THEISM. (continued 5)

I pass from it to indicate the character of some other arguments, which are of a much more formal nature, but which have by no means commanded so wide an assent. In fact, the arguments to which I now refer have never laid hold of the common reason of men. They are the ingenious constructions of highly-gifted metaphysicians, and have awakened much interest in a certain number of speculative minds, but they have not contributed in any considerable degree either to the maintenance or the diffusion of theistic belief, and have had no lengthened continuous history. They obviously stand, therefore, on a very different footing from the proofs which have already been adduced—proofs which are as catholic as the conclusions which they support, or as any of the doctrines of the Christian system.

The Stoic philosopher Cleanthes, author of the famous Hymn to Zeus, argued that every comparison, in affirming or denying one thing to be better than another, implied and presupposed the existence of a superlative or an absolutely good and perfect Being. Centuries later, Boethius had recourse to nearly identical reasoning. It is only, he maintained, through the idea of perfection that we can judge anything to be imperfect; and the consciousness or perception of imperfection leads reason necessarily to believe that there is a perfect existence—one than whom a better cannot be conceived—God. Cleanthes and Boethius were thus the precursors of Anselm, who was, however, the first to endeavour to show that from the very idea of God as the highest Being His necessary reality may be strictly deduced. In consequence, Anselm was the founder of that kind of argumentation which, in the opinion of many, is alone entitled to be described as a priori or ontological. He reasoned thus: "The fool may say in his heart, There is no God; but he only proves thereby that he is a fool, for what he says is self-contradictory. Since he denies that there is a God, he has in his mind the idea of God, and that idea implies the existence of God, for it is the idea of a Being than which a higher cannot be conceived. That than which a higher cannot be conceived cannot exist merely as an idea, because what exists merely as an idea is inferior to what exists in reality as well as in idea. The idea of a highest Being which exists merely in thought, is the idea of a highest Being which is not the highest even in thought, but inferior to a highest Being which exists in fact as well as in thought." This reasoning found unfavourable critics even among the contemporaries of Anselm, and has commended itself completely to few. Yet it may fairly be doubted whether it has been conclusively refuted, and some of the objections most frequently urged against it are certainly inadmissible. It is no answer to it, for example, to deny that the idea of God is innate or universal. The argument merely assumes that he who denies that there is a God must have an idea of God. There is also no force, as Anselm showed, in the objection of Gaunilo, that the existence of God can no more be inferred from the idea of a perfect being, than the existence of a perfect island is to be inferred from the idea of such an island. There neither is nor can be an idea of an island which is greater and better than any other that can ever be conceived. Anselm could safely promise that he would make Gaunilo a present of such an island when he had really imagined it. Only one being—an infinite, independent, necessary being—can be perfect in the sense of being greater and better than every other conceivable being. The objection that the ideal can never logically yield the real—that the transition from thought to fact must be in every instance illegitimate—is merely an assertion that the argument is fallacious. It is an assertion which cannot fairly be made until the argument has been exposed and refuted. The argument is that a certain thought of God is found necessarily to imply His existence. The objection that existence is not a predicate, and that the idea of a God who exists is not more complete and perfect than the idea of a God who does not exist, is, perhaps, not incapable of being satisfactorily repelled. Mere existence is not a predicate, but specifications or determinations of existence are predicable. Now the argument nowhere implies that existence is a predicate; it implies only that reality, necessity, and independence of existence are predicates of existence; and it implies this on the ground that existence in re can be distinguished from existence in conceptu, necessary from contingent existence, self-existence from derived existence. Specific distinctions must surely admit of being predicated. That the exclusion of existence—which here means real and necessary existence—from the idea of God does not leave us with an incomplete idea of God, is not a position, I think, which can be maintained. Take away existence from among the elements in the idea of a perfect being, and the idea becomes either the idea of a nonentity or the idea of an idea, and not the idea of a perfect being at all. Thus, the argument of Anselm is unwarrantably represented as an argument of four terms instead of three. Those who urge the objection seem to me to prove only that if our thought of God be imperfect, a being who merely realised that thought would be an imperfect being; but there is a vast distance between this truism and the paradox that an unreal being may be an ideally perfect being.

The Cartesian proofs have been much and keenly discussed. The one which founds on the fact of our existence and its limitations is manifestly a posteriori. The other two both proceed from the idea of a perfect being. The first is, that the idea of an all-perfect and unlimited being is involved in the very consciousness of imperfection and limitation. The imperfect can only be seen in the light of the perfect; the finite cannot be conceived of except in relation to the infinite. But can a finite and imperfect cause—like the human mind or the outward world—be reasonably supposed to originate the idea of an infinite and perfect being? Descartes holds that it cannot; that the idea of an infinite and perfect being can only be explained by the existence and operation of such a being. Was he correct in this judgment? Perhaps not; but what has been urged in refutation of it is probably by no means conclusive. It has been said that the ideas of infinity and perfection are mere generalisations from experience. But this is a statement which can only be proved on the principles of sensationalism, and never has been proved. It has been likewise said that these ideas are purely subjective, or, in other words, that there may be nothing whatever to correspond to them. But this is a meaningless collocation of words. No finite mind can conceive the infinite, for example, as within itself at all. The human mind can only think of the infinite as without itself. If the infinite be not objective, the idea of the infinite is false and delusive. The infinite, it has been further objected, means merely what is not finite; and the perfect what is not imperfect. So be it; the argument is as valid if the words be taken in that sense as in any other. Only do not add, as some do, that the perfect and the imperfect, the finite and the infinite, are mere verbal correlatives. Such a proposition can be spoken, but it cannot be thought; and it is most undesirable to divorce thought from speech. It has also been urged that all men have not the idea of perfection; that different men have different ideas thereof; and that in each man who possesses it the idea is constantly changing. This must be granted; but it does not affect the argument, which is founded on the existence of the idea of a perfect being, and not on the perfection of the idea itself.

The second form of the Cartesian argument is, that God cannot be thought of as a perfect Being unless He be also thought of as a necessarily existent Being; and that, therefore, the thought of God implies the existence of God. "Just as because," for example, "the equality of its three angles to two right angles is necessarily comprised in the idea of a triangle, the mind is firmly persuaded that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; so, from its perceiving necessary and eternal existence to be comprised in the idea which it has of an all-perfect Being, it ought manifestly to conclude that this all-perfect Being exists." Kant met this argument thus: "It is a contradiction that there should be a triangle the three angles of which are not equal to two right angles, or that there should be a God who is not necessarily existent. I cannot in either case retain the subject and do away with the predicate. If I assume a triangle, I must take it with its three angles. If I assume a God, I must grant Him to be necessarily existent. But why should I assume either that there is a triangle or that there is a God? I may annul the subject in both cases, and then there will be no contradiction in annulling the predicate in both cases. There may be no such thing as a triangle, why should there be such a Being as God?"

This reasoning of Kant has generally been accepted as conclusive. It does not appear to me to be so. He ought not merely to have asserted but to have shown that we can annul the subject in either of the cases mentioned. We obviously cannot. I can say "there is no triangle," but instead of annulling that implies the idea of a triangle, and from the idea of a triangle it follows that its three angles are equal to two right angles. In like manner I can say "there is no God," but that is not to annul but to imply the idea of God, and it is from the idea of God that, according to Descartes, the existence of God necessarily follows. Kant should have seen that the proposition "there is no God" could be no impediment to an argument the very purpose of which is to prove that that proposition is a self-contradiction. It is futile to meet this by saying that existence ought not to be included in any mere conception, for it is not existence but necessary existence which is included in the conception reasoned from, and that God can be thought of otherwise than as necessarily existent requires to be proved, not assumed. To affirm that existence cannot be given or reached through thought, but only through sense and sensuous experience, can prove nothing except the narrowness of the philosophy on which such a thesis is based.

Cudworth, Leibnitz, and Mendelssohn modified the Cartesian argument last specified in ways which do not greatly differ from one another. It may be doubted whether their modifications were improvements.

