: T>T?T-Nrm;^rpn"Nr Tsr. .T. oJ> 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 BL 240 .P75 1875 c.l 
 Problems of faith 
 
 .//. 
 
PROBLEMS OF FAITH. 
 
"Problems of faith. 
 
 A CONTRIBUTION TO 
 
 PRESENT CONTROVERSIES. 
 
 BEING A THIRD SERIES OF 
 
 lectures to goung ^en, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE, QUEEN'S SQUARE 
 HOUSE, LONDON. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BV THE 
 
 Rev. J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON, 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1875. 
 
RtC. SLP IBbO ^ 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 T 7ERY few words are required to in- 
 troduce this volume. It is the third 
 of a series, the two earher volumes of 
 which appeared in 1873 and 1874, under 
 the titles, " Some Present Difficulties in 
 Theology " and *' Disputed Questions of 
 Belief." Like its predecessors, it is ad- 
 dressed in the first instance to thoughtful 
 young men whose minds are occupied with 
 those central "problems of faith," around 
 which not only the religious, but even the 
 scientific and philosophic, thinking of our 
 time revolves. Like them, too, the lectures 
 
VI Prefatory A^ofe. 
 
 contained in it have been read before large 
 audiences, composed exclusively of this 
 class, convened in the Colfege of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in England. They are 
 now issued under the sanction of the col- 
 lege authorities, whose best thanks are due 
 to the lecturers, but especially to the two 
 first— the Duke of Argyll, and Professor 
 Watts of Belfast— who, though attached 
 to other branches of the Presbyterian com- 
 munion, have most readily lent their valu- 
 able co-operation in this endeavour to 
 illustrate and justify our common Christian 
 faith. 
 
 J. OSWALD DYKES. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Anthropomorphism in Theology . i 
 By His Grace the Duke of Argyll, K.T. 
 
 On the Hypothesis that Animals are 
 
 Automata 57 
 
 By the Rev. Professor Watts, D.D. 
 
 Superstition in Christendom . . 135 
 By the Rev. Donald Fraser. 
 
 Scientific Unbelief : A Statement 
 
 AND AN Apology . . . .189 
 By W^l Carruthers, F.R.S. 
 
BY 
 
 His Grace the 
 DUKE OF ARGYLL, K.T. 
 
ANTHROPOMORPHISM IN 
 THEOLOGY.. 
 
 T UNDERSTAND it to be the inten- 
 -■- tion of those by whom this course 
 of lectures has been arranged, that each 
 lecture of the series should deal with some 
 one or more of the intellectual difficulties 
 which are at present most seriously felt in 
 connection with Theology. In fulfilment 
 of this intention, I propose to deal to- 
 night with one great question, which cuts, 
 perhaps, more deeply than any other — 
 the question no less, whether there be any 
 faculties in the mind of man having- such 
 relations to God that we can ever know 
 
4 AntJiropovio7'phisin in Theology. 
 
 or recognise any truth concerning Him. 
 To those who have decided this question 
 in the negative, the whole system and 
 language of Christianity (nay, even the 
 whole system and language of the barest 
 Theism) must become incredible. There 
 are, of course, many forms and degrees of 
 doubt touching this question — from those 
 vvhich represent nothing niore than a pain- 
 ful sense of the inadequacy of our highest 
 conceptions concerning the Divine nature, 
 down to those which have hardened into 
 a scornful determination to reject all 
 theological belief as belonging to the In- 
 accessible and Unknown. I do not doubt 
 that almost every gradation between these 
 two very different states of mind is to be 
 found among us. But surely a great 
 approach must have been made to the 
 darkest and saddest of all conclusions, 
 when we find that the most necessary and 
 fundamental conceptions of mind, such as 
 those of Purpose and Design and Will — 
 and still more the moral affections of love 
 
Anthropomorphisin in Theology. 5 
 
 on the one hand and righteous indignation 
 on the other — when the very idea of a 
 moral government, and of deahngs which 
 admit of any answer to prayer — are all 
 declared to be inconceivable as appHed 
 to God, and are habitually denounced as 
 "Anthropomorphic." This, as you are 
 probably aware, is the common phrase 
 which the "know nothing," or Agnostic 
 School of Philosophy, are perpetually 
 using. We cannot look into a popular 
 magazine without seeing it habitually 
 applied to any and every religious con- 
 ception which the writer l^appens to dislike, 
 or finds it difficult to believe. Similar 
 words and phrases have always played 
 an important part in the history of specu- 
 lation, from the facility with which they 
 lend themselves to loose and inaccurate 
 thought, and the equal facility with which 
 they can be made to conceal mere an- 
 tipathies of feehng under the guise of 
 logical forms. There is another phrase 
 closely connected with anthropomorphism 
 
6 Anthropovwrphism iii Theology. 
 
 which is now widely employed in a simi- 
 lar manner. I mean "The Supernatural." 
 The two things which men now find it 
 impossible to believe in are "Anthropo- 
 morphism" and "The Supernatural." Any- 
 thing and everything which can be brought 
 under the ban of these epithets is treated 
 as childish and incredible. Let us insist, 
 then, at least on a clear definition of their 
 meaning. 
 
 " Anthropomorphism," as doubtless you 
 all know, is, literally translated, " Man- 
 form-ism" — that is to say, the system of 
 shaping our conceptions of the ruling power 
 in nature, or of the Divine Being, upon 
 the conscious knowledge we have of our 
 own nature and attributes. " Humanism " 
 might be another word expressive of the 
 same general idea. It is, as it were, an 
 opprobrious epithet which can be readily 
 attached to every attempt to bring the 
 human mind into any definite relations 
 with the supreme agencies of Nature. 
 The central idea of those who so use it. 
 
Anthroponwrphism in Theology. 7 
 
 seems to be that there is nothing Human 
 there, and that when we think we see it 
 there we are like some foolish beast won- 
 dering at its own shadow. The propo- 
 sition, therefore, which is really involved, 
 when stated nakedly, is this : that there is 
 no mind in nature having any relation with 
 or similitude to our own, and that all our 
 fancied recognitions of such mental mani- 
 festations as those of Purpose or Design, 
 whether in Creation or in Providence, are 
 delusive imaginations. 
 
 Observe now the connection between 
 this phrase of Humanism or *' Anthropo- 
 morphism," and that other phrase which is 
 now equally used in a condemnatory sense 
 — "The Supernatural." Of course this 
 phrase means literally that which is "above 
 nature," or " outside of nature." Those 
 who deny the Supernatural simply deny 
 that there is anything above or outside of 
 nature. But obviously this denial has no 
 meaning unless the word " nature " be 
 defined. If nature be taken to mean the 
 
8 Antliropovioi'pJiism in Theology, 
 
 ''Sum of all Existence," then, of course, it 
 is a mere truism to say that there is nothing 
 above nature. And this is the conception 
 which unconsciously occupies many minds 
 when they talk about ''The Supernatural." 
 This is the conception which gives to 
 the denial of the Supernatural ail its 
 plausibility. But I need not say that in 
 this sense we must all reject the Super- 
 natural, for there can be nothing above or 
 outside the '' Sum of all Existence." If, 
 on the other hand, " nature " be under- 
 stood to mean physical nature only — that 
 is to say, the material elements and forces 
 of nature — then the denial of anything 
 above it assumes a special meaning. It 
 means that there is no mind recognisable 
 as like pur own, and standing in any 
 relation to physical nature which we can 
 imagine to have any analogy with our 
 own. In short, the human mind is the 
 type of the Supernatural; and it is the 
 seeing of anything like that mind, either 
 in nature or outside of it, that is de- 
 
AnthropoviorpJiisiii in Theology, g 
 
 nounced as Humanism or "Anthropomor- 
 phism." Perhaps it may sound strange 
 in your ears to say that man is ever re- 
 garded as the type of the " Supernatural " 
 — as not belonging to nature at all, but as 
 the one thing or being which is contra- 
 distinguished from nature. And yet we 
 must all be aware that this is implied in 
 the commonest use of language ; as when 
 we speak of the works of man as of a 
 different kind from the works of nature. 
 But it may occur to you to doubt how far 
 this idea is really to be found in the 
 language of philosophy. I have, how- 
 ever, not far to go to be able to show you 
 that the -same idea is almost unconsciously 
 involved in the language of our most dis- 
 tinguished scientific men. On the very 
 first page of Professor Tyndall's address to 
 the British Association at Belfast, I find 
 the following passage : — " Our earliest his- 
 toric ancestors fell back also upon Expe- 
 rience ; but with this difference — that the 
 particular experiences which furnished the 
 
lo Anthropomorphism ifi Theology. 
 
 weft and woof of their theories were 
 drawn, iwt from the study of 7iatiire, but 
 from what lay much closer to them — the 
 observation of menJ' Now here you 
 observe that man is especially contradis- 
 tinguished from nature : and accordingly 
 we find in the succeeding sentence that 
 this idea is connected with the error of 
 seeing ourselves — that is, the Supernatural 
 — in nature. " Their theories," the Pro- 
 fessor goes on to say, "accordingly took 
 an anthropomorphic form." At p. 41 of 
 the same Address, the same antithesis is 
 still more distinctly expressed thus : — " If 
 Darwin rejects the notion of creative 
 power acting after himan fashion, it cer- 
 tainly is not because he is unacquainted 
 with the numberless exquisite adaptations 
 on which this notion of a siiper'natnral 
 artificer has been founded." Here you 
 see that the idea of "acting after human 
 fashion " is treated as synonymous with 
 the " idea of a Supernatural Artificer " ; 
 and the same identification you will find 
 
Anthropoviorphism in Theology. 1 1 
 
 running throughout the language which is 
 now commonly employed in denouncing 
 Anthropomorphism and the Supernatural. 
 
 The two propositions, therefore, which 
 are really involved in the thorough-going 
 denial of Anthropomorphism and of the 
 Supernatural are the following : — (i) That 
 there is nothing above or outside of physi- 
 cal nature ; (2) That in nature there is no 
 mind having analogies with our own. 
 
 It seems to me that half the battle has 
 been won when this definition has been 
 attained. In the first place, observe the 
 strange and anomalous position in which it 
 places man. As regards at least the higher 
 faculties of his mind, he is allowed no place 
 in nature, and no fellowship with any 
 other thing or any other Being outside of 
 nature. He is absolutely alone — out of 
 all relation to the Universe around him, 
 and under a complete delusion when he 
 sees in any part of it any mental ho- 
 mologies with his own intelligence, or with 
 his own will, or with his own affections. 
 
12 Anthi^opo77iorphisiii in Theology, 
 
 Does this absolute solitariness of position 
 as regards the higher attributes of man — 
 does it sound reasonable, or possible, or con- 
 sistent with some of the most fundamental 
 conceptions of Science ? How, for example, 
 does it accord with that great conception 
 whose truth and sweep become every day 
 more apparent — the Unity of Nature ? 
 How can it be true that man is so outside 
 of that unity that the very notion of seeing 
 anything like himself in it is the greatest 
 of all philosophical heresies ? Does not 
 the very possibiHty of science consist in 
 the possibility of reducing all natural phe- 
 nomena to purely mental conceptions, which 
 must be related to the intellect of man 
 when they are worked out and apprehended 
 by it ? And if, according to the latest 
 theories, man is himself a Product of 
 Evolution — whatever that may mean — 
 and is therefore, in every atom of his 
 body and in every function of his mind, a 
 part and a child of nature, is it not in the 
 highest degree illogical and absurd so to 
 
Anthropomorphisiii in Theology. 13 
 
 separate him from it as to condemn him 
 for seeing in it some image of himself ? If 
 he is its product and its child, is it not cer- 
 tain that he is right when he sees and feels 
 the indissoluble bonds of unity which unite 
 him to the great system of things in which 
 he lives ? And is not the irony of this 
 ''know nothing" philosophy complete when 
 we find that the very men who tell us we 
 are not one with anything above us are the 
 same who insist that we are one with every- 
 thing beneath us ? Whatever there is in us, 
 or about us, which is purely animal we may 
 see everywhere ; but whatever there is in 
 us purely intellectual and moral — we de- 
 lude ourselves if we think we see it any- 
 where. There are abundant homologies 
 between our bodies and the bodies of the 
 beasts, but there are no homologies between 
 our minds and any mind which lives or 
 manifests itself in nature. Our livers and 
 our lungs, our vertebrae and our nervous 
 systems, are identical in origin and in func- 
 tion with those of the living creatures 
 
14 Anthropo7norphism in Theology, 
 
 round us ; but there is nothing in nature or 
 above it which corresponds to our fore- 
 thought, or design, or purpose — to our 
 love of the good or our admiration of 
 the beautiful — to our indignation with the 
 wicked, or to our pity for the fallen. This 
 is the philosophy of the language now so 
 common, which represents as unbelievable 
 anything " Anthropomorphic " or anything 
 " Supernatural." 
 
 I venture to think that no system of 
 philosophy that has ever been taught on 
 earth lies under such a weight of antece- 
 dent improbability ; and this improbability 
 increases in direct proportion to the success 
 of Science in tracing the Unity of Nature, 
 and in showing step by step how its laws 
 and their results can be brought more and 
 more into direct relation with the mind 
 and intellect of man. 
 
 Let us test this philosophy from another 
 point of view, and see how far it is consist- 
 ent with our advancing knowledge of those 
 combinations of natural force by which the 
 
Anthropomorphism i?i Theology. 15 
 
 system of the physical universe appears to 
 be sustained. 
 
 You will often see in the writings of our 
 great physical teachers of the present day 
 reference made to a celebrated phrase of 
 the old and abandoned school of Aristo- 
 telian physics — a phrase invented by that 
 old school to express a familiar fact — 
 that it is extremely difficult, if not abso- 
 lutely impossible, to produce a perfect 
 vacuum — that is to say, a space which 
 shall be absolutely empty. The phrase 
 was this : " Nature abhors a vacuum." It 
 is now continually held up as a perfect 
 example and type of the habit of thought 
 which vitiates all true physical reasoning. 
 Now let us observe what this error is. As 
 a forcible and picturesque way of expressing 
 a physical truth — that the difficulty of pro- 
 ducing a vacuum is extreme, that Nature 
 sets, as it were, her face against our doing 
 it — the phrase is a good one, and conveys 
 an excellent idea of the general fact. Sir 
 W. Grove says of it, that it is ''an aphorism 
 
1 6 Anthropomo7''phism in Theology. 
 
 which, though cavilled at and ridiculed by 
 the self-sufficiency of some modern philo- 
 sophers, contains in a terse though some- 
 what metaphorical form of expression a 
 comprehensive truth." * But there is this 
 error in the phrase (if indeed it was or 
 ever could be literally understood) — that 
 it gives for the general fact a wrong 
 cause, inasmuch as it ascribes to the 
 material and inanimate forces of nature, 
 whose simple pressures are concerned 
 in the result, certain dispositions which 
 are known to us as affections of mind 
 alone. In short, it ascribes to the mere 
 elementary forces of matter — not to a 
 living agency using these as tools, but to 
 mere material force — the attributes of 
 mind. 
 
 Now it is well worthy of remark that, so 
 far as this error is concerned, the language 
 of our modern Physicists is full of it — 
 steeped in it ; and that in this sense they 
 
 * "The Correlation of Physical Forces," 6th Ed., 
 
 p. 121. 
 
Ajithropomorphisin in Theology, 1 7 
 
 are chargeable with a kind of anthropo- 
 morphism which is really open to the 
 gravest objection. To see mind in nature, 
 or, according as nature may be defined, to 
 see mind outside of nature, acknowledging 
 it to be mind, and treating it as such — 
 this is one thing — and this is the true and 
 legitimate anthropomorphism, which our 
 Physicists denounce. But to see mind in 
 material forces alone, and to ascribe its 
 attributes to them — this is equally anthro- 
 pomorphism, but a perversion of it which 
 deserves all the reprobation they express _ 
 This, nevertheless, is the anthropomorphism 
 which gives habitually its colouring to 
 their thoughts, and its spirit to their 
 language. 
 
 Let me explain what I mean by some 
 examples. I will take, first, the Darwinian 
 Theory of Development, which, as applied 
 to the history of animal life, is now accepted 
 by a large number of scientific men if 
 not as certainly true, at least as an hypo- 
 thesis which comes nearer than any other 
 
 2 
 
tS Anthropoviorphisni in Theology. 
 
 to the truth. I have never been among 
 the number of those who think this theory 
 in the least degree inconsistent with the 
 great Theistic arguments of Natural Re- 
 ligion. When we ask a child who made 
 it, and expect it to reply that God made 
 it, we never suppose that the child must 
 cease to give this answer when it comes 
 to understand that it was born from 
 parents. Nor, in like manner, should we 
 imagine that the Divine Authorship of our 
 being must come to be disbelieved, should 
 it ever be really proved that all creation 
 has been effected in the same way. But 
 there is more to be said than this about 
 the Theistic aspects of the Darwinian theory. 
 It is saturated throughout with the ideas 
 of utility, and fitness, and of adaptation, 
 as the governing principles and causes of 
 the harmony of nature. Its central con- 
 ception is, that in the history of organic 
 life changes have somehow always come 
 about exactly in proportion as the need 
 of them arose, — or rather, in proportion 
 
Anthropomorphism in Theology. 19 
 
 as the need of them was about to arise. 
 For as it is an essential part of the theory 
 that each particular change has been in- 
 finitesimally small, and can never have 
 been preserved unless it tended in a par- 
 ticular direction, every new organ and 
 every new adaptation of an organ must 
 have had an incipient stage, when its utility 
 was all to come, — that is to say, when 
 its adaptation to external things lay in 
 the future, and when therefore the nascent 
 adjustments can only be conceived of as 
 preparations for a use not yet in actual 
 operation. And even when such changes 
 have reached the stage where the influence 
 of utility comes into actual operation, it is 
 clear that that conception of the constitu- 
 tion of things which converts utility into a 
 physical cause, is a conception necessarily 
 involving the idea of purposive adaptation. ' 
 This purely mental element in the facts is> 
 of course, more clearly seen when we have 
 to ask ourselves why organic variations 
 should take a direction terminating in 
 
20 Anthropomorphism in Theology. 
 
 utility when as yet there is no actual use 
 developed. But the same mental element 
 is in reality equally involved in those later 
 stages, when utility has actually emerged 
 and has begun to play. For why is it 
 that the laws of growth are so correlated 
 with utility that they should in this manner 
 work together ? Why should varied and 
 increasing utility operate in the requisite 
 direction of varied and increasing develop- 
 ments ? The connection is not one of 
 logical necessity, but purely and solely 
 one of purposive arrangement. Not only 
 can we conceive it otherwise, but we know 
 that it is otherwise beyond certain bounds 
 and limits. It is not an universal law 
 that organic growths arise in proportion 
 to all needs, or are strengthened by all 
 exertion. It is a law prevailing only within 
 certain limits; and it is not possible to 
 describe the facts concerning it without em- 
 ploying the language which is expressive of 
 mental purpose. Accordingly, Mr. Darwin 
 himself does use this language perpetually, 
 
Ajithropomorphism in Theology. 2 1 
 
 and tO' an extent far exceeding that in 
 which it is used by almost any other 
 Natural Philosopher. The very title of 
 one of his most interesting works is " On 
 the Various Contrivances by which British 
 and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by 
 Insects." I have elsewhere ''' remarked 
 upon the constant recurrence of what is 
 called teleological language in Mr. Dar- 
 win's works. He does not use it with any 
 theological purpose, nor in connection with 
 any metaphysical speculation. He uses it 
 simply and naturally for ho other reason 
 than that he cannot help it. The corre- 
 lation of natural forces, so adjusted as 
 to work together for the production of 
 use in the functions and in the enjoy- 
 ments and in the beauty of life, — this is 
 the central idea of his system ; and it is 
 an idea which cannot be worked out in 
 detail without habitual use of the language 
 which is moulded on our own consciousness 
 of Design, and of Purpose, and of Adjust- 
 
 * Reign of Law, ch. i. ; 5th Ed., pp. -38-9. 
 
2 2 AntJiropomorphhin in Theology. 
 
 ment. This Is what perhaps the greatest ob- 
 server that has ever Uved always observes in 
 nature. And so his language is thoroughly 
 anthropomorphic. Seeing in the methods 
 pursued in nature a constant embodiment 
 of his own intellectual conceptions, and a 
 close analogy with the methods which his 
 own mind recognizes as " contrivance," he 
 rightly uses the forms of expression which 
 convey the work of mind. "Rightly," I 
 say, provided the full scope and meaning 
 of this language be not repudiated, I do 
 not mean that Naturalists should be always 
 following up their language to theological 
 conclusions, or that any fault should be 
 found with them when they stop where 
 the sphere of mere ph5^sical observation 
 terminates. But those who assume to re- 
 model philosophy upon the results of that 
 observation cannot be allowed to use all 
 the advantage of anthropomorphic lan- 
 guage, and then to denounce it when 
 it carries them beyond the point at which 
 they desire to" stop. Professor Tyndall, 
 
Anthropo7norphism in Theology. 2;^ 
 
 in his Address at Belfast, tells us that 
 Darwin rejects Teleology. So far as I 
 know, Mr. Darwin himself has never said 
 so. On the contrary, he has said that the 
 "mind revolts" against such adjustment 
 as he describes being " the result of 
 Chance." The opposite of Chance is, 
 of course, Purpose and Design. The 
 theory of Development is, in my opinion, 
 not only consistent with teleological ex- 
 planation, but it is founded on Teleology, 
 and on nothing else. It sees in everything 
 the results of a system which is ever acting 
 for the best — always pro(^cing something 
 more perfect or more beautiful than be- 
 fore, and incessantly eliminating what- 
 ever is faulty or less perfectly adapted 
 to every new condition. Professor Tyndall 
 himself cannot describe this system with- 
 out using the most intensely anthopomor- 
 phic language : *' The continued effort of 
 animated nature is to improve its con- 
 ditions, and raise itself to a loftier level."* 
 * Pref. to Address, p. xxv. 
 
24 Anthropomorphism in Theology. 
 
 Again I say, — Quite right to use this lan- 
 guage, provided its ultimate reference to 
 Mind be admitted and not repudiated. 
 But if this language be persistently ap- 
 plied, and philosophically defended, as 
 applicable to material force, otherwise 
 than as the instruments and tools of 
 mind, then it is language involving far more 
 than the absurdity of the old mediaeval 
 phrase that "Nature abhors a vacuum." 
 It ceases to be a mere picturesque ex- 
 pression, and becomes a definite ascrip- 
 tion to matter of the highest attributes of 
 mind. If nature cannot feel abhorrence, 
 neither cannot it cherish aspirations. If 
 it cannot hate, neither can it love, nor 
 contrive, nor adjust, nor look to the future, 
 nor think about "■ loftier levels " there. 
 
 Professor Tyndall in the same Address 
 has given us an interesting anecdote of a 
 very celebrated man whom the world has 
 lately lost. He tells us that he heard the. 
 great Swiss naturalist, Agassiz, express an 
 almost sad surprise that the Darwinian 
 
Anthropomorphism in Theology, 25 
 
 Theory should have been so extensively 
 accepted by the best intellects of our time. 
 And this surprise seems again in some 
 measure to have surprised Professor 
 Tyndall. Now it so happens that I have 
 perhaps the means of explaining the real 
 difficulty felt by Agassiz in accepting the 
 modern theory of Evolution. I had not 
 seen that distinguished man for nearly 
 five-and-thirty years. But he was one of 
 those gifted beings who stamp an indelible 
 impression on the memory; and in 1842 
 he had left ah enthusiastic letter on my 
 father's table at Inveraray on finding it 
 largely occupied by scientific works. Across 
 that long interval of time I ventured lately to 
 seek a renewal of acquaintance, and during 
 the year which proved to be the last of his 
 life I asked him some questions on his own 
 views on the history and origin of Organic 
 Forms. In a reply which I shall always 
 very highly value, Agassiz sums up in the 
 following words his objection to the Theory 
 of Natural Selection as affording any 
 
26 Anthropomorphism in Theology, 
 
 satisfactory explanation of the facts for 
 which it professes to account : '' The truth 
 is that Life has all the wealth of endow- 
 ment of the most comprehensive mental 
 manifestations, and none of the simplicity 
 of physical phenomena." Here we have 
 the testimony of another among the very 
 greatest of modern observers, that wealth 
 — immense and immeasurable wealth — of 
 mind is the one fact above all others 
 observable in nature and especially in the 
 adaptations of organic life. It was because 
 he saw no adequate place or room reserved 
 for this fact in the Theory of Development, 
 that Agassiz rejected it as satisfying the 
 conditions of the problem to be solved. 
 Possibly this may be the fault of the forms 
 in which it has been propounded, and of 
 the perverse endeavours of too many of its 
 supporters to shut out all interpretations of a 
 higher kind. But of this we may be sure — 
 that if men should indeed ultimately become 
 convinced that species have been all born 
 just as individuals are now all born, and that 
 
Anthropouiorphisin in Theology. 2^ 
 
 such has been the universal method of crea- 
 tion, this conviction will not only be found 
 to be soluble — so to speak — in the old beliefs 
 respecting a personal Creator, but it will be 
 unintelligible and inconceivable without 
 them, — so that men in describing the history 
 and aim and direction of Evolution will be 
 compelled to use substantially the same 
 language in which they have hitherto 
 spoken of the History of Creation. 
 
