomy 
 with Natural Theolog>% still more scientifically vindicated the 
 benevolent design of the cosmical arrangements against the 
 insinuation of Laplace that it was easy to conceive of a bet- 
 ter solar system or of one more advantageously adapted to 
 human welfare. The late Professor Ormsby Mitchell, in his 
 Astronomy of the Bible, not only sought to illustrate the 
 divine omnipotence, eternity, immutability, and wisdom from 
 the celestial mechanism but to discern an occult inspired ac- 
 quaintance with it in the very language of the Scriptures ; 
 finding in the Hebrew expression of Job, " the sockets of the 
 earth," implied knowledge of its diurnal rotation, and in the 
 binding " influences of the Pleiades " an anticipatory allusion 
 to the attraction of the solar system, and other astral systems, 
 about a centre of universal gravity, which Madler has placed 
 in that constellation. And hosts of popular writers, not pro- 
 fessed astronomers, but accepting their discoveries and em- 
 bodying the results in magazines, lectures, and sermons, are 
 still unfolding the astronomical argument for the being and 
 attributes of deity as revealed in the Scriptures. 
 
 Astronomical Hypotheses. 
 
 The third source of evidence is found in the provisional 
 agreement of astronomical hypotheses with revealed doctrines. 
 Leaving the ascertained facts of the science, we now enter 
 the field of its unsolved problems concerning the origin, the 
 development, and the destiny of the celestial universe. As to 
 each of these problems we shall find astronomers holding rival 
 hypotheses with purely scientific motives and from no reli- 
 gious bias whatever. And these hypotheses, being still 
 imperfect and conflicting, might simply be left unnoticed so 
 far as they seem to menace revealed doctrines, but if brought 
 into relation with such doctrines can be hopefully adjusted 
 to them by showing that at their worst they would only require 
 some modification of our existing interpretation of Scripture; 
 that they are already more or less reconcilable with Scripture ; 
 and meanwhile, whichever of them shall at length prevail, the 
 one essential truth of Scripture remains untouched and inde- 
 structible, if not greatly enhanced and illustrated. In other 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Evidence from Astronomy. 165 
 
 words, astronomy even in its most problematical and hypo- 
 thetical portions admits of prospective harmony with revealed 
 religion. 
 
 A Primitive Cosmos. 
 
 As to the first of the unsolved problems, the origin of the 
 celestial universe, rival hypotheses have been held almost from 
 the dawn of the science. The one hypothesis is that of a primi- 
 tive cosmos or mundus, which from the beginning has con- 
 tinued and ever since remained as a finished world of order 
 and beauty. Not a few astronomers, in a strict scientific 
 spirit, such as Galileo, the younger Herschel, Lamont, and 
 Newcomb, have abstained from speculative inquiries into the 
 origin of the heavenly bodies as unknowable, except on meta- 
 physical or religious grounds, and have confined their researches 
 to the existing order of things as now proceeding under fixed 
 mechanical and physical laws. In their view, our solar system, 
 as we now know it, whatever may have been its primitive con- 
 dition, is a piece of self-adjusting mechanism, ever maintaining 
 its equilibrium against disorder; and the planetary bodies of 
 which it is composed, the sun as a great globe of fire at the cen- 
 tre ; torrid Mercury ; fair, bright Venus ; snow-capped Earth ; 
 blood-red Mars ; belted Jupiter ; Saturn with double rings and 
 moons ; Uranus and Neptune, wandering darkly in the outer- 
 most void, are but so many different species of cosmic forms 
 with no more trace of transition or development than we can 
 find in the different species of organic forms of plants and 
 animals which subsist side by side in our planet. In like 
 manner, beyond our solar system, throughout infinite space, 
 are innumerable other solar systems, or stellar systems, each 
 star a sun with planets, revolving around some universal centre 
 of gravity, and displaying other cosmic forms as inconceiva- 
 ble to us as the scenery, flora, and fauna of unvisited coun- 
 tries. And it is claimed that the telescope has proved the truth 
 of the hypothesis by resolving the nebulae or cloud-like masses 
 of the Milky Way into clustered suns, even galaxies of suns, 
 all together comprising a fixed series of worlds, or scale of 
 cosmic types, varying from the crudest asteroid that wanders 
 in space up to the most richly garnished planet that careers 
 around the Central Sun of the Universe. 
 
i66 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 A Primitive Chaos. 
 
 The other hypothesis is that of a primitive chaos or crude 
 material mass from which the existing universe was developed 
 and is still advancing through various stages of progress. Ac- 
 cepting this Oriental and Hebrew conception, some astronomers, 
 with a speculative turn of mind, like Kepler, Laplace, Herschel 
 and Humboldt, instead of limiting their researches to the 
 heavenly bodies as they now appear, have sought to trace them 
 back under fixed mechanical and physical laws of evolution to 
 their original condition. From their point of view, our Solar 
 System, uncounted ages ago, was a vast nebula or fiery cloud 
 which, as it whirled in swift vortices, cooled and condensed, 
 first into a central igneous body like the Sun; then into 
 rotating rings like those around the planet Saturn ; then 
 successively into gaseous and watery globes, like Jupiter and 
 Uranus ; and at length into solid shells like that which encloses 
 the fiery core of our Earth as a finished world of mature 
 growth. In like manner the whole sidereal region of space 
 beyond our solar system, with all its constellations, is sup- 
 posed to be a vast nursery of worlds in different degrees 
 of cosmic development, co-existing like trees in a forest, but 
 so distant that the most brilliant suns can now appear only 
 as lucid dots in a film of light long ages after their rays have 
 reached the eye of man. And it is now claimed that the spec- 
 troscope is verifying the truth of this speculation by revealing 
 in the chemical constitution of different stars the successive 
 phases of nebula, sun, and planet, as plainly as you can trace 
 the seed bursting into the leaf and the flower at your feet. 
 
 The Doctrine of Creation. 
 
 Now, in more or less direct relation to these two astro- 
 nomical hypotheses stands the revealed doctrine of creation: — 
 that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; 
 that wisdom was with Him when He prepared the heavens; 
 that by His word or reason the world was made and without it 
 nothing was made that was made, and that through faith we 
 understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, 
 so that things which are seen were not made of things which 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Evidence from Astronomy. 167 
 
 do appear. And the state of the question is this : If we accept 
 one of these hypotheses our existing interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture remains undisturbed; if we accept the other, it can be 
 favorably modified; but whichever shall at length prevail, 
 the error will have been solely in our fallible interpretation 
 and not in that infallible word of God which abideth forever. 
 Take the hypothesis of a primitive cosmos, or of finished 
 worlds of order and beauty, and then, in accordance with the 
 long received and still popular conception of an instantane- 
 ous creation, the whole assemblage of suns and planets will 
 appear starting into being full-born as by a fiat of Jehovah. 
 Take the other hypothesis of a primitive chaos, or of worlds 
 in different stages of evolution, and then, in accordance with 
 the newer and more scientific conception of a continuous crea- 
 tion, an endless variety of suns and planets will be seen ever 
 unfolding the infinite attributes of Jehovah in all their rich- 
 ness and glory. But whichever hypothesis you take, whether 
 you conceive of creation as an act or as a process, it will still 
 be true, as it always has been and always will be true, that 
 " in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," 
 
 Our Planet Alone Inhabited. 
 
 The second unsolved problem relates to the development 
 of the heavenly bodies into habitable worlds; and for its solu- 
 tion two conflicting speculations have long been current. Some 
 astronomers, like Galileo, Herschel, Whewell, and Proctor, 
 have maintained that our planet is the only inhabited world. 
 It has been argued that other worlds do not possess the organic 
 conditions of habitability ; that the asteroids and comets are 
 plainly incapable of sustaining life; that the Moon is like an 
 extinct crater without even an atmosphere; that the Sun is 
 but a ball of incandescent mist ; that the inner planets, Mercury 
 and Venus, are composed of cinder and slag; that the outer 
 planets, Jupiter and Uranus, are mere globes of water and 
 ice, while our Earth is situated between the extremes of heat 
 and cold, in that temperate zone of the Solar System where 
 alone the life of sentient and intellectual beings has become 
 possible. As to the innumerable suns and planets which are 
 supposed to be clustered together in the constellations, in 
 
i68 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 Orion, Cassiopea, and Capella, it has been boldly surmised that 
 these are not worlds at all, but mere sparks, meteors, and 
 comets, still coruscating throughout the heavens from the great 
 fire-wheel of that solar nebula of which our planet is the most 
 substantial remnant. And it is also urged that geology, by 
 showing how many ages have rolled away ere the earth could 
 have become ready for man, has rendered the chances as 
 millions to one against any other world than ours being in- 
 habited at the present time. 
 
 Other Planets Also Habitable. 
 
 Other astronomers, however, such as Kepler, Newton, 
 Arago, Oersted, Flammarion, have favored the idea of a plu- 
 rality of inhabited worlds. In support of this idea it has 
 been maintained that there may be forms of planetary life and 
 intelligence for which our planet affords no analogies; that 
 some of the planets at least, like Mars and Venus, have cli- 
 matic zones, seas, and continents, suggestive of their habitabil- 
 ity ; that if others, like Mercury and the Moon, have long since 
 passed the habitable stage and become extinct worlds, yet 
 Jupiter and Saturn are but advancing in an earlier stage and 
 will yet become encrusted with strata, furnished with florae 
 and faunae, and tenanted by intellectual races; and that even 
 the Sun itself bears thronging inhabitants upon the opaque 
 body hidden behind his dazzling photosphere. It is declared 
 that no limit can be set to the prodigal richness of Nature. With 
 daring fancy the speculation has been pushed into the stellar 
 regions, and the ponderous globes, gross organisms, and 
 meagre furniture of our solar system have been put in con- 
 trast with sublimated spheres of light in Cassiopea, Orion, 
 and Capella, where myriads of ethereal creatures are supposed 
 to bask under many colored suns in eternal summer and per- 
 petual youth. And it is even anticipated, in proof of the 
 speculation, that the spectroscope may yet reveal conditions 
 of life on the remotest stars, and that upon some of the nearer 
 planets will soon be descried by the telescope such works of 
 art and genius as have no type or semblance in the wildest 
 romances of our little orb. 
 
CHAP, iv.j The Evidence from Astronomy. 169 
 
 The Doctrine of Angels. 
 
 Here again the state of the question is the same as in the 
 previous problem. Two opposite speculations of astronomers 
 are to be adjusted to the revealed doctrine of angels. That 
 doctrine is, that Jehovah is worshipped by the whole host of 
 heaven in the very heaven of heavens ; and that the heavens 
 are the abode of the Father and the angels, even of our Father 
 who is in the heavens and of whom the whole family in heaven 
 and earth is named. As yet, we have no final interpretation 
 of these and other like Scriptures and no full comprehension 
 of their meaning. On the first supposition, that our world 
 alone is inhabited, the long received interpretation can be re- 
 tained. The biblical heavens will continue to be viewed as a 
 mere appurtenance of our earth. The unseen hosts of angels 
 and archangels, dominions, principalities, powers, may be 
 fancied, according to the Dantean conception, ascending rank 
 above rank, toward the empyrean above our atmosphere, where 
 the Trinity is ever enthroned as the object of their ceaseless 
 worship. On the other supposition, however, that other worlds 
 as well as ours are inhabited, this picture would vanish and the 
 old interpretation be changed. Our mental horizon would ex- 
 pand beyond our planet, beyond the solar system, into the very 
 heaven of heavens, until it embraced the whole amphitheatre 
 of countless worlds with the angelical hierarchies dwelling in 
 them as in the many mansions of our Father's house. And 
 to the physical affinities between their dwellings and ours, 
 would be added their spiritual attraction toward our earth as 
 the scene of a special theophany with unfolding mysteries 
 into which they desire to look, and every trophy of which, 
 though but one repenting sinner, they hail with joy. Be all 
 this, however, as it may, to whatever extent we seek to 
 identify the biblical with the astronomical heavens, the reve- 
 lation standeth sure, that the heavens are the abode of the 
 angelic hosts, and that now unto principalities and powers in 
 heavenly places is made known by the Church that manifold 
 wisdom, the mystery of human redemption which was hidden 
 in the bosom of God from the beginning. 
 
I^O Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 A Final Chaos. 
 
 The third problem refers to the destiny of the celestial uni- 
 verse ; and for its solution two opinions have been advanced. 
 Some astronomers and astronomical writers, like Newton, 
 Helmholtz, Stephen Alexander, and Winchell, have inclined 
 to the notion of a final chaos. Amid all the order and beauty 
 of the heavenly worlds they have read signs of decay and 
 warnings of disaster. It has been held that the incursion of 
 comets is ever a menace to the stability of the solar system ; 
 that its own perturbations are cumulative and destructive; 
 that the planets are cooling, shrinking, and spinning more 
 feebly in their orbits, and slowly losing their life-bearing pow- 
 ers ; that the Moon is already a dead world, with its pallid face 
 upturned to the Sun ; that the fires of the Sun itself are steadily 
 dying out ; and that sooner or later the time must come when 
 sun, planet, and satellite shall be precipitated together and 
 collapse into the igneous dust from which they sprang. It 
 is taken as an axiom that there can be no perpetual motion 
 in the machinery of the heavens, and that the potential energy 
 of the universe must at length be dissipated. The presage 
 of disaster has been carried beyond our solar system into the 
 sidereal heavens, and the nebulous forms of the broken ring, 
 the fire-wheel, and the spiral are supposed to indicate a 
 stupendous disruption and dispersion of suns and systems 
 throughout those distant parts of the universe. And as if to 
 make the prediction more plausible its advocates have depicted 
 the awful scene which must ensue when inexorable laws have 
 run their course, and the planets shall have tumbled as charred 
 ruins into the sun, and the sun shall have fallen like an ex- 
 hausted warrior, among the dying stars, and universal night 
 and death shall have settled upon the spent powers of Nature. 
 
 A Permanent Cosmos. 
 Another class of astronomers, however, like Laplace, 
 Madler, Mayer, and Poisson, have leaned toward the notion 
 of a permanent cosmos. In spite of any signs of occasional 
 disturbance in the celestial system, they have gathered auguries 
 of all-preserving order and never-failing beauty. The popular 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Evidence froyn Astronomy. 171 
 
 dread of comets, they tell us, has already been dissipated by 
 showing their vaporous nature and periodical recurrence ; and 
 it has been mathematically proved that the perturbations of 
 the solar system are self-correcting and conservative ; that 
 there is no uncompensated shrinkage and cooling of its great 
 masses ; that the furnace of the Sun is ever fed by meteors and 
 aerolites ; and the planets ever supplied with heat and light 
 to insure their life-bearing powers. It is assumed that there 
 is a perpetual conservation as well as dissipation of the energy 
 of the universe. The hopeful prevision has been extended 
 throughout the stellar regions, where the nebulous forms and 
 star clusters are to be viewed, not as painted in our distorting 
 fancy, but as so many astral systems, revolving with our 
 own solar system, around the bright star in Alcyone, through 
 millennial summers and winters, with ever-changing climates 
 and histories. And as if to crown the splendid vision, it has 
 even been boldly conjectured, that the evolution of nebulas 
 into planets and dissolution of planets into nebulae, if they occur, 
 may be periodic rather than catastrophic, a sort of normal 
 birth and death of worlds, throughout infinite space and time. 
 
 The Doctrine of Old and New Heavens. 
 
 It will be seen, at a glance, how the two astronomical opin- 
 ions bear upon the revealed doctrine of the destruction and 
 renewal of the heavens. Each has in it an element of truth 
 which is in accordance with Scripture, while both together 
 tend to unfold its full meaning. On the one hand, the opin- 
 ion of a final chaos or dissolution of planets, as Helmholtz 
 admits, will answer quite well to the biblical descriptions of 
 the day of judgment, as depicted in popular language, when 
 the sun shall be darkened, the moon shall become as blood, 
 the stars shall fall like meteors, the heavens shall pass away 
 with a great noise, and vanish like smoke, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat. On the other hand, the opinion 
 of an ensuing or fresh evolution of planets is in agreement 
 with the prediction of Isaiah, the vivid picture of St. Peter, 
 and the vision of St. John in the Apocalypse, that after the 
 first heaven and the first earth shall have passed, Jehovah 
 shall create new heavens and a new earth, purged by the fires 
 
172 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 of judgment, as an abode of righteousness. And then, taking 
 the two opinions together, we shall understand anew the 
 transitoriness of the whole visible heavens as viewed by the 
 Psalmist and the Apostle, in contrast with the eternal Jehovah, 
 who wears them as but the changing garb of his glory : " The 
 heavens are the work of thy hands : they shall perish, but thou 
 remainest: yea all of them shall wax old as doth a garment; 
 and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be 
 changed ; but thou art the same and thy years fail not." 
 
 The Stupendous Problems of Astronomy. 
 
 The whole speculative problem of astronomy, as now brought 
 before us, has become too vast for the mind of man to com- 
 pass. The spectacle of evolving and dissolving planets, suns, 
 and galaxies, in our bewildered fancy, 
 
 " Glitters like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." 
 
 No hand of man can unravel it. We can solve the problem 
 only by the aid of revelation. If we yield ourselves to scien- 
 tific evolutionism alone, it will land us in the pessimistic view of 
 a universe at once causeless and purposeless, beginning in 
 irrational force and ending in impotent reason. But if we 
 blend such evolutionism with the biblical theism we may rise 
 to the view of a universe of order and beauty, originating in 
 the potential energy of one Absolute Will and unfolding the 
 purposes of one Infinite Reason, even that revealed Creator 
 who inhabits yet controls his own creation, immanent yet 
 transcendent, making and unmaking world after world, 
 world without end, yet ever remaining the eternal and self- 
 existent Jehovah, I-am-that-I-am, the Alpha and the Omega, 
 the Beginning and the End, which was and is and is to come, 
 the Everlasting, of whom and through whom are all things, to 
 whom alone be glory. 
 