In the eighteenth century there were elaborated a great many proofs which claimed to be a priori theistic demonstrations based on the notions of existence and causality. Assuming that something is, and that nothing cannot be the cause of something, these arguments attempted to establish that there must be an unoriginated Being of infinite perfection, and possessed of the attributes which we ascribe to God. The most famous of them was, perhaps, that of Dr Samuel Clarke, contained in the Boyle Lecture of 1704. But Dr Richard Fiddes, the Rev. Colin Campbell, Mr Wollaston, Moses Lowman, the Chevalier Ramsay, Dean Hamilton, and many others, devised ingenious demonstrations of a similar nature. It is impossible for me to discuss here their merits and demerits. Probably not one of them has completely satisfied more than a few speculative minds. They are certainly not fitted to carry conviction to the ordinary practical understanding. Yet it is not easy to detect flaws in some of them; and the more carefully they are studied, the more, I am inclined to think, will it be recognised that they are pervaded by a substantial vein of truth. They attempted logically to evolve what was implied in certain primary intuitions or fundamental conditions of the mind, and although they may not have accomplished all that they aimed at, they have at least succeeded in showing that unless there exists an eternal, infinite, and unconditioned Being, the human mind is, in its ultimate principles, self-contradictory and delusive.[49]

There must, for example, unless consciousness and reason are utterly untrustworthy, be an eternal Being. Present existence necessarily implies to the human intellect eternal existence. The man who says that a finite mind cannot rise to the idea of an eternal Being talks foolishly, for all the thinking of a finite mind implies belief in what he says is inaccessible to human thought. No man can thoughtfully affirm his own existence, or the existence even of a passing fancy of his mind, or of a grain of sand, without feeling that that affirmation as certainly implies that something existed from all eternity as any mathematical demonstration whatever implies its conclusion. And this truth, that the most transient thing cannot be conceived of as existing unless an eternal Being exist, may be syllogistically expressed and exhibited in a variety of ways, because the contradictions involved in denying it are numerous. This is what has been done by the authors above mentioned with much ingenuity, and by some of them in a manner which never has been and never can be refuted. It may be doubted whether they did wisely in throwing their arguments into syllogistic form; but as nobody ventures to undertake the refutation of them, they must be admitted to be substantially valid. The reasonings of men like Clarke and Fiddes, Lowman and Ramsay, have sufficiently proved that whoever denies such propositions as these,—Something has existed from eternity; The eternal Being must be necessarily existent, immutable, and independent; There is but one unoriginated Being in the universe; The unoriginated Being must be unlimited or perfect in all its attributes, &c.,—inevitably falls into manifest absurdities.

This, it may be objected, is not equivalent to a proof of the existence of an infinite and eternal Being. It leads merely to the alternative, either an infinite and eternal Being exists, or the consciousness and reason of man cannot be trusted. The absolute sceptic will rejoice to have the alternative offered to him; that the human mind is essentially untrustworthy is precisely what he maintains. I answer that I admit that the arguments in question do not amount to a direct positive proof, but that they constitute a reductio ad absurdum, which is just as good, and that if they do not exclude absolute scepticism, it is merely because absolute scepticism is willing to accept what is absurd. I am not going to examine absolute scepticism at present. I shall have something to say regarding it when I treat of antitheistic theories. Just now it is sufficient simply to point out that if disbelief in an infinite, self-existent, eternal Being necessarily implies belief in the untrustworthiness of all our mental processes, the absolute sceptic is the only man who can consistently disbelieve in God. Unless we are prepared to believe that no distinction can be established between truth and error—that there is no certainty that our senses and our understandings are not at every moment deceiving us—no real difference between our perceptions when we are awake and our visions when we are asleep—no ground of assurance that we are not as much deluded when following a demonstration of Euclid as any have been who busied themselves in attempting to square the circle,—we must accept all arguments which show that disbelief of the existence of an infinite and eternal Being logically involves a self-contradiction or an absurdity, as not less valid than a direct positive demonstration of the existence of such a Being. If, although I am constrained to conclude that there is an infinite and eternal Being, I may reject the conclusion on the supposition that reason is untrustworthy, I am clearly bound, in self-consistency, to set aside the testimony of my senses also by the assumption that they are habitually delusive. When any view or theory is shown to involve absolute scepticism it is sufficiently refuted, for absolute scepticism effaces the distinction between reason and unreason, and practically prefers unreason to reason.

II.

The a priori arguments have a value independent of their truth and of their power to produce conviction. True or false, persuasive or merely perplexing, they are admirable means of disciplining the mind distinctly to apprehend certain ideas which experience cannot yield, yet which must be comprehended in any worthy view taken of God. They help us steadily to contemplate and patiently to consider such abstract and difficult thoughts as those of being, absolute being, necessary being, cause, substance, perfection, infinity, eternity, &c.; and this is a service so great, that it may safely be said—as some writer whose name I cannot recall has said—that they will never be despised so long as speculative thinking is held in repute.

While believing that several of these arguments on the whole accomplish what they undertake, I am not prepared to maintain that any of them are faultless or even conclusive throughout. They are all, probably, much too formal and elaborate, so far as any directly practical purpose is concerned. It ought to be constantly kept in view that they presuppose an immediate apprehension of the infinite, and that their value consists entirely in establishing that that apprehension implies the reality and presence of God. The simplest mode of doing this must be the best. It may be thought that no reasoning at all is needed; that the intuition does not require to be supplemented by any inference; that if the infinite be apprehended, the living God must be self-evidently present to the human mind. But this is plainly a hasty view. Few atheists will deny that something is infinite, or that they immediately apprehend various aspects of infinity. What they refuse to acknowledge is, that the apprehension of the infinite implies more than the boundlessness of space, the eternity of time, and the self-existence of matter. There is certainly some reasoning needed in order to show that this interpretation of the intuition is inadequate. But such reasoning cannot be too direct, for otherwise the function of the intuition is almost certain to be obscured, and argument is almost certain to be credited with accomplishing far more than it really effects.

According to the view of the theistic argumentation which has been given in the present course of lectures, all that is now necessary to complete the theistic proof is very simple indeed. The universe has been shown to have an inconceivably powerful and intelligent cause, a Supreme Creator, who has dealt bountifully with all His creatures, who has given to men a moral law, and who has abundantly manifested in history that He loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity. We are further conscious of having ideas or intuitions of infinity, eternity, necessary existence, and perfection. We may dispute as to whence and how we have got them, but we cannot deny that we possess them. Were any person, for example, to affirm that he did not believe that there is a self-existent or necessary being—a being which derived its existence from no other and depends upon no other but is what it is in and of itself alone—we should be entitled to tell him either that he did not know the meaning of what he said, or that he did not himself believe what he said. But if we undoubtedly possess these ideas, they must, unless they are wholly delusive—which is what we are unable to conceive—be predicable of some being. The sole question for us is, Of what being? And the whole of our previous argumentation has shut us up to one answer. It must be, Of Him who has been proved to be the First Cause of all things—the Source of all the power, wisdom, and goodness displayed in the universe. It cannot be the universe itself, for that has been shown to be but an effect—to have before and behind it a Mind, a Person. It cannot be ourselves or anything to which our senses can reach, seeing that we and they are finite, contingent, and imperfect. The author of the universe alone—the Father of our spirits, and the Giver of every good and perfect gift—can be uncreated and unconditioned, infinite and perfect.

This completes the idea of God so far as it can be reached or formed by natural reason. And it gives consistency to the idea. The conclusions of the a posteriori arguments fail to satisfy either mind or heart until they are connected with, and supplemented by, this intuition of the reason—infinity. The conception of any other than an infinite God—a God unlimited in all perfections—is a self-contradictory conception which the intellect refuses to entertain. The self-contradictions inherent in such a conception have been exposed times without number, and in ways which cannot possibly be refuted. The chief value of most of the a priori arguments lies in such demonstration; and no theologian who has thoughtfully discussed either the immanent or the transitive attributes of God has been able to dispense with as much of a priori reasoning as necessary to establish that a denial of the eternity, or immutability, or omnipotence, or ubiquity, or omniscience, or any other attribute implied in the infinity of the Divine Being, logically leads to absurdity. If the infinity or independence, for example, of the First Cause be questioned, whoever would maintain it must return some such answer as that which Mr Spencer, although not assenting to it, puts in these words: "If we go a step further, and ask what is the nature of this First Cause, we are driven by an inexorable logic to certain further conclusions. Is the First Cause finite or infinite? If we say finite, we involve ourselves in a dilemma. To think of the First Cause as finite is to think of it as limited. To think of it as limited necessarily implies a conception of something beyond its limits: it is absolutely impossible to conceive a thing as bounded without conceiving a region surrounding its boundaries. What now must we say of this region? If the First Cause is limited, and there consequently lies something outside of it, this something must have no First Cause—must be uncaused. But if we admit that there can be something uncaused, there is no reason to assume a cause for anything. If beyond that finite region over which the First Cause extends there lies a region which we are compelled to regard as infinite, over which it does not extend—if we admit that there is an infinite uncaused surrounding the finite caused—we tacitly abandon the hypothesis of causation altogether. Thus it is impossible to consider the First Cause as finite. And if it cannot be finite it must be infinite. Another inference concerning the First Cause is equally unavoidable. It must be independent. If it is dependent, it cannot be the First Cause; for that must be the First Cause on which it depends. It is not enough to say that it is partially independent; since this implies some necessity which determines its partial dependence, and this necessity, be it what it may, must be a higher cause, or the true First Cause, which is a contradiction. But to think of the First Cause as totally independent, is to think of it as that which exists in the absence of all other existence; seeing that if the presence of any other existence is necessary, it must be partially dependent on that other existence, and so cannot be the First Cause."