 I will mention another case of the un- 
 conscious anthropomorphism of scientific 
 language and speculation. Some of you 
 may have read, or may have heard of, a 
 very able and curious paper by Professor 
 Huxley, lately published in the Contempo- 
 rary Reviezv, on the old problem whether 
 animals may not be considered as "mere 
 machines." Professor Huxley — rather, I 
 think, for the sake of a little intellectual 
 exercise than anything else — takes the 
 affirmative view of this question, and 
 brings forward most ingenious arguments 
 in its favour. He is pleased, he says, 
 
28 Anthropomorphism in Theology. 
 
 to think that in this question, so long as 
 it is confined to the lower animals, he 
 comes across no religious prejudice ; and 
 when, later in the article, he admits that 
 the same arguments raise the same question 
 in respect to man, he says that on this 
 ground he fears to tread, lest it should 
 bring down upon him the intolerable noise 
 of the "Drum Ecclesiastic." He goes on, 
 however, to show that questions funda- 
 mentally the same have been raised by 
 Theologians themselves ; and points to 
 the Augustinian or Calvinistic doctrine of 
 Predestination, and to the Philosophical 
 doctrine of Necessity, as in reality so 
 many different attempts to deal with the 
 same intellectual difficulty. But there is 
 a view of this question which never seems 
 to have struck Professor Huxley — and, 
 indeed, for that matter, does not seem 
 to have been ever sufficiently considered ; 
 and that is, that it is entirely a question 
 of verbal definition whether animals may 
 be considered as machines or not. For 
 
Anthropomorphisrii in Theology. 29 
 
 my own part, I have no doubt whatever 
 that in one sense, and that a very im- 
 portant sense, the lower animals, and man 
 too, are ail machines. For what is at least 
 one essential idea of a machine ? It is 
 something so contrived by some intelli- 
 gence, that it shall have certain powers, 
 and discharge certain functions. Con- 
 sidered in this aspect alone, it does not 
 matter to the idea of a machine what 
 the powers may be that it has, — what 
 the functions are that it may perform. 
 It may do something very simple, or 
 something very complicated ; but what- 
 ever it has in respect to power is derived 
 and not original. It is due to the work- 
 ing of its maker's mind that the machine 
 works at all ; and the measure of its opera- 
 tions is that assigned to it by the know- 
 ledge and the resources and the intention 
 of its constructor. You will see, then, 
 at once, that the theory which makes out 
 animals to be automata or machines is 
 entirely anthropomorphic, and is founded 
 
30 Anthropomorphism in Theology. 
 
 on a true perception of the anthropomor- 
 phism which prevails in nature. In one 
 respect, of course, it is admitted on all 
 hands that machines made by man differ 
 essentially from the animated machines 
 existing in nature. They are not only 
 infinitely more ingenious ; but the things 
 they are made to do, and the functions 
 they are constructed to discharge* are in- 
 finitely higher, inasmuch as these are all 
 connected with the Divine gifts of life. 
 This difference is indeed so great that it 
 is only by a somewhat violent metaphor 
 that 'we can apply to both the same 
 descriptive term. Those who have con- 
 tended that animals are automata or 
 machines, have always admitted that they 
 are machines which feel, and perceive, 
 and see, and have all the lower or mere 
 animal passions' which belong to life. What 
 they say is, that this fact does not take 
 them out of this category of machines. 
 Neither does it — if we are agreed on the 
 abstract definition of a machine, — that it 
 
Anthroponiorphisni in Theology. 3 1 
 
 is anything constructed by an intelligent 
 mind. Of course, in another sense, and 
 under another definition, it is pure non- 
 sense to talk of a machine that sees and 
 feels, — because these are things that we 
 cannot make a machine do ; and therefore 
 our type-idea of a machine is of some- 
 thing which never does, and never can, 
 possess these powers. But if it be agreed 
 that the word machine shall import no 
 more than the same relation to an external 
 constructive agency (call it what you will) 
 — that a watch bears to a man, — then it is 
 unquestionably true that the lower animals 
 are machines, and every argument of Pro- 
 fessor Huxley in favour of this conclusion 
 is only one more proof added to the many 
 and subtle demonstrations which prove the 
 intense anthropomorphism of nature. More- 
 over, I go a step further. If the word 
 machine be so extended as to include feel- 
 ing and seeing and percipient machines, it 
 may equally well be understood to include 
 thinking and reflecting and reasoning 
 
32 Anthropomorphism in Theology. 
 
 machines, with a certain limited and 
 delegated freedom of the will. And such, 
 indeed, is man. There is no heresy in 
 this. On the contrary, it is the profound- 
 est of all truths — that truth which echoes 
 in the Psalm so familiar to us all : '' It is 
 He that made us, and not we ourselves." 
 
 It is true, indeed, that there is the deepest 
 and widest of all distinctions between the 
 machines which we can make, and those 
 mechanical aspects under which, by dint 
 of abstract definition, all animals can be 
 regarded— even that distinction which sepa- 
 rates the Living from the Not-Living. But 
 here, again, we come upon one of the pecu- 
 liarities of the new school of philosophy — 
 which is a persistent desire to explain away 
 this distinction, to get rid of the very idea 
 of Life as a thing by itself — known to us 
 by phenomena and properties which are 
 separate from all others. The endeavour 
 is perpetually made to reduce it within the 
 terms of some purely physical definition. 
 But even in this attempt, vain and futile as 
 
Anth opoiJiorpJiLsni in Theology. 
 
 00 
 
 I believe it to be, we shall find that the 
 most eminent disciples of this school are 
 wholly unable to avoid anthropomorphic 
 language — and, wriggle as they may, are 
 compelled to make use of the analogies of 
 our own mental operations as the only 
 possible exponents of what we see in 
 nature. Look, for example, at the defi- 
 nition of Life given by Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer. It is a very old endeavour to 
 construct such definitions, and not a very 
 profitable one ; inasmuch as life is only 
 known to us as itself, and all attempts to 
 reduce it to other conceptions are gener- 
 ally mere playing with empty words. But 
 it is not without instruction to observe 
 .that Mr. Spencer's laborious analysis 
 comes to this : " Life is the continuous 
 adjustment of internal relations to external 
 relations." Now I will not waste your 
 time to examine the verbal evasions which 
 are hid under this formula of language ; 
 but I beg you to observe that, however 
 evasive and inadequate it may be as a 
 
 3 
 
34 AntJiropoinorpJiisni in Theology. 
 
 definition of what life in itself is, it does 
 contain one definite and distinct idea as to 
 how life comes to be. Life is an " adjust- 
 ment." I need not tell you that this. is a 
 purely anthropomorphic conception, con- 
 veying the idea of that kind of co-ordina- 
 tion between different powers or elements 
 which is the result and evidence of design 
 and of constructive skill. All combinations 
 are not adjustments. No combination can 
 properly be called an adjustment if it be 
 purely accidental. We should never think 
 of saying that the rust of iron is an adjust- 
 ment between oxygen and iron. Chemi- 
 cal combinations are only to be called 
 adjustments when they are the result of 
 skill and knowledge in so bringing chemical 
 affinities to bear on each other as to pro- 
 duce a given and a foreseen result. When, 
 therefore, Life is represented as an " adjust- 
 ment," this is the menta,! image which is 
 reproduced ; and in so far as it does repro- 
 duce this idea, and does consciously express 
 it, the formula has at least some intelligible 
 
Anthropomorphisvi in Theology. 35 
 
 meaning. If, indeed, it can be said to have 
 any plausibility or approach to truth at all, 
 this is the element in it from which that 
 plausibility is derived. 
 
 Well, then, I pass to another well-known 
 author— to Mr. Matthew Arnold, who has 
 been lately denouncing, in scornful terms, all 
 belief in that ''popular" theology which in- 
 cludes Anthropomorphism and the Super- 
 natural, and who objects to the very con- 
 ception of what is called a Personal God. 
 He has invented a new phrase for the 
 Divine Being, which alone, he thinks, can 
 be used as descriptive of any Existence 
 that can be proved — and what is it ? " The 
 Eternal, not ourselves, which makes for 
 righteousness." Surely whatever meaning 
 there may be in this artificial and cumbrous 
 phrase is entirely derived from its anthropo- 
 morphism. An agency which makes for 
 something — that something being in the 
 future, and beingr also in itself an abstract 
 moral and intellectual conception — what 
 can such an agency be conceived to be ? 
 
36 AntJiroponiorpJiisni in Theology, 
 
 Making for an object of any kind is a 
 purely human image — an image, too, de- 
 riv^ed primarily not from the highest eftorts 
 of human will, but from those which are 
 represented in the exercises of the body, 
 and the skill with which, in athletic con- 
 tentions, some distant goal can be reached 
 and won. This is Mr. Matthew Arnold's 
 attempt to leap off his own shadow, and 
 to instruct us how we are to think of God 
 without seeing anything in Him, or in His 
 world, analogous to our own methods of 
 thought and work ! 
 
 Nor is it wonderful that this attempt 
 should fail, when we consider what it is an 
 attempt to do — to establish an absolute 
 separation between Man and Nature ; to 
 set himself up as something above it, and 
 outside of it ; and yet to afftrm that there 
 is no other Being, and no other Intelligence, 
 in a like position. And if anything can 
 render this attempt ipore absurd, it must 
 be the further attempt to reach this result 
 through science, — science, the very possi- 
 
AnthropoiJioj'pJiisui in Theology. 37 
 
 bility of which depends on and consists 
 in the possibiHty of reducing all natural 
 phenomena within the terms of human 
 thought, so that its highest generalisations 
 are always the most abstract intellectual 
 conceptions. Science is the systematic 
 knowledge of relations ; and that which 
 perceives relations must be itself related. 
 All explanation consists in nothing else 
 than in establishing the relation which 
 some order of external facts bears to some 
 corresponding order of thought ; and it 
 follows from this truth, that the highest 
 explanations of phenomena must always 
 be those which establish such relations with 
 the highest faculties of our nature. Professor 
 Tyndall, in another part of his late address, 
 like many other writers of the present day, 
 goes the length of saying that the great 
 test of physical truth is what may be called 
 its " representability " — that is to say, the 
 degree in which a given physical conception 
 can, from the analogies of experience, be 
 represented in thought. But if our power 
 
38 AnthropomorpJiisin in Theology. 
 
 of picturing a physical fact distinctly be 
 indeed an indication of a true physical 
 analogy, how much more distinctly than 
 any physical fact can we picture the mental 
 characteristics of Purpose, and of Design, 
 and of Will ! Yet these are the conceptions 
 which we are told we are not to cherish, 
 because of the very fact that they are an- 
 thropomorphic — or in other words because 
 of the very fact that they are so familiar to 
 us, and their mental representability is so 
 complete ! 
 
 Some, indeed, of our physical teachers, 
 conscious of this necessary and involuntary 
 anthropomorphism of human thought and 
 speech, struggle hard to expel it by invent- 
 ing phrases which shall as far as possible 
 avoid it. But it is well worthy of obser- 
 vation, that in exact proportion as these 
 phrases do avoid it, they become incom- 
 petent to describe fully the facts of science. 
 For example, take those incipient changes 
 in the substance of an Qgg by which the 
 organs of the future animal are successively 
 
A)itJirop07norpJiisin in Theology. 39 
 
 laid down " when as yet there are none- 
 of them," — changes which have all refer- 
 ence to a purely purposive adaptation of 
 that substance to the future discharge of 
 separate and special functions, — these 
 changes you will now often see described 
 as " dififerentations," an abstract expression 
 which simply means the establishment 
 of differences, without any reference to 
 the peculiar nature of those differences, or 
 their relations to each other and to the 
 whole. The processes of dissolution and 
 decay are processes of differentiation as 
 much as the process of growth and adap- 
 tation to living functions. Blood is differ- 
 entiated when, spilt upon the ground, it 
 separates into its inorganic elements, just 
 as much as when, circulating in the vessels, 
 it feeds the various tissues of the living 
 body. There does not seem to be much 
 light in that philosophy which insists on 
 using the same formula of expression for 
 operations so different as these. It is a 
 phrase which empties the facts, as we can 
 
40 Anthropoinorphism in Theology. 
 
 •see and know them, of all that is special 
 in that knowledge. It is possible, no 
 doubt, by this and other similar artifices 
 of language, so to describe physical phe- 
 nomena as to deprive them — or at least 
 to appear to deprive them — of their 
 highest mental characters. More foolish 
 than the fabled ostrich, we may try to 
 shut our eyes against our own perceptions, 
 or refuse to register them in our language- 
 resorting, for the sake of evasion, to some 
 juggleries of speech. "Potential existence" 
 is another of those vague abstract concep- 
 tions which may be, and is, employed for 
 a like purpose. It may be applied to a 
 mere slumbering force, or to an unfulfilled 
 intention, or to an undeveloped mental 
 faculty, or to an elaborate preparation of 
 foresight and design. If we desire to take 
 refuge from the necessity of forming any 
 distinct conceptions, such phrases are emi- 
 nently convenient for the purpose, whilst 
 under cover of them we may cheat both 
 ourselves and others into the belief that we 
 
AntJiJvpoinorphisiJi in Theology. 41 
 
 have got hold of some definite idea, and 
 perhaps even of an important truth. 
 
 My advice to young men who are puzzled 
 and perplexed by the prevalent teaching of 
 Physicists on these high matters is to sub- 
 ject the language in which they convey that 
 teaching to a careful, systematic, and close 
 analysis. I think you will find it fall within 
 one or other of these three classes : — First, 
 there is the phraseology of those who, with- 
 out any thought either of theological dogma 
 or of philosophical speculation, are, above 
 all things. Observers, and who describe the 
 facts they see in whatever language appears 
 most fully and most naturally to convey 
 what they see to others. The language of 
 such men is what Mr. Darwin's language 
 almost always is — eminently teleological 
 and anthropomorphic. Next, there is the 
 language of those who purposely shut out 
 this element of thought, and denounce it as 
 unscientific. The language of this class is 
 full of the vague abstract phrases to which 
 I have referred — " differentiation " — '* mo- 
 
42 AntJiropoiJiorpJiisvi in Theology. 
 
 lecular change" — "harmony with environ- 
 ment " — and others of a like kind, — phrases 
 which, in exact proportion to their abstract 
 character, are evasive, and fall short of 
 describing what is really seen. Lastly you 
 have the language of those who habitually 
 ascribe to matter the properties of mind ; 
 using this language not metaphorically, like 
 the old Aristotelians whom they despise, 
 but literally, — declaring that mind, as we 
 know it, must be considered as having 
 been contained "potentially" in matter, 
 and was once nothing but a cosmic vapour, 
 or a fiery cloud. Well may Professor 
 Tyndall call upon us "radically to change 
 our notions of matter," if this be a true 
 view of it ; for in this view it becomes 
 equivalent to "nature" in that largest and 
 widest interpretation to which I referred at 
 the commencement of this lecture — viz., 
 that in which nature is understood as the 
 " Sum of all Existence." But if this phi- 
 losophy be true, let us at least cease to 
 condemn, as the type of all absurdity, the 
 
AntJiropomorphism in Theology. 43 
 
 old mediaeval explanations of material 
 phenomena, which ascribes them to af- 
 fections of the mind. If matter be so 
 widened in meaning as to be the mother 
 and source of mind, it must surely be right 
 and safe enough to see in it those dispo- 
 sitions and phenomena which are nothing 
 but its product in ourselves. 
 
 The truth is, that this conception of 
 matter and of nature, which is associated 
 with vehement denunciations of anthropo- 
 morphism—is itself founded on nothing else 
 but anthropomorphism pushed to its very 
 farthest limit. It is entirely derived from 
 and founded on the fact that mind, as we 
 see it in ourselves, is in this world insepa- 
 rably connected with a material organism, 
 and on the further assumption, that mind 
 is inconceivable except in the same con- 
 nection. This would be a very unsafe con- 
 clusion, ev^en if the connection between 
 our bodies and our minds were of such a 
 nature that we could not conceive the 
 separation of the two. But so far is this 
 
44 Anthropomorphism in Theology. 
 
 from being the case, that, as Professor 
 Tyndall most truly says, " it is a connection 
 which we know only as an inexplicable 
 fact, and we try to soar in a vacuum when 
 we seek to comprehend it." The universal 
 testimony of human speech — that sure 
 record of the deepest metaphysical truths 
 — proves that we cannot but think of the 
 body and the ' mind as separate — of the 
 mind as our proper selves, and of the body 
 as indeed external to it. Let us never 
 forget that life, as we know it here below, 
 is the antecedent or the cause of organiza- 
 tion, and not its product ; that the peculiar 
 combinations of matter, which are the 
 homes and abodes of life, are prepared and 
 shaped under the control and guidance of 
 that mysterious power which we know as 
 vitality ; and that no discovery of science 
 has ever been able to reduce it to a lower 
 level, or to identify it with any purely mate- 
 rial force. And, lastly, we must remember 
 that even if it were true — if it were even 
 conceivably established that Life and Mind 
 
Anthropomoi'pJiism in Theology. 45 
 
 have some inseparable connection with the 
 forces which are known to us as material — 
 this Avould not make the supreme agencies 
 in nature, or nature as a whole, less an- 
 thropomorphic, but greatly more ; so that 
 it would, if possible, be even more absurd 
 than it is now to condemn man when he 
 sees in nature a mind having real analogies 
 with his own. 
 
 And now, what is the result of this 
 argument ? — what is its scope and bearing ? 
 Truly it is a very wide scope indeed, and 
 more than one separate lecture would be 
 required to exhaust its bearings. Suffice it 
 to say here that everything in Belief — in 
 Theology — in Philosophy — which is con- 
 demned on the sole ground that it is 
 anthropomorphic — everything is re-estab- 
 lished— I don't say as true — but as believ- 
 able unless open to some better and more 
 rational objection than that it rests on the 
 analogies of Human Thought. No adverse 
 presumption can arise on this ground alone 
 against any doctrine, whether of religion 
 
46 Anthropomorphism in Theology, 
 
 or philosophy. This is a position — puf'ely 
 negative and defensive though it be — from 
 which we cannot be dislodged ; and which 
 has under its destructive fire a thousand 
 different avenues of attack. There are not 
 a few able and popular writers at the 
 present moment, who boast that belief in 
 Christianity, and indeed in every form of 
 Theology, is being slowly, but surely, 
 driven out from the minds of men. They 
 say that just as belief in Witchcraft be- 
 came almost extinct, not because of any 
 logical proof of its impossibility, but simply 
 because of the rise and steady growth of 
 other beliefs which were incompatible with 
 it, and insensibly cast it out — so, in like 
 manner, the Theology of the Churches 
 is being as surely displaced by ideas 
 and conceptions, the growth of science, 
 which are fatal to every existing faith. 
 Others there are who do not go quite 
 so far, but who maintain that these same 
 new ideas and conceptions will compel the 
 abandonment of much, if not of all, that is 
 
Antkropoinorphisni in Theology. 47 
 
 distinctive in the history and teaching of 
 Christianity. Prominent among the ideas 
 and conceptions to which this work is 
 assigned — powerful above all others in 
 effecting the displacement of all our old 
 beliefs — is the idea that anything " Anthro- 
 pomorphic" or ''Supernatural" is in itself 
 unbelievable. It has been my object 
 to-night to bring this idea to the bar of 
 reason, and to show you how it bears 
 examination. Follow up that examination 
 as you may — pursue into every nook and 
 cranny of speculation, and through every 
 form of language in which it is expressed, 
 and you will find it rotten to the core, 
 inconsistent, incoherent, self-condemned. 
 Man — he whom the Greeks called Anthro- 
 pos, because, as it has been supposed, he is 
 the only Being whose look is upwards — 
 man is a part of Nature, and no sophistry 
 can expel him from it. And yet, in another 
 sense, it is also true that Man is above 
 Nature — outside of it — and in this aspect 
 he is the very type and image of the Super- 
 
48 AntJiropoiJiorphisni in Thtology. 
 
 natural. The instinct of Unbelief, which 
 sees this image in him, is a true instinct ; 
 and the consequent desire to banish An- 
 thropomorphism from our conceptions of 
 Nature is intelligible enough. For if we 
 are allowed to see in Nature the operations 
 of a mind having analogies with our own, 
 then this power, which is to silence prayer 
 and to expel all notion of a Personal God, 
 and to seat blind mechanical necessities 
 upon the throne of Nature — this horrid 
 shape — will be itself expelled. Yes, and so 
 it will. Every advance of science is a new 
 testimony to the supremacy of mind, and 
 to the correspondence between the mind of 
 man and the Mind which is supreme in 
 Nature. Nor in the face of Science will it 
 be possible to revive that Nature-worship, 
 which breathes in so many of the old 
 religions of mankind. For in exalting 
 mind. Science is ever making plainer and 
 plainer the inferior position of the purely 
 physical aspects of Nature — the vassal 
 character of matter and of material force. 
 
AntJiropouLorpJiisni in Theology. 49 
 
 Has not science, for example, even in 
 these last few years, rendered impossible 
 for ever one of the oldest and most natural 
 of the idolatries of the world ? Has it 
 not disclosed to us much of the physical 
 constitution of that great heavenly body, 
 which is the proximate cause of all that 
 we see and enjoy on earth, and which 
 has seemed most naturally the very image 
 of the Godhead to millions of the human 
 race ? We now know the sun to be simply 
 a very large globe of solid and of gaseous 
 matter, in a state of fierce and flaming 
 incandescence. No man can worship a ball 
 of fire, however big ; nor can he feel grate- 
 ful to it, nor love it, nor adore it, even 
 though its beams be to him the very light 
 of Hfe. Neither in it nor in the mere 
 physical forces of which it is the centre, 
 can we see anything approaching to the 
 rank and dignity of even the humblest 
 human heart. *' What know we greater 
 than the soul V It is only when we come 
 to think of the co-ordination and adjust- 
 
 4 
 
50 Anthropomorphism in Theology, 
 
 ment of these physical forces as part of 
 the mechanism of the Heavens, — it is only, 
 in short, when Ave recognize the mental — 
 that is the anthropomorphic — element, that 
 the universe becomes glorious and intelli- 
 gible, as indeed a Cosmos — a system of 
 order and beauty adapted to the various 
 ends which we see actually attained, and 
 to a thousand others which we can only 
 guess. Surely that philosophy will never 
 stand its ground which allows that we can 
 see in Nature the most intimate relations 
 with our intellectual conceptions of Space 
 and Time and Force, but denies that we 
 can ever see any similar relation with our 
 conceptions of Purpose and of Design, or 
 with those still higher conceptions which 
 are embodied in our sense of Justice and 
 in our love of Righteousness, and in our 
 admiration of the " quality of Mercy." 
 Surely these elements in the mind of man 
 are not less likely than others to have 
 some correlative in the Mind which rules 
 in Nature. Surely in the supreme govern- 
 
AnthropomorpJiisvi in Theology. 51 
 
 ment of the universe they are not less 
 Hkely than other parts of our mental con- 
 stitution to have some system related 
 to them — so related that the knowledge 
 of it shall be at once their interpreta- 
 tion and fulfilment. Certain it is that 
 neither brute matter nor inanimate force 
 can supply either the one or the other. 
 If there be one truth more certain than 
 another, one conclusion more securely 
 founded than another, not on reason only, 
 but on every other faculty of our nature, 
 it is this — that there is nothing but mind 
 that we can respect — nothing but heart 
 that we can love — nothing but a perfect 
 combination of the two that we can 
 adore. 
 