 Astronomical Marvels. 
 
 The fourth source of evidence is found in a comparison of 
 the marvels of modern astronomy with correspondent miracles 
 of revealed religion. Leaving the speculative region of the 
 science and descending from the distant worlds in which as yet 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Evidence from Astronomy. 173 
 
 we have no conscious interest^ we return into the narrow 
 scene of our planet to consider the celestial prodigies which 
 have there occurred in its own history, such as the Arrest of 
 the Sun and Moon at Ajalon, the Receding Shadow on the Dial 
 of Ahaz, and the Star of the Nativity. In a full treatment of 
 these miracles it would be proper to raise and settle some ex- 
 egetical questions before deciding upon their strictly astronom' 
 ical character and historical truth. We might inquire if the 
 command of Jehovah to the sun and moon to stand still at the 
 battle of Ajalon was not a mere figure of speech, a bold trope 
 in a poetical narrative, or if it meant more than that the sun 
 should stop shining during the storm which followed, or if the 
 phenomenon was not a long summer twilight caused by a for- 
 tunate coincidence of moonrise and sunset, on the mountain of 
 Gibeon and in the valley of Ajalon, or if, instead of being an 
 actual stoppage of the sun, with so tremendous a disturbance 
 of the whole solar system, it may not have been only a brief 
 swaying of the earth and its satellite, having the same optical 
 effect as if the sun and moon had stood still. We might inquire 
 if the phenomenalistic language, " the sun went back ten de- 
 grees," at the prayer of Hezekiah, implied actual motion of the 
 sun any more than when we speak of the sun rising and setting ; 
 if the phenomenon witnessed was other than a local refraction 
 of the sun's rays on the face of the dial ; if that refraction might 
 not have been caused by a passing cloud. We might also in- 
 quire if the star which guided the Chaldean astronomers to the 
 cradle of our Lord may not have been a poetical figure for 
 some inward light of the mind pointing toward Messiah as the 
 object of their studies and hopes ; or some astrological sign in 
 the constellation of the Fish, which they regarded as the 
 symbol of Judea in the Zodiac, or a new apparent star caused 
 by conjunctions of the planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, 
 which twice occurred, as Kepler has proved, about the time of 
 the Nativity. 
 
 Astronomical Miracles. 
 
 Waiving such inquiries for the present, if we take these 
 miracles literally and supernaturallyas true astronomical events 
 and prodigies, they will seem no more incredible, a priori, than 
 
174 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 some astronomical discoveries with which science has made us 
 familiar. Grant that there was some disturbance of the rela- 
 tions of the earth and sun at the battle of Ajalon, yet at this 
 moment it is the sun which seems to stand still while the earth 
 goes flying around it swifter than a cannon ball. Grant that the 
 sun's rays became somehow refracted in the dial of Ahaz ; yet 
 such rays, as now decomposed in the spectrum, are revealing 
 the secrets of the most distant suns in the universe. Grant that 
 the Eastern Magi discovered a new star in the skies of Judea, 
 yet since then myriads of new stars have been discovered 
 throughout an immensity populous with worlds of light. Re- 
 member, too, that these miracles were themselves worthy acts 
 of divine wisdom and not mere achievements of human 
 prowess ; that the courage of Joshua was sustained by the evi- 
 dent favor of Heaven; that the faith of King Hezekiah was 
 strengthened by a promise of lengthened days ; and that in the 
 divine horoscope of worlds, both angels and men hailed a new- 
 lit orb in the heaven, as but the fit presage of a new-born God 
 upon earth. Add to this, that the proof of astronomy is for 
 most men as much a matter of hearsay and tradition as the 
 proof of revealed religion ; come unbiassed to them both, with 
 a mind blank to their impressions, and it will be easier to be- 
 lieve the miracles of religion than the marvels of astronomy. 
 
 Astronomical Difficulties of Faith. 
 
 It must be granted, however, that astronomy itself has occa- 
 sioned some new difficulties of faith, which should now be 
 briefly noticed, in order that its evidence may appear complete. 
 So far as such difficulties inhere in the infinitude of the uni- 
 verse and the finitude of our faculties, neither science nor reli- 
 gion can remove them or be held answerable for them, but may 
 only palliate them and outweigh them with compensating con- 
 siderations. Since we cannot be as gods knowing everything, 
 it is an act of reason as well as of faith to accept our lowly posi- 
 tion in creation and make the best of its advantages and conso- 
 lations. I shall mention but two of the astronomical difficulties 
 referring you to authors by whom they have been fully treated. 
 
 It is thought difficult to conceive of the omniscience of Jeho- 
 vah as extended throughout the immensity which astronomy 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Evidence from Astronomy. 175 
 
 has unfolded. The remoteness and multiplicity of the heavenly 
 worlds seem to make general oversight of the universe incon- 
 sistent with special notice of our little planet and fitted only to 
 foster unbelief and impunity among its inhabitants. An objector 
 of this temper will soar away in fancy to some neighboring 
 planet from which the great globe of the earth with its seas and 
 continents shall appear no bigger than the sun or moon appears 
 in our firmament. Starting afresh in a flight millions and 
 millions of miles beyond the solar system, he will alight upon 
 some star so distant that the earth will have disappeared and 
 the sun itself become but another star sparkling like Sirius 
 among other suns. Still winging his flight among the stars 
 through unimaginable spaces and times, he will at last reach a 
 point from which the suns of our galaxy of stars, if descried, 
 would seem mere dots and films of light upon the dark ex- 
 panse beneath him. And then, returning from this dizzying 
 flight, back to our little world, hidden away among clustered 
 suns and planets, like a lost grain of sand upon the shores of 
 time, he will be ready to ask with Eliphas, the sceptical com- 
 forter of Job, " Is not God in the height of heaven ? and behold 
 the height of the stars, how high they are ! And thou sayest, 
 How doth God know? Can he judge through the dark 
 cloud?" 
 
 Illustration of Divine Omniscience. 
 
 It sounds like a paradox, but it is the sober truth, that the 
 very height of the stars, astronomically considered, will help us 
 to conceive how God may know and can judge through the 
 dark cloud. The argument or rather the illustration is con- 
 tained in an ingenious little treatise entitled The Stars and 
 the Earth, and is based upon the phenomena of interplanetary 
 light as produced by waves of the universal ether . vibrating 
 from one star to another. It is well known that light, like 
 sound, travels through space at an appreciable rate of velocity, 
 so that when we perceive a luminous body a certain portion of 
 time elapses between the moment of emitting its rays and the 
 moment of its becoming visible to our eye. This passage of 
 light is too swift to appear in the limited distances between ob- 
 jects here on earth, but in the mightier scale of distances be- 
 tween the earth and the planets and stars it becomes readily 
 
176 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 conceivable. It has been ascertained that some of the heavenly 
 bodies are so remote that they become visible to us minutes 
 after the ray of light has left them ; others again so remote that 
 they do not become visible to us until hours have elapsed ; and 
 still others so inconceivably remote that long years and ages 
 must have passed ere their rays could have reached the eye of 
 man. We are told that if a star had been shattered to pieces 
 in those far-oflf regions of space thousands of years ago the 
 catastrophe would as yet be unknown in our corner of the uni- 
 verse, and we might still seem to see the star shining where it 
 had long since been blotted from the firmament. Reversing the 
 point of view from the earth to the stars, if we now imagine 
 our sceptical objector endowed with telescopic vision in his 
 flight of fancy from orb to orb through endless space, he would 
 not descry what is now passing on the earth, but what has al- 
 ready passed hours or years ago, in the days of King Alfred, 
 in the time of our Saviour, in the age of the patriarchs, back- 
 ward until the new-born earth should burst upon his view at 
 the dawn of creation ; and then in his returning flight he would 
 review the scenes of the past forward to the present ; thus re- 
 calling a universal panorama, ever changing, yet ever the same. 
 In the light of this illustration, as freed from its crude human 
 fancies, we can conceive of a Divine vision or consciousness, 
 at once omnipresent and omniscient, pervading the universe 
 and embracing the secrets of all worlds, through all ages, 
 literally in one everlasting present, in one Eternal Now. With 
 true godly fear, we may say : " And there is no creature that is 
 not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and laid 
 open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." And 
 devoutly may we exclaim : "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? 
 or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up 
 into heaven, thou art there : I make my bed in hell, behold 
 thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell 
 in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand 
 lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say. Surely the 
 darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about 
 me : the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." 
 
CHAP. IV.] The Evidence from Astronomy. 177 
 
 Physical Insignificance of Our Planet. 
 
 The other astronomical difficulty to be considered is one 
 which occurs to the believer as well as to the sceptic. It is not 
 the fancy that our earth is too insignificant to attract any divine 
 notice, but that it is too insignificant to have attracted so much 
 divine notice as the Scriptures attribute to it. And it is a diffi- 
 culty which has weighed upon the greatest minds. The states- 
 man Daniel Webster wished to have inscribed upon his tomb 
 the sentiment that the reason for the faith that was in him had 
 " sometimes been shaken by philosophical argument drawn 
 from the insignificance of man in comparison with the grandeur 
 of the universe." Ordinarily, as wholly absorbed in sublunary 
 affairs, we may not feel this sense of insignificance and deser- 
 tion in the universe : but if we rise to the contemplation of the 
 astronomical heavens as the same with the biblical heavens, 
 as including not merely uncounted myriads of worlds but as the 
 abode of the Father and the holy angels, it is hard to realize 
 that He should have concentrated the gaze of all intelligent 
 creatures upon this little nook of creation and made it the 
 scene of a special mission and incarnation of his only-begotten 
 Son. In wonder, if not in doubt, we are ready to say with 
 the psalmist, " When I consider the heavens the work of thy 
 fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, 
 what is man that thou art mindful of him ? or the son of man 
 that thou visitest him ? " 
 
 Moral Importance of Man. 
 
 The reply which the psalmist gave is the same which must 
 now be given under the full light of modern astronomy. It is 
 to the effect that the moral importance of man in creation and 
 in redemption justifies all the divine condescension toward him, 
 and makes him an object of angelic interest throughout the 
 intelligent universe. The argument has been unfolded by 
 Chalmers, in his Astronomical Discourses, with masterly clear- 
 ness and fulness. On the assumption that our earth is the 
 only lost world, he likens man to the solitary sheep astray from 
 the heavenly fold, and the one repentant sinner causing new joy 
 
 among the angels of heaven. Magnify to the utmost the pop- 
 VoL. Ill— 12 
 
178 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ir. 
 
 ulous immensity which astronomy has disclosed around the nar- 
 row stage of our probation. Imagine, as in a vast amphitheatre 
 of worlds, the series of planets, suns, and stars, with corre- 
 sponding orders of intelligence, angels and archangels, thrones, 
 dominions, principalities, cherubim and seraphim, ascending 
 rank above rank, toward the inaccessible glory of god-head. 
 Then behold the eternal Son descending from that excellent 
 glory to our little orb, becoming united with our lowly human 
 nature, and ascending as our Redeemer amid the triumphing 
 host of heaven, and so magnifying Infinite Love as the crown- 
 ing attribute of Deity and transcendent marvel of the universe, 
 and we shall no longer ask incredulously, " What is man 
 that thou art mindful of him? or the Son of Man that thou 
 visitest him ? " but shall say with reassured faith, " Yet hast 
 thou made him but a little lower than the angels and crowned 
 him with glory and honor." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM GEOLOGY. 
 
 In distinction from astronomy, geology is restricted to our 
 planet, and is, literally defined, the science of the earth, in- 
 cluding its mechanical form and structure, its external fea- 
 tures of land and sea and sky, the vegetable, animal, and 
 mineral products upon its surface, the strata, florse, and faunae 
 imbedded in its crust, the hidden nucleus which it contains, and 
 the physical forces active in producing its climatic changes and 
 structural modifications. In this large sense of the term we 
 shall use it, without confining it to the study of ancient organ- 
 isms known as paleontolog}% or to the speculative problems of 
 the primitive earth. And we shall find it yielding the four 
 kinds of religious evidence already traced in astronomy, if less 
 perfectly than that science, because of its own relative imper- 
 fection, yet with sufficient clearness and fulness for the pur- 
 pose of the argument. 
 
 Growth of Geological Evidence. 
 
 Geology is a comparatively modern science. Its evidence 
 of revealed truths, like its seeming conflict with them, is of 
 recent date. For many centuries it was in a false bondage 
 to theology. The early Greek speculations concerning the 
 round form of the earth and the agency of fire and water in its 
 formation were rejected as heathen superstitions by the church 
 fathers, who conceived of the earth as an oblong plain with a 
 surrounding sea and crystal roof, and descanted upon the 
 divine wisdom and goodness displayed in such a structure. 
 With the proof of the earth's rotundity, this crude geography 
 fell into ruins; but the schoolmen, like the fathers, went on 
 
 179 
 
i8o Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 expounding the hexaemeron, or six days' work of creation, as a 
 mere didactic process for unfolding the divine attributes and 
 enforcing the observance of the Sabbath. Long after the 
 Reformation even geology was still identified with Genesis, 
 and the whole disordered configuration of the globe was 
 attributed to the fall of Adam or the punitive action of Noah's 
 Deluge. At length, within the last century, the discovery of 
 fossil remains and the consequent proof of long cosmogonic 
 eras have emancipated geology from this false exegesis, and 
 issued in an apparent rupture with the Bible which is not yet 
 fully healed by any of the numerous schemes of reconciliation. 
 Nevertheless, through all these crude speculations and futile 
 alliances, the great theistic argument itself has remained 
 logically correct in form, needing only to be reinforced and 
 enriched with better knowledge ; and the estranged science is 
 already returning with new and growing evidence in favor of 
 its early faith. 
 
 Testimony of Geologists. 
 
 The first source of this evidence is the testimony of geolo- 
 gists themselves. As we have said, at its origin geology was 
 almost a sacred science, more consciously depending upon the 
 Bible than any other natural science. For a long time it was 
 nothing if not scriptural, and it was not strange, therefore, that 
 in the rebound from a false interpretation of Scripture, some of 
 its votaries should be carried into indifference or hostility to 
 Scripture itself. Such cases, when historically traced, can be 
 easily explained. Some of the Italian geologists simply avoided 
 the fate of Galileo by masking their scepticism in a policy of 
 dissimulation. When Bufifon was forced to recant his Theory 
 of the Earth, he declared that he offered it as a pure scientific 
 hypothesis, which was not necessarily contrary to the writings 
 of Moses. There is nothing in the works of Hutton but 
 a strict scientific reserve to justify the attacks of the Edinburgh 
 divines, who accused him of atheism. It was but natural that 
 Humboldt and Vogt should have concluded that the Mosaic 
 hexaemeron was an oriental legend or a pious fraud, when the 
 German biblical critics were showing them the way to such con- 
 clusions. And the credit which Lyell in his historical sketches 
 gave to other sacred books, whilst silent as to the Scriptures, 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. i8i 
 
 whatever else it may have been, was not an instance of scien- 
 tific candor. Duly allowing for all exceptions, it will remain 
 true that geologists, as a class, have not lost their faith in the 
 Bible or even renounced its geological teaching. In proof of 
 this the roll of the science might be called from its beginning. 
 Robert Boyle, the chief founder of the Royal Society, devoted 
 his life to such researches, and bequeathed the apologetic lec- 
 tureship which still bears his name. The geologist Ray was the 
 first to unite natural history with natural theology. Cuvier, 
 the father of paleontology, fancied himself bidden, like the 
 prophet, to evoke the dry bones of buried nature into life. 
 The greatest of geographers, Ritter, avowedly wrote his mag- 
 nificent work as his song of praise to God. And the chief mas- 
 ters of the science in our own day, Hugh Miller, Dana, Guyot, 
 Dawson, in the face of previous failure and ridicule, have still 
 intrepidly maintained a general accordance of Geology with 
 Genesis. 
 
 Geological Facts and Revealed Truths. 
 
 The second source of evidence appears in the existing agree- 
 ment of geological facts with revealed truths. The two are so 
 accordant that it will be found difficult to state either without 
 reference to the other. On the one hand are the geological 
 facts: that the earth is a globe covered with sea and land, 
 revolving on its axis and in its orbit, from morning to evening, 
 through summer and winter, and ever teeming with living 
 things, plants and beasts and fishes and birds, yet sometimes 
 having storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes to disturb its gen- 
 eral life and order. On the other hand are the revealed truths : 
 that the earth is Jehovah's and the fulness thereof; he made 
 the sea and his hands formed the dry land ; that He stretcheth 
 out the north over empty space and hangeth the earth upon 
 nothing ; that He causeth the outgoings of the morning and the 
 evening to rejoice, and hath made summer and winter, and 
 openeth his hand to supply the wants of every living thing; 
 that He maketh the earth to quake before Him, turneth up fire 
 under the earth, sitteth on the floods with stormy wind fulfill- 
 ing his word ; yet hath he set his rainbow in the cloud in token 
 of a covenant with the earth, that while the earth remaineth, 
 seed-time and harvest and summer and winter shall not cease. 
 