It is impossible, I think, to show that we are justified in ascribing to God the attributes most essential to His nature without having recourse to a very considerable extent to reasoning of an a priori kind similar to that of which we have a specimen in the passage just quoted. Such reasoning may be perfectly legitimate and conclusive. Mr Spencer, I have said, does not accept as valid the arguments cited. But he admits that from their inferences "there appears to be no escape," characterises their logic as "inexorable," and makes not the slightest attempt directly to refute them. On what grounds, then, does he withhold his assent from them?

One reason is, that the very conclusions which such arguments yield, lead, he thinks, by a logic as inexorable, to self-contradictions as great as those found to be involved in the denial of the infinity, independence, &c., of God. Reasoning from which there appears to be no escape, and in which no logical fallacy can be detected, yields the conclusion that there is an infinite and absolute First Cause; but reasoning as faultless yields also the conclusion that an infinite and absolute First Cause is a self-contradiction—that there is no infinite and absolute First Cause. In other words, an inexorable logic proves both that there is an infinite and absolute First Cause, and that there is none. Therefore it proves nothing at all except the worthlessness of logic when applied to such an idea as that of a First Cause.

Most persons will probably be of opinion that a view like this is its own sufficient refutation; that the reasoning which tries to prove that reasoning may be necessarily and essentially self-contradictory is self-condemned. And they will be quite right in their opinion. If for any proposition the proof and counter-proof be equally cogent—if for contradictories there may be perfect demonstrations—it is not God only, but everything, that we shall have to cease to believe in. Such a reductio ad absurdum of a proposition would be also a reductio ad absurdum of the reason itself, leaving no inference, no intuition, no perception, to be rationally trusted. A scepticism more absolute and comprehensive than any human being has dared to advocate, would be the only legitimate result. Our whole nature would have to be regarded as a lie. But we need have no fear of reason thus terminating its existence by committing suicide. If we are disposed to be afraid that the human mind is in danger of so terrible a calamity, an examination of the reasoning by which it has been attempted to show that the idea of an infinite and absolute First Cause involves a variety of contradictions ought speedily to reassure us. Few persons of ordinary reasoning powers, if not committed to a foregone conclusion, will regard as "inexorable logic" the argumentation by which Mr Mansel and Mr Spencer fancy that they show that one and the same Being cannot be a cause, infinite and absolute, or its inferences as those "from which there appears to be no escape." On the contrary, ninety-nine men in a hundred will deem them extremely weak, and possessed of no other plausibility than that which they derive from an inaccurate and ambiguous use of language. There are arguments proving that there is a First Cause, and that the First Cause must be infinite and absolute, in which no fallacy can be detected. But the only arguments which have yet been invented to show that the First Cause cannot without contradiction be thought of as infinite and absolute, are good for little else than to exercise students of logic in the examination of fallacies. The two sets of arguments are by no means of equal worth and weight.

They are also notably different in nature. Those which attempt to prove the First Cause to be infinite and absolute imply no more than that the mind may conclude that such a cause is not finite, dependent, and imperfect. In this there is nothing arrogant. Those which attempt to prove that the First Cause cannot be infinite and absolute are of a much less humble character. They imply that we have a positive and comprehensive knowledge of the First Cause; the infinite, and the absolute; that we can define, compare, and contrast them, and thus find out that they are incompatible and contradictory. But we may be quite unable to do anything of the kind, and yet be fully entitled to hold that the First Cause is not finite, dependent, or imperfect. We may reason to the infinite, if we only know what the finite is and is not, without being justified in reasoning from the infinite, as if we knew definitely, not to say exhaustively, its nature.

The idea of an infinite First Cause—the idea of the infinite God—contains no self-contradiction; on the contrary, it solves certain otherwise inevitable self-contradictions of thought. It is only by the apprehension of a Being who passeth knowledge that knowledge can be rendered self-consistent; only by the admission that all existence is not included within the conditions of the finite that thought can escape self-destruction. But, of course, we may easily put contradictions into our idea of an infinite Being, by assuming that we know more about unoriginated existence, primary causation, infinity, independence, &c., than we really do, and by defining or describing them in ways for which we have no warrant. The idea of an infinite First Cause is, it must not be forgotten, the idea of an incomprehensible Being. No sane mind can refuse to acknowledge that something is eternal and immense; but we cannot comprehend eternity and immensity, and when we reason as if we comprehended them, we speedily find ourselves involved in absurdities. We may know and believe that God is eternal and immense, but if He be so, we undoubtedly cannot comprehend Him. We cannot think of God otherwise than as self-existent, yet we certainly cannot comprehend the nature of self-existence. We can think of it negatively as unoriginated and independent existence, and consequently as a positive, most perfect, and peculiar manner of existence, unlike that which is characteristic of ourselves and other finite beings; but we are ignorant wherein its peculiarities and perfections positively consist.

The incomprehensibleness of the Divine perfections is no reasonable objection against their reality. We do not comprehend the manner even of our own existence, although we are quite certain that we do exist. Assent, however, has often been refused to a priori theistic argumentation, not on the ground that it is illogical, but on the ground that the conclusions inferred are incomprehensible. Thus the author of whom I have just been speaking urges in favour of the procedure which he adopts the following argument, in addition to the one already specified: "Self-existence necessarily means existence without a beginning; and to form a conception of self-existence is to form a conception of existence without a beginning. Now by no mental effort can we do this. To conceive existence through infinite past-time, implies the conception of infinite past-time, which is an impossibility." "Those who cannot conceive a self-existent universe, and who therefore assume a creator as the source of the universe, take for granted that they can conceive a self-existent creator. The mystery which they recognise in this great fact surrounding them on every side, they transfer to an alleged source of this great fact, and then suppose that they have solved the mystery. But they delude themselves. Self-existence is rigorously inconceivable; and this holds true whatever be the nature of the object of which it is predicated. Whoever agrees that the atheistic hypothesis is untenable because it involves the impossible idea of self-existence, must perforce admit that the theistic hypothesis is untenable if it contains the same impossible idea."

Now, that we can by no mental effort conceive existence without a beginning is certain, if by conceive be meant to comprehend, or definitely imagine, or sensibly represent; but that we not only conceive but cannot avoid conceiving such existence is equally certain, if by conceive be simply meant to be conscious of, to know to be true, to be rationally convinced. It is impossible seriously to doubt that existence was without beginning. Something is, and something never sprang from nothing. From nothing nothing ever came or can come. Something always was. Being was without beginning. Mr Spencer can no more deliver himself from the sublime and awful necessity of acknowledging an eternal something—a self-existent reality—underlying the whole universe, than any one else. His own Absolute is such a something, such a reality; and although, in accordance with his peculiar use of the words "know" and "conceive," he denies that that Absolute can be known or conceived, he admits that its positive existence is a "necessary datum of consciousness." Further, no intelligent theist argues "that the atheistic hypothesis is untenable because it involves the impossible idea of self-existence." On the contrary, the theist, far from objecting to the idea of self-existence as impossible, admits it to be a necessary idea. He recognises that the universe must be allowed to be self-existent until it is shown to be a creation or event. It is only after an examination of its character—only after having convinced himself that it is an effect—that he transfers the attribute of self-existence to its cause or creator. To say that in doing so he flees from one mystery to another as great, is a statement which admits of no possible justification. In a word, Mr Spencer's account of the reasoning of the theist is an inexplicable caricature.

The a priori reasoning employed in the establishment of theism is independent of any particular theory as to the origin of our ideas of infinity. It presupposes merely that these ideas are valid—are not delusive. It is only as predisposing to, or implying, scepticism, as to their truth or objective worth, that a theory as to their origin has a bearing on their application. Such scepticism cannot be logically limited to the ideas in question. If we do not accept these ideas as true and trustworthy, absolute scepticism is rationally inevitable. An examination of the nature and principles of scepticism will make this manifest, but I cannot enter on that examination at present.

In conclusion, I remark that the conception of any other than an infinite God—a God unlimited in all perfections—is not only a self-contradictory but an unworthy conception; it not only perplexes the intellect but revolts the spiritual affections. The heart can find no secure rest except on an infinite God. If less than omnipotent, He may be unable to help us in the hour of sorest need. If less than omniscient, He may overlook us. If less than perfectly just, we cannot unreservedly trust Him. If less than perfectly benevolent, we cannot fully love Him. The whole soul can only be devoted to One who is believed to be absolutely good.

LECTURE X.

MERE THEISM INSUFFICIENT.

I.

I have endeavoured to show, in the course of lectures which I am now bringing to a close, that the light of nature and the works of creation and providence prove the existence, and so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God. This truth ought always to be combined with another—namely, that the light of nature and the works of creation and providence "are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation." Reason sends forth a true light which is to be trusted and followed so far as it extends, but which is much more limited than the wants of human nature. The deepest discoveries and the highest achievements of the unaided intellect need to be supplemented by truths which can only come to us through special revelation. The natural knowledge of God which man can attain by the exercise of his own faculties is not sufficient to make him feel that the Eternal bears to him fatherly love, or to break the power of sin within him and over him, or to sustain and develop his moral and spiritual life. It falls far short of what is required to enable a human soul, a religious and immortal being, to accomplish its true destination. It falls far short, in other words, of being what is "necessary unto salvation," in the broad and comprehensive sense which the term salvation bears throughout Scripture.