 Far be it from me to deny that we are 
 surrounded by mystery, and that perhaps 
 the deepest of all mysteries concerns the 
 limits within which we can, and beyond 
 w^hich we cannot, suppose that we bear 
 the image of Him who is the Source of 
 Life ! It seems as if on either side our 
 
52 AntJiropoinorphism in Theology. 
 
 thoughts are in danger of doing some 
 affront to the Majesty of Heaven — on the 
 one side if we suppose the Creator to have 
 made us with an intense desire to know 
 Kim, but yet destitute of any faculties 
 capable of forming even the faintest con- 
 ception of His nature : — on the other 
 side, if we suppose that creatures such 
 as, only too well, v/e know ourselves 
 to be, can image " the Holy One who 
 inhabiteth eternity." And yet both 
 aspects of the truth are powerfully repre- 
 sented in the language of those who at 
 sundry times and in divers manners have 
 been, as we believe, commissioned to speak 
 to the world on Divine things. On the 
 one hand we have such strong but simple 
 images as those which represent the Al- 
 mighty as "walking in the garden in the 
 cool of the day,'' or as "speaking to Moses 
 face to face as a man speaketh with his 
 friend/' On the other hand we have the 
 solemn and emphatic declaration of St. 
 John that "No man- hath seen God at any 
 
Anthropomorphism in Theology. 53 
 
 time." In the Book of Job we have at 
 once the most touching and almost de- 
 spairing complaints of the inaccessibility 
 and inscrutability of God, and also the 
 most absolute confidence in such a know- 
 ledge of His character as to give the 
 firmest support to unbounded trust. In 
 the Psalms we have these words addressed 
 to the wicked as conveying the most severe 
 rebuke : " Thou thoughtedst that I was 
 altogether such an one as thyself" (Ps= 
 1. 31). And perhaps this word "altogether" 
 indicates better than any other the true 
 reconciliation of apparent contradictions. 
 In the far higher light which Christianity 
 claims to have thrown on the relations of 
 man to God, the same solution is in clearer 
 terms presented to us. *' We know in part 
 and we prophesy in part. We see through 
 a glass darkly." And yet our nature is 
 so far nearly related to the Divine Nature 
 that some things can be " clearly seen — 
 even His eternal Power and Godhead." 
 Moreover Christianity, I think, assumes 
 
54 AntJiropomorphism in Theology. 
 
 that we have faculties enabhng us to re- 
 cognize certain truths which we could not 
 have discovered for ourselves. It seems 
 to me that the very sense of mystery 
 which is sometimes so oppressive to us 
 confirms this representation of the facts. 
 For this sense of oppression can only arise 
 from some organs of mental vision watch- 
 ing and waiting for a light which they 
 have been formed to see, but from which 
 our own investigations cannot lift the veil. 
 If that veil is to be lifted at all, the 
 evidence is that it must be lifted for us. 
 Physical Science does not even tend to 
 solve any one of the ultimate questions 
 which it concerns us most to know, and 
 which it interests us most to ask. It is 
 according to the analogy and course of 
 Nature that to these questions there should 
 be some answering voice, and that it should 
 tell us things such as we are able in some 
 measure to understand. Nor ought it to 
 be thought a thing incredible with us that 
 the system disclosed should be in a sense 
 
Aiithropoviorphism in Theology. ^^ 
 
 anthropomorphic — that is to say, that it 
 should bear some near relation to our own 
 faculties of mind and soul and spirit. For 
 all we do know, and all the processes of 
 thought by which knowledge is acquired, 
 involve and imply the truth that our mind 
 is indeed made in some real sense in the 
 image of the Creator, although intellectually 
 its powers are very limited, and morally its 
 condition is very low. 
 
 In this conclusion as well answering all 
 the facts — full of mystery though they be 
 —the very greatest teachers and seers in 
 Physical Science, not less than the great- 
 est apostles and prophets of Revelation, 
 have been content to rest. Lord Bacon, 
 the author of the " Novum Organon " — he 
 who laid down that system of investigating 
 nature on which all progress in physics 
 has been founded — has expressed in noble 
 language the spirit in which the student of 
 nature should conduct his investigations — 
 neither expecting from his own mind the 
 solution of all difficulties — nor distrusting 
 
56 AntJiropomorphisin in Theology. 
 
 its power to recognize partial revelations 
 of the truth. Let me conclude with his 
 Student's Prayer. 
 To God, the Father, God, the Word, 
 God, the Spirit, we pour forth most humble 
 and hearty supplications, that He, remem- 
 bering the calamities of mankind and the 
 pilgrimage of this our life, in which we 
 wear out days few and evil, would please 
 to open to us new refreshments out of the 
 fountains of His goodness for the alleviating 
 of our miseries. This, also, we humbly and 
 earnestly beg that human things may not 
 prejudice such as are Divine ; neither that 
 from the unlocking of the gates of sense, 
 and the kindling of a greater natural light, 
 anything of increduhty or intellectual night 
 may arise in our minds towards the Divine 
 mysteries. But rather that by our mind 
 thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy 
 and vanities, and yet subject and perfectly 
 given up to the Divine oracles, there may 
 be given unto Faith the things that are 
 Faith's. Amen. 
 
©II tlj^ ipot|ms ftat ^mmEls HIT 
 J^ut0mEta;. 
 
 A REPLY TO PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S ADDRESS 
 BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, AT THE 
 LATE MEETING IN BELFAST. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. PROFESSOR WATTS, D.D. 
 
 Assembly's College, Belfast. 
 
II. 
 
 ON THE HYPOTHESIS THAT 
 ANIMALS ARE AUTOMATA. 
 
 THIS lecture owes its origin to certain 
 proceedings connected with the re- 
 cent meeting of the British Association in 
 Belfast. The programme embraced two 
 public lectures — one by Professor Tyndall, 
 and the other by Professor Huxley. The 
 former was inaugural, the latter was volun- 
 tary. These lectures now constitute a 
 portion of the history of the learned body 
 under whose auspices they were delivered, 
 and have brought about a crisis in its 
 organic life. They have revealed to all 
 men what to many needed no revelation — 
 
6o On the Hypothesis that 
 
 that between theism and atheism there can 
 be no fellowship on the field of science. 
 These lectures were an open proclamation 
 of war — of war, not simply against Chris- 
 tianity, but of war against the fundamental 
 truth of all religion and morality — of war 
 against the idea of a personal God. 
 Having thrown down the gauntlet on the 
 platform of the Ulster Hall, in terms by 
 no means complimentary, the lecturer 
 who tendered it declined to meet, face 
 to face, on that same platform, those 
 who accepted the challenge. There was, 
 therefore, no alternative left to men who 
 are set for the defence of religion and pub- 
 lic morals, thus ruthlessly assailed, but to 
 examine, in some such way as the present, 
 the arguments advanced by these eminent 
 atomic, molecular chiefs. As my reply to 
 Dr. Tyndall's Atomic Theory of the Uni- 
 verse is already published, I shall, in this 
 paper, devote my attention to the exami- 
 nation of Professor Huxley's lecture on the 
 Automatism of Animal Ors^anisms. 
 
Animais are Autojnata, 6 1 
 
 As an apology for venturing to criticise 
 tlie arguments of so high a physiological 
 authority, I may be permitted to avail 
 myself of one furnished by Professor 
 Huxley himself, in his reply to Sir Wm. 
 Thomson's Essay on Geological Time : 
 *' It is true that the charges brought 
 forward by the other side involve the 
 consideration of matters quite foreign to 
 the pursuits with which I am ordinarily 
 occupied ; but, in that respect, I am only 
 in the position which is, nine times out of 
 ten, occupied by counsel, who nevertheless 
 contrive to gain their causes, mainly by 
 force of mother-wit and common sense, 
 aided by some training in other intel- 
 lectual exercises." Armed by such a 
 precedent, and knowing, as a matter of 
 fact, that Professor Huxley's "training" in 
 physiology has not made him a psycholo- 
 gist, " I proceed to put my pleading before 
 you." 
 
 At the outset it is but due to this 
 eminent physiologist to say that, notwith- 
 
62 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 standing the temper revealed at the close 
 of his lecture in the nicknames by which 
 he indicated his estimate of the morality 
 and intelligence of Christian ministers, his 
 exposition of that part of the structure 
 of animal organisms entitled the nervous 
 system was exceedingly lucid. As one 
 followed him from point to point, it was 
 very difficult to refrain from exclaiming, 
 in the language of the Psalmist, " I will 
 praise Thee, for I am fearfully and won- 
 derfully made."' That no such utterance 
 was evoked from the lecturer, some may 
 say was due to the fact that he was not 
 treating of the origin of the organism, but 
 simply of the action of one of its parts ; 
 that he was dealing with physiology and 
 not with psychology, and that it did not 
 come in his way to point out the teleo- 
 logical bearings of his subject. 
 
 Such an explanation will hardly suffice ; 
 for the expositor, in taking the ground 
 that all the phenomena presented in the 
 movements of animal organisms are fully 
 
An una Is arc Autoniata. 63 
 
 accounted for on the hypothesis that they 
 are mere automata, has left no room for 
 any psychological hypothesis. He may 
 tell us, as he did, that his automatic hypo- 
 thesis leaves the question whether animals 
 have souls, and if so, whether these souls 
 are immortal, an open question ; but in 
 doing so he merely repeats, in the case of 
 the soul, the argumentative policy he has 
 pursued in dealing with the momentous 
 question of the being of God. Giving all 
 his energy to the exorcism of mind from 
 the organic and inorganic worlds, he hesi- 
 tates in presence of the ideal desolation 
 wrought, and oscillates between theism and 
 atheism. To such an extent has this policy 
 hitherto dominated his deliverances, that 
 some have regarded the charge of atheism 
 preferred against him as altogether ground- 
 less. The prevalent misconception on this 
 point will be a sufficient apology for a 
 somewhat formal statement of the grounds 
 on which this charge is based. 
 
 In his ''Evidence as to Man's Place in 
 
64 0)1 the Hypothesis that 
 
 Nature" (p. io8), Professor Huxley makes 
 the following statement : " But even leav- 
 ing Mr. Darwin's view aside, the wdiole 
 analogy of natural operations furnishes so 
 complete and crushing an argument against 
 the intervention of any but what are termed 
 secondary causes, in the production of all 
 the phenomena of the universe, that in 
 view of the intimate relations betw^een 
 man and the rest of the living world, and 
 between the forces exerted by the latter 
 and all other forces, I can see no excuse for 
 doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of 
 nature's great progression from the form- 
 less to the formed, from the inorganic to 
 the organic, from blind force to conscious 
 intellect and will." 
 
 On this statement of the case, theism is 
 necessarily excluded. There is no room left 
 for an antecedent Intelligence. The doctrine 
 taught is, that the phenomena of the inor- 
 ganic and organic worlds have come forth 
 from unintelligent, purposeless, blind force 
 — and that, too, without " the intervention of 
 
Animals are Automata. 65 
 
 any but what are termed secondary causes." 
 Now as these secondary causes have no 
 other background or source, save this same 
 bhnd force, they cannot be ascribed to any 
 outside intelligent authorship. Professor 
 Huxley, therefore, in recognising secondary 
 causes as factors in this general melee of 
 causal agency, from whose fertile efficiency 
 nature's great progression in endless, mar- 
 vellous march, moves on, cannot be re- 
 garded as recognising the existence of an 
 ante-mundane intelligence. 
 
 Such is his position : is it defensible t 
 Only on one condition — viz., that an effect 
 may transcend its cause. If the ultimate, 
 and, at the outset, the sole cause in exist- 
 ence, be force, and force be blind, then, 
 except on the assumption that the effect 
 may transcend its cause, no offspring of 
 that cause can have eyes. If the fountain- 
 head of the whole phenomena of the whole 
 universe be destitute of intelligence, it is 
 surely most unphilosophical to infer intelH- 
 gence in the streams. If, as we are told, 
 
 5 
 
66 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 and as the constitution of our nature com- 
 pels us to hold, nothing can come out 
 of nothing, how comes it to pass that 
 Professor Huxley (who, by the way, re- 
 cognises Philosophy as the mother of the 
 sciences) can educe, by a process of 
 evolution from this same blind, uncon- 
 scious, unintelligent cause, t*he marvellous 
 phenomena of ^* conscious, intellect and 
 will"? If out of nothing, nothing comes, 
 how are we to account for the emergence of 
 consciousness, Intellect, and will from the 
 womb of an unconscious, unintelligent 
 thing called force ? The only reply pos- 
 sible to him is, that he does not infer these 
 phenomena, but finds them. Well, as It is 
 the phenomena he finds, and as the force Is 
 the thing inferred, how is it that he reasons 
 back from the phenomena of a conscious 
 intellect and will, to a blind, unconscious, 
 unintelligent thing, and pronounces it the 
 author of them all ? How is such a 
 process of scientific speculation to be vin- 
 dicated before the bar of this same con- 
 
Animals are Automata, 67 
 
 scions intelligence ? Why, the fact is., that 
 the process can be conducted only " at the 
 modest cost '^ of the surrender of the very 
 fundamental principle of all science and 
 philosophy upon which Professors Huxley 
 and Tyndall insist— viz., that the cause 
 must account for all the phenomena ; or, 
 to put it thus, that out of nothing, nothing 
 comes. This principle, atheists imagine, is 
 subversive of the whole doctrine of creation 
 ex nihilo ; but a mo-ment's reflection ought 
 to satisfy any candid intelligence that it is 
 subversive of the doctrine of the evolution 
 of an intelligent, conscious, personal being 
 from a cause destitute of intelligence, con- 
 sciousness, or will. 
 
 Their fundamental is ours ; and all we 
 ask is, that they speculate in conformity 
 with it> When they reconcile with the 
 principle that the cause must account for 
 all the phenomena, the dogma that unin- 
 telligent, unconscious force, is a cause 
 sufficient to account for the wondrous 
 phenomena of consciousness, intelligence. 
 
68 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 and will, they will have achieved two 
 grand results : (i) They will have sub- 
 verted the foundation of all reasoning ; 
 and (2) They will have made scientific 
 progress, in the future, an impossibility. 
 Till these results shall have been attained, 
 they must excuse those whose minds are 
 governed by laws of thought which compel 
 them to demand for all the phenomena of 
 the universe, including intellect and will, 
 an adequate cause, if they cannot surrender 
 their intellectual birthright, to accept a 
 dogma which rests on the unscientific 
 assumption that the cause need not ne- 
 cessarily account for all the phenomena ! 
 
 It is worth while to look at the reasons 
 which led Professor Huxley to utter this 
 marvellous verdict. His reason is, the 
 intimacy of the relations of man and the 
 rest of the living world, and that intimacy 
 which obtains between the living world 
 and all other forces. In other words, 
 man is so exquisitely adapted to his sur- 
 roundings, so much at home amid the 
 
Anifuals are Automata. 69 
 
 fauna and flora of his dwelling-place, — 
 and these fauna and flora, again, so well 
 adapted to their environments, — that the 
 scientist regards the whole arrangements 
 as furnishing a complete and crushing 
 argument against the intervention of any 
 but secondary causes, and warranting the 
 conclusion that this whole array of orderly, 
 intimate, harmonious relations, has come 
 forth from blind force ! This is but an- 
 other way of saying that the more exquisite 
 the arrangements and adaptations, the 
 less is the evidence of design. Professor 
 Huxley need not any longer regard the 
 Darwinian hypothesis as merely provisional, 
 or speak of it as not proved. The funda- 
 mental principle of that hypothesis lies at 
 the basis of the doctrine here expressed. 
 If the phenomena of the universe be the 
 products of a self-evolving force, destitute 
 itself of the faintest kindling of intelligence, 
 and if these phenomena, including man, be 
 so intimately related to one another, and 
 to the blind force whence they spring, then 
 
70 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 Darwinism ought to receive from him no 
 merely equivocal advocacy, but the most 
 unqualified support. In this, at least, they 
 are agreed — if we are to judge of Professor 
 Huxley's views from the passage just cited, 
 — that the phenomena of this universe, 
 including earth's fauna and flora, exhibit 
 no trace of an intelligent Cause, and are 
 traceable to a blind, unconscious force ! I 
 leave it to an intelligent public to judge 
 whether I was justified in calling upon 
 Professor Huxley to discuss the question, 
 ' Do animal organisms furnish, in their 
 structure and action, evidence of the ex- 
 istence and operation of an antecedent 
 intelligent Cause ? ' Surely he who ascribes 
 the whole phenomena of the universe, or- 
 ganic and inorganic, to. blind force, does, 
 thereby, deny that these phenomena owe 
 their origin to the existence, or operation, 
 of any order or rank of intelligence what- 
 ever. 
 
 Now it does avail but little here, to point 
 to the fact that Professor Huxley, when 
 
Animals are Automata, 7 1 
 
 charged with atheism, replied that he could 
 not take this position with honesty, or deny 
 the existence of a God, inasmuch as it is, 
 and always has been, a favourite tenet, that 
 atheism is as absurd, logically speaking, as 
 polytheism. 
 
 This defence but serves to confirm 
 the truth of the charge ; for the in- 
 stance adduced in vindication simply 
 illustrates the characteristic of Professor 
 Huxley's writings already referred to. 
 He excludes God from the universe, and 
 refers all its wondrous orders of being 
 to blind force, and then, when called to 
 account, hesitates to espouse atheism be- 
 cause of its alleged absurdity. He does, in 
 fact, just what he did on the platform of 
 the British Association — he oscillates be- 
 tween truth and error. I ask, in view of 
 Professor Huxley's eminence and acknow- 
 ledged merits as a physiologist, would it not 
 be desirable to have this oscillation brought 
 to an end, and have the needle of his 
 understanding fixed steadily upon that true 
 
7 2 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 pole and life-centre, apart from which the 
 soul of man cannot find rest ? It is but 
 fair to give him the benefit of his repudia- 
 tion of atheism ; but it is due to the 
 interest of truth and public morals, that 
 side by side with this we place his re- 
 pudiation of the doctrine that the universe 
 furnishes evidence of the existence of an 
 intelligent Author. The two statements 
 are utterly irreconcileable ; and he whose 
 principles have given birth to such palpable 
 contradictions, ought, at least, to abstain 
 from statements whose only effect upon 
 minds which accept assertions for argu- 
 ments, must be to infect them with that 
 feverish unrest revealed in the sentences 
 referred to above. We grant to men of 
 science the right to frame working hypo- 
 theses, to help them in their scrutiny of 
 nature, but this liberty is not without its 
 law. It is limited by the facts and princi- 
 ples already established. And as, on the 
 one hand, no man is justified in framing, 
 in the exercise of the so-called " scientific 
 
Animals are Automata, 73 
 
 imagination," a hypothesis in conflict with 
 the essential principles of the Newtonian 
 system of the universe, so, on the other, 
 no man is entitled to frame a hypo- 
 thesis which involves the denial of the 
 evidence of a spirit in man, or of the testi- 
 mony of the phenomena of the universe to 
 the existence, wisdom, beneficence, justice, 
 and power of God ! ''Nulliis i7t microcosmo 
 Spirittis ; nulliis in macrocosmo Dens]' 
 
 Now it is for these reasons that I feel 
 constrained, in my place and according to 
 my measure, to examine the hypothesis 
 that animal organisms are mere automata. 
 This hypothesis professes to find in the 
 physical organisms of animals, and their 
 environment, a sufficient cause for all 
 their movements, independent of their 
 possessing any inherent power of self- 
 determination. All their actions, it is 
 assumed, can be accounted for by referring 
 them to molecular changes in the sensor 
 and motor nerves, the latter causally 
 connected with the former, while they in 
 
74 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 turn owe their origin to the action of 
 their environments. Such is the doctrine ; 
 and for it Professor Huxley claims the 
 sanction of Descartes and of modern 
 physiology. In attempting to establish 
 this claim he undertakes to show that a 
 series of propositions, embracing the essen- 
 tial elements of this hypothesis, constitute 
 the foundation and essence of the modern 
 physiology of the nervous system, and are 
 fully expressed and illustrated in the'works 
 of Descartes. 
 
 The first of these propositions is as 
 follows : " The brain is the organ of sensa- 
 tion, thought, and emotion ; that is to 
 say, some change in the matter oi this 
 organ is the invariable antecedent of the 
 state of consciousness to which each of 
 these terms is applied." 
 
 In justification of his attributing such 
 doctrine to this renowned intuitionist, our 
 learned physiologist cites' the following 
 passage from the " Principles of Philoso- 
 phy." . " Although the soul is united to 
 
Animals a^^e Automata. 75 
 
 the whole body, its principal functions are, 
 nevertheless, performed in the brain ; it 
 is here that it not only understands and 
 imagines, but also feels; and this is effected 
 by the intermediation of the nerves, which 
 extend in the form of delicate threads from 
 the brain to all parts of the body, to which 
 they are attached in such a manner, that 
 we can hardly touch any part of the body 
 without setting the extremity of some 
 nerve in motion. This motion passes along 
 the nerve to that part of the brain which 
 is the common sensorium, as I have suf- 
 ficiently explained in my treatise on 
 Dioptrics ; and the movements which thus 
 travel along the nerves, as far as that part 
 of the brain with which the soul is closely 
 joined and united, cause it, by reason of 
 their diverse characters, to have different 
 thoughts. And it is these different thoughts 
 of the soul, which arise immediately from the 
 movements that are excited by the nerves 
 in the brain, which we properly term our 
 feelings, or the perceptions of our senses." 
 
76 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 To strengthen the evidence furnished in 
 the preceding sentences, Professor Huxley 
 adduces a sentence or two from '' Les 
 Passions de I'Ame/' which run thus : " The 
 opinion of those who think that the soul 
 receives its passions in the heart, is of no 
 weight, for it is based upon the fact that 
 the passions cause a change to be felt 
 in that organ ; and it is easy to see that 
 this change is felt, as if it were in the 
 heart, only by the intermediation of a 
 little nerve which descends from the 
 brain to it ; just as pain is felt, as if 
 it were in the foot, by the intermedia- 
 tion of the nerves of the foot ; and the 
 stars are perceived, as if they were in 
 the heavens, by the intermediation of 
 their light and of the optic nerves. So 
 that it is no more necessary for the soul 
 to exert its functions immediately in the 
 heart to feel its passions there, than 
 it is necessary that it should be in the 
 heavens to see the stars there." 
 
 Having cited these passages, Professor 
 
Animals are Automata. 77 
 
 Huxley proceeds as if he had proved his 
 proposition, and affirms that "this definite 
 allocation of all the phenomena of con- 
 sciousness to the brain as their organ, 
 was a step the value of which it is dif- 
 ficult for us to appraise, so completely 
 has Descartes' view incorporated itself 
 with every-day thought and common 
 langiaage." 
 
 We Avere often told, during the meet- 
 ing of the British Association in Belfast, 
 that science is distinguished for its cool- 
 ness ; and certainly, if we are to appraise 
 Professor Huxley's claims upon the basis 
 of this exposition of the Cartesian Philo- 
 sophy, he must rank among the most 
 eminent scientists. It required no or- 
 dinary measure of this scientific grace to 
 face the philosophic and scientific world, 
 both on the platform of the British As- 
 sociation and through the pages of the 
 Fortnightly Review, and endeavour de- 
 liberately to prove that Rene Descartes 
 (the author of one of the most notable 
 
78 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 of all the a-priori arguments for the 
 being of God) was a Sensationist — that 
 he held and taught that consciousness has, 
 as its invariable antecedent, a change in 
 the matter of the brain ! 
 
 With regard to the passages cited in 
 proof, it may be remarked — 
 
 1. That they furnish no ground for the 
 doctrine ascribed to Descartes in Professor 
 Huxley's first proposition. His proposi- 
 tion is universal, embracing and jumbling 
 together the whole phenomena of con- 
 sciousness, without discrimination and 
 without exception — all thought, all emo- 
 tion, as well as sensation — whilst the 
 passages adduced have reference simply 
 to thoughts caused by sensation. 
 
 2. All that they teach is, that the 
 soul, instead of being diffused throughout 
 the body, resides in the brain, and holds 
 communion with the body and external 
 nature through the intermediation of 
 the nerves. Descartes simply repudiates 
 the notion that it is necessary for the 
 
Animals are Automata, 79 
 
 soul to be, or to exert its functions, 
 immediately in the place \Yhere it ap- 
 prehends the phenomena to exist ; as 
 he says, in the very instances specified 
 by Professor Huxley, "It is no more 
 necessary for the soul to exert its 
 functions immediately in the heart, to 
 feel its passions there, than it is neces- 
 sary that it should be in the heavens to 
 see the stars there." 
 
 3. To infer from this statement in 
 regard to the habitat of the soul, and 
 the medium through which it holds 
 communication with the members of 
 the body and the stars of heaven, the 
 sweeping generahzation that the soul 
 has no thought or emotion, save those 
 received or excited by antecedent nervous 
 or cerebral thrills, is. not only to outrun 
 the data relied on in the quotations, but 
 to make Descartes contradict himself 
 
 The proposition which Professor Huxley 
 enunciates as expressing the views of Des- 
 cartes in regard to the relation of the soul 
 
8o 0?i the Hypothesis that 
 
 to the brain, is contrary to the fundamental 
 principles of the Cartesian Philosophy. 
 What Professor Huxley affirms Descartes 
 denies. Instead of holding that the soul 
 is dependent upon the molecular changes 
 which take place in the brain for all its 
 thoughts and emotions, Descartes laid it 
 down as the first principle of his philo- 
 sophy, that the soul knows itself first, 
 and knows the body in which it dwells, 
 and the external world, subsequently, and 
 because of the primary truths which belong 
 to, and are inseparable from, its very being. 
 It were to insult the intelligence of our age, 
 to enter formally on the proof of Descartes' 
 position as an intuitionist. Let the follow- 
 ing suffice. Referring to such thinkers as 
 our modern atomists, Descartes remarks — 
 " Those who have not thought in an orderly 
 manner have had other opinions on this 
 subject, because they have never distin- 
 guished carefully enough their soul, or 
 that which thinks, from the body, or 
 that which is extended in length, breadth, 
 
Animals are Automata. 8i 
 
 and depth. For while they had no dif- 
 ficulty in beheving that they were in the 
 world, and that they had more assurance 
 of it than of any other thing, neverthe- 
 less, as they have not taken care that 
 by them, when it was a question of meta- 
 physical certainty, attention ought only 
 to be given to their thought, but on the 
 contrary have preferred to believe that it 
 was their body which they saw with their 
 eyes, which they touched with their hands, 
 and to which they attributed preposterously 
 {inal a propos) the faculty of feeling, they 
 have not apprehended clearly the nature 
 of their soul. 
 