1 82 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 Are not these two statements logically inseparable, simply 
 opposite half truths of one rounded whole of truth! Look 
 at the geological facts alone, and you will see a world orderly 
 and beautiful indeed, yet without cause or purpose or meaning, 
 without a will or reason or intelligence, or any personaHty to 
 uphold it, and at times so marred and deranged as to seem 
 but the sport of chance or fast bound in the chains of fate. 
 Look at the revealed truths alone, and you will, indeed, behold 
 an all-sustaining Preserver of the world, ever asserting his 
 presence in nature, yet but vaguely apprehended under its 
 phenomena and with but little intelligible connection with its 
 processes, like a prince who has retired from his realm, or 
 returns into it only to play the tyrant. Then look at both the 
 facts and the truths together, and at once this revealed Pre- 
 server of the earth will be discovered as its Creator, with all 
 his attributes in full activity ; with His almighty will strenu- 
 ously put forth in upholding the globe and controlling the play 
 of its mechanical forces; with His exhaustless skill displayed, 
 as with lavish art, in an endless variety of animal and vegetable 
 products ; and with His diffused benevolence shown in count- 
 less contrivances for the happiness of myriads of sentient 
 creatures. And so the modern scientist, with infinitely more 
 meaning, can take up the refrain of the ancient psalmist : " O 
 Lord ! how manifold are thy works, in wisdom hast thou made 
 them all. The earth is full of thy riches." 
 
 Evidential Literature. 
 
 While the known astronomy illustrates the physical attri- 
 butes of Deity as expressed in the inorganic phenomena of the 
 universe, the known geology illustrates also His intellectual 
 attributes as expressed in chemical and organic phenomena. 
 His knowledge, wisdom, and goodness. The literature of the 
 subject is immense. As the geological sciences have advanced, 
 the true theistic argument has become cumulative and bewil- 
 dering in its magnificent richness. Evidences have been col- 
 lected not merely of benevolent design, but of supreme intel- 
 ligence in the mathematical order, the geometrical symmetry, 
 the optical beauty, as well as the wonderful utility, which per- 
 vade the whole terrestrial system. Dr. John Kidd, in his 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 183 
 
 Bridgewater Treatise on The Adaptation of External Nature 
 to the Physical Condition of Man, with reference to tlie supply 
 of his wants, starting with a view of his comparative helpless- 
 ness, has ranged through the atmospheric, the mineral, the 
 vegetable, the animal kingdoms, co-ordinating an immense 
 series of facts in proof of the wisdom and goodness of the 
 Creator. Dean Buckland, in his Bridgewater Treatise on 
 Geology and Mineralogy, with reference to Natural Theology, 
 beginning far back in time with the molten earth, has 
 traced its forming layers of rock, metal, and coal as designed 
 for future use, together with the monster florae and faunae 
 adapted to its changing climates, ere it was fitted to become the 
 abode of man. The same argument has been unfolded with 
 scientific candor and learning, as well as devout enthusiasm, 
 by President Hitchcock in his Religion of Geology and its 
 Connected Sciences. Professor George Fowne, in his Actonian 
 Prize Essay, has exemplified the wisdom and goodness of God 
 in the chemical history of the earth and its atmosphere, and in 
 the marvellous adaptation of its inorganic substances to the 
 organized beings which tenant its surface. On the same foun- 
 dation a like illustration has lately been drawn by the Rev. 
 George Warrington, from the phenomena of radiation. Pro- 
 fessor J. P. Cooke, in his Graham Lectures on Religion and 
 Chemistry, has gathered fresh testimony from the beneficent 
 uses of oxygen, carbonic acid, nitrogen, and all the constituents 
 of air, earth, and water. Professor Guyot, in his Lowell Lec- 
 tures on Earth and Man, has sketched the wonderful pre- 
 adjustment of the whole physical structure and furniture of 
 the finished globe to the races and civilizations which have 
 been cradled in its genial continents, nourished by its cloudy 
 mountains, fanned with its balmy winds, and wafted with 
 growing wealth and power across its mighty seas. 
 
 The invisible beauties of nature, as well as its more obvious 
 utilities, have also been unveiled by the hand of a devout 
 science. The distinguished mathematician, Charles Babbage, 
 in his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, sought to illustrate arith- 
 metically, by means of a calculating machine, after the manner 
 of Paley, that divine forethought and design which pervade 
 the evolution of the whole terrestrial mechanism, under both 
 
1 84 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ir. 
 
 law and miracle, and unfolded a secret Book of Remembrance 
 in those ethereal waves of light and sound which perpetuate 
 the impression of every word and deed of man. President 
 Hill, of Harvard, has in like manner united Geometry and 
 Faith, by exposing those vast, intricate problems of form and 
 motion, with which an Infinite Intelligence is ever tasking the 
 devout student of nature. President McCosh, with the aid of 
 Professor Dickie, in his Typical Forms and Special Ends, 
 while not undervaluing the utilitarian arguments of other writ- 
 ers, has chiefly aimed to blend the evidence of order and beauty 
 with that of adaptation and use, as found in tlie subtle harmonies 
 of number, form, and color which lurk in the crystal, the plant, 
 the animal, gleam in the most hidden atoms and particles, and 
 thus transform the whole earth with a divine intelligence and 
 glory. 
 
 The whole argument has been popularized by writers, lec- 
 turers, and preachers, who have sought to translate the annual 
 course of nature into a sort of parable of divine grace. It has 
 been framed into the calendar of the natural year by Dr. 
 Hitchcock in his Religious Lectures upon the four Seasons, 
 discoursing upon the Resurrection of Spring, the Triumphal 
 Arch of Summer, the Euthanasia of Autumn, and the Corona- 
 tion of Winter. It has been woven into the calendar of the civil 
 year by Dr. Duncan in his Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons, 
 joining scientific with Scriptural meditations upon the phe- 
 nomena of the ever-changing climate and scenery. It has also 
 been adapted to the Christian year by an English layman. Dr. 
 Chapin Child, in a scientific commentary upon the Benedicite, 
 blending the great orchestra of Nature with the liturgy of 
 the Church. 
 
 Geological Hypotheses. 
 
 The third source of evidence is in the provisional agreement 
 of geological hypotheses with revealed doctrines. We now 
 enter a region of the science which has been overrun with the 
 wildest and most contradictory speculations concerning the 
 origin, development, and destiny of the earth. The verity of 
 Scripture will stand quite independent of such speculations, 
 even though they be left unnoticed ; and the odium of any 
 failure in reconciling them with Scripture should be divided 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 185 
 
 with the geologists who have themselves been conspicuous 
 among the reconcilers and have often misled them by offering 
 some mere conjecture as a scientific truth. Nevertheless, it 
 will be well to show the bearing of these speculations upon the 
 revealed doctrine ever to be conserved and maintained, which- 
 ever of them may prevail in the end. It will be found, in some 
 instances, that they already give promise of shedding new 
 light upon biblical truths which they may seem to have 
 menaced. 
 
 The Primitive Earth a Finished World. 
 
 The first of the unsolved problems of geology relates to the 
 origin of the Earth; and two rival speculations concerning it 
 have been pursued. Nearly all the early geologists, such as 
 Burnet, Woodward, and Cuvier, and others mainly of the Nep- 
 tunist school of Werner, accepted the dogma of instantaneous 
 creation as a scientific postulate, and conceived of the primitive 
 earth as a finished world such as we now find it. It was held 
 that as far back as science can take us, our planet was found to 
 have been a solid globe covered with strata, florae, and faunae, 
 such as now appear in its mineral, vegetable, and animal king- 
 doms. The earthquakes and volcanoes which occasionally dis- 
 turb its order were regarded as relics of second causes em- 
 ployed by the Creator when he divided the land from the sea 
 by upheaving the mountains and draining the waters into a 
 central abyss. The layers of granite, slate, and clay, together 
 with the fossil organisms found with them, were accepted as 
 the sediment and remains of the Noachian Deluge, which as a 
 universal ocean had destroyed all organic life upon the earth. 
 And the view was made plausible by the admitted fact that the 
 superficial strata, including the fossiliferous portions, are 
 largely composed of aqueous formations. 
 
 The Primitive Earth Chaotic. 
 
 The later geologists, however, such as Buffon, Humboldt, 
 Lyell, and others chiefly of the Vulcanist school of Hutton, 
 have gradually discarded the dogma of an abrupt creation as 
 unscientific, and conceived of the earth as evolved from a prim- 
 itive chaos. It is now maintained that science can take us back 
 
l86 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 to a time when our planet was one of the nebulous rings of the 
 solar system ; first condensing into an incandescent sphere, and 
 then hardening around its fiery nucleus into a granite shell as 
 the base of the organic species which have since flourished and 
 decayed upon its surface. The fossil remains and serried strata 
 imbedded in its crust could not have been formed and deposited 
 by so transient an event as the Deluge, but are the effects of 
 physical and chemical processes still passing before our eyes. 
 Earthquakes and volcanoes are only surviving expressions of 
 a molten interior mass which the earth has inherited from the 
 primitive nebula. And the opinion is made more probable by 
 the undeniable fact that the great solid masses of the planet are 
 composed of igneous formations. 
 
 The Doctrine of Creation. 
 
 It would be interesting, but it might be tedious, to recount 
 the many attempts to harmonize these conflicting views with 
 the revealed doctrine of creation. The first view, that the earth 
 was perfect from the beginning, fell easily into agreement with 
 the traditional conception of creation as an instantaneous 
 act of the Almighty about six thousand years ago, when the 
 heavens and the earth were created in the beginning, as 
 declared in the first verse of Genesis. In order to meet the next 
 statement, in the second verse, that the earth was in a chaotic 
 state, and to explain the marks of disorder which it still pre- 
 sents, it was held that the earth was dragged down from its 
 pristine perfection by the fall of the angels who inhabited it; 
 that then ensued the six days' work of creation in conflict with 
 this Satanic agency; and that by the temptation and fall of man 
 came fresh disorder, to be efifaced by the work of redemption 
 and ultimate triumph of Christ over Satan. In place of these 
 extravagant interpretations, the second view, that the earth has 
 been evolved from an ancient chaos, is now generally accepted 
 as more in accordance with science and with Scripture. If we 
 conceive of creation both reasonably and scripturally, as a 
 process rather than as an act, and include evolution in its proc- 
 ess, then the first verse of Genesis will stand by itself as a 
 declaration of the general doctrine or fact of creation; the 
 second verse will indicate the void and formless nebula in which 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 187 
 
 the earth originated; and the following verses will depict the 
 creative method by which it was evolved into its present fin- 
 ished form. But whichever of the two views we accept, though 
 we accept them both and sift them together, we shall have as a 
 residual truth the plainly revealed statement that the primitive 
 earth was without form and void ere the creative spirit of God 
 moved upon the face of the abyss. 
 
 The Catastrophists. 
 
 The second problem is the development of the earth through 
 the geological periods; and before this problem are encamped 
 the Catastrophists and the Uniformitarians. According to the 
 Catastrophists physical processes in the primitive earth were 
 inconceivably swift and violent. Geologists of this school will 
 appeal from the present to the former condition of the planet 
 before it became ready for organic life, when it was a rocky 
 shell enclosing a fiery mass and enveloped in a universal ocean 
 by which were produced its erupted mountains and abysmal 
 seas and of which the volcano and the earthquake are now but 
 faint echoes. After it became ready for organic life, they will 
 tell us, the same aqueous and igneous agencies conspired to 
 render it like a huge hot-house for producing enormous ferns 
 and prodigious monsters of which we can find but a few traces 
 and remains buried in its crust. These fossiliferous strata, 
 moreover, by their position one above another, are supposed 
 to indicate successive destructions and renewals of organic life 
 by means of great planetary convulsions ere the appearance of 
 man. And it must be granted that the distorted surface of 
 the globe and its broken strata, viewed with the occasional 
 freshet and the smouldering volcano, are very suggestive of 
 spent forces which have once acted with paroxysmal violence. 
 
 The Uniformitarians. 
 
 According to the Uniformitarians, however, physical agen- 
 cies in the primitive earth were inconceivably slow and tran- 
 quil. Geologists of this school, if we give them unlimited 
 credit in the bank of time, will trace the present globe far back 
 to its gaseous origin, under existing laws at their present rate 
 of action, without a break or catastrophe. The fossil floras and 
 
1 88 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 faunae preceding the historic period, they tell us, indicate suc- 
 cessive dynasties of organic life, the kainozoic, the mesozoic, 
 the paleozoic, or the modern, mediaeval, and ancient, evolving 
 one out of another, with the changing climate of the earth, each 
 lasting untold thousands of years. Earthquakes and volcanoes 
 have a conservative effect upon the general balance of sea and 
 land, and are but incidental to the slow process by which new 
 islands and continents are formed as the foundation of new 
 organic systems. Even the most ancient strata, the crystalline 
 rocks preceding all organic life, are but relics of the solidifying 
 crust of the molten globe as it cooled and hardened through 
 long seons of geological and astronomical time. Whatever may 
 be thought of those remote periods, it cannot be denied that 
 during the historic period, at least, the aspect of nature has 
 suggested a steady play of its forces with uniform tranquillity. 
 
 The Six Creative Days. 
 
 The most heroic efforts have been made to bring these vari- 
 ous speculations into agreement with the revealed doctrine of 
 the six creative days. Without reviewing all of them we shall 
 find, by a glance at them, that the general outcome is already 
 favorable and hopeful. At first the opinion of the Catastro- 
 phists, as applied by Penn, Fairholm, Kirby, lent itself natu- 
 rally to the dogmatic conception of the creative days as a series 
 of stupendous miracles. It had become the orthodox faith, as 
 it is still the popular notion, that about six thousand years ago 
 land and sea and sky, plants, animals, and men, started forth 
 into being, one after another, in six days of twenty-four hours, 
 by successive fiats of Jehovah. And when the evidence of fossil 
 remains was brought to light, it could only be denied or treated 
 as illusory. It was even imagined that since Adam must have 
 been created with an umbilicus, and since the trees must have 
 been created with concentric rings, so the earth itself must have 
 been created in a stratified form, with extinct florae and faunae, 
 suggesting a growth through which it had never passed. This 
 was catastrophism run wild, and the miraculous made mon- 
 strous. To meet such difficulties, learned divines, like Chal- 
 mers, Pye Smith, Andrew Wagner, suggested a long interval of 
 time between the first and the second verses of Genesis, during 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 189 
 
 which all the geological periods might have been unfolded, but 
 which was omitted as not essential in the sacred narrative. 
 After which follows, in the next verses, the account of a new 
 creation, on the chaotic ruins of the old, having man for its 
 centre and performed literally in six days. It was even fancied 
 that this new creation was local and supernatural, in Central 
 Asia, to furnish a paradise for Adam, while the rest of the 
 globe was still proceeding, as of old, under natural laws. But 
 the difficulties of this mode of interpretation, though reduced, 
 were not removed, and it has declined with the decline of Catas- 
 trophism among geologists. 
 
 The Creative Days as Cosmogonic Eras. 
 
 The opinion of the Uniformitarians, as held by Guyot, Dana, 
 Dawson, Hugh Miller, has led to more successful attempts to 
 identify the geological periods with the creative days as divine 
 working days or long cosmogonic eras of the Creator. If to 
 the conception of creation as a process, we add that of an 
 orderly evolution as its method, on the assumption that the 
 author of Scripture is also the author of nature, it will be only 
 a question of detail to harmonize the story of the one with the 
 story of the other. Neither the scriptural nor the common use 
 of the word " day " limits it to a period of twenty-four hours ; 
 nor has the enlarged sense of it in Genesis been forced upon 
 modern reconcilers by the claims of science, since it was held 
 on doctrinal grounds by St. Augustine and Bossuet, long before 
 the dawn of geology, as well as by learned Hebraists, like 
 Pusey and Hengstenberg, on grammatical grounds. Accord- 
 ing to the best of the uniformitarian schemes of conciliation as 
 set forth by the late Arnold Guyot, on the basis of modern 
 astronomical and geological speculation, the biblical cosmogony 
 comprised during the first three days the general evolution of 
 the heavens with their nebulas, suns, and planets, and during 
 the second three days the special evolution of the earth with its 
 climates, florae, and faunae : the former, or astronomical, includ- 
 ing the azoic ages, or inorganic era, of matter; and the latter, 
 or geological, the paleozoic, mesozoic, and kainozoic ages, or 
 organic era of life ; the whole concluding in the formation of 
 man as the climax of the evolution and the image of the Cre- 
 
190 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 ator. The seemingly inconsistent appearance of light on the 
 first day and of vegetation on the third day, previous to any 
 mention of the sun, is explained by the cosmic conditions which 
 existed when the gaseous nebula became luminous, and when 
 the still luminous earth could bear forms of plant life, ere the 
 sun had begim to illumine it or the seasons had prepared it for 
 the organic epochs of the three following days. The seventh 
 day of rest, which came after the six days of work, is that 
 historic period of tranquillity and order throughout nature 
 which closed the period of energetic evolution, when God rested 
 from all his work and saw that everything he had made was 
 very good. And since then, from generation to generation, this 
 great Sabbath of God has had its perpetual memorial, image, 
 and accompaniment in the lesser sabbath made for man. 
 
 The Creative Days as Logical Stages. 
 
 The clearness, richness, and beauty of this scheme have been 
 widely recognized. It was used by Mr. Gladstone in his con- 
 troversy with Professor Huxley, concerning the Proem in 
 Genesis. But it does not satisfy all minds. The difficulty of 
 tracing in detail an exact parallelism between Genesis and 
 geology has caused a reaction against such minute interpreta- 
 tion and led to an effort to banish the time-element altogether 
 from the narrative. Profound thinkers, like Michaelis and 
 Reusch, have maintained that the creative days correspond 
 with the geological periods, not as chronological epochs, but as 
 logical stages in the creative process, founded in fact and in 
 reason, but not necessarily to be conceived of as fixed interv^als 
 of definite duration. The order is the same in both Scripture 
 and nature: First, a formless waste or the nebulous chaos; 
 second, a division of the earth from the firmament, or the sepa- 
 ration of the nebulous planet from the rest of the solar nebula ; 
 third, the gathering of the seas and appearing of the dry land 
 to bring forth grass and herb and plant, or the evolution of the 
 terraqueous globe with its sun-like photosphere and commenc- 
 ing verdure ; fourth, the sun, moon, and stars to give light upon 
 the earth and to be for signs and for seasons, for days and 
 years, or the establishment of the mature planet in the solar 
 system with its zones and climates, its day and night and sum- 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 191 
 
 mer and winter ; fifth, the swarming of the water and air with 
 great fishes and winged fowl or the evolution of the lower 
 animals of the organic scale; sixth, the earth bringing forth 
 beasts each after its kind, and the making of man in the image 
 of God with dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of 
 the air and the beasts of the field, or the evolution of the higher 
 animals of the organic scale and the production of man as the 
 most perfect and dominant animal of the globe ; seventh, the 
 rest of God from his work, or the repose of nature, since man 
 appeared upon the earth. And this order will hold though it 
 be purely ideal in the mind, though it represent merely the 
 phases of all cosmic growth without special reference to our 
 earth ; though it simply depict the existing succession of terres- 
 trial phenomena, sky, sea and land, plants, animals and man ; 
 though there be no effort to adjust it to the still imperfect 
 periodology of geological time. 
 