There are those who, instead of regarding theism as simply so much fundamental truth which Christianity presupposes and applies, would oppose theism to Christianity, and substitute theism for Christianity. They would rest in mere theism and would reject Christianity. They represent theism, dissociated from Christianity, as all-sufficient, and as the religion to which alone the future belongs. In doing so, these men—many of them most earnest and excellent men—seem to me to show great want of reflection, great ignorance of the teachings of history, and a very superficial acquaintance with human nature.

Atheism, polytheism, and pantheism have always proved stronger than mere theism—more popular, more influential on ordinary minds. It is only in alliance with revelation that theism has been able to cope successfully with these foes. In no land, and in no age, has a theism resting exclusively on the authority of reason gained and retained the assent of more than a small minority of the community. Its adherents may have been men who did credit to their creed—honourable, high-minded, cultivated men—but they have always been few. In India, in Persia, in Greece, in Rome, some specially gifted and religious minds reached, or at least approached, theism; but, on the whole, the development of belief in all these countries was not towards but away from theism. The Israelites, although authoritatively taught monotheism, fell back again and again into polytheism. Mythology is not merely "a disease of language," but also a testimony to the fact that the minds and hearts of the mass of mankind cannot be satisfied with a Deity who is only to be apprehended by abstract thought,—a proof that while a few speculative philosophers may rest content with the God discovered by pure reason, the countless millions of their fellow-men are so influenced by sense, imagination, and feeling, that they have ever been found to substitute for such a God deities whom they could represent under visible forms, as subject to the limitations of space and time, and as actuated by the passions of humanity. Pantheism has a powerful advantage over theism, inasmuch as it can give a colouring of religion to what is virtually atheism, and a semblance of reason even to the most wildly extravagant polytheism. There is no logical necessity why a mere theist should become an atheist, but the causes which tend to produce atheism are too strong to be counteracted by any force inherent in mere theism; and hence, as a matter of historical fact, mere theism has always, even in modern Christendom, largely given place to atheism. All the powers of the world above, and of the world to come, are needed to oppose the powers of the world below, and of the world which now is. Only a much fuller exhibition of the Divine character than is presented to us by mere theism can make faith in God the ruling principle of human life. Mere theism might have sufficed us had we remained perfectly rational and perfectly sinless; but those who fancy that it is sufficient for men as they are, only make evident that they know not what men are. In the state into which we have fallen, we need a higher light to guide us than any which shines on sea or land; we need the light which only shines from the gracious countenance of Christ.

"The world by wisdom knew not God." The whole history of the heathen world testifies to the truth of this affirmation of St Paul. It is an indubitable historical fact that, outside of the sphere of special revelation, man has never obtained such a knowledge of God as a responsible and religious being plainly requires. The wisdom of the heathen world, at its very best, was utterly inadequate to the accomplishment of such a task as creating a due abhorrence of sin, controlling the passions, purifying the heart, and ennobling the conduct. Not one religion devised by man rested on a worthy view of the character of God; not one did not substitute for the living and true God false and dead idols, or represent Him in a mean and dishonouring light. We are apt to associate with the religion of Greece and Rome the religious philosophy of a few eminent Greek and Roman thinkers who rose above the religion of their age and country. The religion itself was mainly the creation of imagination, and in various respects was extremely demoralising in its tendencies. The worshippers of Jupiter and Juno, of Mars and Venus, and the gods and goddesses who were supposed to be their companions, must have been very often not the better but the worse for worshipping such beings. Certainly, they could find no elevating ideal or correct and consistent rule of moral life among the capricious and unrighteous and impure objects of their adoration. It was less from the religion, the idolatrous polytheism, of Greece and Rome that the human soul in these lands drew spiritual inspiration, than from philosophy, from reason apprehending those truths of natural religion which the positive religion concealed and disfigured and contradicted. If salvation be deliverance from darkness to light, from sin to holiness, from love of the world to love of God, no sane man will say that the Greek or Roman religion was the way to it, or an indication of the way to it.

Did, then, the philosophers discover the way? There is no need that we should depreciate what they did. Men like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, among the Greeks—like Cicero, Epictetus, and Antoninus, among the Romans—obtained wonderful glimpses of Divine truth, and gave to the world noble moral instructions, which are of inestimable value even to this day. But they all failed to effect any deep and extensive reform. They did not turn men from the worship of idols to the service of the true God. They were unable to raise any effective barrier either to superstition or to vice. They were insufficiently assured in their own minds, and spoke as without authority to others. They saw too clearly to be able to believe that the popular religion was true, but not clearly enough to know what to put in its place. In the systems and lives of the very greatest of them there were terrible defects, and neither the doctrine nor the conduct of the majority of those who pretended to follow them, the common specimens of philosophers, was fitted to improve society. Philosophy found out many truths, but not the truth. It did not disclose the holiness and love of God—discovered no antidote for the poison of sin—showed the soul no fountain of cleansing, healing, and life.

The true character of the philosophical theism of antiquity has been admirably described by one of the ablest theologians of the present day. "Theism was discussed as a philosophical, not as a religious question, as one rationale among others of the origin of the material universe, but as no more affecting practice than any great scientific hypothesis does now. Theism was not a test which separated the orthodox philosopher from the heterodox, which distinguished belief from disbelief; it established no breach between the two opposing theorists; it was discussed amicably as an open question: and well it might be, for of all questions there was not one which could make less practical difference to the philosopher, or, upon his view, to anybody, than whether there was or was not a God. Nothing would have astonished him more than, when he had proved in the lecture-hall the existence of a God, to have been told to worship Him. 'Worship whom?' he would have exclaimed; 'worship what? worship how?' Would you picture him indignant at the polytheistic superstition of the crowd, and manifesting some spark of the fire of St Paul 'when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry,' you could not be more mistaken. He would have said that you did not see a plain distinction; that the crowd was right on the religious question, and the philosopher right on the philosophical; that however men might uphold in argument an infinite abstraction, they could not worship it; and that the hero was much better fitted for worship than the Universal Cause—fitted for it not in spite of, but in consequence of, his want of true divinity. The same question was decided in the same way in the speculations of the Brahmans. There the Supreme Being figures as a characterless, impersonal essence, the mere residuum of intellectual analysis, pure unity, pure simplicity. No temple is raised to him, no knee is bended to him. Without action, without will, without affection, without thought, he is the substratum of everything, himself a nothing. The Universal Soul is the Unconscious Omnipresent Looker-on; the complement, as coextensive spectator, of the universal drama of nature; the motionless mirror upon which her boundless play and sport, her versatile postures, her multitudinous evolutions are reflected, as the image of the rich and changing sky is received into the passive bosom of the lake. Thus the idea of God, so far from calling forth in the ancient world the idea of worship, ever stood in antagonism with it: the idol was worshipped because he was not God, God was not worshipped because He was. One small nation alone out of all antiquity worshipped God, believed the universal Being to be a personal Being. That nation was looked upon as a most eccentric and unintelligible specimen of humanity for doing so; but this whimsical fancy, as it appeared in the eyes of the rest, was cherished by it as the most sacred deposit; it was the foundation of its laws and polity; and from this narrow stock this conception was engrafted upon the human race."[50]

It is historically certain, then, that the world by its unaided wisdom failed to know God. Of course, it may be said that the experiment was incomplete; that even if Christianity had not appeared, the human mind would have found out in process of time all the religious truth needed to satisfy the human heart, guide human life, and sustain human society. But such an assertion is quite arbitrary. History gives it no confirmation. It was only after human wisdom had a lengthened and unembarrassed opportunity of showing what it could accomplish in the most favourable circumstances, and after it had clearly displayed its insufficiency, that Christianity appeared. Christ did not come till it was manifest that reason was wandering farther and farther away from God—that religion had no inherent principle of self-improvement—that man had done his utmost with the unaided resources of his nature to devise a salvation, and had failed. There was no probability whatever that a new and higher civilisation would rise on the ruins of that which fell when the hordes of Northern barbarians subdued and overran the Roman empire, had not Christianity been present to direct the work of construction.