 " But when the thought which takes 
 cognizance of itself in this way, notwith- 
 standing that it persists still in doubting 
 other things, uses circumspection in trying 
 to extend its knowledge further, it finds 
 in itself primarily ideas of several things ; 
 and while it contemplates them simply, 
 and does not assert that there may be 
 anything outside of itself which may be 
 
 6 
 
82 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 like these ideas, and also does not deny 
 that there may, it is not in danger of 
 being mistaken. It finds also some common 
 notions, of which it constructs demonstra- 
 tions which persuade it so absolutely, that 
 it cannot doubt their truth while it applies 
 itself to them. For example, it has in itself 
 ideas of numbers and figures ; it has also, 
 among its common notions, ' that if equals 
 be added to equals, the wholes will be 
 equals,' and many others as evident as this, 
 by which it is easy to prove that the three 
 angles of a triangle are equal to two right- 
 angles," etc. (" Les Principes de la Philo- 
 sophic " : Premiere Partie, §§ 12, 13.) 
 
 The foregoing may sufiice to prove that 
 Rene Descartes was not a Sensationist. 
 Holding — as the passages referred to prove 
 he did — that all knowledge has its origin 
 in the soul, that it is the soul which knows 
 and sees and feels, and that its knowledge 
 of other things, including the body, is 
 possible only on the intuitive perception 
 of its own nature and powers and innate 
 
Animals are Automata. 83 
 
 principles, he could not, without an ab- 
 solute surrender of his whole system, turn 
 round and adopt the sensational, mate- 
 rialistic dogma, that the brain is the organ 
 of the soul in such a sense as that all our 
 thoughts and emotions — our innate ideas 
 and primary beliefs, as well as those ex- 
 cited by our sensations — require as their 
 invariable antecedent some change in its 
 matter. 
 
 As Professor Tyndall has discussed the 
 point here raised, it may not be uninterest- 
 ing to hear his verdict. In his '' Fragments 
 of Science," pp. 1 19-21, this able physicist 
 remarks : '' Associated with this wonderful 
 mechanism of the animal body we have 
 phenomena no less certain than those 
 of physics, but between which and the 
 mechanism we discern no necessary con- 
 nexion. A man, for example, can say, 
 I feel, I think, I love ; but how does con- 
 sciousness infuse itself into the problem } 
 . . . . The passage from the physics 
 of the brain to the corresponding facts of 
 
84 On the. Hypothesis that 
 
 consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that 
 a definite thought and a definite molecular 
 action in the brain occur simultaneously; 
 we do not possess the intellectual organ, 
 nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, 
 which would enable us to pass, by a process 
 of reasoning, from the one to the other. 
 They appear together, but we do not know 
 
 why The chasm between the two 
 
 classes of phenomena would still remain 
 intellectually impassable. Let the con- 
 sciousness oilove, for example, be associated 
 with a right-handed spiral motion of the 
 molecules of the brain, and the conscious- 
 ness of hate with a left-handed spiral 
 motion. We should then know when we 
 love that the motion is in one direction, 
 and when we hate that the motion is in the 
 other ; but the ' WHY } ' would remain as 
 unanswerable as before." 
 
 Such is Professor Tyndall's account of 
 the two classes of phenomena in question 
 — the phenomena of consciousness, and the 
 phenomena of the molecular changes of 
 
Anivials are Aittornata, 85 
 
 the brain. They occur siimtltaneoiLsly ; and 
 between the two, he confesses, he can see 
 no necessary connexion. *' They appear 
 together, but we know not why." 
 
 This is a very different doctrine from 
 that advanced in Professor Huxley's first 
 proposition. According to Professor Tyn- 
 dall, the change in the brain occurs simul- 
 taneously zvith the thought or emotion ; 
 according to Professor Huxley, it invariably 
 precedes. The invariable antecedence of the 
 change to the state of consciousness was 
 necessary to the argument ; but here, as in 
 many other instances, the molecular chief 
 has broken the links of the physiological 
 chain. The antecedence destroyed, the 
 causal relationship is disproved, and, with 
 it, the hypothesis that the environment 
 determines the molecular change in the 
 sensor nerves, and, through them, the 
 changes in the motor nerves, which deter- 
 mine the movements of the muscles, and, 
 ultimately, of the whole organism. It is 
 hard to see one's offspring strangled in the 
 
86 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 very birth ; nor does it tend to mitigate 
 paternal anguish, to discover that the hand 
 which perpetrated the deed was the hand 
 of a trusted friend. 
 
 The only other proposition meriting 
 formal notice, is that which affirms that 
 " the motion of the matter of a sensory 
 nerve may be transmitted through the 
 brain to motor nerves, and thereby give 
 rise to contraction of the muscles to which 
 these motor nerves are distributed ; and 
 this reflection of motion from a sensory 
 into a motor nerve may take place without 
 volition, or even contrary to it." 
 
 In support of this proposition, in behalf 
 of which he claims the results of recent 
 research in nerve physiology, Professor 
 Huxley cites, with approval, the following 
 example adduced by Descartes : — " If some 
 one moves his hand rapidly towards our 
 eyes, as if he were going to strike us, 
 although we know that he is a friend, that 
 he does it only in jest, and that he will be 
 careful to do us no harm, nevertheless it 
 
Animals ar^e Automata. 87 
 
 will be hard to keep from winking. And 
 this shows that it is not by the agency of 
 the soul that the eyes shut, since this action 
 is contrary to that volition which is the 
 only, or at least the chief, function of the 
 soul ; but it is because the mechanism of 
 our body is so disposed, that the motion of 
 the hand towards our eyes excites another 
 movement in our brain, and this sends the 
 animal spirits into those muscles which 
 cause the eyelids to move." 
 
 Now it will be observed that the doc- 
 trine of Descartes, as expressed in the 
 proposition and illustrated by the example 
 cited, comes very far short of the doctrine 
 advocated by Professor Huxley. Descartes 
 does not allege, nor could he (without 
 placing himself in direct antagonism with 
 the fundamental principles of his philo- 
 sophy) allege, that the so-called reflex 
 action is the normal action of the organism. 
 He merely says, that through the media- 
 tion of the animal spirits, and without the 
 intervention of the soul, the requisite action 
 
88 Ofi the Hypothesis that 
 
 of the brain, and of the appropriate mus- 
 cles, may take place in certain cases. This, 
 however, is a very different thing from 
 alleging that reflex, unmediated, unvo- 
 litional action, is the rule. Involuntary- 
 winking does not prove that men never 
 will to wink ! The fact that in some in- 
 stances there occur actions undetermined 
 by our wills, cannot, without doing violence 
 to our consciousness, be regarded as estab- 
 lishing the universal proposition that we 
 are mere automata, whose actions, one and 
 all, are determined by our environments, 
 independently of understanding, reason, 
 or will. We are conscious that our under- 
 standing and reason and will do, each 
 according to its measure and function, 
 deal with the data of sensation, and that 
 the actions which make up the history of 
 our daily activity are determined by their 
 arbitrament. 
 
 A complete analysis of the phenomena 
 presented in the instance adduced, will dis- 
 prove the alleged automatism of this par- 
 
Anhnals are Automata. 89 
 
 ticular action of winking. We have pheno- 
 mena belonging to each of the three great 
 classes into which metaphysicians divide 
 the operations of the human mind. i. There 
 is an act of cognition, by which the mind 
 apprehends what, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, and without the guarantee of 
 friendship, must be regarded as placing the 
 eye in peril. 2. There is, consequent upon 
 this apprehension, a feeling of pain, which 
 cannot be said to be purely physical, inas- 
 much as no injury has as yet been inflicted, 
 but must be purely mental, arising from 
 the anticipation of suffering apparently 
 imminent. 3. There is a cognate act of 
 conation, or effort to shield the imperilled 
 organ from the impending danger. This 
 act of conation, it is worthy of note, 
 extends not simply to the closing of the 
 eyelids, but to the raising of the hands 
 into a position of defence, and to the 
 sudden retraction of the head to avoid the 
 stroke. In a word, we have, in the exam- 
 ple relied on by Professor Huxley, not only 
 
90 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 mental action, but mental action in every 
 category of nomological psychology. We 
 have cognition, feeling, conation. There is 
 the apprehension of danger, the mental 
 emotion consequent thereon, and there is 
 the intelligent use of such means of defence 
 as are within the immediate reach and 
 power of the agent. He who will, may 
 regard all these acts and passions as auto- 
 matic, but he can do so only by a superficial 
 analysis which fails to detect, and estimate, 
 the determining elements of the case. 
 
 In confirmation of this analysis and esti- 
 mate of the instance of automatic action 
 advanced by the expositor of Descartes, it 
 is simply necessary to substitute one's own 
 hand for that of the friend. Of course all 
 the purely physical phenomena incident to 
 the pretended blow, in the one case, are 
 brought into existence the moment one 
 moves his hand as if he would strike his 
 eye. Nevertheless there is no movement 
 of the eyelids, no attempt to raise the 
 other hand for defence, or to retract the 
 
Anhnals are Automata. 91 
 
 head to avert or avoid the blow. How, or 
 why, is this ? The reason is as obvious as 
 it is fatal to automatism. It is simply this 
 — the guarantee in the latter case is per- 
 fect and absolute, whilst, in the former, it 
 was imperfect and unreliable. No one can 
 be sure that his friend, however friendly and 
 well-intentioned, may not, through inaccu- 
 racy of aim, under-estimate of force, or 
 from some other cause, err in the direction 
 or extent of the movement of his hand, 
 and thus inflict, however unintentionally, 
 a serious injury upon one of the most 
 important of all the members of this mar- 
 vellous organism. 
 
 Thus, without raising any question in re- 
 gard to occult volitions, and dealing simply 
 with the palpable facts of the instance sub- 
 mitted by Professor Huxley himself, it is 
 manifest that they furnish no ground for 
 the conclusion that motions indicative of 
 purpose can be accounted for by mere 
 unmediated molecular change. 
 
 But whilst the example adduced gives 
 
92 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 no countenance to the automatic hypo- 
 thesis, it is unquestionably fatal to a cog- 
 nate hypothesis advocated by Professor 
 Huxley — the hypothesis which refers the 
 whole phenomena of the organic and 
 inorganic world to blind, unconscious, 
 unintelligent force. It is eminently teleo- 
 logical. Assuming for the present that the 
 action of winking is the offspring of a reflex 
 action unconnected with the will of the 
 organism, directly or indirectly, consciously 
 or unconsciously, will "the questioning 
 impulse " permit us to rest satisfied with 
 the reference of it to " the animal spirits " 
 of Descartes, or the " molecular change " 
 of Professor Huxley ? Descartes himself 
 held very different doctrine, and in the 
 passage quoted, seems to intimate a very 
 difTerent solution of the alleged involun- 
 tary action — ascribing it to the disposition 
 of the inecJianisni of our body. If me- 
 chanism implies a mechanic, if disposition, 
 revealing intelligent purpose, implies a 
 disposer, the language of Descartes, fairly 
 
Animals are Automata. 93 
 
 interpreted, may be regarded as carrying 
 with it the implication, that an action so 
 admirably adapted to the preservation of 
 the organ of vision, evinces the existence 
 of an author of the organism, possessing 
 the marvellous constructive resource neces- 
 sary to the production of so exquisite a 
 piece of mechanism. But though Descartes 
 and Huxley, backed by the authority of 
 the whole materialistic school, should agree 
 in referring such an action to a mere pur- 
 poseless wavelet in the matter of the nerves 
 and brain, the human mind must reject 
 the reference. As the action is brought 
 about by a set of specific mechanical ar- 
 rangements, transcending anything ever 
 invented by man, it is impossible for any 
 one, not under the spell and fascination 
 of a pet hypothesis, to believe that it is 
 accounted for by any such reference. Such 
 reference can be made only '' at the modest 
 cost" of sacrificing a primary belief fun- 
 damental to philosophy and science — the 
 belief that every effect must have an ade- 
 
94 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 quate cause. The phenomenon in ques- 
 tion, evincing, as it does, an admirable 
 adaptation of means to an end, exhibits 
 marks of design, and therefore demands 
 as its cause an adequate Intelhgence — an 
 IntelHgence so careful of the organism, and 
 so prescient, that He devises a defensive 
 apparatus, so nicely adjusted and fitted 
 for the ends aimed at, that it acts with a 
 promptness equal to almost any emer- 
 gency, and is so bent on the performance 
 of its function of defence, as almost to 
 refuse obedience to the will, where there 
 is even the faintest possibility of peril 
 to the priceless treasure it has been set 
 to guard. In whatever tower " the death- 
 knell of teleology" is to be tolled, it 
 will be a long time before it is sounded 
 forth from the watch-tower within which 
 Professor Huxley has sought a lodgment 
 for his materialistic automatism. No one 
 who will duly ponder the phenomena 
 presented in the structure and functions of 
 the organ of vision, with, as Mr. Darwin 
 
Anhnals are Atdomata. 95 
 
 expresses it, "all its inimitable contrivances 
 for adjusting the focus to different dis- 
 tances, for admitting different degrees of 
 light, and for the correction of spherical 
 and chromatic aberration," will wonder that 
 even the author of the Natural Selection 
 hypothesis ^as staggered by them ; or 
 that he was compelled to confess that such 
 a solution of such phenomena "seems 
 absurd in the highest degree." (" Origin of 
 Species," p. 143.) Nor will Mr. Darwin's 
 attempt to vindicate such a solution re- 
 duce the hypothesis one thousandth part 
 of a second below the highest gradient on . 
 the scale of absurdity, in the estimation of 
 any mind not already possessed by evolu- 
 tionary prejudices. 
 
 It were a weary business to examine 
 the remaining propositions of this marvel- 
 lous lecture, and profitless as weary, inas- 
 much as the discussion in the line thus 
 marked out must leave untouched the 
 principal facts to be accounted for. These 
 facts are presented in the following pas- 
 
96 071 the Hypothesis that 
 
 sage, quoted from Descartes by Professor 
 Huxley ; and to these the controversy must 
 be hmited. 
 
 " It appears to me," says Descartes, " to 
 be a very remarkable circumstance that no 
 movement can take place, either in the 
 bodies of beasts or even in our own, if 
 these bodies have not in themselves all the 
 organs and instruments by means of which 
 the very same movements would be ac- 
 complished in a machine ; so that even in 
 us the spirit or the soul does not directly 
 move the limb, but only determines the 
 course of that very subtle liquid which is 
 called the animal spirits — which, running 
 continually from the heart, by the brain, 
 into the muscles, is the cause of all the 
 movements of our limbs, and often may 
 cause many different motions, one as easily 
 as the other. And it does not even always 
 exert this determination ; for among the 
 movements which take place in us, there 
 are many which do not depend upon the 
 mind at all — such as the beating of the 
 
Animals are Automata. 97 
 
 heart, the digestion of food, the nutrition, 
 the respiration of those who sleep ; and 
 even in those who are awake, walking, 
 singing, and other similar actions, when 
 they are performed without the mind think- 
 ing about them. And when one who falls 
 from a height throws his hands forward to 
 save his head, it is in virtue of no ratiocina- 
 tion that he performs this action ; it does 
 not depend upon his mind, but takes place 
 merely because his senses, being affected 
 by the present danger, cause some change 
 in his brain, which determines the animal 
 spirits to pass thence into the nerves in such 
 a manner as is required to produce this 
 motion, in the same way as in a machine, 
 and without the mind being able to hinder 
 it." , 
 
 Of this passage Professor Huxley ex- 
 presses his unqualified approbation. He 
 says : " I know in no modern treatise of a 
 more clear and precise statement than this, 
 or a more perfect illustration than this, 
 of what we understand by the automatic 
 
 7 
 
98 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 action of the brain,"— and Huxley's brain 
 embraces the human brain. Suniming up 
 this sketch of these phenomena as given 
 by Descartes, the Professor proceeds : 
 " What he tells us in substance is this — 
 that when a sensation takes place, the 
 animal spirits travel up the sensory 
 nerve, pass to the appropriate part of 
 the brain, and there, as it were, find 
 their way through the pores of the sub- 
 stance of the brain ; and he says that when 
 this has once taken place — when the par- 
 ticles of the brain have themselves been, 
 as it were, shoved aside a little by the 
 single passage of the animal spirits— that 
 the passage is made easier in the same 
 direction for any subsequent flow of animal 
 spirits; and that the repetition of this 
 action makes it easier still, until at length 
 it becomes very easy for the animal spirits 
 to move those particular particles of the 
 brain, the motion of which gives rise to the 
 appropriate sensation — until at length the 
 passage is so very easy that almost any- 
 
Animals are Automata. 99 
 
 thing, especially an associated flow, which 
 may be set a-going^ allows the animal 
 spirits to flow into these already open pores 
 more easily than they would flow in any 
 other direction ; and in this way a flow of 
 the animal spirits recalls the image — the 
 impression made by a former sensory act. 
 That, again, is essentially, in substance, at 
 one," Professor Huxley tells us, '' with all 
 our present physical theories of memory. 
 That memory is a physical process," he 
 alleges, " stands beyond question." 
 
 Such is the theo-ry of Descartes en- 
 dorsed in the Ulster Hall by Professor 
 Huxley, and applauded by a portion of 
 the audience. Substituting " molecular 
 change" for " anim.al spirits," and leaving 
 out the soul, he accepts the theory un- 
 modified. Let us look into it in detail. 
 
 I. In the first place, there are several 
 points in the theory to which vv^e do not 
 only not object, but upon which we insist, 
 and insist as teleologists, to the confusion 
 of atheists. We hold, with Descartes^ 
 
I oo 071 the Hypothesis that 
 
 that the organs and instruments by which 
 our bodily movements are effected, are 
 substantially the same as those by which" 
 like movements would be accomplished 
 in a machine. We believe, as fully as 
 Descartes, or Huxley, in the exquisite 
 mechanism of the human body, and would, 
 if lecturing on the teleology of that mecha- 
 nism, prefer the learned Professor to all 
 other demonstrators. Let us hope that 
 we may have the advantage of a public 
 exposition of this wondrous machinery, by 
 one who is facile princeps in this depart- 
 ment. I shall be glad to sit at his feet 
 as he points out the hinge-joints, the ball- 
 and-socket joints, and the pivot-joint, and 
 the other marvellous mechanical arrange- 
 ments of the human skeleton. And I am 
 sure it will delight us all to see him lay 
 on the sinews and the flesh, and cover 
 them with that wondrous envelope, the 
 skin — pointing out how the muscles are 
 fastened on to the bones at the proper 
 points for exerting the requisite mechanical 
 
Animals are Automata, lOi 
 
 power. And the time would not Hang 
 heavily on our hands, while the accom- 
 plished physiologist would picture to us 
 the arterial and venous systems, in their 
 wondrous correlations ; or while, beginning 
 with the teeth and the saliva, he would trace 
 the process by which food is prepared for, 
 and conveyed to, the stomach, and ex- 
 pound the whole apparatus of digestion 
 by which it is transmuted into chyme, 
 and chyle, and blood, and the marvellous 
 machinery ^f the heart, with its exquisite 
 system of valves by which the life-giving, 
 life-sustaining stream, freighted with the 
 appropriate nourishment, is urged forward 
 for the growth, or sustenance, of the bones, 
 and muscles, and nerves, and brain. 
 
 To all this demonstration we would 
 listen with rapture, and also with awe ; and 
 the words of the Psalmist alone v/ould 
 express our instinctive conviction, that we 
 are fearfully and wonderfully made \ But 
 oh ! how would our admiration of the 
 demonstrator be abated, if, at the close. 
 
I02 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 he should turn upon us, and lay upon the 
 impressible emotions of our hearts towards 
 the Author of such marvellous mechanism 
 — mechanism without a parallel in the 
 whole compass of human invention or con- 
 trivance — the deadly chill of the atheistic 
 verdict, that this exquisite organism was 
 not made at all by the hand of any intelli- 
 gence, but that it came forth by a process 
 of evolution, without the intervention of 
 any but secondary causes, from the womb 
 of blind force ! 
 
 2. Still further : we see no reason for 
 dissenting from the second element of this 
 Cartesian theory — viz., that the soul does 
 not directly move the limb, but moves it 
 mediately, through the instrumentality of 
 what he calls " the animal spirits," or what 
 scientists now call " molecular change." 
 We believe, with Descartes and with 
 Huxley, that the immediate cause of the 
 muscular movement is the mystic change 
 which takes place in the molecules of the 
 nerves of motion. Thus far we are agreed. 
 
Aniinah are Automata. 103 
 
 But having reached this point, we are 
 brought face to face with two mysteries 
 of which Mr. Huxley attempts no account 
 at all. The one is the molecular change 
 in the nerves of motion ; the other is the 
 connexion between that change and the 
 appropriate movement of the muscles, both 
 as to degree and direction. How is it that 
 the proper change takes place in the mole- 
 cules of the proper nerves, and that this 
 is followed by the proper contraction or 
 extension of the proper muscles t Des- 
 cartes accounts for the change in the mole- 
 cules of the nerves by referring it to the 
 soul ; Huxley leaves out this part of his 
 master's theory, and assigns the change 
 no cause whatever; whilst both the master 
 and the disciple are content to say nothing 
 as to the nexus which links the change in 
 the nerves to the appropriate muscular 
 movement. In the hands of the master 
 the theory is simply defective ; in the 
 hands of the disciple it is throughout at 
 war with tlie scientific fundamental, that 
 
I04 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 every effect must have a cause. Descartes, 
 in tracing to the soul the molecular change 
 in the nerves of motion by which the proper 
 muscles are stimulated and guided in their 
 action so as to move the proper limb in 
 the proper direction, to the proper extent, 
 and with the requisite velocity, satisfies, to 
 some extent, that " questioning impulse " 
 of our minds which demands for all phe- 
 nomena an adequate cause. But Professor 
 Huxley, ignoring the existence of any such 
 impulse, would have us rest in the nervous 
 thrill of molecular change — which, although 
 invariably followed, except in abnormal 
 physical estates, by movements indicative 
 of intelligent purpose, is the offspring of 
 nothing save blind force ! And this is the 
 philosopher who complains that theologians 
 will not allow him " to think out his 
 subject scientifically — to go as far as 
 reason leads " ! Does reason lead up to, 
 and rest in, molecular change ? Can any 
 process of thought, ruled by the prin- 
 ciple of causality, rest in a molecular wave- 
 
Animals are Automata, 105 
 
 let as the ultimate cause of intelligent 
 action ? 
 
 Now I think we have in the Atlantic 
 cables, and their arrangements at the Irish 
 and American ends, a very appropriate 
 illustration of the utter inadequacy of Pro- 
 fessor Huxley's account of the movements 
 of the human organism. What would any 
 person, of competent knowledge, think of 
 an electrician, who, in accounting for the 
 perpetually varying movements of the 
 needles at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, 
 would simply say that they were caused 
 by molecular changes in the submarine 
 cables ? Would it not be reasonable to 
 ask such an expositor the following 
 questions ? — 
 
 1. How is it that there are sucJi, cables 
 in existence ? 
 
 2. What originates the molecular changes 
 in their wires ? 
 
 3. What regulates the flow of the electric 
 current, or the tremor of the molecules, so 
 that the needles are moved in the proper 
 
io6 Oil the Hypothesis that 
 
 directions, and so as to produce intelligible 
 signs ? 
 
 4. Who contrived the rhirror for register- 
 ing the faintest thrill ? 
 
 These questions must arise in the mind 
 of any person endowed with "the question- 
 ing impulse," who enters upon the investi- 
 gation of these phenomena : and no answer 
 will satisfy the inquirer which does not 
 recognize in the structure of the cables the 
 hand of an intelligent, purposing, fabri- 
 cator, and place at the ends an intelligent 
 operator. He who stops with the electric 
 thrills of the wires, does not answer a 
 single question of the four just specified — 
 questions, be it observed, which the con- 
 stitution of our nature compels us to ask. 
 And, in the case before us, he who informs 
 us that all our muscular movements are 
 due to tremors in the nerv^es of motion, 
 connected in some undefined way with like 
 tremors in the sensor nerves, does not 
 answer a single question of the correspond- 
 ing four, to which our nature demands an 
 
Animals are Atttomata. 107 
 
 answer at the hands of the physiologist. 
 We- demand from him, on a warrant issued 
 by that philosophy which Professor Huxley 
 proclaims the mother of the sciences, that 
 he answer the following questions : — 
 
 1. How is it that there are such nerv^e- 
 wires in existence ? 
 
 2. What originates the molecular changes 
 by which they are thrilled ? 
 
 3. What regulates the waves by which 
 they are agitated, so that the muscles are 
 moved in the proper measure and direc- 
 tion ? 
 
 4. Who contrived the apparatus by which 
 the nerves move the muscles ? 
 
 How is it that Professor Huxley in his 
 elaborate lecture evaded every one of these 
 questions ? Surely the phenomena warrant 
 us in raising them ; and surely the scientist 
 who dare not face them must have a theory 
 that cannot bear a thorough investigation. 
 Descartes, by placing the soul at the 
 fountain-head of the movement, and giving 
 to it, through '' those very subtle parts of 
 
To8 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 the blood " which he calls the " animal 
 spirits/' command of the nerves, and through 
 the nerves control of the muscles, and 
 through the muscles control and mastery 
 of the members of the body, answers at 
 least two of the questions, whilst his learned 
 eulogist, claiming the support of the most 
 recent physiological discoveries, refuses to 
 answer any of the four, and refers the 
 whole phenomena to molecular change, 
 and then complains, that he is " deafened 
 by the tattoo of the drum ecclesiastic " for 
 going as far as reason leads ! 
 