 But whichever of the schemes be adopted, whether the history 
 be regarded as real or as ideal, the essential point remains, that 
 the geological order of evolution agrees with the revealed order 
 of creation, and justifies the divine and human Sabbath as the 
 reason given for the Fourth Commandment : " For in six days 
 the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is therein, 
 and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the 
 Sabbath day and hallowed it." 
 
 Critical Questions. 
 
 Let it be here observed, in passing, that this scientific inter- 
 pretation of the Hexaemeron is in no way aflfected by any criti- 
 cal questions which have been raised as to the authorship of 
 Genesis or the literary form in which it is cast. Take the most 
 advanced ground as to these questions. Assume that the bibli- 
 cal cosmogony was derived from Hebrew documents, Egyptian 
 hieroglyphs, Assyrian tablets, or other primeval traditions, by 
 some unknown editor inspired to mould them in their present 
 form. Assume, still further, that the narrative is dramatic in 
 structure and anthropomorphic in language ; a series of visions 
 or scenes dawning and fading like successive days, with divine 
 fiats ushering and explaining them one after another, as they 
 pass before the fancy of the rapt Judean seer. Nevertheless, 
 
192 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 the fact remains, that here in this oldest of books is an order of 
 creation which modern geology verifies, and based upon it is a 
 calendar of historic time which has supplanted successively the 
 calendars of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome; which still 
 rules the highest civilization of our day, which governs every 
 week of your life and mine, and which is imperiously pro- 
 claimed from the altars of the Church, whenever we hear the 
 words " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." 
 
 Dissolution of the Earth. 
 
 The third geological problem is the destiny of the earth; 
 and two opinions have arisen concerning it. The early geolo- 
 gists, such as Hooke and Ray, predicted the future dissolution 
 of the globe. It had become a sacred tradition that the earth 
 will yet be destroyed by fire, as it had once been destroyed by 
 water, and this tradition w'as made a basis of scientific pre- 
 vision. Its portents were found in the combustible material of 
 the earth's surface, and in volcanoes and earthquakes, w^hich 
 seemed to betoken some vast fiery magazine in the under-world, 
 which might at any time burst forth in the flames of a general 
 conflagration. It was ascertained by thermometrical measure- 
 ment that the heat of the globe increases downward toward the 
 centre, which was supposed to be a molten mass of minerals 
 and lava within a crust relatively no bigger than an egg-shell. 
 Together with these internal sources of combustion were com- 
 bined atmospherical and astronomical agencies, such as the 
 lightning and the thunderbolt, the meteoric shower, the comet, 
 increasing solar heat, and even stellar radiation throughout the 
 celestial regions in which the sun is journeying with the earth 
 among the stars. It seemed easy enough to find instruments 
 as well as presages of the great disaster. 
 
 Stability of the Earth. 
 
 The later geologists, however, such as Herschel, Thompson, 
 and Lyell have been more inclined to believe in the stability of 
 the globe. Repeated failures to fix the date of the predicted 
 conflagration have combined with more thorough geological 
 researches to induce a scientific scepticism as to the interior 
 fires of the earth. It has been maintained that the earthquake 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 193 
 
 and the volcano are not destructive, but conservative agencies, 
 mere safety-valves and vent-holes to preserve the equilibrium 
 of land and sea over any molten mass underneath the ground. 
 The egg-like globe with its fiery yolk could not live even in 
 fancy after it was shown by mechanical and thermal calcula- 
 tions that the earth has cooled from its centre and not from its 
 surface ; that its density forbids the notion of a central fluidity ; 
 and that there is an equilibrium in its temperature as well as in 
 its mass, to insure its permanence. The atmospheric storm is 
 treated as no more than " a sneeze in man's small universe," 
 and it has even been surmised that if our planet is journeying 
 with the sun among the stars from cold to hot regions of space 
 with aqueous and igneous epochs of development, yet these 
 may be periodic rather than catastrophic, and as superficial in 
 their effects as the annual seasons, only a longer sidereal 
 winter, to be followed by a later, more glorious summer. In 
 the light of science the earth can be made to look essentially 
 solid and enduring. 
 
 Doctrine of the Old and New Earth. 
 
 The two geological opinions now before us, by their very 
 statement, appear accordant with the revealed doctrine of the 
 destruction and renewal of the earth. What is true in each of 
 them agrees with all that is true in existing interpretation. 
 The opinion of the earth's future dissolution is vividly de- 
 picted by St. Peter, though not with a scientific purpose, 
 where he warns the scoffers of the last days, that the heavens 
 which now are, and the earth, by the word of God are stored 
 with fire, against the day of judgment, when the elements shall 
 melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are 
 therein shall be burned up. The opinion of the earth's stability 
 is also countenanced by the Scriptures which declare that Jeho- 
 vah has a covenant with the earth never again to curse the 
 ground for man's sake, and that the foundations of the earth 
 are so surely laid that it cannot be moved. At the same time, 
 both opinions when sifted together yield the Scriptural concep- 
 tion of a new earth to be formed out of the old, of a palinge- 
 nesia, or second genesis born of the first, of a paradise regained 
 blossoming out of a paradise lost, and of a general resurrection 
 
 Vol. IU— 13 
 
194 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 of material nature in connection with redeemed humanity: 
 " For the creation was subjected to vanity not of its own will, 
 but by reason of him who subjected it in hope that the creation 
 itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption 
 into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." 
 
 The whole problem of the speculative geology, we can now 
 see, is but part of the larger problem of the speculative astron- 
 omy. In the biblical conception the old and new earth is in- 
 cluded in the old and new heavens, as in the scientific concep- 
 tion our planet in its development shares the vicissitudes of 
 the celestial system to which it belongs. And if we adopt the 
 astronomical speculation that our earth is carried by the sun 
 through hot and cold regions of space, during long epochs of 
 ice and fire, then the time must come when our planet shall 
 share in the destruction and renewal of the heavens; when the 
 renewed earth shall become a restored paradise for renewed 
 man, and all the glorious symbolism of the Apocalypse shall be 
 fulfilled : physical pain and sickness and tears shall pass away, 
 and the tree of life shall shed its fruit every month for the 
 healing of the nations. 
 
 Geological Marvels and Miracles. 
 
 The fourth source of evidence is in the comparison of the 
 miracles of revealed religion with the marvels of modern 
 geolog}'. The Bible records numerous miracles wrought dur- 
 ing the historic period within the province of this science. The 
 exegetical questions preliminary to a full consideration of them 
 are interesting and important, but not essential to the present 
 argument. If the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire 
 and brimstone was a meteoric shower or volcanic overthrow, 
 it has its parallel in the destruction of the dissolute cities of 
 Herculaneum and Pompeii, and is far surpassed in wonderful- 
 ness by the fiery cloud and core of the globe during its earliest 
 geological period. If the Deluge of Noah was a local freshet 
 destroying the then known earth with the Adamic race, rather 
 than a universal ocean, yet geology asks us to believe that such 
 an ocean once invested the whole planet, followed by glacial 
 epochs more marvellous than anything narrated in Scripture. 
 If the miracles of the Exodus, such as the crossing of the Red 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 195 
 
 Sea, the quail and manna and fountain in the desert, and the 
 conquest of Canaan, were simply exceptional but natural phe- 
 nomena, and if the mighty works of our Lord within the realm 
 of nature, such as the Draught of Fishes, the Feeding of the 
 Ten Thousand, the Stilling of the Tempest, were only natural 
 processes accelerated or arrested by divine wisdom and skill, 
 yet the whole earth around us has been transformed with 
 greater marvels of human science and art, such as tunnels, 
 bridges, and canals, iron steamers ploughing through stormy 
 oceans, prodigious harvests and luxuries, continents reclaimed 
 and barbarous regions civilized, all which would have seemed 
 more incredible to an ancient Hebrew peasant than the miracles 
 of his day can now seem to a sceptical critic. And the belief in 
 such miracles, instead of being an act of stupid wonder, be- 
 comes intelligent and reasonable, when it is remembered that 
 all of them are radiant with divine meaning ; that the destruc- 
 tion of Sodom and Gomorrah was a deserved judgment; that 
 the Deluge was but the opening act in the great scheme of 
 human redemption ; that the following signs and wonders 
 under both the Old and the New Testament served to dis- 
 tinguish the true religion from false religions, and cause their 
 prodigies to disappear as mere lying wonders or feats of magic ; 
 and that they still live as revelations of divine truth and love 
 in the faith and culture of our own times. To an unprejudiced 
 mind, coming to the question with a fresh knowledge of both 
 Scripture and nature, the marvels of geological science would 
 seem less conceivable, less probable, as well as less sublime, 
 than any correspondent miracles of revealed religion. 
 
 Value of the Geological Evidence. 
 
 li the geological evidence seems less exact and perfect than 
 we found the astronomical evidence, it is because, as we antici- 
 pated, geology is a less exact and complete science than astron- 
 omy. While astronomy deals with simple mechanical problems, 
 geology is entangled in complex, physical, chemical, and 
 organical problems which seem as yet almost to defy analysis. 
 But this necessary imperfection or immaturity of its speculative 
 section being duly considered, its evidence is already great and 
 promising. Indeed, it may be asserted, in spite of current 
 
196 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 impressions to the contrary, that the harmony of modern geol- 
 ogy with the Bible is already greater and more promising than 
 the harmony of modern theology with the Bible. In the first 
 place, the friendly differences among geologists, between such 
 extremes as Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism, are much 
 more reconcilable with one another and with Scripture than 
 the polemic disputes of divines between such extremes as Cath- 
 olicism and Protestantism, Calvinism and Unitarianism ; and, 
 in the second place, the established truths of geology, already 
 harmonious with Scripture, rest upon strictly scientific evidence 
 which cannot be unsettled ; while the established truths of the- 
 ology, such as theism and revelation, rest largely upon spec- 
 ulative evidence which is now being undermined by agnosticism 
 and criticism. In other w^ords, geolog}^ scientifically consid- 
 ered, is a much more advanced and exact science than theology 
 scientifically considered, and therefore much more accordant 
 with revealed religion. 
 
 Geological DifUciilties of Faith. 
 
 Geology discloses the infinitude of God in time, as astronomy 
 discloses it in space, and occasions a like difficulty of faith in 
 conceiving of the eternity of cosmic time as compared with the 
 brevity of historic time on our earth. If we admit a chrono- 
 logical element into the creative days of Genesis, as unfolded 
 by the Uniformitarian geologist, we shall soon be lost in the 
 maze of long aeons of astronomic and geologic time, when the 
 earth was passing through successive stages of matter and life, 
 which no human eye could behold, and which make 
 
 " Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
 Of the eternal Silence." 
 
 The difficulty is not merely exegetical. The word " day " is 
 used in the narrative, as elsewhere in Scripture and in common 
 speech, in various senses, as the day of cosmic light, the day 
 of solar light, the historic day or age of indefinite duration, or 
 as a mere scenic day in the Mosaic vision of creation. No- 
 where, necessarily as the day of twenty-four hours. The diffi- 
 culty lies deeper than any verbal usage. It inheres in our 
 earthy standards of measuring time, and we can get relief only 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 197 
 
 by emancipating ourselves from those standards. This we 
 may do by a Httle effort of the imagination. It is a well-known 
 illusion that the time seems short or long according to our 
 circumstances. In an expectant mood we say the minutes are 
 like hours ; in a mood of enjoyment, the hours are like minutes, 
 We dream of long past years in a night of slumber ; but on a 
 bed of pain, we think the morning will never come. In other 
 words our mental measure of time, within limits, is ever con- 
 tracting or expanding, and in fancy may leap beyond those 
 limits. Let us make the effort. With the contracting measure, 
 descend through the ranks of inferior creatures, and we shall 
 come to an ephemeral insect, with whom one day is as our 
 threescore years and ten. Descend still lower with the micro- 
 scope, and we shall reach an animalcule, born, living, and dead 
 in a minute, with whom one day would be as a thousand years. 
 With the expanding measure, ascend through the ranks of 
 superior creatures, and we shall arrive among angelic beings 
 older than the patriarchs, with whom a thousand years are as 
 our threescore and ten. Ascend still higher, and we may 
 approach those eldest children of creation in the planets and 
 stars, with whom a thousand years would be as one day. Then, 
 by the aid of such fancies conceive of a Being as independent 
 of the limitations of time as of space, whose life is measured 
 neither by the millennium nor by the minute, who can alike con- 
 tract his powers among atoms and seconds or expand them 
 through worlds and ages, and it will seem literally true that 
 with Jehovah one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day. And in all lowliness may we say, " We spend 
 our years as a tale that is told. For a thousand years are in thy 
 sight but as yesterday when it is past." 
 
 There is a kindred difficulty of faith occasioned by the 
 biblical predictions of geological events, such as the destruc- 
 tion of the earth by fire, the descent of the Son of Man in the 
 clouds of heaven, and the day of judgment. In the light of 
 Uniformitarian speculation such descriptions will be regarded 
 but as the dramatic scenery of prophecy, rather than as literal 
 events which are probable and imminent. We look around us 
 upon the present tranquil aspect of nature, as she has been pro- 
 ceeding under fixed laws during the whole historic period, and 
 
198 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii, 
 
 behold no sign of any great disaster. With this impression we 
 look backward to the six days of creation and find them no 
 longer a single week crowded with wonders, but extending 
 through long geological periods and processes. With these 
 double impressions of the uniformity of Nature, we gaze for- 
 ward to the great events of the world's future as sketched in a 
 prophetic picture without perspective, and the day of judgment 
 will seem but another historic period, and the coming of the 
 Son of Man a moral crisis rather than a visible pageant. And 
 when to all this is added the scientific scepticism of our times 
 in regard to such catastrophies, it will seem as if St. Peter had 
 but anticipated the precise exigency of our faith : " Knowing 
 this, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, saying, 
 Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell 
 asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of 
 the creation." 
 
 The reply then given to such scepticism is the reply to be 
 given now. We might almost say that the Apostle reasons like 
 a geologist. We may at least say that he reasons in a manner 
 not inconsistent with the facts and best theories of geolog}\ 
 He first takes Catastrophist ground against the scofifers by 
 appealing to a past aqueous condition of the globe and to its 
 present igneous condition : "All things have not continued as 
 they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they 
 willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens 
 were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the 
 water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with 
 water, perished. But the heavens and earth, which are now, 
 by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against 
 the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." The 
 apostle next takes Uniformitarian ground for the encourage- 
 ment of believers, by reminding them that the present historic 
 period of redemption, in the scale of the Divine being, is but 
 like one of the days of creation and now serves as a day of sal- 
 vation, a season of amnesty or era of grace : " But, beloved, be 
 not ignorant of this one thing that one day is with the Lord as 
 a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. For the 
 Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count 
 slackness, but long suffering to us ward, not willing that any 
 
CHAP, v.] The Evidence from Geology. 199 
 
 should perish, but that all should come to repentance." And, 
 then, the apostle warns both saints and sinners that the end of 
 the historic day of salvation is ever imminent, and will be 
 attended by a great geological catastrophe : " The day of the 
 Lord shall come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens 
 shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt 
 with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein 
 shall be burned up." Twenty centuries have not lessened the 
 probability of that event. Nothing is at once so certain and so 
 uncertain. But whether it come in this year or in the next year, 
 in this century or in the next century, in the millennium or in 
 the next millennium, is practically immaterial : its spiritual 
 lessons are the same to us as to our predecessors or may yet be 
 to our successors. It is ever true for us and for all men, that 
 the things which are seen are temporal ; that we are living in a 
 world which is transient and probationary : in a world which 
 has enough of beauty to charm the wicked in their infatuation, 
 but not enough to reward the righteous for their fidelity ; in a 
 world which has enough of suffering to chasten the saint yet 
 not enough to punish the sinner ; in a world which is all scarred 
 through the ages with signs of disaster and portents of judg- 
 ment ; and in a world which even now bears within its bosom 
 the fiery seeds of its decay and ruin. " Seeing then that all 
 these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought 
 ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM ANTHROPOLOGY, 
 
 The complex study of anthropology has its roots in natural 
 history and its branches in all the human sciences. In distinc- 
 tion from geology, the science of the earth, Anthropology, as 
 literally defined, is the science of man. It is further definable 
 as the last and highest of the biological sciences, being re- 
 stricted to the human organism in distinction from all other 
 animal organisms, which in their turn are distinguishable 
 from still lower organisms. As thus viewed at the head 
 of the organic scale of our planet, it includes the study of the 
 human body, of its structure and of its functions, known as 
 anatomy and physiology; and it comprises the whole human 
 species, with all its physical phenomena and varied development 
 in different climates and periods of culture. From this last 
 most comprehensive point of view, it may be divided into three 
 sections or subordinate sciences : Ethnology, the science of 
 races ; philology, the science of languages ; and archaeology, the 
 science of ancient arts. It is from each of these three anthro- 
 pological sciences that we shall be able to gather evidence in 
 favor of revealed religion. 
 