We need not, however, discuss what might or might not have happened, supposing the sun of Christianity had not appeared on the horizon when that of classical civilisation was hastening to its setting, since it is obvious that the science and philosophy even of the present day, dissevered from revelation, can produce no religion capable of satisfying, purifying, and elevating man's spiritual nature. They are far advanced beyond the stage which they had reached in the time of St Paul. Knowledge has since received large accessions from all sides, and reflection has been taught by a lengthened and varied process of correction and discipline valuable lessons. In mathematical and physical science especially there has been enormous progress. The human mind is now enriched not only with the intellectual wealth which it has inherited from Greece and Rome, but with that of many ages not less fruitful than those in which they flourished. Can we accomplish, then, what the Greeks and Romans so signally failed to achieve? Can we, with all our knowledge of nature and man, devise a religion which shall be at once merely rational and thoroughly effective? Can we, when we set aside Christianity, construct a creed capable of not only commanding the assent of the intellect, but of attracting and changing the heart, quickening and guiding the conscience, and purifying and ennobling the conduct? Can we build a system worthy to be called a religion on any other foundation than that which has been laid in the Gospel? If science and philosophy cannot do anything of this kind even at the present day, we are surely at length entitled to say that the world needs to know more about God than it can find out for itself. In proof that they cannot, we would appeal both to facts and reason—both to the character of what science and philosophy have actually done in this connection, and to the nature of the task which their injudicious friends would impose on them.

What, then, even at the present day, do the ablest of those who reject Christianity propose to offer us instead? Comte would have us to worship humanity. Can we? Comte himself did not believe that we can in any but a very partial and insincere way. If we could, would our worship do either our minds or hearts more good than the worship of Jupiter and Juno did the Greeks of old? Strauss would have us to revere the universe. Is that not to go back to fetichism? Might we not just as wisely and profitably adore a stock or stone? Herbert Spencer would present to us for God the Unknowable. But what thoughts, what feelings, can we have about the Unknowable? Might we not as well worship empty space, the eternal no, or the absolute nothing? Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Mainlander, and others, would have us to go back to Buddhism and welcome annihilation. But it is clear as the light that if the advice were acted on, the springs of intellectual life and social progress would soon be dried up. The philosophy and science on which they exclusively rely have enabled none of these men to find out God; nay, they have left them under the delusion that there is no God to find out, except those strange gods to which I have referred. And being without God in the world, these philosophers, with all their knowledge and accomplishments, are also without any hope of a life beyond the grave. No man need go to them with the question, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Among all their differences—and they are many and radical—on one point they are agreed, and it is that eternal life is but a dream; that the highest hope even of the best of mankind is to survive for a time as a memory and an influence in the minds and conduct of others, after having ceased to be real and personal beings; that the only form in which the aspiration after immortality can be rationally cherished is that which the greatest of contemporary novelists and among the greatest of contemporary poets has expressed in the words:—

It is as true, then, as ever it was, that the world by wisdom knows not God. The advantages which the eighteen Christian centuries have brought us only make more manifest the world's inability by its own wisdom to know God. The longer the trial has lasted, the more manifest has it become that God's revelation of Himself is indispensable—is what man can provide no substitute for. The philosophy which sets itself in opposition to revelation—which professes to supply in another and better way the spiritual wants to which revelation responds—which aims at constructing a religion out of the conclusions of science—is a mournful failure. The only religious constructions which it has been able to raise, even with all the scientific resources of the nineteenth century at its command, are simply monuments of human folly.

This is just what was to be expected; for apart from special Divine teaching, apart from special Divine revelation, man cannot truly know God, as a sinful being needs to know Him. Apart, for example, from the revelation which God has made of Himself in Christ, the mind cannot possibly attain to a sincere and well-grounded conviction even of that primary truth on which all the perfection of religion and all the happiness and hopes of mankind depend—the truth that God is really a Father, with all a Father's love, to the children of men. There are manifold signs or evidences of God's goodness and bounty in creation and providence, but, unless seen in the light reflected on them from redemption, they fall far short of a complete proof of God's cherishing fatherly love to sinful men. In the light of the Cross it is otherwise; the man who looks at the works of creation in that light will unhesitatingly and with full reason say, "My Father made them all," and will easily and clearly trace in all the dealings of providence a Father's hand guiding His children. Suppose, however, that blessed light not shining or shut out, and that creation and providence are before us in no other light than their own,—what then? What can creation and providence teach us about God?

Substantially this only: that He has vast power, since He has created and sustains and controls the whole of this mighty universe; wondrous wisdom, since He has arranged everything so well and directs everything so well; and a goodness corresponding to His power and wisdom, since a beneficent purpose may be detected underlying all His works of creation and pervading the course of providence. I cannot suppose that any one will seriously maintain that creation and providence teach us more than that God is thus powerful and wise and good; and fully granting that they teach us all this, if any one mean by God being the Father of men no more than that He is as good as He is powerful and wise, and that His power and wisdom have been so employed on behalf of men that good gifts meet them at every step, I readily agree with him that creation and providence are sufficient to show God to be a Father in that sense and to that extent.

But is there nothing more, nothing higher than this, implied in fatherhood among men? Unquestionably there is. Love in the form of mere goodness is far from the noblest and most distinctive quality in a human father's heart; nay, there is no true fatherliness of heart at all in a man in whom there is nothing better than that. One can, by an effort of imagination, indeed, conceive a man to have children so absolutely innocent and happy, and so perfectly guarded from all possibility of evil and suffering, that love in the form of goodness or kindness would be the only kind of love he could show them; but would his fatherly love be ever really tested in that case? Could he ever show the deeper, the truly distinctive feelings of a father's heart—those we so often see manifested in the toils, the hardships, the dangers, the sacrifices of wealth, comfort, and even life, which parents undertake and endure for their children? Certainly not. Apply this to God. In what sense is He a Father? In what sense has He fatherly love? Among the angels this question could have no place, for they were such perfectly innocent and happy children that love in the form of goodness was all they required—all that could be shown to them. And it would have been the same with men also, if they had not fallen. But as soon as sin, suffering, and death invaded earth, and seized on man's body and soul, and help or healing there was none for him in any creature, the most awful of questions for the human race came to be, whether or not God was a Father in the full meaning of that term, or, in other words, whether or not He had a love which, in order to save men, would submit to humiliation, suffering, sacrifice?

Now that is what I say creation and providence cannot prove. Point to anything in creation or to anything in ordinary providence which you can show to have cost God anything. You can easily point to thousands and thousands of things and events which you may justly conclude to be signs or gifts of God's goodness; but can you point to one thing in creation, one event in ordinary providence, which you can seriously maintain to come from a self-sacrificing love such as a father displays when he rushes into a house in flames, or throws himself into a raging flood, to save the life of his child at the risk of his own? If you cannot, you fail to prove God a Father in the sense I mean. And in that sense, which is the true sense, there seems to me no possibility of proving God a Father from creation and providence, apart from redemption.

Wherein is it that both fail? Obviously in this, that they can show no traces of sacrifice on God's part. But it is just here that the revelation of redemption comes in. God, in the unspeakable gift of His Son, shows us a power of sacrifice infinitely above anything known among men—an intensity of tenderest fatherly affection of which the strongest fatherly affection on earth is but a pale and feeble reflection; and Christ in His incarnation, life, sufferings, and death, reveals to us not merely the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God, but the very depths, if we may so speak, of His heart as a Father, enabling us to feel without a doubt that now indeed are we the sons of God. Nothing but a special revelation, however, could thus unveil and disclose God. The natural reason could not thus discern Him by its unaided power. And yet it is only in the knowledge of God as a Father that the soul can either discern or realise its true destiny.

There are many other precious truths set before us in the Gospel which we might in like manner show to be at once most necessary for human guidance, and inaccessible to unaided human research. We shall not, however, dwell on them or even enumerate them. The entire problem of our present and future salvation is beyond our powers of solution. The light of nature and the works of creation and providence cannot show man a way of reconciliation to God. No man by mere human wisdom, by any searching into the secrets of nature or providence, can find that out. Mere human wisdom is utter folly here; and if man may be wise at all in this connection, he must confess his natural folly, the powerlessness of his own reason, and must consent to be guided by the wisdom of God—or, in other words, to accept Christ, who is the wisdom of God to us for salvation, who is God's solution of the problem of our salvation. The only real wisdom possible to man must, from the very nature and necessity of the case, be the wisdom of renouncing his own wisdom. If he say, I shall solve this awful problem for myself, without help from any one, then he in his wisdom is a most manifest fool, whose folly will ruin him; but if he have the candour to confess his own folly, to admit his own intellect powerless here, and to acknowledge the wisdom of God and acquiesce in His plan of salvation, then, in the very act of confessing himself foolish he is made wise, for Christ is made wisdom unto him.

The oracle at Delphi pronounced Socrates the wisest of men. Socrates could not understand it, and yet he was unwilling to disbelieve the oracle, so he went about from one person reputed wise to another, in order to be able to say, "here is a wiser man than I am," or at least to find out what the oracle meant. He went to many, but he found that, while they in reality knew almost nothing that was worth knowing, they thought they knew a great deal, and were angry with one who tried to convince them of their ignorance. So that at last Socrates came to recognise that there was a truth in what had been said about him; to use nearly his own words,—"He left them, saying to himself, I am wiser than these men; for neither they nor I, it would seem, know anything valuable: but they, not knowing, fancy that they do know; I, as I really do not know, so I do not think that I know. I seem, therefore, to be in one small matter wiser than they." Now it is only the kind of spirit which in its degree and about less important matters was in Socrates—it is precisely that kind of spirit about the things which concern eternal life and peace, that can alone make a man wise unto salvation. The most ignorant person, provided he only know that he must renounce his own wisdom as foolishness—which on subjects pertaining to salvation it really is—and accept what is disclosed in Christ as to salvation, is infinitely wiser than the most able or learned man who trusts solely to his own wisdom apart from Christ's revealed work and will. Both of them are foolish and ignorant; but the one knows it, and, in consequence of knowing it, accepts Christ's plan of salvation, and is made a partaker of infinite wisdom—the other does not know it, and, thinking that he is wise while he is a fool, remains in his folly, and must bear its punishment.