 , Now I put it to the intelligence of all 
 men, whether a physiologist who simply 
 ascribes all these phenomena to the mo- 
 lecular changes which take place in the 
 nerves, has finished his task as a physiolo- 
 gist ? Were the molecular changes a 
 steady, ceaseless, undiscriminating current, 
 producing aimless, unintelligible motions in 
 the muscles, and thereby agitating the 
 members of the body as the winds of 
 heaven vex the waters of the sea, or agitate 
 
Animals are Automata. 109 
 
 the trees of the forest, there might be some 
 apology for such abrupt repression of the 
 philosophical instinct ; but as the series of 
 molecular changes is sp regulated as to 
 produce in the muscles the requisite con- 
 tractions, or relaxations, for the effecting of 
 specific movements of the members of the 
 body — such movements as necessarily indi- 
 cate an antecedent purpose — the man who 
 does not refer the result, and the closely- 
 linked machinery by which it is brought 
 about, to an antecedent purposer, is as 
 unscientific as he is morally inexcusable. 
 
 3. But the varepov irpoTepov of this 
 Huxleian physiological psychology is yet 
 to be stated. Bringing up the Cartesian 
 theory abreast of the advanced thinking 
 of his own school, he gives us an account 
 of the transit of the first molecular thrill, 
 or tremor, from the point of origination 
 at the extremity of the sensory nerve 
 to its appropriate destination in the brain. 
 Having reached the proper point in the 
 brain, the atomic, or molecular wave, or 
 
1 1 o On the Hypothesis that 
 
 whatever it may be called, finds its way- 
 through the pores of that mysterious 
 substance, '' shoving, as it were, aside " the 
 particles which rnay stand to thwart its 
 progress. This is the pioneer molecular 
 thrill, and by its transit, tunnelling, as it 
 does, its way through the citadel of thought, 
 the passage is made easier in the same 
 direction, for any subsequent current of 
 molecular change. 
 
 Now the chief difficulty suggested on 
 reading this account of the telegraphy of 
 the nervous system of the human organism, 
 is to reconcile it with the manifest intelli- 
 gence of its author. We can see at once 
 how, on Professor Huxley's hypothesis, the 
 transit of the first flow of molecular change 
 should prepare the way for a second, and 
 this again for a third, in the same direc- 
 tion ; but the mystery of mysteries remains 
 unsolved, and must, on this theory, for ever 
 remain unsolved — viz., Hozu did the first 
 current happen to flow to the proper pohit, 
 and deliver its message ^^ to those particular 
 
Animals are Automata, 1 1 1 
 
 particles of the brain, the motion of which 
 gives rise to the appropriate sensation ? " 
 Professor Huxley is very profuse in his 
 instructions on the former point, but is 
 absolutely silent on the latter. He tells us 
 how the first voyage prepares the way for 
 the second, and how this again makes easy 
 the transit of the third ; but he has not one 
 word to say about the only point requiring 
 explanation at the hands of a physiologist, 
 and, especially, at the hands of a physiologist 
 who denies the intervention of intelligence 
 in this wondrous process. The question of 
 questions here is, of course, How is it that 
 the first nervoits thrill found its way to the 
 proper point in the brain, and put itself into 
 comimuiication with the very particles requi- 
 site to originate the appropriate orgastic 
 action ? Let Professor Huxley account 
 for the transmission of the first telegram 
 to the proper cerebral functionaries, in 
 harmony with the theory that the nervous 
 system is not the offspring of an antecedent 
 intellis^ence, and he will have laid atheism 
 
112 On the Hypothesis that ^ 
 
 under a debt of the profoundest gratitude. 
 Till he shall have solved this first problem, 
 we must be excused for holding that his 
 attempt to account for the actions of animal 
 organisms, on the bald hypothesis of molecu- 
 lar change, has proved a failure. If there 
 be no mind to receive the telegram and 
 issue the order, must not the cerebral par- 
 ticles which perform these indispensable 
 functions be themselves intelligent t 
 
 4. Nor does there seem to be any theo- 
 logical reason for calling in question the 
 automatism of those functions which Des- 
 cartes has positively pronounced automatic 
 .—such as the beating of the heart, digestion, 
 nutrition, respiration in sleep — provided the 
 term be not employed in a sense exclusive 
 of intelligence as connected in any way 
 with these wondrous movements. These, 
 we hold with Descartes and Professor 
 Huxley, go on, so far as we are aware, 
 independent of any exercise of our will. 
 The efficient cause of these movements 
 comes not into the sphere of human con- 
 
Animals arc Autoinata. 1 13 
 
 sciousness, and must be sought outside the 
 sphere of human voHtion. In this sense of 
 the term (viz., that these motions are not 
 dependent upon our will) they may be 
 called automatic, but in no other — most 
 certainly not in Professor Huxley's, which 
 makes them dependent upon the will of no 
 one. It is utterly impossible for the human 
 mind to regard these marvellously complex 
 movements as accounted for, when they are 
 ascribed to mere molecular change. Here 
 the mind of man cannot rest. Carrying as 
 they do upon their forefront, the impress of 
 design, they are teleological, and proclaim 
 the doctrine enunciated by Paul to the 
 philosophers of Greece, that in Him we 
 live and move and have our being. No 
 other conclusion will satisfy that principle 
 of the human mind which demands for 
 all the phenomena under investigation an 
 adequate cause. Professor Huxley rests, 
 or tries to rest, in molecular change, as a 
 sufficient cause of all the phenomena of 
 these so-called automatic functions of the 
 
114 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 human organism — functions furnishing the 
 most manifest evidence of the presence and 
 presidency of mind ; while we, with the 
 apostle, recognise the evidence, and infer 
 their dependence upon the exercise of the 
 wisdom and power of Him by whom all 
 things consist, in whose hand our breath is, 
 and whose are all our ways. 
 
 In taking this ground, I am not to be 
 understood as endorsing the antiquated 
 doctrine of occasional causes recently advo- 
 cated by Mr. Alfred Wallace, or as teaching 
 that second causes are destitute of any 
 causal efficiency ; or that they do but fur- 
 nish the occasion on which the first Cause 
 acts. The position taken is simply this : 
 that the organs to which automatic action 
 is ascribed, give unquestionable evidence, in 
 their structure, of the existence and opera- 
 tion of an antecedent intelligent Cause, and 
 that their continuous, incessant activity, 
 implies the presence and efficiency of that 
 same Cause, maintaining them in the pos- 
 ses.sion of their properties, and sustaining 
 
Animals are Autojnata. ■ 115- 
 
 them in the execution of those mysterious 
 functions for which- they were designed. 
 He who fashioned the original germ, and 
 endowed it with life, watches over all its 
 movements, fostering its vital powers, pre- 
 serving and governing its so-called auto- 
 matic functions. No objection to this 
 account of the automatic action of animal 
 organisms can be urged, which does not^. 
 ultimately, involve the denial of an extra- 
 mundane, omnipresent, omniscient Intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 5. But Professor Huxley goes still further, 
 and while he proceeds with a degree of 
 hesitancy, he nevertheless seems inclined 
 to claim scientific authority and sanction 
 for the very conjectures of Descartes. Des- 
 cartes had ventured the conjecture that, as 
 actions of a certain amount of complexity 
 are brought about mechanically and with- 
 out the intervention of consciousness, it 
 may be that the whole of man's physical 
 actions are mechanical — his mind living 
 apart, like one of the gods of Epicurus, 
 
1 1 6 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 but, unlike them, occasionally interfering 
 by means of his volition. Mixing up this 
 conjecture with a Cartesian speculation in 
 regard to the psychology of brutes, which 
 concludes them to be both soulless and 
 senseless, acting as if they saw and felt and 
 heard, whilst destitute of sight or feeling 
 or hearing, he reaches the conclusion that 
 whilst science cannot absolutely determine 
 either for or against this marvellous 
 hypothesis, it has nevertheless received as 
 much and as strong^support from modern 
 physiological research, as any other of 
 Descartes' notions ! Theologians are some- 
 times accredited with saying hard things 
 about science, but it is questionable 
 whether any theologian ever uttered any- 
 thing against science to be compared with 
 this. The sum and substance of this 
 disquisition on brutes, is simply this— that 
 science cannot say whether they see, or 
 feel, or hear! The natural clemency of 
 Professor Huxley's nature, but not his 
 science, leads him to the conclusion that it 
 
Animals are Automata, 1 17 
 
 is much better not to concur with Des- 
 cartes on this point, and to treat the lower 
 animals as if they were susceptible of pain 
 — as weaker brethren, who are bound, like 
 the rest of us, to suffer for the general good. 
 Well, Ave are, of course, to regard this 
 as the outcome of modern scientific re- 
 search. Surely it was not for nothing 
 that Belfast put on its gayest attire and 
 assembled in the Ulster Hall, seeing that 
 we now have it, on the authority of an 
 eminent physiologist, that, on the whole, it 
 is better to gainsay science in our treat- 
 ment of our dogs : for example, to assume 
 that they see us when they look at us, that 
 they hear us when they answer to their 
 names, or that they feel pain when we 
 inflict chastisement ! There is, of course, 
 no place for argument here. The only 
 alternative left, is that which the learned 
 Professor has been compelled to adopt 
 — viz., to trust the testimony of the senses, 
 and reject scientific speculations when they 
 come in conflict with it. Having brough^ 
 
1 1 8 Oil the Hypothesis that 
 
 the speculation into such manifest collision 
 with unquestionable facts, that he dare not 
 act it out in his treatment of the actual 
 animal organisms with which he is ever 
 coming in contact, he has done what any 
 sensible man would do in the circum- 
 stances, — he has rejected the speculation, 
 even though strongly countenanced by 
 recent physiological research, and, how- 
 ever reluctantly, has concluded in ac- 
 cordance with the testimony of his senses. 
 As he felt constrained to abandon this 
 crotchet, it is to be regretted that he should 
 have devoted all but one-half of the 
 lecture to the discussion of it. 
 
 Nor is his abandonment of this Cartesian 
 conjecture to be wondered at, when the 
 data adduced in support of it from modern 
 physiological research are considered. 
 These were, the automatic actions of the 
 human organism, already disposed of ; 
 those of a frog deprived of certain portions 
 of the brain, and those of a wounded 
 French soldier. 
 
Animals are Automata. r 19 
 
 With regard to the case of the frog — 
 a case which figures in the hand-booi^s, 
 entitled " Goltz's balancing experiment," 
 Goltz placing a rough board, about eight 
 or nine inches square, where Professor 
 Huxley, moved, perhaps, by the sympathies 
 of kinship, placed his hand — with regard 
 to this case, I have simply to say that the 
 inferences drawn in regard to the automatic 
 character of the movements were not 
 proved. Dr. Tyndall, in his " Fragments 
 of Science" (p. 133), lays down the prin- 
 ciple — a principle which, on one occasion, 
 he applied to the actions of the President 
 of the British Association — that when our 
 fellow-creatures behave as if they were 
 reasonable, we are warranted in the con- 
 viction that they are reasonable. This 
 principle is as applicable to frogs as to 
 men ; and when we see a frog acting as if 
 it were cognizant of danger — balancing 
 itself on Goltz's board or Huxley's hand ; 
 or, not on one occasion, but as often as the 
 experiment is repeated, jumping so as to 
 
1 20 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 evade an obstacle placed before it, we are 
 compelled, whatever the mere anatomist 
 may say to the contrary, to regard it as 
 not deprived of all the organs of sense, 
 and as still capable, however marred and 
 maltreated by the knife of the physiologist, 
 of taking note of external things, and of 
 adapting its actions to its environment — of 
 behaving, in fact, as a frog in the circum- 
 stances ought to behave. The principle on 
 which this m.arvellous attempt at physio- 
 logical, as distinguished from a logical, 
 modus tolleiis, was conducted, is utterly 
 fallacious. It is utterly fallacious to infer 
 from a partially disorganized organic 
 structure, what elements are concerned in 
 the movements of the perfect animal. The 
 illustrations given, instead of tending to 
 establish the hypothesis in question, must, 
 if duly considered, prove subversive of it. 
 If organisms, even when deprived of the 
 cerebrum, as in the frog experiments, give 
 unquestionable proof that they still possess 
 the powers of apprehension, and self- 
 
Animals are Automata. 1 2 1 
 
 adjustment consequent upon the appre- 
 hension, and clearly conformable to the 
 exigencies of their position, surely such 
 experiments warrant us in taking the 
 ground of a triumphant a fortiori argu- 
 ment, in reference to unmarred and unim- 
 paired organisms, with full cerebral power. 
 These remarks apply as well to the case 
 of the wounded French soldier, cited by 
 Professor Huxley, as to the case of the 
 frog, or any other case which can be 
 adduced. The principle is invalid, and 
 suicidal. 
 
 And now, before passing from this point, 
 we would ask Professor Huxley, who has 
 evinced such discretion in abandoning a 
 conjecture, even at the sacrifice of half the 
 labour incident to the preparation of his 
 address, to exercise like caution in regard 
 to the other branch of his theme. If he 
 dare not venture to carry out a Cartesian 
 crotchet in his treatment of dogs, surely he 
 will not venture to put his automatic hypo- 
 thesis into practice in his treatment of 
 
12 2 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 men. If he dare not, in his dealings with 
 dogs, assume that they are destitute of 
 feeHng, surely he will hesitate before he 
 risks the tremendous consequences of 
 treating men as if they had no souls ! 
 
 6. It is scarcely necessary to say, that I 
 do not agree with Professor Huxley in 
 regard to the relation of our ideas to 
 external things, affirmed in his lecture. 
 According to the doctrine advanced, we 
 have really no knowledge of the external 
 world. In fact, the only thing we know, 
 is that we know nothing. If, as we are 
 told, there is no warrant for believing that 
 external objects are like what we take 
 them to be, it is obvious that we live amid 
 delusive phantoms, and are the sport of 
 our own unreal imaginings. If this be the 
 result of the interposition of the nervous 
 system between the external cause of 
 sensation and the phenomena of con- 
 sciousness, our interpretations of these 
 phenomena must be as delusive as the 
 phantoms with which they deal. 
 
Animals are Automata. 123 
 
 When a philosopher takes this ground, 
 he has not only no reason to complain, 
 but ought to be thankful, if he be awakened 
 from his unreasoning reverie by the tattoo 
 of the drum ecclesiastic. The belief that 
 external objects are as they appear — are 
 what we take them to be — is an element 
 of that estate of consciousness incident 
 to the apprehension of them. This con- 
 viction cannot be shaken, except by 
 shaking our confidence in the trustworthi- 
 ness of our nature. But if the constitution 
 of our own being is not to be trusted, on 
 what are those, who would subvert our 
 faith in it, to base their arguments } Are 
 not the faculties employed by them in 
 the argument a part of the very constitu- 
 tion which they would persuade us not to 
 trust t That is, they must trust nature in 
 order to prove her unworthy of trust ! 
 Professor Huxley has not yet adopted the 
 formula of the Chian sceptic, Metrodorus, 
 " / do not eve7i knoiv that I know notJiingl' 
 but he has manifestly adopted the pre- 
 
124 0^^ i^^^ Hypothesis that 
 
 mises from which that nescient formula 
 logically flows. Indeed, the premises lead 
 to absolute nescience ; for it is difficult to 
 see how either Huxley or Metrodorus 
 could be sure even of His own ignorance. 
 
 Before the avowal of his faith in this 
 doctrine he should have consulted his 
 friend Dr. Tyndall, who, following Her- 
 bert Spencer, lays it down as a crucial 
 test of a truth, that it be capable of 
 presentation to the mind under the form 
 of an image. If all we know of external 
 things is, that they bear no likeness 
 to this image, surely it must follow that 
 the image can be no test of the truth 
 or falsehood of our cognitions, or of our 
 judgments in regard to the phenomena, or 
 of the nature of the things in themselves. 
 If so, what becomes of Dr. Tyndall's 
 system of molecular physics, whose funda- 
 mental principle is, that the cause which 
 we conjure up by the mystic wand of 
 the scientific imagination be exactly like 
 the mental ima^^e } How the two chiefs. 
 
' Animals are Automata^ 125 
 
 starting, each with the same stock of 
 atoms and molecules, should reach such 
 antagonistic philosophic poles, it is difficult 
 to conjecture. But we have had, during 
 the proceedings of the British Association, 
 the open avowal of materialism from the 
 one, and the open avowal of idealism from 
 the other ! It was well and providential 
 that these champions of Atomism should 
 thus publicly contradict each other. There 
 is a God above both the atoms and the 
 atomists, who bringeth the counsel of the 
 wise to nought. Let it not be forgotten, 
 that the two scientists who refer all phe- 
 nomena to atoms have refuted each other 
 on the platform of the Ulster Hall — the one 
 proclaiming himself a materialist, the other 
 an idealist — the one affirming that nothing 
 is true which cannot be imaged, the other 
 affirming that all images of the external 
 world are unreal and fallacious, and bear 
 no resemblance to the things themselves, 
 if things external there be. Surely one 
 may say of such speculators as Paul said 
 
126 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 of the heathen philosophers of old : " They 
 became vain in their imaginations, and 
 their foolish heart was darkened. Profess- 
 ing themselves wise, they became fools." 
 We were told that these men would 
 revolutionize thought in the metropolis of 
 Ulster, and yet God so ordered it that 
 the one denied what the other affirmed. 
 " Verily, He maketh the wrath of man to 
 praise Him, and the remainder of wrath 
 He doth restrain." 
 
 In concluding my strictures on the 
 scientific phase of this lecture, I am con- 
 strained to add, that my estimate of the 
 line of argument by which Professor 
 Huxley has sought to conduct his audi- 
 ence to the conclusion that animals are 
 mere automata, is not very high. Viewed 
 from the physiological standpoint it was 
 most unscientific. He utterly ignored 
 the existence of a law revealed in the 
 phenomena of which he was treating, the 
 mere statement of which is sufficient to 
 put to confusion any automatic speculator. 
 
Aniniah are Automata. 127 
 
 The law in question is, that as we as- 
 cend the scale of animal life, from the 
 frog, new parts of the brain and new 
 powers of intelligence and independent 
 action appear ; till, after a great many 
 intermediate steps, we come to man, with 
 large cerebellum and enormously large 
 cerebrum, still having much of his system 
 governed in part by automatic action, but 
 having, besides, a powerful controlling 
 intelligence and will. If there is much 
 in the phenomena of Goltz's experiment, 
 irreconcilable with the assumption that 
 even the frog is a mere automaton — so 
 much, indeed, as to make Professor Huxley 
 hesitate to pronounce its action automatic 
 — surely the argument against the conclu- 
 sion of man's automatism rests upon an 
 absolutely irrefragable physiological basis. 
 If, as the facts show, the higher the or- 
 ganism stands in the scale of life, the less 
 potent and controlling are the automatic 
 powers, and the more potent and domi- 
 nant the voluntary, what scientific basis is 
 
128 ' On the Hypothesis that 
 
 there for Professor Huxley's dogma that 
 att animals are mere automata, perhaps 
 possessing consciousness ? 
 
 It only remains that notice be taken 
 of a remarkable claim set up by Pro- 
 fessor Huxley, at the close of his address. 
 Having inculcated the doctrine that brutes 
 are mere machines, with a reserve as to the 
 probability of their possessing concious- 
 ness, and having confessed " that the view 
 he had taken of the relations between the 
 physical and mental faculties of brutes, 
 applies and is intended to apply, in its 
 fulness and entirety to man," he claims for 
 this doctrine the authority of Augustine, 
 John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards ! That 
 is, he claims that these theologians taught 
 that men are mere (probably) conscious 
 machines ! This he does on the platform 
 of the Ulster Hall, and is applauded by 
 a part of the audience, who, of course, 
 assumed that so great a physiologist must 
 also be a deeply-read theologian. That 
 response must have confirmed the lecturer 
 
Anivials are Automata. 129 
 
 in the conjecture that Edwards was not 
 much read in Ulster, and have assured 
 him that he was comparatively safe, before 
 such an audience, in claiming doctrinal 
 kinship with the great New England 
 divine. Had the tribunal before which 
 the claim was advanced been competent, 
 it had met with a very different reception ; 
 for no one acquainted with the views of 
 Edwards could have any other feeling than 
 that of moral indignation evoked by the 
 attempt to identify him with such degrad- 
 ing, demoralizing dogmas. You will not 
 think this language too strong, when told 
 that the doctrine ascribed by Professor 
 Huxley to President Edwards is expressly 
 repudiated and formally refuted by that 
 prince among theologians in his treatise 
 on the Will. 
 
 Replying to those who, like our physio- 
 logist, attribute such consequences to the 
 doctrine of the Will advocated by him in 
 that immortal treatise, he says, " that man 
 is entirely, perfectly, and unspeakably 
 
1 3 o On the Hypothesis that 
 
 different from a mere machine, in that he 
 has reason and understanding, with a faculty 
 of Will, and so is capable of volition and 
 choice ; in that his Will is guided by the 
 dictates or views of his understanding ; and 
 in that his external actions and behaviour, 
 and in many respects also his thoughts 
 and the exercises of his mind, are subject 
 to his Will ; so that he has liberty to 
 act according to his choice, and do what 
 he pleases ; and by means of these things 
 is capable of moral habits and moral acts — 
 such inclinations and actions as, according 
 to the common sense of mankind, are 
 worthy of praise, esteem, love, and re- 
 ward ; or, on the contrary, of dis-esteem, 
 detestation, indignation, and punishment." 
 (" Edwards on the Will," pt iv. § 5.) 
 
 In view of this express repudiation of 
 the doctrine that men are mere machines, 
 and the counter-demonstration of their 
 free, unfettered, moral agency, Professor 
 Huxley may be fairly asked, how he 
 could ascribe such doctrine to the great 
 
Animals are Automata. 131 
 
 metaphysician and theologian ? This 
 question he must answer, or stand before 
 the scientific and theological world in 
 the unenviable position of one who has 
 been silenced by the authorities he has 
 invoked. Further comment on this attempt 
 to identify Edwards with the mechanical, 
 materialistic school of Hobbes and Hart- 
 ley, Priestly and Belsham, is unnecessary. 
 " Ex uno disce onmes " : from his treatment 
 of Edwards, judge of his capacity to inter- 
 pret Augustine and Calvin. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, let me state my 
 estimate of the moral tendencies of the 
 doctrine of, animal automatism as applied 
 to man. Let it be adopted, and human 
 society becomes an impossibility. If men 
 are simply conscious automata, whose 
 actions are traceable to nothing beyond 
 the molecular changes of their physical 
 organism, all responsibility must be at an 
 end. On this theory of human actions, 
 there is not only no ground for future, 
 rewards or punishments, but there is no 
 
132 On the Hypothesis that 
 
 ground for the pains and penalties pre- 
 scribed by human legislation for the protec- 
 tion of society. If virtuous actions differ 
 from vicious actions only as one molecular 
 thrill differs from another, or as a positive 
 electric current differs from a negative one, 
 there is manifestly no more foundation for 
 a system of human ethics than there is for 
 a system of magnetic jurisprudence. If the 
 ultimate analysis of human actions lands 
 us in mere molecular change, it must follow 
 that men are no more responsible for the 
 thrills and tremors of which they are the 
 subjects, than are the Atlantic cables for 
 the messages they transmit. Such doctrine 
 would not only erase from the future the 
 judgment-seat, and the eternity of bliss or 
 woe beyond ; but it would abolish all 
 earthly tribunals, and make our earth the 
 theatre of the very hell it would obliterate. 
 ,From such vain philosophy let us turn 
 away as we would from the pestilence. Its 
 feet take hold on death, and there is no 
 peace for its votaries. It would fondly 
 
Anvnals are Automata. 133 
 
 link itself to great names; but the men 
 of theological and philosophical renown, 
 whom it claims, would have spurned it 
 as they would the companionship of a 
 scorpion. Young men of Great Britain and 
 Ireland ! — will you identify yourselves with 
 a science falsely so-called, which would 
 identify you with brutes, and, repressing 
 the noblest aspirations of your nature, 
 would turn our world into a Sodom, and 
 lay upon your brightest hopes the blight 
 of an eternal night ? 
 
BY THE 
 
 REV. DONALD ERASER. 
 
III. 
 
 ON SUPERSTITION IN CHRIS- 
 TENDOM. 
 
 WHEN there is rough weather on 
 the German Ocean, it goes hard 
 with deck-loaded ships. In Hke manner, 
 under the keen and searching winds of 
 modern discussion, it will go hard with 
 Christianity itself, if it be deck-loaded 
 with superstitious incumbrances and old 
 wives' fables. It is vain to deprecate the 
 winds and deplore the waves. The ship 
 would ride safely enough, if only that 
 heavy deck-load were thrown overboard. 
 