 Growth of the Anthropological Evidence. 
 
 For many centuries the whole science was little more than 
 a mere biblical study such as still figures in systems of divinity. 
 Its chief source of knowledge was the Bible, and its horizon 
 was bounded by Christendom. The Greek notion of antipodes, 
 or human beings on the other side of the globe with their feet 
 opposite to ours, was repelled by the Church fathers as a pagan 
 myth inconsistent with the descent of all mankind from Adam. 
 200 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 201 
 
 It was also the orthodox faith, all through the age of the 
 schoolmen and far into the age of the reformers, that the 
 whole human race had been renewed from the loins of Noah 
 after the Deluge and dispersed from the Tower of Babel over 
 the face of the earth in different tribes and nations, with in- 
 creasing confusion of languages and ever-lapsing forms of faith 
 and culture. At the same time, all physical pain and death 
 throughout animate nature were referred to man's apostasy, 
 and the occasional diseases and abnormities of the human 
 frame were treated as direct expressions of the divine venge- 
 ance. Under such a ban the science could offer but little 
 proof of the divine wisdom and goodness. It was not until the 
 religious prejudice against dissections had declined, that de- 
 monstrative anatomy and physiology could reveal the wonder- 
 ful structure and life of the human body. And it was not until 
 geographical discovery had proved the existence of other 
 human races, languages, and arts than those known to history, 
 that ethnology, philology, and archaeology could gain a fair 
 field of research and begin to disclose these sources of religious 
 evidence which we have found so abundant in astronomy and 
 geology. If its yield of evidence shall prove less impressive 
 than in those sciences, it will be owing to its own greater com- 
 plexity and relative imperfection. 
 
 The Testimony of Anthropologists. 
 
 It is sometimes alleged that the testimony of anthropologists 
 is largely unfavorable. The studies of biologists, especially of 
 physicians, are supposed to blunt the spiritual perceptions and 
 give a bias toward materialism and atheism. But the very 
 reverse might be argued, if only on the principle of contrast. 
 There is nothing in gross physical organs and functions to 
 suggest the finer psychical powers and feelings, but rather 
 much, in any normal constitution, to cause their vigorous recoil 
 and self-maintenance. Nor have anthropologists, as a class, 
 been materialists and atheists. The few exceptions may be ex- 
 plained as due to no legitimate effect of their researches, but to 
 some sinister influence. Drs. Nott and Gliddon betrayed a 
 political prejudice, as well as religious animosity, in their eth- 
 nological writings concerning the African slave as compared 
 
202 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 with other races. Haeckel, Biichner, and Vogt have assailed 
 the bibhcal anthropology in the tone of Voltaire, but with 
 unscientific virulence and coarseness. It was not as a strict 
 biologist, keeping in his own lines of inquiry, that Huxley 
 ran against the scriptural doctrine of man's place in Nature, 
 but as an agnostic metaphysician and lay preacher wandering 
 ultra crcpidaui. Leidy, Cope, and Marsh may have left no 
 direct religious testimony. But many of the greatest names 
 in anthropology, carrying with them the most weight, are 
 avowedly on the side of revealed religion. This is true not 
 only of numerous missionary ethnologists, linguists, and anti- 
 quarians who have become authorities in the science, but of its 
 direct founders and their successors. The great naturalist Lin- 
 naeus declared that he stood mute with amazement at the incon- 
 ceivable Divine wisdom displayed throughout living nature. 
 Prout and Bell devoted their physiological attainments to the 
 high argument for a God. Prichard and Agassiz did not disdain 
 to include the Scriptures among their sources of ethnological 
 knowledge. Richard Owen, styled the Newton of natural 
 history, is said to have collected The Testimony of Com- 
 parative Anatomy and Zoology to the manifold wisdom of 
 God. Carpenter, in his classical work, has asserted the spirit- 
 uality and immortality of the psychical principle in the very 
 realm of human physiology. And a host of other biologists 
 might be named, some still living, who, while keeping in their 
 own province with scientific rigor, still leave an ever-open door 
 beyond it into the outlying domains of revealed truth. 
 
 Anthropological Facts and Truths. 
 
 The perfect agreement of anthropological facts with revealed 
 truths can be easily shown without being fully unfolded. It 
 will be enough to bring together the chief of those facts and 
 truths in order to see that they belong to one another insepa- 
 rably in any sound philosophy. Before us, on the one hand, 
 appears a consummate system of human physiology recapit- 
 ulating in man the whole organic scale of advancing types be- 
 neath him and exhibiting him as the most perfect organism 
 in the world ; on the other side, man is revealed to us as created 
 in the image of God, inspired with a living soul, and receiving 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 203 
 
 dominion over the beasts of the field, the fishes of the sea, and 
 the fowls of the air. Sunder these two congruous statements, 
 and at one extreme civilized man will seem but a developed 
 animal in the satanic image of an ape, while at the other ex- 
 treme the Divine image in man may be asserted, but as yet only 
 dimly discerned. Then reunite the two statements, and at once 
 the perfect human creature will stand forth as the very master- 
 piece of the Creator, radiant with His glorious wisdom in 
 every part and faculty — in the eye, the ear, the hand, the tongue, 
 the heart, the brain, and, high above all, the godlike soul. He 
 will himself realize his delegated sovereignty over the whole 
 inferior creation, and, conscious of his divine likeness, be ready 
 to exclaim : " I will praise Him ; for I am fearfully and won- 
 derfully made, and that my soul knoweth right well." 
 
 Evidential Literature. 
 
 While geology illustrates, as we have seen, the divine power, 
 wisdom, and goodness throughout the earth, anthropology 
 comes to carry that illustration to its fit climax in man, at the 
 summit of living nature, 
 
 " The beauty of the world ! the paragon 
 Of animals ! " 
 
 The literature of the argument has grown with the growth 
 of the anthropological sciences. Among its classics should be 
 placed in the first rank, as not yet quite obsolete, the work of 
 Archdeacon Paley, who, while not neglecting other provinces 
 of natural theology, devoted himself especially to the admi- 
 rable mechanism of the body, as illustrated by that of a watch, 
 to examples of prospective contrivance for the care of the 
 young, to the phenomena of instinct, to the marvellous adapta- 
 tions and compensations among the different organs of the ani- 
 mal economy, and to the more general relations between all 
 animate and inanimate nature. The Rev. William Kirby, in his 
 Bridgewater Treatise on the Creation of Animals, beginning 
 at the lowest foundations of the argument, dwelt with careful 
 minuteness upon the functions and instincts of infusories, 
 polyps, radiates, cephalopods, etc., as alike resplendent with 
 marks of divine wisdom. Dr. Peter Mark Roget, in the treatise 
 
204 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ir. 
 
 on Animal and Vegetable Physiology, ascended higher in the 
 organic realms, enlarged upon the benevolent intention of the 
 Creator to secure the welfare of individuals as seen in the con- 
 servative and reproductive functions, both mechanical and vital, 
 of the different species of mollusca, articulata, and vertebrata. 
 Dr. William Prout, in the treatise on Chemistry, Meteorology, 
 and Digestion with reference to Natural Theology, drew his 
 argument from the pread justed proportions of air, water, and 
 land for the sustenance of life, the adaptations of climate to the 
 inhabitants of the different zones, the correspondence between 
 the external mechanical organs and the internal digestive func- 
 tions of carnivorous or herbivorous tribes, and the vital rela- 
 tions between plants and animals and the general economy of 
 nature. Sir Charles Bell, crowning this series of treatises with 
 his masterly monograph on The Hand, has traced its benefi- 
 cent design as the distinguishing member in the human frame, 
 the organ of touch and sensibility, the instrument of mechanical 
 and artistic skill, and the prime mover in all progress and civ- 
 ilization. 
 
 The problematical agreement of anthropological speculations 
 with revealed doctrines is still in the early stage of disturbing 
 long-received interpretation of Scripture. But it has its hope- 
 ful precedent in the more advanced sciences with which it is 
 connected, and it is beginning to give promise of a like ultimate 
 harmony. We shall find this to be the state of the question in 
 reference to each of the three unsolved problems of the origin, 
 the development, and the destiny of mankind. 
 
 The Constancy of Species. 
 
 As to the origin of mankind, two rival hypotheses are in the 
 field. The early anthropologists, such as Linnseus, Cuvier, and 
 Agassiz, held to the constancy of the human species in distinc- 
 tion from all animal species. It had become a scientific tenet, as 
 well as a religious tradition, that about six thousand years ago 
 plants, animals, and man sprang into being by successive fiats, 
 and have ever since continued invariable, each after its kind, 
 through all climates, ages, and conditions. The naturalists of 
 that day laid a foundation for this tenet by showing anatomical 
 resemblances between mummied and extant specimens of the 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 205 
 
 cat and the dog in Egypt, with an interval of thousands of 
 years, and by showing such resemblances between the same 
 domestic animals and their wild ancestors, the tiger and the 
 wolf, notwithstanding any differences of a superficial nature. 
 It was also claimed that the infertility of hybrid varieties of 
 plants and animals, obtained by artificial selection, was adverse 
 to anything like natural selection or gradual transmutation 
 of species ; that it would be as absurd to argue the descent of 
 cats from fishes at the present day as in past geological epochs ; 
 and that the differences between fossil and living species indi- 
 cate successive creations and destructions of organic life by 
 means of cataclysms or other great terrestrial convulsions. On 
 the basis of such reasoning, leading ethnologists, like Blumen- 
 bach, Prichard, and Agassiz, have maintained that both sav- 
 age and civilized man, like the wild and domesticated brute, 
 have retained the same anatomical structure under all diver- 
 sities of complexion and in all climates — Asiatic, European, 
 American, African — while physical and psychical differences 
 reveal an impassable gulf between animal and human species, 
 forbidding any possible evolution of the one into the other. 
 Philologists, also, like Wilhelm von Humboldt and Max Miiller, 
 have denied the animal origin of language, and referred it to 
 the human reason alone, the talking parrot and educated ele- 
 phant being wholly insusceptible of hereditary improvement 
 or civilization. Archaeologists, too, of the same school, such 
 as Champollion and Ferguson, have traced genetic affinities 
 between the ancient monuments of Asia, Europe, and America ; 
 have described primitive man as lapsing through golden, silver, 
 and brazen ages into a savage state ; and have insisted that the 
 oldest skulls and other human remains, instead of proving his 
 bestial origin, give hints even of religious ideas and customs. 
 To all this evidence against human development has been added 
 the proof of a positive degeneracy. Such writers as Hugh 
 Miller, Gobineau, and Argyll have maintained that civilization 
 always appears as communicated from one people to another, 
 never as inherently developed ; that the loss of ancient arts, 
 especially of religion, as by the Hottentot and the Esquimaux, 
 is due to adverse climate and moral corruptibility ; that some 
 races are in a state of permanent inferiority, and that all races, 
 
2o6 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 like all individuals, are doomed under fixed physiological laws 
 to decline and die. In a word, it is held certain that, within 
 the historical period, there has been no evolution of animals 
 into men, but rather a degeneracy of human races in a descend- 
 ing scale from man as made in the image of God toward man 
 as debased into the likeness of an ape. 
 
 The Evolution of Species. 
 
 Anthropologists of the other school, however, as strenuously 
 maintain the development of animal into human species. The 
 traditional belief in a primitive creation of fixed orders of 
 plants, animals, and men has been undermined by scientific 
 research and scepticism. The way was opened by naturalists, 
 such as Lamarck, Hooker, and Wallace, arguing for a contin- 
 uous variation of species throughout the organic scale, by 
 means of the steady adjustment of organism to environment — 
 the beech supplanting the pine, and the rose the wild thorn ; 
 the stranded tortoise growing into the turtle, the high-brows- 
 ing cattle into the giraffe, the fleet wild goat into the gazelle ; 
 nature ever selecting and preserving the best breeds or the 
 fittest to survive in the circumstances. It was explained that 
 mummied and living cats have not changed because their en- 
 vironment, the climate of Egypt, has not changed for thousands 
 of years, and that no cataclysm or convulsion has effaced 
 the fossil evidence of species evolving into species through long 
 epochs, with the changing climate of the globe. Advancing 
 upon such reasoning, biologists, such as Darwin, Huxley, and 
 Haeckel, have found man's place in nature at the climax of this 
 organic evolution, and have sought proof of his animal origin 
 in the phases of his fetal development, in the expression of his 
 physiognomy, in the mental and moral traits which he shares 
 with the cat, the dog, the parrot ; in his anatomical resemblances 
 to the higher simian species ; and especially in a relic at the 
 base of the vertebral column indicating his descent from a 
 tailed, ape-like man, arboreal in his habits, becoming erect and 
 dexterous, but still wanting the distinctive faculty of human 
 speech. As if to supply this want, philologists, like Sleicher, 
 Yager, and Royer, have traced language back through fossil 
 dialects and phonetic types to its sources in animal cries and 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 207 
 
 imitative acts such as the pairing-call of birds and the gesture 
 language of monkeys, and have suggested that it is only a 
 matter of sufficient time to develop under linguistic laws the 
 chatter of scolding apes in a primeval forest to the comedies 
 of Moliere on the modern stage. Archaeologists also, such 
 as De Perthes, Stevens, Westropp, have looked for primeval 
 man as a half-animal savage in caves and lake dwellings ; have 
 sketched his slow descent in connection with changing climates, 
 through ages of stone, of bronze, and of iron, according to the 
 cast-off implements used in his progress, and have surmised 
 that the first man who struck one pebble against another to 
 give it more regular form gave the first blow of the chisel which 
 produced the marbles of the Parthenon. The whole argument, 
 biological, linguistic, antiquarian, has been made cumulative by 
 philosophical writers, like Lubbock and Lyell, who have dis- 
 covered traces of incipient culture in the most barbarous tribes, 
 as well as of original barbarism in the most cultured nations, 
 and have asserted a gradual transmutation of species, languages, 
 and arts from the earliest mammalia of the pliocene period to 
 the civilized man of our epoch. In short, it is now claimed 
 that evolution reigns not only throughout the whole paleonto- 
 logical scale of animal species, but also through the historic 
 scale of human races, from the low forehead of the anthropoid 
 ape up to the vertical brow of the Apollo. 
 
 The Doctrine of the First Adam. 
 
 Such are the two anthropological opinions which stand related 
 to the revealed doctrine of the First Adam. As yet, they are 
 still so imperfect and conflicting that they cannot be fully recon- 
 ciled with that doctrine ; nor is such reconciliation necessary 
 or very important. But they contain grains of truth which 
 should be sifted from them in order that we may understand 
 the exact state of the question. The first opinion long reigned 
 in biblical interpretation, as we have seen ; and even after the 
 absurdity of a sudden creation of organic species began to be 
 shown, the evidence was resisted or evaded. Devout biologists, 
 like Agassiz and Owen, continued to conceive of the serried 
 orders of plants and animals, as but so many divine archetypes 
 or ideals successively produced and realized at intervals, in 
 
2o8 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 anticipation of man, as the last and highest ideal of the Cre- 
 ator. And more fanciful writers, like Schlegel and Delitsch, 
 have described great geological convulsions as birth-throes of 
 the earth in bringing forth monster florae and faunae before the 
 sudden manipulation of man as a clay efifigy to be inspired with 
 a living soul and impressed with the divine image. It is prob- 
 able that Milton's graphic picture of such a creation still largely 
 pervades the popular mind. But the opposite opinion of the 
 evolutionists has lately been gaining ground. Intelligent inter- 
 preters of Scripture, such as Winchell, Henslow, and Mivart, 
 have already blended evolutionism with creationism, through- 
 out the inorganic realms of the first three days, when heaven 
 and earth and sea were formed ; then, throughout the organic 
 realms of the last three days, when fishes and beasts and 
 birds were formed ; and so have carried evolution to the point 
 where man was created as the last of the divine works. If 
 now we conceive of that creation of man as a process rather 
 than as an act, and make the sixth day of creation as indefi- 
 nite in time as the preceding days, the animal organism of 
 man will emerge, not like a dead statue amidst living nature, 
 but as the consummate flower of her whole physical evolution. 
 And then his special endowment with psychical qualities and 
 divine resemblances will follow as new miraculous acts or 
 subsequent processes during the historic period. This inter- 
 pretation had been foreshadowed by patristic and scholastic 
 writers, long before science could have compelled or suggested 
 it; and it is grammatically in accordance with the Scrip- 
 tures. It is distinctly said that man was formed out of the dust 
 of the ground, and his connection with animate nature is im- 
 plied in the dominion assigned to him over the fish of the sea 
 and the fowl of the air, and every creeping thing upon the earth. 
 Be this as it may, whichever of the two opinions we adopt, 
 whether we regard the human organism as the last of a series 
 of creative ideals or of developed types, the language of the 
 biologist could scarcely be more accurate than the devout 
 phrase of the psalmist : " In thy book all my members were 
 written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there 
 was none of them." 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 209 
 
 Unity of the Race. 
 The second problem relates to the development of mankind 
 into a plurality of races. The elder school of anthropologists 
 held strictly to the physical unity of the human species. The 
 dogmatic tradition of a descent of all mankind from Adam and 
 Eve had become accepted as a scientific postulate, and in sup- 
 port of it was arrayed the crude physical science of that day. 
 The way was opened by naturalists such as Adelung and Lin- 
 naeus, basing the unity of each organic species upon its fixity. 
 It was assumed that plants, beasts, and birds as primordial 
 creations were propagated from Paradise or from the Ark of 
 Noah over the whole face of the earth, each keeping its struc- 
 tural likeness, through all changes of climate and culture and 
 in spite of any geographical barriers or terrestrial convulsions. 
 By similar reasoning, the ethnologists, such as Cuvier, Prich- 
 ard, and Bachman, maintained the organic unity of the human 
 species. It was argued that since cultivated plants (the vine, 
 rice, and wheat) and domesticated animals (the swine, dog, 
 and horse) are everywhere found associated with man, they 
 must have originated with him somewhere in Central Asia, 
 since he would be organically inferior to them if he could not 
 cope with adverse climate, as well as other animal species, 
 which had spread from pole to pole around the globe. Such 
 writers also maintain that the common origin of the Caucasian, 
 Mongolian, and Ethiopian races, or white, yellow, and black 
 races, of Europe, Asia, and Africa was indicated by their ana- 
 tomical sameness and fertile intermarriages, notwithstanding 
 any physiognomical differences, such as the color of the skin, 
 the texture of the hair, or the angle of the face, all which were 
 merely the effect of climate, habit, and culture. The philolo- 
 gists, in like manner, such as the two Humboldts, Latham, and 
 Bunsen, held to the common origin of languages as well as 
 races. It was maintained that affinities of speech are sure proof 
 of the affinities of the most widely separated races, as well as 
 of their radiation from the same geographical centre, and 
 attempts were made to trace back the existing dialects of 
 Europe, Africa, and America through various linguistic stages 
 to the one primitive tongue and pair in Central Asia. The 
 Vol. Ill— U 
 
2IO Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 archaeologists, also, in different continents, have referred 
 ancient monuments and traditions to a common source in the 
 East as the cradle of civilization. It was claimed, not only that 
 the culture of European nations, but also that of China, Hin- 
 dustan, and Thibet, had been early derived from Central Asia ; 
 and that the Indian mounds and Mexican temples of America 
 betray the same Asiatic origin with the cromlechs of Britain 
 and the pyramids of Egypt. To all this biological, linguistic, 
 and antiquarian testimony might be added that of strict evolu- 
 tionists, like Lyell, Haeckel, and Pouchet, who are ready to 
 admit, if only sufficient time be allowed for the stone, iron, 
 and bronze ages, that mankind may have descended from one 
 pair. 
 