And now I bring this course of lectures to a close. I trust that they may not have been found wholly without profit, through the blessing of Him who despises not even the smallest and most imperfect service, if humbly rendered to Him. I should rejoice to think that I had helped any one to hold, in such a time as the present, with a firmer and more intelligent grasp, the fundamental truth on which all religious faith must rest. Amen.

APPENDIX.

Natural and Revealed Religion.

The Hindus regard the Vedas, the Parsees the Zend-Avesta, and the Mohammedans the Koran, as having been immediately and specially inspired. This means that they believe the spiritual truth contained in these books to belong to revealed religion, although it in reality is merely a portion of natural religion. The Greeks and Romans could not distinguish between nature and revelation, reason and faith, because ignorant of what we call revelation and faith. Without special revelation or inspiration the oriental and classical mind attained, however, to the possession of a very considerable amount of most precious religious truth. In all ages of the Christian Church there have been theologians who have traced at least the germinal principles of such truth to written or unwritten revelation; and probably few patristic or scholastic divines would have admitted that there was a knowledge of God and of His attributes and of His relations to the world which might be the object of a science distinct from, and independent of, revelation. This is quite consistent with what is also a fact—namely, that the vast majority of Christian writers have always acknowledged that "the light of nature and the works of creation and providence manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God," and that this general revelation is implied in the special revelation made at sundry times and divers manners and recorded in the Scriptures. The 'Theologia naturalis sive liber creaturum' of the Spanish physician, Raymond de Sebonde, who taught theology in the University of Toulouse during the earlier part of the fifteenth century, was, so far as I know, the first work which, proceeding on the principle that God has given us two books, the book of nature and the book of Scripture, confined itself to the interpretation of the former, merely indicating the mutual relations of natural and revealed religion. Faustus Socinus was one of the first distinctly to maintain that there was no such thing as natural religion—no knowledge of God attainable except from Scripture: see his 'De Auctoritate Scripturæ Sacræ.' A conviction of the importance of natural theology spread very rapidly in the seventeenth century. This contributed to awaken an interest in the various religions of the world, and thus led to the rise of what may be called Comparative Theology, although more generally designated the Philosophy of Religion. Its origin is to be sought in the attempts made to prove that the principles of natural theology were to be found in all religions. Lord Herbert of Cherbury's 'De Religione Gentilium,' published in 1663, was one of the earliest and most characteristic attempts of the kind. From that time to the present the study of religions has proceeded at varying rates of progress, but without interruption, and has at length begun to be prosecuted according to the rules of that comparative method which has, in the words of Mr Freeman, "carried light and order into whole branches of human knowledge which before were shrouded in darkness and confusion."

The eighteenth century was the golden age of natural theology. The deists both of England and France endeavoured to exalt natural theology at the expense of positive theology by representing the former as the truth of which the latter was the perversion. "All religions in the world," said Diderot, "are merely sects of natural religion." The prevalent opinion of the freethinkers of his time could not have been more accurately expressed. It was just what his predecessors in England meant by describing Christianity as "a republication of natural religion," and by maintaining that it was "as old as the creation." The wisest opponents of the deists, and thoughtful Christian writers in general—the adherents of the moderate and rational theology of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—strove, on the other hand, to show that natural theology was in reality presupposed by revelation, and that it should carry the mind onwards to the acceptance of revelation. But there were some who undertook to maintain that there was no such thing as natural theology; that reason of itself can teach us absolutely nothing about God or our duties towards Him. The Hutchinsonians, for example, whose best representatives, besides the founder, were Bishop Horne of Norwich, and William Jones, curate of Nayland, believed that all knowledge of religion and morals, and even the chief truths of physical science, ought to be drawn from the Bible. Dr Ellis, in his treatise entitled 'The Knowledge of Divine Things from Revelation, not from Reason or Nature' (1743), laboured to prove that neither the being of a God nor any other principle of religion could be legitimately deduced from the study of the phenomena of the universe. He argued on the assumption that the senses are the only natural inlets to knowledge. The late Archbishop Magee adopted his views on this subject. One of the most widely known expositions and defences of the theory is that contained in the 'Theological Institutes' (1823) of the eminent Wesleyan divine, Richard Watson. In order to establish that all our religious knowledge is derived from special revelation, he employs all the usual arguments of scepticism against the proofs of theism and the principles of reason on which they rest. In the Roman Catholic Church, scepticism as to reason and the light of nature has often been combined with dogmatism as to the authority of revelation and the Church. In the system of what is called the theocratic school may be seen the result to which attempts to establish the certitude of authority by destroying the credit of human reason naturally lead. It is a system of which I have endeavoured to give some account in my 'Philosophy of History in France and Germany,' pp. 139-154.

The fact on which I have insisted in the latter part of the lecture—the fact that theism has come to mankind in and through revelation—has caused some altogether to discard the division of religion into natural and revealed. They pronounce it to be a distinction without a difference, and attribute to it sundry evil consequences. It has led, they think, on the one hand, to depreciation of revelation—and, on the other, to jealousy of reason: some minds looking upon Christianity as at best a republication of the religion of nature, in which all that is most essential and valuable is "as old as the creation;" while others see in natural religion a rival of revealed religion, and would exclude reason from the religious sphere as much as possible. The distinction is, however, real, and the errors indicated are not its legitimate consequences. If there be a certain amount of knowledge about God and spiritual things to be derived from nature—from data furnished by perception and consciousness, and accessible to the whole human race,—while there is also a certain knowledge about Him which can only have been communicated through a special illumination or manifestation—through prophecy, or miracle, or incarnation,—the distinction must be retained. It is no real objection to it to urge that in a sense even natural religion may be regarded as revealed religion, since in a sense the whole universe is a revelation of God, a manifestation of His name, a declaration of His glory. That is a truth, and, in its proper place, a very important truth, but it is not relevant here: it is perfectly consistent with the belief that God has not manifested Himself merely in nature, but also in ways which require to be carefully distinguished from the manifestation in nature. In like manner, the distinction is not really touched by showing that revealed religion has embodied and endorsed the truths of natural religion, or by proving that even what is most special in revelation is in a sense natural. These are both impregnable positions. The Bible is to a large extent an inspired republication of the spiritual truths which are contained in the physical creation, and in the reason, conscience, and history of man. But this does not disprove that it is something more. The highest and most special revelation of God—His revelation in Jesus Christ—was also the fullest realisation of the true nature of man. But this is no reason why we should not distinguish between the general and the special in that revelation. We can only efface the distinction by reducing Christ to a mere man, or confounding God with man in a pantheistic manner.

It has been further objected to the division of religion into natural and revealed that it is unhistorical, that natural religion is only revealed religion disguised and diluted—Christianity without Christ. It never existed, we are told, apart from revelation, and never would have existed but for revelation. But this very objection, it will be observed, implies that natural religion is not identical with revealed religion—is not revealed religion pure and simple—is not Christianity with Christ. Why is this? Is it not because revealed religion contains more than natural religion—what reason cannot read in the physical universe or human soul? Besides, while the principles of natural religion were presented in revelation in a much clearer form than in any merely human systems, and while there can be no reasonable doubt that but for revelation our knowledge of them would be greatly more defective than it is, to maintain that they had no existence or were unknown apart from revelation, is manifestly to set history at defiance. Were there no truths of natural religion in the works of Plato, Cicero, and Seneca? Is there any heathen religion or heathen philosophy in which there are not truths of natural religion?

The belief in a natural religion which is independent alike of special revelation and of positive or historical religions has been argued to have originated in the same condition of mind as the belief in a "state of nature" entertained by a few political theorists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This can only be done by confounding natural religion with an imaginary patriarchal religion, which is, of course, inexcusable. Natural religion is analogous, not to the state of nature, but to the law of nature of the jurists. Natural religion is the foundation of all theology, as the law of nature is the foundation of all ethical and political science; and just as belief in the law of nature is perfectly independent of the theory of a state of nature, so the belief in natural religion has no connection whatever with any theory of patriarchal or primitive religion.

There is a well-known essay by Professor Jowett on the subject of this note in the second volume of his 'St Paul's Epistles,' &c.

Influence of Religion on Morality.