 No doubt, to be too light in the water 
 may be as dangerous as to be too deep. 
 To minimise the faith is to cast away 
 
138 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 valuable cargo : to exaggerate it is to 
 bury the cargo under the surplus load of 
 credulous additions. It is a question 
 whether the former or the latter be the 
 more mischievous. Probably to the moral 
 life of the individual man scepticism is the 
 more hurtful, as drying up the very juices 
 of his spirit. It is a saying of Richter, 
 "I would rather dwell in the dim fog of 
 superstition, than in air rarefied to nothing 
 by the air-pump of unbelief, in which the 
 panting breast expires, vainly and con- 
 vulsively gasping for breath." But for 
 the cause of God and of truth at large, it 
 is quite possible that superstition may be 
 more hurtful than incredulity. It appears 
 to be a devoted friend, and as such is 
 allowed to erect its strongholds within the 
 Christian lines. Yet from these strong- 
 holds it plays into the enemy's hands ; and 
 the dangers in the rear are more galling 
 and perplexing than any flying shot of 
 infidelity in front. The defences are 
 seriously weakened, and the very citadel 
 
Superstition in Christendom, 139 
 
 of truth is exposed to argumentative 
 disadvantage and intellectual contempt. 
 What Mr. Gladstone has lately said of 
 Vaticanism applies to all the superstition 
 in Christendom — at least in its more serious 
 forms : viz., that " in its ultimate operation 
 on the human mind, it is dangerous to 
 the foundations of that Christian belief 
 which it loads with false excrescences, and 
 strains even to the bursting." 
 
 But what is meant by superstition t A 
 very exact definition of the term is not 
 possible, because this is one of those words 
 which cannot be sufficiently interpreted 
 by etymology alone, but must be ex- 
 plained by some reference to usage. No 
 doubt its root is supersto, ' I stand over ' ; 
 and the stress of meaning lies on the 
 super, 'over, above': yet it is not clear 
 whether the idea conveyed by the deri- 
 vation of the word superstition is, ' I stand 
 over, being awe-stricken by the deep 
 mystery on which I gaze ' — or, ' I am oc- 
 cupied with objects that stand over me, 
 
140 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 and over-awe or overwhelm me.' The 
 latter seems to have been the conception 
 of Lucretius : " Inanis et superfluus timor 
 rerum superstantium." Cicero uses the 
 term in the sense of excessive devotion 
 and ignorant fear ; and such is ordinarily 
 its meaning among English writers. The 
 Bampton Lecturer for 1852 has put it 
 well enough: ** Religious faith is funda- 
 mentally a reasonable belief of revealed 
 truth. Infidelity is an unreasonable dis- 
 belief of this truth, and rejection of its 
 evidence. Superstition is an unreasonable 
 belief of that which is mistaken for truth." 
 Let us put this last definition to the 
 test. It will not allow us to describe as 
 a superstition, the belief which once over- 
 spread all Christendom that the sun goes 
 round the earth — because, though that was 
 an error mistaken for truth, the belief of 
 it was not unreasonable in what was then 
 the condition both of the science of as- 
 tronomy and of the science of biblical 
 interpretation. But it does allow and 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 141 
 
 require us to characterize as superstitious 
 the behef that a saint crossed the channel 
 on his cloak ; because not only is the thing 
 not true, but the belief of that which is 
 mistaken for truth is, and always was, 
 unreasonable, being without evidence, and 
 against common sense. So also is it a 
 superstition to hold that a small wafer 
 or morsel of bread, and every crumb that 
 composes it, though pronounced by all 
 our senses to be baked bread and nothing 
 else, is transmuted into the very body, 
 blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, — 
 not only because this is an untruth, but 
 because the belief of the untruth is, and 
 always was, egregiously unreasonable, be- 
 ing without evidence, and against evidence, 
 and involving contradiction and absurdity. 
 There are those, however, who regard 
 all belief of what is called ' revealed truth ' 
 as unreasonable. They point out to us 
 that all ancient nations have their religious 
 traditions and sacred books made up 
 of mythologies, the exploits of heroes, and 
 
142 Superstition in Chnstendom. 
 
 of poetic impersonations of nature and 
 fortune, with some elements of moral 
 worth, and perhaps some of priestly im- 
 posture. The Christian religion is founded 
 on the old Jewish literature, now col- 
 lected, translated, and circulated in what 
 we call the Bible; but these objectors re- 
 fuse to admit that the Bible has any more 
 authority, as a revelation of truth, than any 
 collection of the old fables, songs, pro- 
 verbs, and prophecies of India, Persia, or 
 Greece. It may be the best collection, 
 but it is only one of a class, and to consult 
 it as an oracle is a weakness unworthy of 
 full-grown men. Nay, they go further, 
 and count it superstition to believe in an 
 unseen, all-pervading, all-controlling, living 
 God, to pray to Him for definite objects, 
 to commit ourselves to His keeping, and 
 to think that He can guide and impel us 
 toward good, without affecting the per- 
 fectly voluntary character of our moral 
 actions. According to them, there is no 
 God with whom we have to do, no Lord 
 
Snpcrstition i7i Christendom, 143 
 
 of heaven and earth — at least, none that 
 concerns us ; we may know phenomena 
 and trace their causes for a step or two, 
 but can ascertain no first cause, and need 
 not trouble ourselves about any super- 
 sensual sphere. 
 
 For the purposes of our present dis- 
 cussion, we must simply ignore these 
 extravagances of unbelief. We assume 
 the existence of God, and the relation of 
 man to God as defined in a revealed re- 
 ligion. Then superstition is either a blind 
 adherence to a traditional religion other 
 than that which God has revealed, or such 
 an exaggeration or distortion of the true 
 religion as outrages reason, deludes the 
 imagination with vain hopes, or oppresses 
 the soul with degrading fears. 
 
 We define our subject further as super- 
 stition in Christendom. We make no 
 attempt to survey the religious illusions 
 and credulities of the heathen and Mo- 
 hammedan world. Enough to think of 
 those opinions and practices in Christen- 
 
144 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 dom which remove the God of love far 
 back into a region of terror, and fill the 
 foreground with a multitude of more 
 helpful and pitiful beings — e.g., angels, 
 departed saints, and anointed priests — who, 
 induced by the homage of the faithful, pro- 
 cure for them and convey to them blessings 
 which, but for their intervention, God would 
 have refused. 
 
 Now declamation on this topic may be 
 easy, but it is not so easy to draw the line 
 of ars^ument And for two reasons : — 
 
 (i.) Religious superstition has pallia- 
 tions in surrounding ignorance. It must 
 always have been, in a strict sense, irra- 
 tional, but when it was in harmony with 
 the condition of human intelligence, it was 
 not so irrational as when it is retained in 
 defiance of that intelligence. In times 
 when men in any unusual degree erudite 
 or scientific were suspected of magic and 
 sorcery, — when witches could transmute 
 themselves into quadrupeds, when fairies 
 danced on the green hills, when fire-breath- 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 145 
 
 ing monsters dwelt in caves, and dragons 
 haunted the forests, — religion could not but 
 be infected with the love of prodigy. Little 
 wonder that then the holy hermits were 
 thought to be wonder-workers ; priests had 
 a weird power to bless or ban ; certain 
 wells of water had healing virtue — not, as 
 we might suppose, from their chemical 
 ingredients, but from their consecration to 
 some virgin or saint; certain objects acted 
 as charms or amulets against evil spirits ; 
 and certain ceremonies and forms of words 
 had the force of spells and incantations. 
 Now there are large masses of population 
 within Christendom which have not yet 
 outgrown the habits of thought which 
 characterised the Dark Ages of Europe. 
 And in treating the subject of superstition, 
 we have to remember the distinction be- 
 tween countries where it is generated and 
 fostered by the whole state of the intellec- 
 tual atmosphere, and those — as our own 
 country — where it has nowadays no such 
 extenuation to plead. 
 
 10 
 
146 Superstition in Christendom, 
 
 (2.) The superstitions of Christendom 
 are not sheer inventions, or original and 
 absolute lies, but extravagant and dispro- 
 portioned representations of ancient truths, 
 and it is not possible to estimate them 
 justly or intelligently without recollection 
 of this fact. They hold truth in a weak and 
 even deleterious solution, but they do hold 
 truth, which men might otherwise have let 
 slip. They swathe and smother the gospel 
 and its ordinances ; but, if you know how 
 to unbind and disentangle, it is primitive 
 Christianity after all that lies within : — 
 
 " There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
 Would men observingly distil it out." 
 
 And so also there is some soul of truth in 
 what may appear no better than pernicious 
 errors ; and if you analyse them, and draw 
 off the elements of human invention and 
 the accretions of ignorant fear, you may 
 distil even from them most wholesome 
 doctrine. E.g,^ it is a true thing, — it 
 is the reverence justly due to the Blessed 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 147 
 
 Virgin Mary, to apostles, and to the 
 memory of eminent saints departed, — which 
 is exaggerated into a continual invocation 
 of them, with the ascription to them, 
 though they be our fellow-creatures, of a 
 capacity to hear and answer thousands of 
 petitions from all parts of the earth simul- 
 taneously, — a notion which, while profes- 
 sing to enliven and facilitate, really distracts 
 and degrades devotion. It is also a true 
 thing, — viz., the cardinal position of the 
 Atonement in Christian doctrine, and of 
 the eucharistic commemoration of the 
 Atonement in Christian worship, — which is 
 mischievously and unscripturally set forth 
 in the erection of altars, the display of 
 crucifixes, the oblation and adoration of 
 the Host. And again, it is a true thing, — 
 viz., the deference due to pastors and 
 teachers given by Christ for the perfecting 
 of saints, — which has been twisted and 
 magnified into the obligation laid on all 
 baptized persons to yield unquestioning 
 submission, at least in matters of faith and 
 
148 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 morals, to the directions of the clergy, as 
 speaking with the potent voice of the 
 Church, which is guided by the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 Thus, when we deal with superstition in 
 Christendom, it is necessary to remember 
 that we are dealing with corruptions and 
 misrepresentations, not with denials of 
 Christianity. The practical effect, indeed, 
 of the superstition may be in some respects 
 even more mischievous than would ensue 
 from an open unbelief. An internal anti- 
 christianity may be more perilous than an 
 external. To retain Christian language at 
 the fullest, and meet with carefully elabo- 
 rated doctrines and institutions the religious 
 cravings of mankind, and yet to hide from 
 them the simplicity and liberty of the 
 Gospel of grace, is probably the most subtle 
 and skilful way of neutralising the New 
 Testament of our Lord and Saviour. But 
 far be it from us to say that such is the 
 intention of those who are in point of fact 
 pursuing that policy ! A candid mind will 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 149 
 
 always keep fairly in view the historical 
 rise and peculiar character of Christian 
 superstition. Nay, more : a generous mind 
 will think with compassion, and not with 
 irritation, of those who, having inherited 
 these forms of Christianity from the past, 
 cling to them under the serious conviction 
 that these, and these only, enshrine and 
 preserve the holy faith. 
 
 But, keeping these considerations in 
 mind, we want to look this thing fully in 
 the face, and see wherein its strength lies. 
 There is a point on which, as on a pivot, a 
 great deal of controversy must turn. It is 
 expressed in a word which begins to be 
 familiar to the ear in the ecclesiastical dis- 
 putes of our time — Sacerdotalism. The 
 whole influence of superstition in Christen- 
 dom associates itself with the institution of 
 a priesthood, having intimate relations with 
 heaven such as men out of that priesthood, 
 however pious, cannot possess, and wield- 
 ing a mystic power over etepal destinies. 
 It is not difficult to see how this, though 
 
150 Superstition ifi Christendom. 
 
 unknown to the Christian Scriptures, 
 sprang up and spread in the Church. 
 There is a tendency in every privileged 
 order of men to harden into a caste. And 
 the presbyters of primitive Christianity 
 were all the more easily turned into a 
 sacred order of priests, because the con- 
 verts from Judaism, and still more from 
 heathenism, had always been wont to be 
 guided in religion by priests, and craved 
 the same direction or protection in Chris- 
 tianity. But neither those who assumed 
 this position, nor those who conceded it, 
 had any conception of the tremendous 
 results to which it has led. 
 
 In times of ignorance the power of the 
 priesthood became enormous ; and in times 
 of turbulence and violence, when meekness 
 and justice were almost driven from the 
 earth, it suited the laity to have religion 
 shut up in consecrated places, under the 
 custody of priests who could shrive them 
 at last from all their misdeeds, and who 
 would be responsible for the safety of their 
 
Stcperstition in Christendom. 151 
 
 souls. So the ghostly fathers of Christen- 
 dom became indispensable, and, as a holy 
 caste, separated themselves from ordinary 
 conditions of life. In the West they took 
 vows of celibacy, and received the tonsure, 
 — in both these particulars deliberately fol- 
 lowing the heathen priesthood, and not the 
 Jewish, which admitted wedlock, and for- 
 bade the making of " any baldness on the 
 head." At the summit of the Western 
 ecclesiasticism, when fully developed, ap- 
 peared, appropriately enough, a supreme 
 pontiff, as the high priest of " a worldly 
 sanctuary." We say, appropriately enough, 
 because it seems reasonable that, in what- 
 ever region priesthood is exercised, it should 
 have a head of authority — a high priest to 
 control and guide the use of the sacerdotal 
 prerogative. The priesthood under the Old 
 Testament being on earth, the high priest 
 was on earth also ; but the proper sphere 
 of priesthood in this dispensation being in 
 the heavenly places, Jesus Christ is there 
 — **the High Priest of our profession." 
 
152 Superstition in Christendom, 
 
 Those, however, who have a worldly sanc- 
 tuary still, altars and holy places made 
 with hands, are only consistent in having 
 their high priest in an earthly place. As 
 for those Anglican priests around us, who 
 differ from Roman priests not at all in 
 regard to the powers they arrogate, but 
 only in not receiving the tonsure, not 
 undertaking vows of celibacy, and not 
 submitting to a supreme pontiff, we find 
 no inspiration of confidence or element of 
 safety in what is peculiar to their position, 
 because they claim to be a priestly caste 
 with stupendous spiritual prerogatives, and 
 yet themselves irresponsible to anj; head of 
 supreme direction in the region where they 
 serve the altar and offer the sacrifice. 
 
 Our rejection of sacerdotalism is based 
 impregnably on the fact that it is unknown 
 to the Christian Scriptures, and contrary to 
 the whole genius of the Christian dispen- 
 sation. 
 
 Often have those who maintain this 
 system been challenged to produce any 
 
Superstition in CJiristenao7n. 153 
 
 passage from the New Testament in which 
 a pastor, preacher, or minister of Christ 
 is styled /epci)?, or to prove that the 
 apostles themselves were ever consecrated 
 as priests. It is notorious that this chal- 
 lenge has never been met. All that has 
 been done is to assume that the Lord's 
 Supper must have been a sacrifice even 
 in the upper room at Jerusalem, on the 
 night before the Great Sacrifice was ren- 
 dered on the cross; and then to infer (i) 
 that, as there can be no offering of sacri- 
 fice except by a priest, Christ must have 
 acted then and there as High Priest, 
 offering Himself under the forms of bread 
 and wine to God ; and (2) that, when He 
 bade the apostles **do this in commemo- 
 ration of Him," He by implication sum- 
 marily ordained them to the priestly office. 
 It is at once sad and ludicrous to see 
 this feeble foundation supporting all that 
 huge sacerdotalism which overshadows 
 Christendom. Yet here are the very 
 words of the Council of Trent : " Corpus 
 
154 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 et sanguinem suum sub speclebus panis et 
 vini Deo Patri obtulit, ac sub earundem 
 rerum symbolis, apostolis, quos tunc novi 
 testamenti sacerdotes constituebat, ut 
 sumerent, tradidit, et eisdem eorumque 
 in sacerdotio successoribus, ut offerrent, 
 praecepit per haec verba, Hoc facite in 
 meam commemorationem."'^ The very same 
 ground is taken by those Eastern churches 
 which ascribe to their ministers a properly 
 sacerdotal character. And the same must 
 be said of one school, and it is feared, a 
 growing school, of English clergy. In the 
 "Tracts for the Day" — a volume edited 
 by the Rev. Orby Shipley, a well-known 
 Anglican — there is a quite unambiguous 
 essay on the Real Presence, in which it is 
 first assumed that the Eucharist is a sacri- 
 fice, and then inferred that those who 
 lawfully celebrate it must be priests. The 
 writer tells us, in complete harmony with 
 the Council of Trent, that "When our 
 
 ■^ Canones et Decreta Cone. Trid., Sess. 22, 
 cap. i. 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 155 
 
 Lord Instituted the Sacrifice, He ordained 
 the Priesthood at the same time. This 
 is the effect of the words which He ad- 
 dressed to the apostles : ' Do this for my 
 memorial.' He commanded them to Mo' 
 as He had done ... As Christ offered 
 Himself under the form of bread and 
 wine, they were to do the same ; and no 
 one who is not invested with that com- 
 mission can legitimately exercise that high 
 function. Hence the dignity of priesthood 
 is the discriminating Order of the Chris- 
 tian ministry."* Strange indeed that the 
 "discriminating order" should nowhere he 
 expressly mentioned in the New Testa- 
 ment, where the order of presbyters or 
 bishops is mentioned so often, and their 
 ordination described and enjoined ! 
 
 On the incongruity of sacerdotalism with 
 the brightness and blessing of our dis- 
 pensation there is no necessity to dilate. 
 There is no worldly sanctuary now, no 
 need of altars or propitiatory sacrifices, 
 * Tracts for the Day (1868), p. 238. 
 
156 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 since Christ has put away sin by the 
 sacrifice of Himself; and therefore there is 
 no room or function for any other priest- 
 hood than the High Priesthood of our 
 Lord in heaven, untransferable and inex- 
 haustible, and the universal priesthood of 
 the saints, offering up spiritual sacrifices 
 acceptable to God through Him. We 
 ought to be thankful for all spiritual helps 
 in devotion ; but we ought never to allow 
 any caste of our fellow-men to push us 
 down from the heavenly places to the 
 earthly, and intervene as by authority 
 between us and our God and Saviour. 
 Would that all England perceived this as 
 clearly as did her greatest poetess ! Thus 
 Mrs. Browning: — 
 
 " Priests, priests— there's no such name ! 
 
 Through heaven's hfted gate 
 The priestly ephod in sole glory swept 
 When Christ ascended, entered in, and sate 
 (With Victor's face sublimely overwept) 
 At Deity's right hand, to mediate,— 
 He alone, He for ever. On His breast 
 The Urim and the Thummim, fed with lire 
 
SiLpcrstition in Christendo7n. 157 
 
 From the full Godhead, flicker with the unrest 
 Of human pitiful heart-beats. Come up higher, 
 All Christians ! Levi's tribe is dispossest. 
 That solitary alb ye shall admire, 
 But not cast lots for. The last chrism poured right 
 Was on that Head, and poured for burial. 
 And not for domination in men's sight." "^ 
 
 It will not be thought that we have 
 given too much prominence to the mis- 
 chief done to Christendom by the sacer- 
 dotal system, if only it be considered how 
 this enslaves both intellect and conscience. 
 
 Superstition loves an oracle. A heathen 
 devotee prefers a scrap of tradition, or 
 the word of a soothsayer, to any rational 
 argument. And the Christian devotee is 
 reduced by sacerdotalism to the same in- 
 fatuation. He is told, not to investigate 
 truth on its proper evidence, but to embrace 
 certainty, through an unquestioning sub- 
 mission of mind to all dogmas whatever 
 inculcated on church authority. The promise 
 of the New Testament is, that the Holy 
 Ghost will beourTeacher; but sacerdotalism 
 * Works, vol. iii., pp. 299, 300. 
 
158 Superstition in Christendom, 
 
 maintains that the Church is our teacher 
 and that we receive the instruction of the 
 Holy Ghost simply in obeying the voice of 
 the Church. It is assumed that there is 
 such a voice sounding through all the 
 Christian centuries, and always consistent 
 with itself. It is also assumed that, for all 
 practical purposes of direction, this voice is 
 conveyed without error to the Christian 
 layman by the priest, who is his spiritual 
 superior and guide. There is thus an oracle 
 in every parish ; and the provision for 
 religious certainty is completed in the 
 Latin Church by having a supreme oracle 
 at Rome. The high priest there is now 
 fully and very consistently proclaimed to 
 be also the infallible prophet. Having 
 usurped the prerogative of Christ, he also 
 usurps that of the Holy Spirit. Such is 
 the dreadful climax of superstition in regard 
 to moral and spiritual truth. Such is the 
 crowning insult to reason and to history — 
 a fraud on the human mind, and a pro- 
 digious imposture. 
 
Supers/ iiio) I in CJiristendoni. 159 
 
 Sacerdotalism controls conscience through 
 the " sacramental system." It does not 
 matter very much whether seven rites, 
 or only two, are exalted into sacraments. 
 The mischief is done by the theory of 
 sacramental grace, which maintains an 
 invariable connexion between participation 
 in those rites and the possession of spiritual 
 life and blessing, and ascribes to the sacra- 
 ments an inherent power or virtue to 
 produce mystic effects. 
 
 At Baptism, lo! the priest takes an infant 
 in his arms, and with "life-giving water" 
 touches the tender brow, making the sign 
 of the cross, saying the name of the Holy 
 Trinity. The effect is said to be instan- 
 taneous regeneration, and the admission of 
 the child to be an heir of the kingdom of 
 heaven. It is not that Baptism expresses 
 or symbolizes regeneration, or that inward 
 grace should be desired and even reverently 
 expected with or after the outward sign ; 
 but that a regenerating virtue resides in the 
 sacramental action, and a spiritual blessing 
 
i6o Superstition in Christendom, 
 
 is invariably and indisputably conveyed 
 whenever the pious ceremony is performed. 
 As, however, in this service no act of 
 sacrifice is involved. Baptism may pro- 
 perly be adrninistered by deacons, and is 
 valid when performed by lay persons, or 
 even by heretics. 
 
 The Lord's Supper is scarcely allowed to 
 retain its original name ; and this is hardly 
 to be regretted when superstition has all 
 but obliterated its original character. It is 
 the Holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood, 
 or the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. 
 The Lord's Table, though the name autho- 
 rised by St, Paul, also disappears with the 
 Lord's Supper ; and we find in its place 
 the Altar, approached with genuflexions, 
 decked with flowers and gems, and sup- 
 plied with artificial lights of symbolical 
 import. At this altar the priest officiates or 
 celebrates, leaving the Christian people in the 
 distance, and by an act called consecration 
 is supposed to induce instantaneously the 
 real presence of the Son of God on that altar, 
 
Superstition in Christendom, i6i 
 
 in, with, under, or by means of bread and 
 wine ; before which Divine Presence, thus 
 localised and contained invisibly within 
 material forms, it is proper that all men 
 should bow in lowly worship, just as if they 
 saw the Lord and cast themselves at His 
 feet. Then whosoever receives from the 
 priest the sacramental elements (in the 
 Church of Rom.e the bread only), whatever 
 his mental or moral condition, is supposed 
 to receive Jesus Christ by actually swallow- 
 ing Him. Little wonder that Mohammedans 
 have bitterly ridiculed such a doctrine as 
 this ! Averroes, the Arabian philosopher, 
 said, " I have travelled over the world and 
 have found divers sects ; but so sottish a 
 people I never found as the sect of Chris- 
 tians, because with their own teeth they 
 devour that God whom they worship." Dr. 
 Atterbury has said to the same effect, 
 " The Egyptians were the scoff and laugh- 
 ing-stock of the rest of the world for wor- 
 shipping the leeks and onions which grew 
 in their gardens, but certainly those Chris- 
 
 II 
 
1 62 Super i^tition in Christendom, 
 
 tians are more stupid, who first pretend to 
 make their God, then fall down and adore 
 Him, and then eat Him." 
 
 Yet, almost incredibly absurd as this 
 superstition is, it seems to take a most 
 powerful hold of the human mind. The 
 great Lutheran Church has never been able 
 quite to shake it oft And although none 
 of the religious superstitions was more 
 thoroughly exposed than this by great 
 controversialists of the Church of England 
 hi the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 there is at this day a considerable body of 
 Anglican clergy inculcating a doctrine of 
 the Real Presence and of the Sacrament of 
 the Altar hardly to be distinguished from 
 that of the Council of Trent. In an essay 
 already quoted, it is distinctly said that, 
 " at the great moment of consecration, the 
 glorious humanity of the Son miraculously 
 unites itself to the bread and wine. Whole 
 Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, is 
 then present : and shall we not worship 
 Him with adoring faith, and the deepest 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 163 
 
 prostration of our spirits ? " It is then main- 
 tained that the reception of the consecrated 
 elements in the "sacrament of life" is the 
 reception of the body and blood of Christ, 
 so that the communicant is united, soul 
 and body, to the Son of God. '' This 
 union is absolutely unattainable by any of 
 the sons of men, except through sacramental 
 participation of His body and blood." The 
 result of this is, that the salvation of man 
 is indeed ascribed to Jesus Christ, but it is 
 obtained, not through faith in His Word, or 
 by any act or process whatever proper to 
 our spiritual nature, but through the rites 
 of the Church, and by the mechanical 
 process of eating and drinking. What do 
 men mean by exclaiming against material- 
 ism in science, when they themselves teach 
 this gross materialism in theology .'* 
 
 It is needless to dwell on the cognate 
 superstitions connected with the other five 
 rites which in the Greek and Latin Churches 
 are held to be sacraments. The mischief 
 lies in ' the sacramental principle.' It is not 
 
164 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 easy to discuss this on grounds of Scripture, 
 for the term sacrament is unknown to Holy 
 Writ. It is indeed employed in the Latin 
 version as equivalent to the Greek word 
 mystery ; but though that term is used in 
 relation to matrimony (the marriage of 
 Christ and the Church), it is never applied 
 to either of the two great rites of which we 
 have spoken — viz., Baptism and the Lord's 
 Supper. No doubt we find in very early 
 Christian writers a tendency to employ in 
 regard to these ordinances the language of 
 hyperbole ; and we can allow for inflation 
 and extravagance of expression in men 
 who had not yet learned the need of exact- 
 ness and precision. But what were at 
 first the unguarded phrases of enthusiasm 
 have now been for ages hardened into theo- 
 logical formulae, and imposed on Christen- 
 dom as momentous truths. The sacraments 
 are said to confer grace. Loss of the 
 sacraments, no matter from what cause 
 arising, is held to involve perdition. Every- 
 thing depends on a series of outward acts. 
 