 The later school of anthropologists, however, has advocated 
 a plurality of human races. Geographical discovery combined 
 with biological research to suggest the existence of other tribes 
 of men than those mentioned in Scripture and included within 
 the pale of orthodoxy. The naturalists, such as De Candolle 
 and Pennant, began the argument by maintaining that all plants 
 and animals could not have migrated from Eastern Asia over 
 wide oceans into adverse climates ; by showing that they have 
 structural differences forbidding a common descent; and by 
 dividing the earth into botanical and zoological provinces, each 
 producing its own flora and fauna or specific forms of vegetable 
 and animal life. On the ground of such analogies, ethnologists, 
 such as Agassiz and Forbes, have maintained a plural origin 
 of human races, as well as of plants and animals. They have 
 shown that a geographical distribution of all tribes and nations 
 from one parent, from Adam or Noah, was physically impossi- 
 ble; that it would imply incredible fertility within the period 
 allowed for it; that it is forbidden by anatomical diversities in 
 the hand, the profile, and the skull as well as in the color of 
 the hair and the skin; and, therefore, that the great Asiatic, 
 European, American, and African races, together with the 
 florae and faunae severally connected with them, must have been 
 separately created or produced in the continents where they 
 are found. Philologists, likewise, such as Pott and Sleicher, 
 have advocated a plural origin of languages as well as of races. 
 They have argued that there are no such afflnities of human 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 2 1 1 
 
 speech as point back to one primitive tongue and pair; that 
 any words common to different peoples maybe referred to mari- 
 time adventure and commerce, as in our modern languages; 
 that the aboriginal dialects of America, unlike the mixed 
 tongues of Europe and Asia, are as distinct and local as its 
 animal products, and consequently that each continental species 
 must have had its own native tongue at the beginning. Archae- 
 ologists, also, such as Pulsky, Romans, Le Plongeon, have 
 contended for a multiple origin of arts, as well as of languages 
 and races. They have insisted that any resemblances between 
 the American and the Asiatic monuments and traditions, in- 
 stead of indicating historic descent, are purely accidental or 
 ideal; that the Mexican temples, so far from being imported 
 forms, are native products antedating the oldest ruins of 
 Europe and Asia. They have even surmised that astronomical 
 and geological conditions then existed which indicate an 
 ancient tropical flora and fauna at the pole and point to Central 
 America as the true cradle of civilization, which, they main- 
 tain, flowed eastward, with the changing axis of the earth 
 toward the sun, until it reached Asia and Europe, whence it is 
 returning with the westward march of empire in our day. To 
 all this ethnological, philological, and archaeological evidence, 
 it should be added that leading progressionists, like Agassiz 
 and Gobineau, have frankly admitted a plurality of races, while 
 still adhering to the ideal, moral, and religious unity of the 
 species. 
 
 Doctrine of the Fall of Adam. 
 
 It is, perhaps, premature to attempt any very accurate ad- 
 justment of these complex speculations to the revealed doctrine 
 of the fall of mankind. If they seem now to menace that doc- 
 trine, as popularly understood, it should be remembered that 
 they are still largely hypothetical and conflicting ; that it would 
 be safe to await their further development; that they are not 
 likely to disturb existing interpretation of Scripture more 
 seriously than it has been disturbed by other more advanced 
 sciences with which it is now in harmony ; and that the present 
 state of the question is already as hopeful as the case admits 
 or requires. 
 
 The first opinion, the physical unity of the race, has long 
 
212 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 been practically identified with orthodoxy. It has been both 
 the dogmatic and popular belief that a single individual, Adam, 
 was the sole progenitor of the whole human species; that by 
 eating forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden he involved all 
 mankind in sin and misery; that the whole corrupt race was 
 swept from the earth by the Deluge, except Noah, his family, 
 and the animals in the ark; that his three sons, Shem, Ham, 
 Japhet, became respectively the ancestors of the Asiatic, Euro- 
 pean, and African races ; and that by the confusion of tongues 
 at the Tower of Babel, all existing tribes and nations have 
 become dispersed over the globe. In support of these tenets 
 learned commentators have calculated the stowage of the Ark 
 with reference to the fauna of that period; have traced back 
 all languages to the one inspired Hebrew as spoken in Para- 
 dise ere it became broken into jarring dialects at Babel; and 
 have found fulfilment of the predictions of Noah in the Shem- 
 itic nations of Asia as the great religious peoples, in the 
 Japhetic nations of Europe as the colonizing peoples, and in 
 the Hamitic nations of Africa as the enslaved peoples, servants 
 of servants. And notwithstanding the discovery of other races, 
 languages, and arts in the Western Hemisphere, intrepid 
 efforts have been made to make them fit into the sacred record, 
 by connecting the monuments and traditions of Mexico and the 
 Pacific Islands with Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel, by 
 claiming Polynesian and American languages as debased dia- 
 lects of the one primitive Hebrew, and by identifying the 
 North American Indians as the expelled Canaanites or lost 
 tribes of Israel. Like St. Augustine, such divines seemed ready 
 to deny the very antipodes rather than imperil their dogmatic 
 conception of a physical unity of the race. 
 
 Physical Unity of Mankind. 
 
 But the accumulating difficulties of such interpretation have 
 at length caused a reaction toward the opinion of a plurality of 
 human races. Scientific students of Scripture, such as Pye 
 Smith and McCausland, on the basis of the devout speculations 
 of Agassiz and Guyot, have admitted the existence of co-Adam- 
 ite races mentioned in the Bible as dwelling in the land of Nod 
 and the cities of Enoch, and even of pre-Adamite races, not 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Eindence from Anthropology. 213 
 
 mentioned in the Bible, but now surviving as the African and 
 Patagonian savages, still in the paleolithic, or early stone epoch 
 of human development. The contention is that the Adamite 
 race, or Caucasian Jewish people, was divinely selected as the 
 choicest breed of mankind and brought under a special super- 
 natural economy, with a view to the ultimate regeneration of 
 all other races and nations. It is claimed that this interpreta- 
 tion is not inconsistent with the statement of St. Paul that 
 God hath made of one (blood) all men, since it is still liter- 
 ally true of all human races that they have the same phys- 
 iological structure, and even psychical capacity, though created 
 or developed at different geographical centres. Nor is it neces- 
 sarily hostile to the doctrine of the First Adam, since Cau- 
 casian Man would still represent all mankind in the old econ- 
 omy and become a figure of Christ as the Second Adam in the 
 new economy, while the mystery of original sin remains the 
 same inscrutable fact as on the other hypothesis. Moreover, 
 the creation of man in the divine image, like the other creative 
 works, may be conceived of as a continuous process or gradual 
 development of man toward the likeness of God, during the 
 present historic period. 
 
 The Divine Image in Man. 
 
 Such interpretation is by no means to be brushed aside as a 
 modern make-shift or exegetical device. It can be based upon 
 a distinction long since made by theologians between the divine 
 image as lost or restored, as original or developed. And it may 
 derive grammatical support from learned Hebraists, such as 
 Havernick, Pusey, and the late W. H. Green. If we take the 
 first chapter of Genesis as a general revelation of the creation of 
 the heaven and earth and man, the second chapter will follow 
 as a more special revelation of the primitive state of man after 
 the heaven and the earth had been created. In form it is didac- 
 tic and topical, rather than historical and chronological, and the 
 time-element may be disregarded. It sets forth at first the 
 primitive earth becoming habitable and cultivated like a gar- 
 den, the primitive man as derived from the ground and inspired 
 with a living soul, the normal relation of man to organic nature, 
 the development of language, and the institution or ideal of 
 
214 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 marriage in a state of innocence and purity. Then follows, 
 in the third chapter, a description of the corruption of human 
 nature through the appetites and passions under Satanic influ- 
 ence, and its consequent condition of labor, sorrow, and death. 
 The scene is laid in Eastern Asia, some time early in the his- 
 toric period ; but as an ideal picture of primeval man it might 
 almost be conceived without regard to time or place ; and the 
 adjustment of the pre-Adamite, co-Adamite, and Adamite races 
 becomes a mere question of detail which may well await the 
 more complete researches of anthropologists. 
 
 Such is the present mixed state of this question. We need 
 not adopt either of the two hypotheses before us ; but which- 
 ever we may favor, whether we regard the unity of the race as 
 physical or as psychical ; whether we conceive of the scriptural 
 Adam as a progenitor or as a representative of mankind ; 
 whether we think of universal depravity as a primitive event or 
 as a present condition — in either case it remains undeniably 
 true, as St. Paul tells us : " In Adam all die." 
 
 Critical Problems. 
 
 Let it now be added that this remaining truth stands sure, 
 whatever critical or literary questions may be raised. Accept, 
 if you like, the newest theories in regard to such questions. 
 Treat the first and second chapters of Genesis as separate docu- 
 ments by separate authors, an Elohist and a Jehovist, with a 
 Redactor to weave them together as we now find them. Treat 
 the whole story of the Fall of Man as a divine allegory — the 
 tree of knowledge as a sacred symbol, the talk of Eve with the 
 Serpent and of Jehovah with Adam as an inspired parable — 
 nevertheless, here in these archaic writings, under this simple 
 imagery, is a portrait of primitive man, which stands alone in 
 history; which has outlived the myths and legends of the 
 mightiest nations, Assyrian, Egyptian, Grecian, Roman; which 
 still colors the civilization of our age ; which our anthropology 
 is but beginning to verify ; and which the strictest evolutionist 
 must adopt whenever he reads the words : " The First Adam is 
 of the earth earthy." 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 215 
 
 Physical Decline of Mankind. 
 
 The third problem of anthropology relates to the destiny of 
 mankind. The elder school has looked for a physical decay and 
 extinction of the species. The classic myth of a decline of the 
 race through golden, silver, and brazen ages into a degeneracy 
 requiring its destruction by divine judgment, has been followed 
 by scientific presages of a coming ruin through purely physical 
 causes. As some astronomers have predicted a diminishing 
 heat in the sun which sustains the earth ; as some geologists 
 have detected a decreasing fertility of the earth which sustains 
 its plants and animals; and some naturalists have discerned a 
 loss of prolific vigor in cultivated plants and domesticated ani- 
 mals — so some anthropologists, from every quarter of their 
 domain, have gathered signs of a like deterioration of man. 
 Ethnologists have told us of extinct nations and starving tribes 
 in hostile climates; of hybrid stocks dying out through infer- 
 tility ; of the imbecile sons of brainy ancestors ; and of a sen- 
 suous luxury which is enervating the finest breeds of men. 
 Philologists have spoken of barbarous dialects perishing with- 
 out a memorial; of debased fragments of the pristine speech of 
 Eden ; of dead languages with only a ghost-like survival among 
 the living tongues ; and of classic literatures waning away under 
 the reign of patois, slang, and vulgar fiction. Archaeologists 
 have said that they everywhere find the remains of a high prim- 
 itive civilization and even of lost arts which surpass the proudest 
 monuments of modern skill. It is claimed that the fine arts are 
 now only living upon past ideals, and that the industrial arts 
 are fast using up the fertile soils and coal-beds and precious 
 mines upon which all our civilization depends. In short, if we 
 listen to such Cassandras of science we must expect a time 
 when man shall have exhausted the earth upon which he 
 dwells, and make it but the tomb of all his greatness. 
 
 Physical Improvement of Mankind. 
 
 A later school, however, is looking forward to a physical 
 
 improvement and perfection of the species. The Utopian dream 
 
 of social perfectibility is based on the newest anthropological 
 
 science. Advanced naturalists of the evolutionary school have 
 
2l6 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 been predicting a future when artificial selection shall have 
 replaced natural selection everywhere but in the sea ; when cul- 
 tivated plants and animals shall alone survive, and the earth 
 become a garden for man. Ethnologists of the same school 
 have argued that the higher human races are ever improving; 
 that the lower are lifted up by the higher, as fast as they blend 
 with Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Norman, Saxon blood ; that 
 genius, like religious faith, is hereditary and transmissible ; and 
 that with growing knowledge and virtue, the world will yet be 
 stocked with a breed of heroes, sages and saints. Philologists, 
 with the same forward glance, have looked for signs of steady 
 improvement in the cultivated literary dialects as ever rein- 
 forced with the new blood of vulgar speech ; in the growth of 
 a universal language through commerce and linguistic study, 
 and even in our vernacular English as the destined perfect 
 speech of civilized man. Archaeologists, though looking back- 
 ward, have sketched stone, iron, and bronze ages of the Man of 
 the Past as but a platform on which to project the silver and 
 golden ages of the Man of the Future. Some speculative writ- 
 ers have imagined the whole geological development of ever- 
 refining florse and faunae and human races issuing at length in 
 a perfected Man to be as ethereal as the empyrean around us ; 
 and have even fancied him, with new psychical powers, migrat- 
 ing through the ethereal medium to the planets and to the sun 
 itself, in still higher stages of cosmic development. In a word, 
 if we could follow such visionaries of science into those remote 
 periods and regions, we might descry the Future Man careering 
 with the earth as in a triumphal chariot among the stars. 
 
 The First and Second Adam. 
 
 Wild as these two speculations may seem to be, yet they 
 have points of affinity with the revealed doctrine of the First 
 and Second Adam. On the one hand, the notion of physical 
 decline and corruptibility is countenanced by those Scriptures 
 which speak of the First Adam or of degenerate humanity ; of 
 the fall of man and nature from Paradise ; of the ground as 
 cursed for his sake with thorns and barrenness ; of the whole 
 earth becoming so corrupt as to require the cleansing baptism 
 of the Deluge; of the confusion of tongues and dispersing of 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 217 
 
 peoples as a divine frustration of their impiety; of their con- 
 tinued lapse and corruption through following ages, and of a 
 final judgment of mankind when the earth shall be burned up 
 with all the works that are therein. On the other hand, the notion 
 of physical improvement and perfectibility is also countenanced 
 by those Scriptures which speak of the Second Adam or regen- 
 erate humanity ; of Christ representing man in the New Testa- 
 ment as Adam represented him in the Old Testament; of the 
 new man in Christ as fulfilling the image of his Creator ; of his 
 regeneration as completed in the resurrection; of nature as 
 sharing in the resurrection, supplanting the thorn with the rose, 
 causing the wilderness to bud and bloom, and at length appear- 
 ing as a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. And when 
 we bring together these two notions of humanity as corrupted 
 and as perfected, we shall hear the voice of science echoing the 
 words of Scripture as repeated in the solemn Office of Burial : 
 "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. The 
 first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord 
 from heaven. And as we have formed the image of the earthy, 
 we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. There are also 
 celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial ; but the glory of the celes- 
 tial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is 
 one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and an- 
 other glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star 
 in glory." 
 
 Anthropology and Angelology. 
 
 The whole problem of anthropology, as now set before us, 
 is plainly involved in the larger problem of astronomy and 
 geology. Since man is physically connected with the earth, and 
 the earth is physically connected with the sun and the stars, 
 he cannot but be included in their development and somehow 
 share in their glory. And this vital connection, though unseen, 
 is deep laid in Scripture as well as in Nature. It has been 
 recognized by fanciful writers who are fain to associate an- 
 thropology with angelology or the revealed doctrine of angels. 
 Accepting a scientific theory before referred to they have imag- 
 ined pre-Adamite races of fallen angels dwelling in Central 
 America unknown ages ago ; have traced their diabolical reign 
 in the heathen religions of the long Adamite period ; and have 
 
2i8 Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 anticipated a post-Adamite race of glorified men and angels 
 mingling together on the scene of the new heaven and earth. 
 Whatever we may think of such speculations, it is undeniable 
 that the Scriptures do afford hints and glimpses of a commerce 
 between celestial and terrestrial races. We look backward 
 to the new-made earth and man, and we hear the morning stars 
 singing together and the Sons of God shouting for joy. We 
 look upward from the cradle of the new-born God on earth, 
 and we hear a multitude of the heavenly host singing glory to 
 God in the highest; and we look onward to the renewed man 
 and earth of the Apocalypse, and we hear a new song of Moses 
 and the Lamb ascending from every kindred and people and 
 tongue under the whole heaven. 
 