The assertion of Mr Bentham and of Mr J. S. Mill that much has been written on the truth but little on the usefulness of religion, is quite inaccurate. Most of the apologists of religion have set forth the proof that it serves to sustain and develop personal and social morality; and, from the time of Bayle downwards, not a few of its assailants have undertaken to show that it is practically useless or even hurtful. But Bentham may have been the first who proposed to estimate the utility of religion apart from the consideration of its truth. The notion was characteristically Benthamite. It was likewise far too irrational to be capable of being consistently carried out or applied. The work compiled by Mr Grote from the papers of Mr Bentham, and published under the name of Philip Beauchamp—'Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind'—and Mr Mill's 'Essay on the Utility of Religion,' are, in almost every second page, as well as in their general tenor, attacks not merely on the utility but on the truth of religion.

The former of these works is an attempt to show that natural religion has done scarcely any good, and produced no end of evils—inflicting, so runs the indictment, unprofitable suffering, imposing useless privations, impressing undefined terrors, taxing pleasure by the infusion of preliminary scruples and subsequent remorse, creating factitious antipathies, perverting the popular opinion, corrupting moral sentiment, producing aversion to improvement, disqualifying the intellectual faculties for purposes useful in this life, suborning unwarranted belief, depraving the temper, and, finally, creating a particular class of persons incurably opposed to the interests of humanity. The author makes out that religion is responsible for this catalogue of mischiefs, by two simple devices. First, he defines religion as "the belief in the existence of an almighty Being, by whom pains and pleasures will be dispensed to mankind during an infinite and future state of existence," or, in other words, he so defines religion as to exclude from the idea of God the thought of moral goodness, righteousness, and holiness. He even insists that the God of natural religion can only be conceived of as "a capricious and insane despot," and bases his argumentation on this assumption. Dr Caselles, who has translated the treatise into French, and prefaced it by an interesting introduction, informs us that the argumentation is not applicable to the new, but only to the old theism. It is historically certain, however, that the "old" theism of Jeremy Bentham and his friends never existed outside of their own imaginations. It is likewise certain that a lamb would acquire a very bad character if it were by definition identified with a wolf, and credited with all that creature's doings. The second device is "a declaration of open war against the principle of separating the abuses of a thing from its uses." The only excuse which can be given for this declaration of a most unjust war is, that Mr Bentham was able completely to misunderstand the obvious meaning of the principle which he assailed. That a book so unfair and worthless should have produced on the mind of Mr J. S. Mill, even when a boy of sixteen, the impression which he describes in his Autobiography would have been inexplicable, had we not known the character of his education.

Mr Mill's own essay is rather strange. It begins with six pages of general observations, which are meant to show that it is a necessary and very laudable undertaking to attempt to prove that the belief in religion, considered as a mere persuasion apart from the question of its truth, may be advantageously dispensed with, any benefits which flow from the belief being local, temporary, and such as may be otherwise obtained, without the very large amount of alloy always contained in religion. Yet we are told that "an argument for the utility of religion is an appeal to unbelievers to induce them to practise a well-meant hypocrisy; or to semi-believers to make them avert their eyes from what might possibly shake their unstable belief; or, finally, to persons in general to abstain from expressing any doubts they may feel, since a fabric of immense importance to mankind is so insecure at its foundations, that men must hold their breath in its neighbourhood for fear of blowing it down." An argument for the utility of religion is "moral bribery." An argument for its uselessness is highly to be commended. Mr Mill further tells us that "little has been written, at least in the way of discussion or controversy, concerning the usefulness of religion;" and likewise, that "religious writers have not neglected to celebrate to the utmost the advantage both of religion in general and of their own religious faith in particular." The inference must be, that what religious writers urge for the utility of religion is not to be reckoned as reasoning; that only what writers like Mr Bentham and Mr Mill urge against its utility is to be thus regarded. The charity of this view is capped by the assertion that "the whole of the prevalent metaphysics of the present century is one tissue of suborned evidence in favour of religion;" an assertion which is made amusing by following a sentence in which Mr Mill speaks of "the intolerant zeal" of intuitionists. After his general considerations, he professes to inquire what religion does for society, but in reality never enters on the investigation. He devotes two pages to insisting on "the enormous influence of authority on the human mind;" three to emphasising "the tremendous power of education;" and ten to enlarging on "the power of public opinion." He might as relevantly have dwelt on the influence of reason, speech, the press, machinery, clothes, marriage, and thousands of other things which undoubtedly affect the intellectual and moral condition of society. It is as unreasonable to infer that religion is useless because authority, education, and public opinion are powerful, as it would be to infer that the fire in a steam-engine might be dispensed with because water is necessary. Any person who assumes, as Mr Mill assumed, that authority, education, or public opinion may be contrasted with religion—who does not see, as Mr Mill did not see, that all these powers are correlatives, which necessarily intermingle with, imply, and supplement one another—is, ipso facto, unable intelligently to discuss the question, What does religion do for society? In the second part of his essay, Mr Mill ought, in order to have kept his promise, to have considered what influence religion in the sense of belief in and love of God is naturally calculated to exert on the character and conduct of the individual; but instead of this he applies himself to the very different task of attempting to prove that "the idealisation of our earthly life, the cultivation of a high conception of what it may be made, is capable of supplying a poetry, and, in the best sense of the word, a religion, equally fitted to exalt the feelings, and (with the same aid from education) still better calculated to ennoble the conduct, than any belief respecting the unseen powers." He forgets to inquire whether there is any opposition between "the idealisation of our earthly life" and "belief respecting the unseen powers," or whether, on the contrary, religious belief is not the chief source of the idealisation of our earthly life. That this logical error is as serious as it is obvious, appears from the fact that ten years later Mr Mill himself confessed that "it cannot be questioned that the undoubting belief of the real existence of a Being who realises our own best ideas of perfection, and of our being in the hands of that Being as the ruler of the universe, gives an increase of force to our aspirations after goodness beyond what they can receive from reference to a merely ideal conception" (Theism, p. 252). His proof that the worship of God is inferior to the religion of humanity rests mainly on these three assertions: (1) That the former, "what now goes by the name of religion," "operates merely through the feeling of self-interest;" (2) That "it is impossible that any one who habitually thinks, and who is unable to blunt his inquiring intellect by sophistry, should be able without misgiving to go on ascribing absolute perfection to the author and ruler of so clumsily made and capriciously governed a creation as this planet and the life of its inhabitants;" and (3), That "mankind can perfectly well do without the belief in a heaven." "It seems to me not only possible, but probable, that in a higher, and, above all, a happier condition of human life, not annihilation but immortality may be the burdensome idea; and that human nature, though pleased with the present, and by no means impatient to quit it, would find comfort and not sadness in the thought that it is not chained through eternity to a conscious existence which it cannot be assured that it will always wish to preserve." On this last point more mature reflection brought him to a different and wiser conclusion (see Theism, pp. 249, 250).

Those who wish to study the important subject of the relations of religion and morality will find the following references useful: the last chapter of M. Janet's 'La Morale;' the étude on "La Morale indépendante" in M. Caro's 'Problèmes de Morale Sociale;' many articles and reviews in M. Renouvier's 'Critique Philosophique;' Martensen's 'Christian Ethics,' §§ 5-14; O. Pfleiderer's 'Moral und Religion;' Luthardt's 'Apologetic Lectures on the Moral Truths of Christianity;' and Bradley's 'Ethical Studies,' pp. 279-305.

Ethics of Religious Inquiry.

Much has been written regarding the spirit and temper in which religious truth should be pursued and defended. In a large number of the general treatises both of apologetic and systematic theology, the subject is considered, and not a few essays, lectures, &c., have been specially devoted to it. The greater portion of this literature may, I believe, be forgotten without loss, but there is a part of it which will well repay perusal. The "Oratio de recto Theologi zelo" in the first volume of the 'Opuscula' of Werenfels, is worthy of that tolerant and philosophical divine. Archbishop Leighton's 'Exhortations to Students' exhale from every line a heavenly ether and fragrance. It will be long before Herder's 'Letters on the Study of Theology' are out of date.

Dr Chalmers attached high value to the distinction between the ethics of theology and the objects of theology, and expatiated with great eloquence on the duty which is laid upon men by the probability or even the imagination of a God (Nat. Theol., B. i. ch. i. ii.) "Man is not to blame, if an atheist, because of the want of proof. But he is to blame, if an atheist, because he has shut his eyes. He is not to blame that the evidence for a God has not been seen by him, if no such evidence there were within the field of his observation. But he is to blame if the evidence have not been seen, because he turned away his attention from it. That the question of a God may be unresolved in his mind, all he has to do is to refuse a hearing to the question. He may abide without the conviction of a God, if he so choose. But this his choice is matter of condemnation. To resist God after that He is known, is criminality towards Him; but to be satisfied that He should remain unknown, is like criminality towards Him. There is a moral perversity of spirit with him who is willing, in the midst of many objects of gratification, that there should not be one object of gratitude. It is thus that, even in the ignorance of God, there may be a responsibility towards God. The Discerner of the heart sees whether, for the blessings innumerable wherewith he has strewed the path of every man, He be treated like the unknown benefactor who was diligently sought, or like the unknown benefactor who was never cared for. In respect at least of desire after God, the same distinction of character may be observed between one man and another—whether God be wrapt in mystery, or stand forth in full development to our world. Even though a mantle of deepest obscurity lay over the question of His existence, this would not efface the distinction between the piety on the one hand which laboured and aspired after Him, and the impiety upon the other which never missed the evidence that it did not care for, and so grovelled in the midst of its own sensuality and selfishness. The eye of a heavenly witness is upon all these varieties; and thus, whether it be darkness or whether it be dislike which hath caused a people to be ignorant of God, there is with Him a clear principle of judgment that He can extend even to the outfields of atheism."—(Pp. 72, 73.)