Super stitio7i in Christendom. 165 
 
 Regeneration is by Baptism ; the gift of 
 the Holy Ghost is conveyed by the cere- 
 mony of Confirmation ; sin is removed by 
 doing penance under priestly direction ; 
 and life communicated and sustained by 
 the reception of consecrated bread and 
 wine into the body. So the clergy are as 
 essential to our salvation as Christ is. A 
 priest or deacon can plant us in grace by 
 Baptism, a bishop can give us the Holy 
 Ghost, and a priest, calling down Christ 
 from heaven with a few words as often as 
 he pleases, can put Jesus Christ into our 
 mouths, and so by some singular trans- 
 fusion into our hearts. Thereupon we are 
 bidden to be thankful for the wonderful 
 provision in the Church for carrying us to 
 heaven. It is as though I should be thank- 
 ful to one who first put out my eyes and 
 then led me about with a cord tied round 
 my wrist — or to one who first crippled me 
 and then presented me with a polished 
 pair of crutches. Superstition blinds and 
 lames the people whom the Gospel of God 
 
1 66 Supcrstitimi m Christendom. 
 
 would enlighten and enable to walk at 
 liberty ; and the helps which it proffers are 
 but a poor reparation for degradation of 
 the human conscience, and damage done 
 to the sacred laws of the human mind. 
 
 But if the sacerdotal claim and sacra- 
 mental superstition are really unfounded 
 in truth, the question presses — what is 
 it that gives to them their marvellous 
 endurance, their obstinate vitality ? What 
 is the secret of their prevalence at the 
 present day? What are the sources of 
 their power ? 
 
 Some persons cut short such inquiries 
 by referring all to the wiles of the devil 
 and the artifices of evil spirits, busy in 
 Christendom as they have been busy in 
 the heathen world, and bent on defeating 
 the Gospel of God. Others ascribe these 
 things to the astute and interested policy 
 of a priesthood pressing the same claims on 
 one generation after another, playing on the 
 fears of men, and contriving to hold them 
 in their power at all the crises of their 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 167 
 
 lives. There is truth in both of these 
 views. But what we rather wish to dis- 
 cover is this — what it is in human nature 
 that makes men so credulous of sacerdotal 
 claims, and so feebly submissive to the 
 yoke. What gives to superstition, how- 
 ever originated, its fulcrum of advantage .^ 
 
 Not ignorance, — for though superstition 
 is most prevalent and powerful where popu- 
 lar education is most defective, and espe- 
 cially where the Holy Scriptures are the 
 least known, it can take and hold posses- 
 sion of highly cultivated and erudite men. 
 It gives great scope for learning in the 
 exploration of what is called Catholic 
 antiquity, and for ingenuity in reconciling 
 tradition with Holy Writ. 
 
 We believe that the strength of super- 
 stition consists in its grappling with and 
 misguiding, but not extinguishing, a con- 
 troUincT element in human nature — con- 
 science, and the religious instinct. This 
 cannot be suppressed, and when it is in 
 vehement action under self-reproach and 
 
i68 Superstition in Christendom, 
 
 fear of retribution, it will drive men who 
 know not the way of peace in the Gospel, 
 and who dread direct dealing with God, 
 into any sort of superstitious phrenzy. A 
 sense of the awfulness of Divine judgment, 
 and of personal unfitness to pass through 
 the ordeal, will, when evangelical truth is 
 not known, send any number of restless 
 consciences to priests who profess to be 
 empowered by God Himself to absolve 
 from sin, to convey grace, and ensure sal- 
 vation — who can even obtain one's release 
 after death, and the release of friends for 
 whom the heart is sore, from the fiery 
 pains of purgatory. 
 
 Besides this main support of super- 
 stition, there are also secondary reasons for 
 its influence. There is a love of the mar- 
 vellous, a positive pleasure in believing the 
 incredible, which in some minds casts a 
 halo round the most egregious fictions. 
 There is also a sort of intellectual debility 
 in religion, partly original and partly ac- 
 quired ; an excessive mistrust of reason and 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 169 
 
 common sense ; a childish acquiescence in 
 usages and prescriptions ; a timidity be- 
 fore persons who use high-sounding titles, 
 wear imposing robes, and claim great pre- 
 rogatives; a kind of servile satisfaction in 
 being dictated to, and directed, with a voice 
 of authority that does not hesitate to anathe- 
 matize all persons whatever who demur. 
 
 It gives us concern to see how little 
 the injurious effects of superstition are 
 regarded or feared. Some men apologise 
 for it as a harmless excess in a good 
 thing. They tell us that the mass of man- 
 kind must always be ignorant, and led by 
 a few ; and that the religious motives and 
 restraints which are suited to them must 
 take a form more external, and perhaps 
 extravagant, than cultivated persons may 
 approve. But in point of fact all ex- 
 aggeration or overstraining is baneful to 
 religion ; and it can be shown that the 
 influence of superstition, whether on the 
 many or on the few, is, and must be, 
 mentally and morally pernicious. 
 
1 70 Superstition in Christendom, 
 
 (i.) It depresses intellect. It bids men 
 disbelieve their senses on matters which 
 their senses were Divinely given to deter- 
 mine. It makes them distrust their own 
 mental processes, and by so doing dis- 
 courages mental exertion. It cries out 
 against reason as the inveterate enemy of 
 faith ; and of such faith as superstition 
 requires, it certainly is the enemy. We 
 all admit the incapacity of reason to 
 discover the distinctive truths of our 
 revealed religion, but we deplore the 
 banishment of reason from the whole 
 region of spiritual thought. No wonder 
 that Dryden himself succumbed to super- 
 stition, when he could write : — 
 
 " Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars, 
 To lonely, weary, wandering travellers, 
 Is Reason to the soul. 
 And as those mighty tapers disappear 
 When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere. 
 So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight. 
 So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light."* 
 
 * " Religio Laici." 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 171 
 
 Not so. The death of reason is the 
 extinction of the mind. And it cannot 
 be the true religion which nuUifies the 
 intellect in order to save the soul. 
 
 We have only gone so far, however, as 
 to say that superstition depresses human 
 intellect. And even against this it may 
 be urged that some who hold what we 
 have called sacerdotal and sacramental 
 Christianity are men of great intellectual 
 cahbre and dialectic skill. We admit that 
 there are instances of this. As we have 
 said of learning, so we may say of intel- 
 lectual subtlety, that if it will stoop to 
 serve superstition it has great scope in 
 vindicating the mystic efficacy of rites and 
 ceremonies, and assailing all contrary 
 opinions as rationalism and impiety. The 
 most abject credulities have had defenders 
 of controversial acuteness and ability. 
 Nevertheless, the tendency of superstition 
 has always been to narrow and sophisticate 
 the intellects that have served it, and to 
 throw them out of harmony with the 
 
172 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 highest culture of their age ; and in so far 
 as it pervades the mental habits of a 
 nation, it encourages frivolity and puerility 
 of thought, and checks scientific and 
 political progress. In modern Christendom 
 it has had most powerful sway over women, 
 who have a large share of devotional sen- 
 sibility, but have for the most part been 
 miserably educated as regards the lav/s of 
 evidence and powers of reasoning, and over 
 masses of peasantry whose sluggish souls 
 are full of tradition and prejudice. 
 
 (2.) It injures morality. We speak, of 
 course, of the general tendency of super- 
 stition — not bringing any charge of immo- 
 rality against particular persons. Indeed, 
 we readily grant that, as it has wielded 
 influence over men of erudition and in- 
 telligence, so also it has ruled over some 
 men and women of pure and saintly 
 character. But on the large scale, whatever 
 misguides or enslaves conscience, and ex- 
 ternalises the Christian faith and repentance, 
 must be hurtful to morality. 
 
Superstition hi Christendom. 173 
 
 If we acknowledge that superstition may 
 cast a spell over pure and honourable 
 minds, we must also observe that it is 
 quite as much at home with characters of 
 the lowest type. It is the religion of the 
 Sicilian or Spanish bandit, who places him- 
 self and his misdeeds under the protection 
 of the Virgin Mother and the saints, makes 
 votive offerings at their shrines, probably 
 wears a rosary, and is scrupulous about 
 kneeling to the wayside cross. It allows 
 persons of profligate life to be devotees in 
 rites and ceremonies, so long as they 
 render tribute to the Church, and abjure 
 whatever is called heresy. An English 
 historian* has said of the French king 
 Henry III. : " His debaucheries formed an 
 extraordinary contrast to the superstition 
 of his character, and both brought him 
 into universal contempt." But there is no 
 necessary contrast between profligacy and 
 superstition. They are frequent allies. 
 The qualms of conscience under a bad 
 * Tytler. " 
 
174 Superstition in Christendom, 
 
 li'fe are allayed by the rites of superstition, 
 and the oftener this is done, the more sure 
 and speedy the rebound to self-indulgence. 
 
 But not licentiousness only finds toler- 
 ance. Every sort of immorality grows. 
 It is notorious that the most superstitious 
 nations in Christendom are the most ad- 
 dicted to falsehood and crime. The more 
 priests there are in any country, the more 
 offences. The more idols and images, the 
 more lies. The more confessional-boxes, 
 the more vices — adulteries, rogueries, 
 murders. So it has been proved in the 
 comparison of criminal statistics, and that 
 through successive generations. 
 
 Why is this } It must be admitted that 
 the priests and friars in those communities 
 declaim against vice, and the confessors 
 endeavour to prevent or restrain it. But 
 they do not go to the root of the matter 
 in the hum^n heart; and not applying the 
 true remedy for cleansing and healing 
 provided in the Gospel of Christ under the 
 power of the Holy Ghost, but laying the 
 
Superstition in Christendom » 175 
 
 stress of moral influence on devices and 
 checks that possess no Divine sanction or 
 power, they egregiously fail, — nay, they 
 foster the evils they would prevent. By 
 submission of conscience and minute au- 
 ricular confession to priests self-respect is 
 lowered, and the sense of direct responsi- 
 bility to God obscured. Manliness of 
 character is sapped ; womanliness is in- 
 vaded. Guards of moral integrity which 
 are in our nature are thrown down, and 
 artificial guards set up which give way 
 under the strain of human wilfulness and 
 passion. Moreover, there is something 
 very demoralising in the way in which 
 vice and crime are dealt with by the priests 
 of Christian superstition after confession. 
 Sin is weighed and measured, its heinous- 
 ness determined, its veniality pronounced 
 upon, its penance appointed, — so much 
 for this offence, so much for that, — and 
 the conditions assigned on which it may 
 be absolved. The tendency of all this is 
 to make men think of sin as a thing quite 
 
176 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 manageable, which can always be got rid 
 of on proper conditions of time and money : 
 and what can be conceived more fitted to 
 enfeeble the conscience and to harden the 
 heart ? 
 
 (3.) It fosters intolerance. It can put 
 on a smiling aspect, and multiply /^/^i" as 
 well as fasts. In excels in decoration, in 
 bannered processions, in dispjays of colour 
 and effects of music. But nevertheless it 
 has a dark and cruel spirit. It hardens 
 the hearts of its votaries. It recognises no 
 rights as limiting its authority, and respects 
 no convictions or feelings that conflict with 
 its requirements. 
 
 On those who accept its yoke, super- 
 stition often presses most inhumanly. It 
 directs them to degrading and senseless 
 cruelties in order to please God and attain 
 to a religious life — makes men and women 
 imprison themselves, torment themselves 
 with sleeplessness and semi-starvation — as 
 though one must contradict the laws of 
 health and self-preservation in order to 
 
S lepers fttion in Christendom. 177 
 
 serve Him by whom those laws have been 
 established. Then it makes men keen to 
 force on others the bonds to which they 
 have subjected themselves. They exclaim 
 against the liberty of the press because it 
 stirs inquiry, and would, if they could, 
 allow no freedom> of worship — not even 
 decent burial to those who dare to revolt 
 against the yoke. 
 
 The cruelty of superstition is deeply 
 marked on human history. Even the 
 brightest and gayest forms of polytheism 
 have inflicted savage persecutions, and 
 insisted on horrid rites. And in this per- 
 secuting spirit sacerdotal Christianity has 
 not fallen short of paganism itself As 
 Rogers has said in a well-known ode, the 
 "savage, sullen soul" of a lion is meekness 
 itself compared with the unpitying spirit 
 of superstition. 
 
 This has done grievous wrong to the 
 Christian faith, which has had to bear the 
 discredit of an intolerance that the Spirit 
 of Christ condemns. It has shed the blood 
 
 12 
 
178 Superstition in Christendo7n. 
 
 of saints and faithful confessors of Jesus 
 Christ. In opposing what was regarded as 
 error, it has trusted not to arguments, or 
 the power of truth, but to excommunica- 
 tion, repression, and punishment, and has 
 tried to exterminate heretics, not to per- 
 suade or win them. Witches were burnt 
 in this and other parts of Christendom, not 
 by our rehgion, but by superstition. So 
 were Jews beaten and robbed, Lollards 
 seized and tortured, and Puritans had their 
 ears cropped. God was supposed to be 
 the Arch-Persecutor, and misguided con- 
 sciences treated every difference as a matter 
 of life and death, and breathed out against 
 every opponent threatening and slaughter. 
 
 (4.) It provokes to infidehty. There is 
 a curious pendulous action of the human 
 mind, according to which unbelief swings 
 man over to credulity, and credulity in 
 turn induces unbelief. 
 
 Infidelity prepares the way for super- 
 stition. The religious craving of human 
 nature, trifled with or denied for a time^ 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 179 
 
 has a strong reaction, and then not only 
 allows, but exaggerates the supernatural 
 elements around us. A late writer, dis- 
 cussing the influence of Mr. John Stuart 
 Mill; has observed, "The spread of Mr. 
 Mill's sceptical atheism has been followed 
 by a perfect simoom of sacerdotal usurpa- 
 tion. The spirit of undue disbelief stimu- 
 lates the spirit of credulity and emotional 
 observances. Our sentiment of religion is 
 obviously inextinguishable, and those who 
 attempt to discard it from our schools, or 
 crush and baffle it in society, will find that 
 their efforts hereafter, as heretofore, result 
 in an access of superstition, a tightening of 
 formularies, and the spread of sensuous 
 services. These are the defences and out- 
 ward coverings behind which the religious 
 sentiment intrenches itself from the wither- 
 ing influences of the atheistical spirit." * 
 
 But now consider the other swing of the 
 pendulum. Superstition causes a reaction 
 towards extreme rationalism, and a bitter 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, January 1874. 
 
i8o Snperstitioyi in Christeyidom. 
 
 contempt of all spiritual beliefs. It does 
 so by covering sacred names or objects 
 with childish fancies, by committing re- 
 ligion unwarrantably to positions which 
 intelligence and reason despise as fabulous, 
 and by requiring faith without giving any 
 good grounds for it,— in fact, degrading our 
 holy faith into a desperate attempt to credit 
 the incredible. Thoughtful minds must 
 be alienated. Inquiring minds are choked 
 with doubts, which are simply called wicked, 
 and never answered. And so a prejudice 
 is raised against our religion, and a most 
 needless and hurtful gap is made between 
 the faith and the intelligence of the age. 
 Just as the educated Hindoos, detecting 
 through science the absurdities which have 
 been imposed on them and their fathers 
 as sacred Brahminical doctrines, readily 
 become very sceptical of all religion, so do 
 educated Europeans, when made aware 
 of the legendary and unveracious character 
 of much that has been taught as church 
 tradition, turn away with scorn from all 
 
Superstition in Christendom. i8i 
 
 religion, and swell the forces of positivism 
 and infidelity. 
 
 This is most apparent in countries where 
 superstition has been long prevalent, and 
 the Bible has never been a household book. 
 The priests with unerring instinct have 
 discouraged its circulation, and disparaged 
 its authority by placing tradition on a par 
 with it in the rule of faith. The conse- 
 quence is, that when men begin to doubt, 
 they do not refer to the Bible, to ascertain 
 by careful and candid examination whether 
 the Christian religion, as it came from 
 Christ, is responsible for these doubtful or 
 erroneous tenets, but proceed to discredit 
 religion altogether, as a collection of fabu- 
 lous beliefs skilfully manipulated by priests 
 to promote their own objects. Of course, 
 the more dense the surrounding super- 
 stition, the more reasonable in their ^yo-s is 
 a total unbelief. As Vinet has it, " When 
 in an age of reason the superstitious sys- 
 tem is tried and proved unreasonable, — 
 when in an age of learning it is found to 
 
1 82 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 be the product of the grossest ignorance, 
 — then the infidel spirit takes courage, and 
 with a zeal in which there is a strange 
 mixture of scowling revenge with light- 
 hearted wantonness, of deep-set hatred and 
 laughing levity, it proceeds to level all 
 existing temples and altars, and raise no 
 others in their room." 
 
 It is sometimes said, without much reflec- 
 tion, that superstition is at all events much 
 safer than scepticism ; for if it errs, it does 
 so on the right side, and it must be better 
 to believe too much than to believe too 
 little. Then it is added that we can 
 hardly have too much of a good thing. But 
 how foolish is this ! Most certainly we may 
 have too much of a good thing ; and to 
 force too much upon us is the very way to 
 create a distaste or revolt, and lead in the 
 end to our taking too little, or none at all. 
 History shows, over and over again, that to 
 urge men to believe too much issues in 
 their believing very little indeed, and even 
 scoffing at revealed religion altogether. 
 
Superstition in Christendom. 183 
 
 But this is not all our answer. We hold 
 that superstition is not exactly believing 
 too much, but believing unreasonably, with- 
 out warrant and proof, or against evidence 
 and common sense, under the influence of 
 traditional teaching or ghostly fears. So 
 to believe is to destroy the grounds of true 
 faith, to insult the self-respect of the human 
 mind, and most unjustly to expose all 
 religion to contempt. 
 
 The very calculation of the infidel party 
 all over Christendom is that the weight of 
 superstition will sink all religion into an 
 abyss of intellectual scorn. The counter- 
 calculation of the sacerdotal party is that 
 infidelity, swallowing up Protestantism, will 
 go on to the extreme of impiety; and then 
 mankind, rather than become materialists 
 and atheists, will turn back affrighted, and 
 cast themselves prostrate before the sacred 
 altars. To hold the middle ground be- 
 tween these is to expose ourselves to the 
 javelins of both parties — to be called reac- 
 tionaries and simpletons by the infidels, 
 
184 Superstition in Christendom. 
 
 and to be assailed as irreligious and ir- 
 reverent by the priests. Nevertheless it 
 is the right ground for men who would 
 save the truth of God from being betrayed 
 and wounded in the battle. 
 
 In no case, and under no inducement, 
 should we combine with the sacerdotalist 
 to oppose the infidel, or with the infidel 
 to defeat the priest. Either alliance 
 would lead us on dangerous ground, and 
 expose our religious convictions to distrust. 
 Enough for us that we have a perfectly 
 good argument against the infidel, both 
 historically and pneumatically ; and we 
 have quite as good an argument against 
 the sacerdotalist, from Scripture, from 
 reason, and from church history. In the 
 former argument the aids of superstition 
 would only embarrass us ; and in the latter 
 the scofis of infidelity or impiety would 
 only discredit us and throw the sympathy 
 of devout spirits on the other side. 
 
 It is the aspect contra-superstition of 
 this great double conflict which is at present 
 
Superstition in Christejidovi. 185 
 
 before our minds ; and the problem is liow 
 to purge Cliristendom of the widespread 
 evil which this lecture describes, without 
 losing any of the underlying truth and 
 reverence. Burton, in his " Anatomy of 
 Melancholy," after a survey of the religious 
 condition of mankind, seems to despair of 
 its being purified till the coming of Christ : 
 "To purge the world of idolatry and super- 
 stition will require some monster-taming 
 Hercules, or Divine ^sculapius, — Christ 
 Himself to come in His own Person to 
 reign upon the earth a thousand years 
 before the end." 
 
 However this may be, there is work for 
 us to do in the present time ; there are 
 counteractive remedies which we are bound 
 to employ. We must spread the Holy 
 Scriptures, and guide men into an intelli- 
 gent and comprehensive knowledge of the 
 great fontal volume of our religion. We 
 must aim at the continuance and comple- 
 tion of that Reformation of religion accord- 
 ing to Scripture which for various reasons 
 
1 86 Superstition i^i Christendom. 
 
 was left unfinished in the sixteenth century. 
 Above all, we must nourish and cherish the 
 true spiritual life of the Church. Ridicule 
 will never drive away superstition, though 
 it is a lawful weapon in this controversy 
 and in some respects very effective. No 
 amount of cold reasoning will overcome 
 superstition, because it is the misguidance 
 (as we have indicated) of a real spiritual 
 instinct, and the ■ mistaken answer to a 
 genuine spiritual want — the want of the 
 human heart crying out for God, for peace 
 of conscience, and for hope beyond the 
 grave. That want must be met, and not 
 denied ; and it is met in the faith and ex- 
 perience of the truth as it is Jesus, in the 
 assurance of the love of God, in the fellow- 
 ship of the Holy Ghost, in the promise of 
 eternal life, in the communion of saints, in 
 the fervours of prayer and sacred song, in 
 the warm atmosphere of a living, spiritual 
 Church. Superstition loses all its power 
 when truth found in the Divine Oracles is 
 believed and felt, and scope is given to the 
 
Superstitioji in Christe^idom. 187 
 
 new life in all its sympathies and fresh 
 desires, as a life dependent on no earthly 
 priest or ceremonial act, but kindled from 
 heaven, and imbued with the spirit of love 
 and liberty. 
 
 We know that this is too vague for those 
 pedants in religion who distrust all play of 
 thought, are suspicious of liberty, and have 
 no confidence in anything but a formulated 
 certainty. Such persons ought to admire 
 a stake of wood - driven into the mud, 
 motionless in some pond of water or by the 
 river brink, more than the water-plants 
 which are so facile as to dip and quiver 
 when the surface ripples. But the dead 
 stick is rotting away, while the plants live 
 and spread in beauty. Ours be the faith 
 which lives, and is sensitive to active 
 thought and opinion all around, — 
 
 " And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives : 
 Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head 
 Floats on the tossing- waves."* 
 
 * Wordsworth, "The Excursion/' Book V. 
 
scientific Sltthlirf: ^ Statcmtut itntr 
 
 BY 
 
 WM. CARRUTHERS, F.R.S. 
 
IV. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC UNBELIEF: 
 A STATEMENT AND AN APOLOGY. 
 
 IT is said that when, in 1832, Robert 
 Brown, the most profound of English 
 naturahsts, who had for years borne 
 Humboldt's title of " Botanicorum facile 
 princeps," received his honorary degree 
 from the University of Oxford, he was 
 unknown to the assembled graduates. 
 The foremost man of science of his day, 
 whose contributions to knowledge laid 
 the most important foundations of modern 
 science, and whose labours secured the 
 universal acceptation of Humboldt's title, 
 was yet unknown even by name to this 
 
192 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 company of the best educated of England's 
 sons. The }'ears that have since passed 
 have seen a great change. No class of 
 men are now so widely known as the 
 students of Natural Science. The hum- 
 blest interpreter of nature secures a fame 
 which was unknown to the masters of 
 days not long gone by. Even the man 
 who does no more than intelligently retail 
 in attractive language the labours of others 
 is known and honoured throughout the 
 land. Few works issuing from the press 
 have a larger body of readers than those 
 devoted to science, and addressed to the 
 general public. Not only in our universi- 
 ties, but in our elementary schools has 
 the study of Natural Science been intro- 
 duced. 
 