 Miracles of Anthropology. 
 
 We have still to consider the religious evidence afforded by 
 modern marvels of anthropology as compared with the ancient 
 miracles wrought within its province. Mere exegetical ques- 
 tions concerning them need not now be discussed, and it will 
 suffice to cite but a few of them. Let the ark of Noah have all 
 the living freight that ever was imagined, and it would not 
 exceed the floating hotels upon our oceans. Let the Tower of 
 Babel rise through all the stories that have been depicted, and it 
 would be over-topped by some heaven-defying structures in our 
 cities. If Jonah lived three days in the whale's belly, yet it 
 would be no more incredible, a priori, than the life of every 
 unborn infant, and geologists can tell us of ancient sea-mon- 
 sters beside which the largest Mediterranean fish would be a 
 minnow. If Balaam's ass spoke, yet other animals are now 
 known to speak, and some linguists would argue that all speech 
 is a developed animal function. The confusion of tongues at 
 Babel and their miraculous fusion at Pentecost are no more 
 astonishing than some linguistic phenomena of our own time. 
 The miracles of healing under the Old and New Testaments 
 are matched by the w'onders of surgery, vaccination, and chlo- 
 roform. Granted that you do not understand the divine method 
 of performing these miracles, no more does a savage or a child 
 understand your methods of curative skill. But what you can 
 understand is the divine motive in these miracles, especially as 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 219 
 
 explained in some cases by our Lord and his apostles. In the 
 story of Jonah you can find universal lessons of humanity, duty, 
 and faith. In the ass of Balaam, in the ark of Noah, and the 
 Tower of Babel you can discern landmarks in the divine proc- 
 ess of selecting and perfecting the high religious races from 
 which you are sprung. In the Pentecostal gift of tongues you 
 can find a symbol and a pledge of the future unity of churches 
 and nations. In the healing of the sick and lame and blind 
 and deaf and imbecile and insane you can see the source and 
 sanction of the great philanthropies which distinguish our civi- 
 lization. In all the humane miracles of our Lord you can be- 
 hold displays of divine truth and love which have long since 
 caused the magic and thaumaturgy of other ancient nations to 
 fade away as forgotten dreams in the childhood of the race. 
 
 Difficulties of Evolutionism. 
 
 It is in anthropology as a region of human interests and pas- 
 sions that the most determined stand is taken against the ad- 
 vancing theory of evolution. In astronomy and geology as 
 regions of mechanical force and organical life it has been com- 
 paratively easy to accept the theory, but it is thought derogatory 
 to the dignity of man to admit his animal origin and contrary 
 to Scripture to conceive of the divine image as impressed upon 
 him by other than a single act, sudden and miraculous. The 
 question should be approached with caution and yet with can- 
 dor. Without raising difficulties before they meet us, or mak- 
 ing concessions before they are needed, we shall find it wise to 
 forecast the possible course of opinion and be prepared for 
 every contingency. In spite of instinctive and dogmatic preju- 
 dice it may yet be shown that the evolution of the human 
 from the anthropoid species during the prehistoric period is 
 not necessarily inconsistent with the biblical picture of para- 
 disaic man as formed out of the ground in connection with the 
 animals ; nor would his continued evolution during the his- 
 toric period toward the divine image, individually and socially, 
 be inconsistent with the doctrinal conception of universal man 
 as originally corrupted through Satanic cunning and as still per- 
 manently depraved but for the uplifting power of divine grace. 
 It should be remembered that the whole human evolution out- 
 
220 'Scientific Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 side of the Old and New Testament history is at its best bril- 
 liant but abortive, while inside of that history, under super- 
 natural guidance, it has been steadily approximating the high- 
 est ideals of religion and virtue. The most advanced evolu- 
 tionism is thus reconcilable with the most advanced Chris- 
 tianity, and we may therefore serve notice on our evolutionary 
 friends that when they have reached the utmost goal of their 
 researches they will find us there to welcome them with the 
 Bible in our hands. Meanwhile we bid them godspeed in their 
 scientific labors, whatever be the issue. 
 
 The Problem of Physical Evil. 
 
 Anthropology also brings with it a peculiar difificulty of faith 
 
 in reconciling the divine benevolence with the occurrence of 
 
 physical pain and death throughout the animate creation. The 
 
 old unscientific orthodoxy accepted such evils as expressions of 
 
 vengeance for sin and remote effects of the fall of man. In this 
 
 spirit Milton depicts a physical crisis at the moment when Eve 
 
 reached forth her hand to the forbidden fruit and 
 
 "... Nature, sighing through her seats, 
 Gave signs of woe that all was lost." 
 
 Thereafter the seasons were deranged ; beasts and birds became 
 ferocious and carnivorous ; and disease and death reigned 
 throughout the living world. Science, however, has dispelled 
 somewhat of this gloomy illusion, not only by proving that ani- 
 mal pain and death existed long before the appearance of man, 
 but that they are themselves inherent in physiological laws and 
 the inevitable issue of natural processes. On this scientific basis 
 Paley has vindicated the divine benevolence against the appar- 
 ent malevolence of poisonous plants and venomous animals by 
 showing that they incidentally serve some good purposes and 
 are so compensated and alleviated in the general economy of 
 living nature that it is still ever true that " The tender mercies 
 of the Lord are over all His works." 
 
 But in the inner consciousness of man there is a profound 
 connection between sin and spiritual death which distinguishes 
 him from the brutes ; and if he is more acutely sensitive than 
 they, he also has rational and moral resources which they do 
 not possess for coping with physical evils. To pursue the argu- 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 221 
 
 ment in this direction we should need to enter those higher 
 mental and moral sciences which as yet have not come within 
 our view, and we must therefore limit the argument to man as 
 a purely sentient being endowed with an aesthetic faculty which 
 is exquisitely adjusted to the impressions of external nature 
 through the senses and the imagination. 
 
 Esthetic Impressions of Nature upon Man. 
 
 It is but a low, narrow view of the material creation which 
 would make human utility its sole object or confine its benevo- 
 lent design to the mere supply of animal wants. Of what use 
 to man are the flowers that bloom on Alpine heights, or the 
 microscopic crystals which melt away in the snow, or the tele- 
 scopic wonders which are hidden in the far-off stars of heaven ? 
 The beautiful has been strewn with lavish hand throughout the 
 universe where there can be no hint or thought of the useful. 
 " The Lord rejoiceth in his works," though neither man nor 
 angel behold them. Like some perfect artist who has wrought 
 the most invisible details of his work with exquisite finish and 
 feeling. He stayed His creative hand only when His ideal was 
 fully satisfied: "And God saw everything that He had made, 
 and behold it was very good." And He would have His human 
 creatures to share in His joy of creation. Not only has He 
 given them creative imagination, but He has adapted the uni- 
 verse around them to their versatile fancy with endless variety 
 and ceaseless vicissitude. The three physical sciences which we 
 have reviewed conspire to show how " He hath made every- 
 thing beautiful in its time." 
 
 The Scene of Human Life. 
 
 Behold in the light of astronomy how beautiful is the scene 
 of human life ! This goodly fabric of heaven and earth, with its 
 alternate night and day and returning summer and winter, 
 occasioned by the mutations of the solar system, has been fitted 
 up as a theatre of man's action, for his rational amusement no 
 less than for his physical maintenance. It has indeed grown 
 old and familiar, and in this dull workaday world of ours may 
 long since have lost that subtle charm which the poet so feel- 
 ingly laments — 
 
222 ScUntiHc Evidences of Religion. [part ii. 
 
 " There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
 The earth and every common sight. 
 To me did seem 
 Apparell'd in celestial light. 
 The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
 It is not now as it hath been of yore ; 
 Turn wheresoe'er I may. 
 By night or day. 
 The things which I have seen I now can see no more." 
 
 And yet might we recall such early impressions or could the 
 face of nature around us be changed, how different would be 
 its effect upon our aesthetic sense ! Were we placed upon a 
 sandy desert under a cloudless summer, or on a snowy waste 
 beneath a sunless winter, how insupportable would be the 
 monotony of life ! We forget that it is by the orderly revolu- 
 tion of the earth upon its axis and in its orbit that the spectacle 
 of the world becomes for our entertainment a magnificent stage 
 with its scenery shifting day after day, from sunrise to sunset, 
 through the blue sky of noon and the starry night, and year 
 after year from the verdure of Spring to the snows of Winter, 
 through the sheen of Summer and the splendor of Autumn. 
 
 The Course of Human Life. 
 
 Behold also in the light of geology how beautiful is the 
 course of human life ! These successive periods of Childhood, 
 Youth, Manhood, and Age, as predetermined by the organic 
 conditions of our planet, are like so many acts of the great 
 drama in which man as the actor is ever changing with the 
 changing scene. The decline of their impressiveness through 
 familiarity and custom is depicted by the same great poet as in 
 mythical vision, 
 
 " Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 
 Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 
 Upon the growing boy. 
 But he beholds the light and whence it flows, 
 
 He sees it in his joy ; 
 The Youth — who daily farther from the East 
 Must travel — still is Nature's Priest, 
 
 And by the vision splendid 
 
 Is on his way attended. 
 At length the Man perceives it die away 
 And fade into the light of common day." 
 
CHAP. VI.] The Evidence from Anthropology. 223 
 
 But as the dawn will return after the day has faded, and the 
 Spring will follow the snows of Winter, so the parent is re- 
 newed in the Child, and the Man lives again in the boy. Were 
 it otherwise, could eager youth at once seize the sceptre of 
 manhood, or active manhood at once break down in childish- 
 ness, how would the development of human nature be marred 
 and blighted ! How dreary would life be without the brilliant 
 hopes of youth and the tranquil memories of age ! The natural 
 seasons of growth and decay in man, like those in nature, come 
 and go, each in its own order and with its own charm. 
 
 The Story of Human Life. 
 
 Behold at length in the light of anthropology how beautiful 
 is the whole story of human life. The varied experiences, of 
 pain and pleasure, of care and mirth, joy and sorrow, summed 
 up in the one great contrast of life and death, and so largely 
 modified by our physical organism and environment, these 
 form the dramatic interest of the checkered tale which unfolds 
 through summer and winter, from childhood to age. That 
 we do not appreciate its full attractiveness and realize how 
 all things are working together for our good is because we 
 cannot always see the grandeur of the plot but lose ourselves 
 in its bewildering details. Yet as we could not have the day 
 without night nor the summer without winter, and as we need 
 youth to fit us for age, so we may not have true joy without 
 sorrow, and need even death rightly to appreciate immortal 
 life. Did we ever live in sympathetic unison with man and 
 nature, the whole manifold spectacle of the world around us, 
 whether in sunshine or shadow, would be suffused with spirit- 
 ual interest and feeling like that expressed for us by our great 
 Christian poet : 
 
 *• Thanks to the human heart, by which we live, 
 Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears. 
 To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 
 
 Learn, then, O querulous man, that it is thy right and thy duty 
 to be happy. Give glory to the Creator while enjoying the 
 beauty of His creation. 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 WHOSE OPINIONS HAVE BEEN CITED. 
 
 Abelard, 60. 
 
 Adelung, 209. 
 
 Agassiz, 202, 204, 207, 210, 211. 
 
 Alexander, J. A., 141. 
 
 Alexander, Stephen, 170. 
 
 Anselm, 50, 51, 52. 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas. 52, 55. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, II, 205. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 16, 22, 24. 26. 
 
 Audaeus, 60. 
 
 Augustine, 50. 
 
 Babbage, Charles, 183. 
 
 Bachman, 209. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 12, 25, 41, 44. 
 
 Bagehot, 20. 
 
 Barret, 61. 
 
 Beattie, 34. 
 
 Bell, Charles, 202, 204. 
 
 Bentley, 16, 121, 1G3. 
 
 Berkeley, 5, 9, 20. 
 
 Bernard, 20. 
 
 Blount, Charles, 14. 
 
 Blumenbach, 205. 
 
 Boethius, 50. 
 
 Bolingbroke, 17. 
 
 Bossuet. 53, 124. 
 
 Boyle, 55. 
 
 Bradlaugh, 48. 
 
 Briggs, C. A., loi. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, il. 
 
 Brown, 52, 57. 
 
 Browne, 15, 59. 
 
 Bruno, 48. 
 
 Biichner, 47, 202. 
 
 Buckland, Dean, 183. 
 
 Buel, 53. 
 
 Buffon, 180, 185. 
 
 Bunsen, 38, 209. 
 
 Burnet, 185. 
 
 Butler, 5, 9-44, 105, 126. 
 
 Carus, Paul, 61. 
 
 Chalmers, 11, 27, 38, 52, 54, 58, 
 
 177, 188. 
 Champollion, 205. 
 Chandler, 15. 
 Chapman, 15. 
 Charnock, 55. 
 Child, Chapin, 184. 
 Chubb, 16. 
 Cicero, 121. 
 
 Clarke, Samuel, 12, 51, 52, 53. 
 Coleridge, 52. 
 Colliber, 20. 
 Collins, 14. 
 Comte, 3, 4. 5, 48, 60. 
 Conybeare, 15. 
 Cook, J. P., 183. 
 Cope, 202. 
 Copernicus. 160. 
 Crocker, 62. 
 Cousin, 53. 
 
 Cudworth, Ralph, 15, 52. 
 Cumberland. Bishop, 20. 
 Cuvier, 181, 185, 209. 
 
 Dana, 181. 
 Darwin, 43, 206. 
 Dawson. 181. 
 De Candolle, 210. 
 De Perthes. 207. 
 Derham. William, 163. 
 Descartes, 38, 51. 
 DeWette. 121. 
 Dickie, 184. 
 Diman, 57, 62. 
 Diodorus, 55. 
 Disraeli, 122. 
 Dorner, 58, 63. 
 Draper, 5. loi. 
 Duncan. 184. 
 Duns, 51. 
 
 Calderwood, 57, 63. 
 Carpenter, 202. 
 
 Edwards. 52. 
 Eichhorn, 121. 
 
 225 
 
226 
 
 Index of Authors. 
 
 Emory, ii, 27. 
 Epicurians, The, 59. 
 Ernesti, 121. 
 
 Fairholm, 188. 
 Fenelon, 53. 
 Ferguson, 205. 
 Fichte, 53. 
 Fiddes, Richard, 53. 
 Fiske, John, 56, 60, 62. 
 Fitzgerald, 10, 11, 20, 25. 
 Flint, 54, 58, 62. 
 Forbes, 40. 
 Foster, 20, 55. 
 Fowne, George, 183. 
 
 Gale, Theophilus, 15. 
 
 Galileo, 165, 167. 
 
 Gaunilo, 51. 
 
 Gibson, Stanley, 56. 
 
 Gillespie, 53. 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., 9, 20, 30, 190. 
 
 Gliddon, 201. 
 
 Gobineau, 205. 211. 
 
 Green, W. H., 213. 
 
 Grew, 55. 
 
 Guyot, Arnold, 181, 183, 189, 212. 
 
 Haeckel, 47, 206, 210. 
 
 Hallam, 20. 
 
 Hamilton, Dean, 53, 56, 60. 
 
 Harrison, 48. 
 
 Havernick, 213. 
 
 Hegel. 51- 
 
 Helmholtz, 170. 
 
 Hengstenberg, 189. 
 
 Hennel, 28. 
 
 Hen slow, 208. 
 
 Herbert, 14, 15, 52. 
 
 Herder, 121. 
 
 Herschel, 165, 166, 167, 190. 
 
 Hill, 184. 
 
 Hitchcock, 183, 184. 
 
 Hodge, Alexander, 61. 
 
 Hodge, Archibald, 58. 
 
 Hodge. Charles, 52, 57, 62. 
 
 Holbach, D', 47- 
 
 Holyoke, 48. 
 
 Hooker, 206. 
 
 Hugh of St. Victor, 55. 
 
 Humboldt, 166, 180, 185, 204. 
 
 Hume, David, 55, 56, 57. 
 
 Hutton, 180. 
 
 Huxley, 4, 43, 131, 190, 206. 
 
 Jacobi, 61. 
 
 John of Damascus, 55. 
 
 Josephus, 73. 
 
 Kant, 4, 51, 56, 57, 60. 
 Kepler, 160, 166. 
 Kidd, John, 182. 
 Kirby, 185, 202. 
 Krause, 51. 
 
 Lalande, 160. 
 
 La Mettrie. 47. 
 
 Lamarck, 206. 
 
 Lamont, 165. 
 
 Laplace, 38, 99, 163, 166, 170. 
 
 Latham, 209. 
 
 Leibnitz, 25, 38, 55. 
 
 Leidy, 202. 
 
 Leland, 15. 
 
 Le Plongeon, 211. 
 
 Leslie, 15. 
 
 Linnaeus, 209. 
 
 Littlejohn, Bishop. 54. 
 
 Locke, 13, 15, 51, 55- 
 
 Lotze, 54. 
 
 Lowman, Moses, 53. 
 
 Lubbock, 207. 
 
 Lyell, 180, 192, 207, 210. 
 
 McCausland, 212. 
 
 McCosh, 57, 184. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, il, 18. 
 
 Madler, 170. 
 
 Mahan, 57. 
 
 Malcolm, 27. 
 
 Malebranche, 53, 124. 
 
 Mansel, 48. 
 
 Marsh, 202. 
 
 Martineau. 21, 28, 58, 63. 
 
 Maurice, 27. 
 