The Rev. Alexander Leitch, in the First Part of his 'Ethics of Theism' (1868), discusses in a thoughtful and suggestive manner the following subjects: the reality and universality of the antithesis between truth and error, the legitimate dependence in all cases of belief on knowledge, the responsibility of man for his whole system of belief, the distinction between mystery and contradiction, the distinction between speculative and practical knowledge, the distinction between certainty and probability, the standard of morality, and the claims of reason and faith.

Mr Venn's 'Hulsean Lectures' for 1869 "are intended to illustrate, explain, and work out into some of their consequences, certain characteristics by which the attainment of religious belief is prominently distinguished from the attainment of belief upon most other subjects. These characteristics consist in the multiplicity of the sources from which the evidence for religious belief is derived, and the fact that our emotions contribute their share towards producing conviction."

What I have said in the text ought not to be understood as implying any doubt that men are largely responsible for their beliefs. This I accept as an indubitable truth, although there is great room for difference of opinion as to the limits of the responsibility; but it is a truth which no one party in a discussion has a right to urge as against another party. It is a law over all disputants, and is abused when severed from tolerance and charity. Perhaps it has never been better expounded and enforced than in Dr Pusey's 'Responsibility of the Intellect in Matters of Faith' (1873).

That religious belief is in a great measure conditioned and determined by character is implied in the whole argument of my third lecture. In this fact lies the main reason why the highest evidence may not produce belief even where there is no conscious dishonesty in those who reject it. A person desirous of working himself fully into the truth in this matter, will find excellent thoughts and suggestions in Dr Newman's 'Fifteen Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, between A.D. 1826 and 1843,' and in Principal Shairp's 'Culture and Religion.'

Traditive Theory of Religion.

Mr Fairbairn makes the following remarks on the theory which traces religion to a primitive revelation: "Although often advanced in the supposed interests of religion, the principle it assumes is most irreligious. If man is dependent on an outer revelation for his idea of God, then he must have what Schelling happily termed 'an original atheism of consciousness.' Religion cannot, in that case, be rooted in the nature of man—must be implanted from without. The theory that would derive man's religion from a revelation is as bad as the theory that would derive it from distempered dreams. Revelation may satisfy or rectify, but cannot create, a religious capacity or instinct; and we have the highest authority for thinking that man was created 'to seek the Lord, if haply he might feel after and find Him'—the finding being by no means dependent on a written or traditional word. If there was a primitive revelation, it must have been—unless the word is used in an unusual and misleading sense—either written or oral. If written, it could hardly be primitive, for writing is an art, a not very early acquired art, and one which does not allow documents of exceptional value to be easily lost. If it was oral, then either the language for it was created or it was no more primitive than the written. Then an oral revelation becomes a tradition, and a tradition requires either a special caste for its transmission, becomes therefore its property, or must be subjected to multitudinous changes and additions from the popular imagination—becomes, therefore, a wild commingling of broken and bewildering lights. But neither as documentary nor traditional can any traces of a primitive revelation be discovered, and to assume it is only to burden the question with a thesis which renders a critical and philosophic discussion alike impossible."—Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History, pp. 14, 15.

There is an examination of the same theory in the learned and able work of Professor Cocker of Michigan on 'Christianity and Greek Philosophy' (1875). He argues: 1. "That it is highly improbable that truths so important and vital to man, so essential to the wellbeing of the human race, so necessary to the perfect development of humanity as are the ideas of God, duty, and immortality, should rest on so precarious and uncertain a basis as tradition." 2. "That the theory is altogether incompetent to explain the universality of religious rites, and especially of religious ideas." 3. "That a verbal revelation would be inadequate to convey the knowledge of God to an intelligence purely passive and utterly unfurnished with any a priori ideas or necessary laws of thought."—Pp. 86-96.

A good history of the traditive theory of the diffusion of religion is a desideratum in theological literature.

Normal Development of Society.

The truth that social development ought to combine and harmonise permanence and progress, liberty and authority, the rights of the individual and of the community, has been often enforced and illustrated. The earnestness with which Comte did so in both of his chief works is well known. A philosopher of a very different stamp, F. v. Baader, has in various of his writings given expression to profound thoughts on the subject. His essay entitled 'Evolutionismus und Revolutionismus des gesellschaftlichen Lebens' merits to be specially mentioned. Alexander Vinet has often been charged with a one-sided individualism, and perhaps not altogether without justice; but he always maintained that he was merely the advocate of individuality. "Individualism and individuality are two sworn enemies; the first being the obstacle and negation of all society—the second, that to which society owes all it possesses of savour, life, and reality. Nowhere does individualism prosper more easily than where there is an absence of individuality; and there is no more atomistic policy than that of despotism." Vinet has probably not held the balance exactly poised between the individual and society; but his dissertations, 'Sur l'individualité et l'individualisme' and 'Du rôle de l'individualité dans une réforme sociale,' would have been far less valuable than they are if he had forgotten that, although it is the individual who thinks, the thought of the individual cannot form itself outside of society nor without its aid. But he did not, as words like the following sufficiently prove:—"It is better to connect ourselves with society than to learn to dispense with it, or rather to persuade ourselves that we are able to dispense with it. It is only given to the brute to suffice to itself. Man has been chained to man. We hardly give more credit to spontaneous generation in the intellectual sphere than in the physical world; the most individual work is to a certain point the work of all the world; everywhere solidarity reappears, without, however, any prejudice to liberty: God has willed it so." "It is with the soul engaged in the life of religion, or that of thought, as with the vessel launched upon the waters, and seeking beyond the ocean for the shores of a new world. This ocean is society, religious or civil. It bears us just as the ocean does—fluid mass, on which the vessel can indeed trace furrows, but may nowhere halt. The ocean bears the ship, but the ocean may swallow it up, and sometimes does so; society swallows us up still more often, but yet it is what upbears us; nor can we arrive without being upborne by it, for it is like the sea, which, less fluid than the air, and less dense than the earth, just yields to and resists us enough to sustain without impeding our progress towards the desired goal." There are no finer pages in Martensen's 'Christian Ethics' than those in which he treats of "individualism and socialism," "liberty and authority in the development of society," and "conservatism and progress." The most adequate historical proof and illustration of the truth in question as to the nature of social evolution will be found in the Earl of Crawford's 'Progression by Antagonism' and 'Scepticism and the Church of England.'

Definition and Classification by the Highest Type.

Dr Whewell maintained that in natural history groups are fixed not by definition, but by type. "The class," he wrote, "is steadily fixed, though not precisely limited; it is given, though not circumscribed; it is determined not by a boundary-line without, but by a central point within; not by what it strictly excludes, but by what it eminently includes; by an example, not by a precept; in short, instead of Definition we have a Type for our director. A type is an example of any class—for instance, a species of a genus—which is considered as eminently possessing the characters of the class. All the species which have a greater affinity with this type-species than with any others form the genus, and are ranged about it, deviating from it in various directions and different degrees."—Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. pp. 476, 477. Dr Whewell, it will be observed, was more cautious in his language than the theologians to whom I have referred. He did not speak of defining by type, but only of classifying, not by definition, but by type. His motive, however, for entertaining the view he laid down, was obviously the same which has led so many theologians to give definitions of religion which are only applicable to its highest forms. Probably it was insufficient. Prof. Huxley (Lay Sermons, pp. 90-92) very justly, it seems to me, argues that classification by type is caused by ignorance, and that as soon as the mind gets a scientific knowledge of a class it defines. Nothing which is not precisely limited is steadily fixed; nothing which is not circumscribed is exactly given: if the boundary-line is not determined, the central point cannot be accurately ascertained; what is eminently included cannot be known so long as what is strictly excluded is unknown. While assenting to the view of Prof. Huxley in the passage indicated, I may remark that he falls into one error which rather forcibly illustrates what is said in the page to which this note refers regarding the necessary poverty of the significance of a strictly scientific definition of an extensive class. He instances as a definition which is of a truly scientific kind and "rigorous enough for a geometrician," the following: "Mammalia are all animals which have a vertebrated skeleton and suckle their young." But clearly this definition says too much if we are to criticise it rigorously. Were it true, there would be no males among mammalia. The definition is in strictness applicable to females only.