 Mayer, 170. 
 
 Maxwell, 58. 
 
 Melito, 60. 
 
 Mendelsohn, 53. 
 
 Michaelis, 190. 
 
 Mill, 5. 56, 57, 58. 
 
 Miller, Hugh, 181, 205. 
 
 Mivart, 208. 
 
 More, Henry, 15. 
 
 Morgan. 15. 
 
 Miiller, Max, 205. 
 
 Newton. 55, 99, 170. 
 Nott, 201. 
 
 Occam, 51. 
 
 Owen, Richard, 202, 207. 
 
 Paley, 163, 202. 
 
 Pattison, Mark, 18, 20, 25. 
 
Index of Authors. 
 
 227 
 
 Penn, 185. 
 
 Pennant, 210. 
 
 Plato, 50. 
 
 Poisson, 170. 
 
 Pott, 210. 
 
 Pouchet, 210. 
 
 Prichard, 202, 205, 209. 
 
 Proctor, 167. 
 
 Prout, William, 202, 204. 
 
 Pulsky, 211. 
 
 Purinton, 63. 
 
 Pusey, 189, 213. 
 
 Quintilian, 35. 
 
 Raimund, 60. 
 
 Ray. 163, 180. 
 
 Reid, 54. 57- 
 
 Reuscli, 190. 
 
 Ritter, 181. 
 
 Roget, Peter Mark, 203. 
 
 Romans, 211. 
 
 Row, 57, 62. 
 
 Royer, 206. 
 
 St. Augustine, lOi, 189. 
 
 Schelling. 4, 51. 
 
 Schopenhauer, 61. 
 
 Schurman, 59, 62, 63. 
 
 Scott. Sir Walter, 33. 
 
 Scotus. 51. 
 
 Seeker, Archbishop, 18. 
 
 Shaftesbury. 13. 
 
 Shedd. 53, 57. 
 
 Sherlock, 16. 
 
 Sleicher, 206, 210. 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, 23. 
 
 Smith, Pye. 188. 211. 
 
 Spencer. Herbert. 4, 26, 48, 56, 57, 
 
 60, 61. 
 Spinoza, 51. 
 Steere. 16. 
 
 Stephen. Leslie. 18. 22. 27, 29. 
 Sterling. 57. 
 Sterret, J. McBride, 63. 
 Stevens, 207. 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, 5a, 57. 
 Stillingfleet, 52. 
 Stoics, The, 59. 
 Strauss, 66, 69, 71, 72, 78. 
 Strong, 52. 
 Swedenborg, 4. 
 
 TertuUian, 60. 
 Tholuck, 25. 
 Thomson, 58. 
 Thompson, 192. 
 Toland, 14, 15. 
 Tyndall, 14, 43, 58. 
 
 Ulrici, 53. 
 
 Vogt, 47, 180. 
 Voltaire, 65. 
 
 Wagner, Andrew, 1S8. 
 Wallace, 206. 
 Warburton, 15. 
 Warrington, George, 183. 
 Wayland, 11. 
 Webster, Daniel, 177. 
 Weisse, 53. 
 Wesley. John, 17. 
 Westropp, 207. 
 Whewell, 3, 5. 163, 167. 
 White, Andrew, 5, loi. 
 Whiston, 163. 
 Wilkins. 20. 
 Winchel, S3. 1 70, 208. 
 Wolf, Christian. 51. 
 Wolff, 5, 55- 
 Wollaston, 53. 55. 
 Woodward, 185. 
 Woolston, 14, 16. 
 Wundt. 4. 57, 58. 
 
 Yager, 206. 
 'Senophanes, 59. 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA: 
 
 OR SCIENCE OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Professor in Princeton University. 
 
 Three Volumes. 8vo. Price per Volume, $3.00. 
 
 VOLUME L 
 
 An Historical and Critical Introduction on the Final Philosophy as Issuma 
 FROM THE Harmony of Science and Religion. 
 
 VOLUME II. 
 The History of the Sciences and the Logic of the Sciences. 
 
 VOLUME III. 
 
 The Scientific Problems of Religion and the Christian Evidences of thi 
 Physical and Psychical Sciences. 
 
 With a Biographical Sketch by WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE, 
 
 OF Columbia University. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. 
 
 " The noble enthusiasm of the author makes a thoroughly pure impression upon the 
 reader, since even though one should find occasion for extended doubt and dissent, one 
 must still be delighted, not only by his distinguished learning, his comprehensive, clear 
 judgment, and his lucid expositor>' method, but also by his devout feeling and his warm 
 heart. It is moreover a matter of peculiar interest at the present moment, that the great 
 problem of this work should have been grasped in America, and particularly by our 
 author, who devotes a portion of his treatise to the indications that the western hemis- 
 phere as well as the present age can alone fulfill the conditions of the Final Philosophy." 
 — Gottingischen Gelehrten Anzeigen (Hanover). 
 
 " With the wide reading of a polyhistor, our author gathers materials from ev«ry 
 related department of knowledge for a true encyclopjedia of the philosophical sciences. 
 The philosopher is for him simply one who, with open, free glance and without prejudice, 
 seeks and loves the truth, whether it be natural or revealed. • • * We may commend 
 this encyclopaedical book as a real enrichment of philosophical and religious-philosophi- 
 cal literature."— Z-j/^rawcA* Rundschau (Wurtzburg). 
 
2 PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 " In a work of this kind, and with the immense reading which the author betrays i« 
 the execution of his plan, a danger was to be avoided. It was necessary to be clear, and 
 at the same time as complete as possible ; easily read by all without becoming inexact. 
 The author has succeeded in this point, and it is no small merit. Introducing very 
 happily a natural division which sustains the interest, he has opened, as it were, great 
 vistas in the midst of the dense forest of citations and theories that he has accumulated, 
 and thus permits us to traverse it easily. * * * The impartiality of the author is truly 
 worthy of eulogy, for it is evident from other passages, and from the energy with which 
 his true opinion bursts out at the end of the work, at what pains he has been to expound 
 without passion the doctrines which are so repugnant to him. The great number of 
 authors that he cites never renders the exposition wearisome, as it is made without 
 parade of erudition." — V Athenaum Beige (Brussels). 
 
 "The first part contains an abundance of historical materials, and shows a rare 
 acquaintance with the cognate literature of different nations. * * * The style is 
 flowing and animated, the learned discussion being often pleasantly interrupted by an 
 apt quotation. Here and there an assertion may provoke dissent, but such instances are 
 rare. Altogether, this part makes an impression which is extraordinarily satisfactory." 
 —Jenaer Literatur Zeilung (Jena). 
 
 "If the objects at which this Ultimate Philosophy aims are, perhaps, somewhat too 
 broadly conceived, and removed too far into the realm of pure abstraction, yet they are 
 lofty conceptions which it sets before our eyes. And on the way to these goals, right and 
 left, lies so very much that is valuable and consolatory, soul-elevating and inspiring, that 
 no one will repent if, with due reserve, he trust himself to its guidance, and' draw 
 instruction from the rich stores of its wisdom." — Der Beweis des Glaubens. (Prof. 
 
 ZOCKLER.) 
 
 " Among ourselves, this work may receive an honorable place among the auxiliaries 
 of the church-theology, which is now coming into prominence." — Theologisch Tydschrift 
 (Leyden). 
 
 "It may claim to be worthy of consideration even in Catholic circles, notwithstanding 
 the diflferent religious standpoint of the author, who is a true Protestant, but recognizes 
 in Holy Scripture a divine revelation, and laments the bitter strife which modern science 
 has engendered against all religion." — Zeitschriftfurkatholische TAiJofo^g-jV (Innsbruck). 
 
 " Prof. Shields' work furnishes a promising sign of the industry with which America 
 is beginning to appropriate the philosophical treasures of the Old World, and still more, 
 is a strong evidence of the most idealistic tendencies." — Zeitschrift fur Philosophie und 
 philosophische Kritik (Halle). 
 
 "The fundamental idea of the work has a high, we can even say, an absolute value, — 
 that of an all-comprehending science, in which the conflicting aims and tendencies of 
 human thought and intelligence are together consummated in a supreme harmony. * * * 
 Without going further into details, we may say, that the work of Mr. Shields represents 
 ahold attempt to formulate a scientific project of broadest scope and infinite compre- 
 hensiveness, which will demand the labor of the human mind for all time to come."— 
 Philosophische Monatshefte (Leipzic). 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM AMERICAN JOURNALS. 
 
 " It is certainly a volume which very few men in this country could have prepared. 
 The learning and taste on the one hand and the independence and justice on the other, 
 which are exemplified on every page, merit the highest praise." — The New Englander. 
 
 " In the course of his work. Dr. Shields endeavors to cover the entire ground of philo- 
 sophical speculation, and it must be admitted that he has left but few points of magnitude 
 unnoticed. * * * He betrays an extensive range of philosophical studies, a remarkable 
 familiarity with the successive aspects of speculation and a rare power of perception and 
 appreciation of different systems and theories, as well as a transnarent lucidity in the 
 e.\position of opinions. Whether for wealth of erudition, clearn.::- ot apprehension, or 
 perspicuity of statement, no recent publication of the American press is more conspicuous 
 than this volume."— iV. K. Tribunt (Dr. George Riflev). 
 
 " This solid and handsome volume at once invites attention by its rich promise, asd 
 tasks criticism by its severe thought and ponderous learning. * * * It is full of vain- 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 able information that can nowhere be found in so compact a form, and there are passages, 
 such as the argument against the Agnostics and in favor of the reality and the revelation 
 of the Absolute, that cannot but be luminous, refreshing, and edifying to all thoughtful 
 readers. He has spent his time well in the labors of his professorship, and he has 
 opened mines of intellectual wealth which will not soon be exhausted. His book is 
 strong and hearty, truly American, and our people will be wiser and better by having it 
 in all their libraries. "—A'. Y. 71t»i« (Dr. Samuel Osgood). 
 
 "All the topics of the several chapters are handled in detail with an amplitude of 
 reading and reference that is quite extraordinary. Some idea of this may be conveyed 
 if we state that the list of authors cited contains about a thousand names. These authors, 
 too, represent nearly ever>' important line of human inquiry. One is almost bewildered 
 in the rapid succession of writers and opinions, and seems almost to be reading a Sum- 
 mary of all knowledge." — The Library Table (Dr. Ray Palmer). 
 
 " This book of the Princeton Professor is in several respects a remarkable one ; and in 
 no respect more remarkable than in the fact that it is readable. From so imposing a title 
 we are led to expect a learned volume, and in this we are not disappointed. We natu- 
 rally look for evidence of more than ordinary depth of thought, and here our expectation 
 is met. But on such a subject we do not usually anticipate such lucid arrangement of 
 material, or such brilliancy of style, as shall render the subject attractive and clear to 
 what we may call the lay reader."— ^crz'^w^r'j Monthly (Rev. Dr. Charles C. Tiffany). 
 
 " It has a range so broad and a specialty so minute as to place it very high among 
 books of reference. It is almost cyclopaediacal in its history of opinions and controver- 
 sies. * • • Yet, wide as is the territory over which the reader is carried, he is hardly 
 conscious of its extent, so disembarrassed is the matter of all that is irrelevant, so felici- 
 tous are the summaries, and so carefully systematized is the collection of facta and 
 opinions." — Phila. Public Ledger {Prof. Charles P. Krauth, d.d.). 
 
 "The idea of reconciling and uniting faith and philosophy, so tliat they may work 
 together toward the attainment of the highest truth is not new ; but Dr. Shields has 
 grasped it with unwonted tenacity, has made it his specialty — the sum of his intellectual 
 life and being — and has set it forth so strenuously and luminously, that it may be hoped 
 its actual realization may be greatly promoted by hii efforts. * * • His refutation of 
 the Positive Philosophy and Theory of Nescience is thorough and crushing."— Prof. 
 Daniel Goodwin, d.d. ( The Churchman.) 
 
 " This is, perhaps, as comprehensive, and in the good sense as ambitious a treatise as 
 has been written on this side of the Atlantic. The author has extended his researches 
 into almost every department of knowledge, and has brought together an amount of 
 information that is really encyclopaedic. * • * The position of Dr. Shields that phil- 
 osophy is the umpire between religion and science is not so menacing to the interests of 
 both as might seem at first sight. * * • This is certainly a moderate estimate of the 
 nature and functions of philosophy, and we believe, with Dr. Shields, that it is the 
 correct one."— The Evangelist (Prof. Wm. G. T. Shedd, d.d.). 
 
 " His book is written with great ability ; it gives evidence on ever>- page of wide read- 
 ing and rare power of generalization ; it fully sustains the author's reputation as a 
 religious philosopher, and though it contains some statements which ought not to pass 
 unchallenged, it is a credit to American authorship and to the institution whence it goes 
 out into the world."— TAir Princeton Review (Prof. Francis L. Patton, d.d.). 
 
 "The richness of language does not detract from the charm— to many, perhaps will 
 enhance it — of a book which represents very wide reading, very just thinking, and a 
 devout and elevated spirit, intent on the noblest aims, from the beginning to the end." 
 — Tlie International Review ('R.E.v . ]oHU Hall, d.d.). 
 
 "One of the most candid, comprehensive and profoundly philosophic books of our 
 time." — Rev. HenrvJ. Van Dyke, d.d. {Evening Post.) 
 
 " The author surveys the whole field of knowledge, and displays am astonishing degree 
 of research. No sect, no WTiter, however obscure, ap{>ears to have eluded his penetrating 
 glance, and the views of all seem to be represented with accuracy and fairness. The 
 book is worthy of a wide circulation, as its history of opinion, apart from other merits, 
 gives it a ptrmancnl value." — J lif ^\'. )'. Obsfi-.rr. 
 
 " The conception and execution is in every way commendable, exhibiting altogether 
 more of breadth of view, candor, scholarship and philosophic insight than any other book 
 we have yet seen from the orthodox ranks on this great question of the dzy."— The 
 Christian Register. 
 
PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA. 
 
 " There is no other volume on the subject of the relation of science to relig^ion in which 
 can be found recorded so many views of leading men, or in which the views or the 
 leaders of both religious and scientific thought in all ages have been so admirably and 
 systematically presented. * * * We do not hesitate to say that Dr. Shields' work is 
 the best historical view of the real or alleged conflict between science and religion ever 
 presented."— 7%tf Churchman. 
 
 " The continuous citation of authorities, and the happy and apparently accurate char- 
 acterization of different writers, is something wonderful. * * * The aim is certainly 
 grand and inspiring, and no one can read these luminous pages without being deeply 
 stirred." — The Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 " Whether we regard the intrinsic interest of the great subjects here discussed or the 
 admirable style of candor and discrimination in which Dr. Shields has handled them, we 
 cannot doubt that his work will take rank as one of the ablest in all our recent philo- 
 sophical literature. One knows not which to admire, the vast extent of reading required 
 to write such a book, or the consummate symmetry and order displayed in its whole 
 management."— 7%(? Chicago Interior. 
 
 "We record only the impression which has been made upon our mind as we have 
 turned over these pages, when we say, that whatever may be the fate of Professor Shields' 
 effort at the great reconciliation which he longs for, there will always remain to him the 
 lasting credit of making an honest and intelligent attempt to solve the most important 
 problem now before the mind of man. His book is one which is as likely to engage the 
 attention of intellectual men as any published in our day." — The Presbyterian. 
 
 " If a perfectly luminous style adorned with flowers of rhetoric that the severest taste 
 cannot condemn; if an enthusiasm for his theme which often bears him aloft into the 
 regions of an impassioned eloquence ; and if a comprehensive grasp of the whole subject 
 which indicates the hand of a master, can create a claim to the attention of both theo- 
 logians and scientific men, ' The Final Philosophy ' will command a wide circle of 
 readers." — The Kentucky Presbtyerian. 
 
 " After giving this work as attentive an examination as practicable, the result is a high 
 estimate of it, as a summarj' view of what has been held in past times on the great themes 
 mentioned by the author. It is evidently a production of much thought and labor, and 
 will take its place among the most valuable contributions to a discussion which absorbs 
 the minds of so many at the present time." — The Central Presbyterian. 
 
 " While the rhetorical beauty is nowhere diminished, the second division of the work 
 exhibits more acute, original and logical argument than the more expansive portion 
 already referred to. The reader is cordially invited to a perusal of Dr. Shields' volume." 
 — Southern Quarterly Review. 
 
 " The author shows himself well acquainted with the errors of modern thought, some 
 of which he exposes and refutes in a truly philosophical spirit, and with a talent and 
 ability of which we see few instances in modern thinkers. We have been particularly 
 struck by his powerful handling of Positivism and Absolutism, not to mention many other 
 topics which he has treated in a very fair and meritorious manner." — The Catholic IVorld. 
 
 " No issue of the press for many months has grappled with a more important subject or 
 treated it with a more profound and philosophical insight. If Professor Shields has not 
 actually found the umpire which can stand between science and religion and lay its hand 
 upon both, bringing them into loving embrace, he has made the bravest and most suc- 
 cessful attempt toward that end. The book is scholarly, profound, and an honor to the 
 institution from which it comes." — T/ie Illustrated Christian IVeckly. 
 
 " We must regard this work of Professor Shields as the expression of an impartial and 
 far-reaching mind. We are accustomed to hear so much wrangling and discord in the 
 •treatment of this theme, that we cannot but admire the lofty philosophic spirit and the 
 broad liberality ofjudgment displayed throughout the book." — The IV. Y. IVorld. 
 
 " The volume is peerless in our literature * * • a wonder of patient acumen and 
 catholic comprehensiveness." — The Boston Beacon. 
 
 "Taken altogether, it is the completest historical review and the most genial treat- 
 ment of the vexed relations of science and theology, that has come from the American 
 press."— TTte Brooklyn Eagle, 
 
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