 With this growing importance of the 
 Natural Sciences, and growing position 
 and power of their expounders, there has 
 been gradually developing a philosophy 
 purely materialistic — which reduces facts 
 or phenomena in themselves, as well as 
 
A Statement a7id an Apology, 1 93 
 
 in their relations to each other, to the 
 operations of blind physical forces : a 
 philosophy in which there is no room for 
 a Power external to nature — no room for a 
 God. The maintainers of this philosophy 
 accept no other evidence than that of 
 the senses. They consequently insist on 
 subjecting the evidence adduced for the 
 existence of such a Being to their own 
 standard, and on testing it by the 
 methods of investigation through which 
 all their present knowledge is derived ; and 
 if it fail to satisfy them, without hesitation 
 they eliminate the Deity from their philo- 
 sophy. In meeting the natural desire to 
 attain to a sufficient explanation of the 
 world and its inhabitants, of man and 
 society, the materialist rests, if I may use 
 the word, in a state of spiritual nescience, 
 denying what he cannot test or discover 
 in his materials or by his methods. The 
 conclusion of this modern philosophy 
 G. H. Lewes affirms to be a "patient 
 resignation to the unknowable." And 
 
 13 
 
194 Scientific Jj7ibelief : 
 
 this must be so; for Herbert Spencer, the 
 prophet of the school, records in these 
 words the logical conclusion of his mate- 
 rialistic position : " The power which the 
 universe manifests is utterly inscrutable." 
 This, in its plainest and simplest aspect, 
 is the scientific unbeHef of the present day. 
 Did it remain in this form merely as a 
 so-called scientific conclusion from the pre- 
 mises of the materialistic investigator, and 
 as the ultimate of materialistic philosophy, 
 it would be buried in its own obscurity, 
 and might well be left there. But it not 
 only ignores the Creator and Governor 
 revealed to man in nature, but also the 
 God of grace, and the supernatural revela- 
 tion by which He is made known, and 
 brings its holders into practical opposition 
 with the creed of all who profess and main- 
 tain the religion of Christ. It is an active 
 and aggressive form of unbelief, not only 
 keeping those who adopt it away from the 
 blessings of the Gospel, but leading them 
 to attack the doctrines of revelation, and 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 195 
 
 supplying a show of reason to many who, 
 naturally unwilling to face the moral rela- 
 tions demanded by a holy God, are yet 
 uneasy about these relations. 
 
 I purpose to examine the origin and 
 nature of this unbelief, and see whether 
 it can be defended or excused. 
 
 First, look at the origin and nature ot 
 the more generalized form of unbelief — 
 the rejection of a personal God, an in- 
 telligent Agent external to nature. The 
 various aspects of aggressive opposition to 
 the Christian faith are rather matters of 
 detail ; the source and centre of the whole 
 lie in this fundamental position. 
 
 In entering upon the inquiry, let us 
 secure precision in our terms. Science is 
 not limited to any section of human know- 
 ledge. In whatever direction we have 
 facts or data arranged systematically, and 
 exhibiting the relations of one to another, 
 and of each to all, we have a science. 
 The facts of ethics and theology, with their 
 interpretation and their causal relations, 
 
196 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 form sciences as much as those of chemis- 
 try or biology. But the term science has 
 in recent times become, when used without 
 any qualification, more and more limited 
 to Natural Science — to the knowledge of 
 material nature. In this sense it is the 
 equivalent of physics as opposed to meta- 
 physics, — the one dealing with the facts 
 or phenomena of matter with their 
 causes and relations, and the other with 
 the facts oj phenomena of mind with their 
 causes and relations. 
 
 It is in this limited sense that I propose 
 to use the term — and, indeed, my obser- 
 vations will be chiefly connected with that 
 section of physical knowledge which deals 
 with biology, or the science of living 
 organisms. 
 
 The materials which form the basis 
 of Natural Science are the facts or pheno- 
 mena of nature. There is no scientific 
 order of facts in nature. The first step that 
 the naturalist must take is to observe and 
 collect his facts. The facts themselves 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 197 
 
 are absolutely true : man cannot make 
 or modify them. But the objective facts 
 are valueless to science, till they become 
 the subject of the naturalist's knowledge. 
 The science of Botany, as it now exists, is 
 unaffected by the numerous plants growing 
 in hitherto unexplored regions, and which 
 are yet undiscovered and unknown. These 
 remain as realities in their native habitats, 
 to be one day brought within man's know- 
 ledge ; when each one, as it is observed, will 
 find its place in the science of plants, and 
 contribute a share towards its perfecting. 
 It is the function of the man of science 
 to observe and collect these objective data. 
 They form the raw materials of his 
 structure. Whenever man intervenes, the 
 possibility, or rather the certainty^ of error 
 arises. Already acquired and systematized 
 knowledge, as well as the structure of his 
 own mind, influence him in his observa- 
 tions ; and the object itself is never suffici- 
 ently appreherided in its entirety and in 
 all its details. However cautious observers 
 
198 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 may be to avoid error and to confine 
 themselves to the truth, the same external 
 phenomenon never presents itself in the 
 same light and fulness and with the same 
 details to two observers, — nor, indeed, to 
 the same observer at different stages of his 
 scientific attainments and culture. False 
 theories as often rest upon errors in regard 
 to matters of fact, as upon errors in 
 deductions from actual facts. 
 
 With every caution, then, the man of 
 science collects his data. To secure the 
 possibility of a perfect science, he must be 
 in possession of all the materials ; he is 
 culpable if he omits any within his reach. 
 
 His next step is the accurate inter- 
 pretation of his collected facts, and the 
 arranging them so that their affinities, 
 resemblances, and differences shall be 
 understood and exhibited. As the house 
 does not exist, though all the stones which 
 shall enter into its structure be collected 
 together on its intended site, until by 
 human intelligence each stone is placed in 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 199 
 
 its own position and in its proper relation 
 to all the others, — so the objective facts 
 connected with any section of natural 
 knowledge must be grouped by the 
 scientific architect so as to exhibit their 
 various relations, before they can claim to 
 be reqeived as a science. 
 
 The openings for the entrance of error 
 are now immensely increased. When in 
 the infancy of Natural History some organ 
 or organs were arbitrarily selected, and 
 their number or development was adopted 
 as the basis of the classification of the 
 objects to which they belong, there was no 
 difficulty in securing uniform and accurate 
 treatment ; just as there can be no difference 
 of opinion in determining the alphabetical 
 arrangement of words in a dictionary. 
 When, however, it became obvious that no 
 single set of organs could be selected which 
 would exhibit the actual relations between 
 different organisms, but that the whole of 
 each organism must be taken into account, 
 and every part and organ must obtain their 
 
200 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 true position and exercise their proper 
 weight, the scientific arrangement of the 
 data was beset with innumerable diffi- 
 culties, and made liable to innumerable 
 errors. 
 
 To complete the science a further step 
 must be taken. A philosophic view of 
 the whole must be exhibited by generali- 
 sations deduced from the arranged facts. 
 
 In such a work as this, man may engage 
 the noblest faculties of his mind, and fully 
 occupy every moment of his time. If 
 excuse may be tendered for being exclu- 
 sively absorbed with one pursuit, surely the 
 naturalist may plead it. Investigating 
 perfect organisms — perfect as a whole for 
 the functions they have to discharge in the 
 economy of nature, and perfect in every 
 detail of structure and organisation — ever 
 finding new beauties, new fitnesses, new 
 wonders — rising with increasing know- 
 ledge to still higher views of the harmony 
 and balance in nature, and the fitness and 
 perfection of all — few studies are more en- 
 
A Stateinent and an Apology. 201 
 
 nobling. The legitimate and logical issue 
 of this pursuit, one would expect to be 
 to lead the student " from nature up to 
 nature's God." 
 
 The causal relation between a contri- 
 vance fitted to accomplish a selected end, 
 and the designer whose will and intelli- 
 gence are exhibited in the contrivance, is 
 intuitive or self-evident. This close and 
 necessary relation has never been doubted 
 or denied where evidence of design has 
 been allowed to be present. In every 
 object on which man has exhibited intelli- 
 gent action for a purpose, no matter how 
 low the attainments of the operator have 
 been, and how rude the product is, the 
 relation between the article and the arti- 
 ficer is always acknowledged. For exam- 
 ple, the evidence from design supplies the 
 main source of our lately acquired know- 
 ledge of pre-historic man ; the only remains 
 of chief importance that have come down 
 to us, and convey trustworthy information, 
 being the more or less rude implements. 
 
202 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 Tlie purposes for which these stone, bone, 
 or bronze tools were designed, are, in the 
 main, not difficult to determine. The 
 nature of the material chosen, the fitness 
 of the implement produced for the end for 
 which it was designed, its rudeness or finish, 
 and the presence or absence of ornamenta- 
 tion, with the nature of it when present, are 
 held to supply evidence of different degrees 
 of intelligence in the artificers; and this 
 again is assumed to indicate different 
 stages of development in the race. From 
 these data almost alone have been educed 
 the received accounts of the early inhabit- 
 ants of Western Europe. Underlying this 
 comparatively novel science of pre-historic 
 man, is the assumption that the tools 
 exhibiting design are the work of an intel- 
 ligent agent exercising his power and will 
 in their production. Some observers im- 
 perfectly acquainted with the palaeolithic 
 flint implements, and realising only the 
 rudeness of their forms and the remarkable 
 conditions under which they have been 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 203 
 
 found, have denied that they were the pro- 
 ducts of intelligence, and maintained that 
 their forms were accidental and the result 
 of the physical forces that have chipped 
 and broken the flints since they were 
 washed out of the beds in which they were 
 formed. A show of support to this opinion 
 has been given by the production of speci- 
 mens selected from flints which certainly 
 owe their forms to purely accidental cir- 
 cumstances, and which approach in form 
 the ancient tools. Were such a position 
 tenable, the whole science of palaeolithic 
 man would fall to the ground. And, in- 
 deed, so rude are some of these imple- 
 ments, and so often do they approach the 
 accidental forms frequently associated with 
 them in the same gravel bed, that only an 
 experienced eye can recognise those which 
 have the marks of human workmanship. 
 Nevertheless, the careful examination of 
 the rudest, and presumably the most 
 ancient, of these implements, establishes 
 beyond doubt that their uniformity of 
 
204 Scientific Uiibelief : 
 
 shape, correctness of outline, and sharp- 
 ness of the cutting edges and points are 
 due to design. 
 
 Here let us notice that flints formed by 
 an intelligent workman, equally with those 
 the similar forms of which are due to purely 
 accidental circumstances, are without in- 
 telligence in themselves. Intelligence can 
 only be afiirmed of an external designer, 
 and its amount is measured by the fitness 
 of the material selected for the implement, 
 and the success with which the manufac- 
 tured implement accomplishes the pro- 
 posed end, when applied. The science of 
 pre-historic man is thus almost wholly 
 based on the argument of design. 
 
 Much knowledge has been obtained re- 
 garding the civilization and development 
 of peoples and races in different ages from 
 their monuments. The everlasting struc- 
 tures of Egypt, and the sculptured palaces 
 of Assyria, with the various implements, 
 ornaments, and sculptures that their explo- 
 ration has brought to light, have yielded to 
 
A Statement and an Apology, 205 
 
 the investigator a knowledge of these 
 ancient people which was unattainable 
 from other sources. The extensive litera- 
 ture of Greece and Rome, though making 
 us acquainted with the story of the people 
 of those ancient centres of civilisation, and 
 exhibiting the position of high develop- 
 ment to which they had attained, has yet 
 been added to ; and our certain knowledge 
 has been greatly increased by the build- 
 ings, sculptures, and implements which' 
 have remained to us, and which are un- 
 hesitatingly accepted as unerring expo- 
 nents of the intelligence of the producers. 
 
 In our own days we have been singu- 
 larly taught by this method the actual state 
 of the civilisation and intelligence of the 
 different nations of the earth. Within an 
 interval of a few years there have been 
 twice collected together the products of the 
 genius and skilled workmanship of various 
 lands. In his progress through the courts 
 and along the galleries of the Exhibitions 
 of 185 1 and 1862 the intelligent observer 
 
2o6 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 saw more than the beautiful form, the ex- 
 quisite workmanship, or the efficient plan 
 of the objects themselves. In and through 
 them he read a trustworthy record of the 
 stage of advancement of the various artifi- 
 cers, and estimated the place they occu- 
 pied in the world's civilisation. The arts 
 and manufactures of Asia and Africa, of 
 Europe and America, told their own stories 
 when placed side by side with each other. 
 A larger lesson was read by each one who 
 could intelligently contrast the objects of 
 1862 with those of 185 1 ; for he was able 
 to estimate the substantial progress made 
 in that interval by each country and by the 
 world at large. 
 
 Thus everywhere, in dealing with man's 
 works, the intelligence of the designer is 
 estimated from the thing designed. Is 
 man the only agent exhibiting the intelli- 
 gent use of suitable means to accomplish 
 a desired end ? On the contrary, we have 
 abundant indications of intelligent design 
 everywhere throughout the animal king- 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 207 
 
 dom. Thus, for example, the burrow of 
 the mole is singularly fitted to provide a 
 suitable hunting-ground for the supply of 
 that creature's necessary food, and the 
 intricate arrangements of its home form a 
 remarkable means of defence or escape in 
 the event of the intrusion of an enemy. 
 And again, how admirably adapted in its 
 nature, and how suitably chosen in its 
 position, is the web of the spider with the 
 view of securing the artificer's prey ! The 
 animal world supplies the most varied 
 contrivances employed as suitable and 
 always successful means for accomplishing 
 a desired end, and everywhere indicating 
 intelligence on the part of the agent. In 
 the two cases adduced, the intelligence is 
 not in the burrow or in the web, but 
 in the design of the external agent. If 
 we further examine the animals them- 
 selves, we detect unmistakable evidences 
 of design in them. Limiting ourselves to 
 the organs which produce the contrivances 
 in which we have seen evidences of design. 
 
2o8 Scientific Unbelief: 
 
 we observ^e that the hmbs of the mole, 
 which are easily co-related as a whole and 
 in their various parts with the limbs of 
 other mammalia, are unfitted for walking 
 on the ground ; but the peculiar modifi- 
 cations of the various parts which produce 
 this unfitness are obviously contrived for 
 efficient burrowing, and thus to meet the 
 necessities of the mole's underground Hfe. 
 Then, in the spider, there is a special set 
 of organs for secreting the glutinous sub- 
 stance which, by a wonderful spinning 
 apparatus, is made into the threads from 
 which the creature manufactures its web. 
 The intelligence discovered here cannot 
 be, as we have already seen, in the things 
 designed, — it must exist in the external 
 designer. The mole had no part in the 
 production of its limbs, or in the modifi- 
 cation of the typical structure for its own 
 special needs ; nor had the spider any 
 agency in the formation of the glutinous 
 substance, or the construction of tlie spina- 
 rets by which it is made into tlireads. If 
 
A Statajuut and an Apology. 209 
 
 there be here indications of deiig-n, the 
 inteUigence must be external to both 
 animals. 
 
 Nowhere are such contrivances more 
 apparent than in man himself ; for we are 
 able not only to observe the means adopted, 
 but experimentally to test their fitness to 
 accomplish the ends intended. Take, for 
 example, the contrivance by which we 
 see external objects. The eye is a round 
 ball protected by its strong dense sclerotic 
 coat, and lodged in the hard, bony, orbital 
 cavity, which is cushioned all round for its 
 reception. The ball of tae eye can be 
 moved in any direction by the conjoint 
 action of its six muscles ; and muscles 
 and eye are connected with the brain by 
 the optic and motor nerves. The optic 
 nerve — the only one in the body able to 
 appreciate light and colour — is spread out 
 in the cup-like retina in front of the dark 
 wall which lines the sclerotic coat : the 
 only black membrane in the body which 
 finds here its proper, ari only useful 
 
2IO Scie7itific Unbelief: 
 
 place. The light passes through the 
 double-convex crystalline lens, which is of 
 different density in the centre and circum- 
 ference so as to correct aberration by 
 bringing the rays of the centre to the same 
 focus as those of the circumference. This 
 perfectly transparent lens is not a homo- 
 geneous substance, but is composed of an 
 infinite number of extremely minute rib- 
 bon-like structures, filled with clear albu- 
 men. The admission of the light is 
 regulated by a thin, flat, muscular cur- 
 tain, the iris, which hangs vertically in 
 the aqueous humour before the lens, and 
 expands or contracts the opening by in- 
 voluntary action induced by the stimulus 
 of the light. The dense elastic cornea 
 protects the exposed portion of the eye, 
 and encloses the aqueous humour. All 
 the parts are wonderfully made — the 
 microscope reveals the most marvellous 
 complexity of structure — and all conspire 
 to produce perfect vision.* Besides, there 
 * I do not forget M tiller's statement that there 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 2 1 1 
 
 are the various appliances to secure the 
 motions, renovation, and protection of the 
 eye : the muscles, nerves, and blood-vessels, 
 the lachrymal apparatus, and the eyelids. 
 One cannot conceive a more obvious 
 instance of design — so many structures 
 fitly arranged for the specific purpose of 
 obtaining a perfect image of external ob- 
 jects, and placed in front of the ophthalmic 
 nerve, with its , numerous' ramifications, 
 by which the image is received and con- 
 veyed to the brain : these all point with 
 unerring certainty to the intelligence of 
 an omniscient and omnipotent Designer. 
 
 This conviction is still more increased 
 when we realise that the same perfection 
 exists in every other organ of the body, — 
 
 are imperfections in the eye, which could be avoided 
 in an optical instrument. In the same way there 
 are defects in the levers and fulcrums of the human 
 body which could be avoided in a machine. But 
 such defects are relative only to the limited view 
 taken of these structures, and disappear when the 
 structures are examined in the light of their com- 
 plete morphology and teleology. 
 
212 Scientific Unbelief: 
 
 in the organs of hearing and tasting, of 
 breathing and digestion, and so on ; and 
 that all these perfect organs are joined to- 
 gether into a complete whole, where each 
 has its efficient place and its harmonious 
 relation to all the rest. 
 
 But here, where the argument from 
 design seems strongest, and the conviction 
 that we are dealing with the intelligence of 
 an external omniscient Designer is most 
 powerfully brought home to the mind, we 
 are told that there is no indication of intel- 
 ligence, of will, or of power, in any of these 
 remarkable contrivances, or in the com- 
 bination of all of them into one complete 
 organism. 
 
 Wallace, who divides with Darwin the 
 credit of originating the hypothesis of 
 materialistic evolution, thus states the 
 case : — 
 
 " All the phenomena of living things, — 
 all their wonderful organs and complicated 
 structures, their infinite variety of form, 
 size, and colour, their intricate and involved 
 
A Statement and an. Apology. 2 1 3 
 
 relations to each other, — may have been 
 produced by the action of a few general , 
 laws of the simplest kind, laws which are 
 in most cases mere statements of admitted 
 facts. The chief of these laws or facts are 
 {a) the law of multiplication in geometrical 
 progression, {b) the law of limited popula- 
 tions, if) the, law of heredity, {cl) the law of 
 variation, [e) the law of unceasing change 
 of physical conditions upon the surface of 
 the earth, and (/) the equilibrium or har- 
 mony of nature. This series of facts or 
 laws, are mere statements of what is the 
 condition of nature. . . It is probable 
 that they are but the results of the very 
 nature of life, and of the essential properties 
 of organized and unorganized matter." 
 ("Natural Selection," pp. 265-7). 
 
 In his '' Lay Sefmons " Huxley states 
 the case with great plainness. " In Paley's 
 famous illustration," he says, " the adapta- 
 tion of all the parts of the watch to the 
 function or purpose of showing the time, is 
 held to be evidence that the watch was 
 
2 14 Scientific Unbelief: 
 
 specially contrived to that end ; on the 
 ground that the only cause we know of, 
 competent to produce such an effect as a 
 watch which shall keep time, is a contriving 
 intelligence adapting the means directly to 
 that end. 
 
 " Suppose, however, that any one had 
 been able to show that the watch had not 
 been made directly by any person, but 
 that it was the result of the modification of 
 another watch which kept time but poorly ; 
 and that this again had proceeded from a 
 structure which could hardly be called a 
 watch at all— seeing that it had no figures 
 on the dial and the hands were rudiment- 
 ary ; and that, going back and back in 
 time, we came at last to a revolving barrel 
 as the earliest traceable rudiment of the 
 whole fabric. And imagine that it had 
 been possible to show that all these 
 changes had resulted, first, from a tend- 
 ency of the structure to vary indefinitely ; 
 and secondly, from something in the sur- 
 rounding world which helped all variations 
 
A State?ne7it and an Apology. 2 1 5 
 
 ill the direction of an accurate time-keeper, 
 and checked all those in other directions ; 
 then it is obvious that the force of Paley's 
 argument would be gone. For it would be 
 demonstrated that an apparatus thoroughly 
 well adapted to a particular purpose might 
 be the result of a method of trial and error 
 worked by unintelligent agents, as well as 
 of the direct application of the means ap- 
 propriate to that end, by an intelligent agent. 
 " Now it appears to us that what we have 
 here, for illustration's sake, supposed to be 
 done with the watch, is exactly what the 
 establishment of Darwin's theory will do 
 for the organic world. For the notion that 
 every organism has been created as it is, 
 and launched straight at a purpose, Mr. 
 Darwin substitutes the conception of some- 
 thing which may fairly be termed a method 
 of trial and error. Organisms vary inces- 
 santly ; of these variations the few meet 
 with surrounding conditions which suit 
 them, and thrive ; the many are unsuited, 
 and become extinguished. 
 
2i6 Scientific Unbelief: 
 
 ''According to Teleology, each organism, 
 is like a rifle-bullet fired straight at a 
 n;iark ; according to Darwin, organisms are 
 like grapeshot, of which one hits something 
 and the rest fall wide. 
 
 " For the teleologist an organism exists 
 because it was made for the conditions in 
 which it is found : for the Darwinian an 
 organism exists because, out of many of 
 its kind, it is the only one which has been 
 able to persist in the conditions in which it 
 is found." (pp. 330-332). 
 
 I will make one more quotation to show 
 the position of the materialistic school ; and 
 having referred at some length to the evi- 
 dence of design in the eye, I will extract 
 Mr Darwin's interpretation of its evolu- 
 tion. He says : " To suppose that the eye, 
 with all its inimitable contrivances for ad- 
 justing the focus to different distances, for 
 admitting different amounts of light, and 
 for the correction of spherical and chro- 
 matic aberration, could have been formed 
 by natural selection, seems, I freely 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 2 1 7 
 
 confess, absurd in the highest degree." 
 (''Origin of Species," sixth ed., p. I43-) 
 
 He however argues that, if numerous 
 gradations from a simple to a complex eye 
 exist and are each useful, '' then the diffi- 
 culty of believing that a perfect and com- 
 plex eye could be formed by natural selec- 
 tion, though insuperable by our imagination, 
 should not be considered as subversive of 
 the theory. . . To arrive, however, at a just 
 conclusion regarding the formation of the 
 eye, with all its marvellous yet not abso- 
 lutely perfect characters, it is indispensable 
 that the reason should conquer the imagi- 
 nation ; but I have felt the difficulty far 
 too keenly to be surprised at others hesi- 
 tating to extend the principle of natural 
 selection to so startling a length. 
 
 " It is scarcely possible to avoid com- 
 paring the eye with a telescope. We know 
 that this instrument has been perfected by 
 the long- continued efforts of the highest 
 human intellects ; and we naturally infer 
 that the eye- has been formed by a some- 
 
2i8 Scientijic Unbelief: 
 
 what analogous process. But may not 
 this be presumptuous ? Have we any 
 right to assume that the Creator works 
 by intellectual powers like those of man ? 
 If we must compare the eye to an optical 
 instrument, we ought, in imagination, to 
 take a thick layer of different densities 
 and thicknesses, placed at different dis- 
 tances from each other, and with the sur- 
 faces of each layer slowly changing in 
 form. Further, we must suppose that there 
 is a power, represented by natural selec- 
 tion, or the survival of the fittest, always 
 intently watching each slight alteration in 
 the transparent layers ; and carefully pre- 
 serving each which, under varied circum- 
 stances, in any way or in any degree 
 tends to produce a distinctive image. We 
 must suppose each new state of the in- 
 strument to be multiplied by the million ; 
 each to be preserved till a better one is 
 produced, and then the old ones to be 
 all destroyed. In living bodies, variation 
 will cause the slight alterations, generation 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 219 
 
 will multiply them almost infinitely, and 
 natural selection will pick out with un- 
 erring skill each improvement. Let this 
 process go on for millions of years, and 
 during each year on millions of individuals 
 of many kinds ; and may we not believe 
 that a living optical instrument might 
 thus be formed as superior to one of 
 glass, as the works of the Creator are to 
 those of man ?" (p. 146.) 
 
 It is the fashion of some who hold these 
 doctrines to laugh at the credulity of all 
 who marshal, as they put it, behind the 
 "■ drum ecclesiastic " — '' the fools " or *' old 
 ladies of both sexes " who believe the 
 Scriptures. I doubt whether, among the 
 vagaries of the numerous sects that accept 
 the Bible as a Divine revelation, — and 
 these vagaries are very many and often 
 very strange, — there is one that demands 
 such a draft on man's credulity as the 
 doctrine of Darwin I have now quoted, 
 and many others which are fully, and I 
 venture to say blindly, believed by the 
 
2 20 Sciehtific Unbelief: 
 
 advocates of the doctrine of materialistic 
 evolution. One must have laid aside his 
 common sense before he could accept 
 such a process of unintelligent develop- 
 ment as a sufficient explanation of that 
 wondrous organ which we happily possess 
 in its final and unimprovable stage. And 
 this we believe is what Darwin demands 
 of his disciples when he insists, for their 
 proper apprehension of his theory, that *' it 
 is indispensable that the reason should 
 conquer the imagination." I can see no 
 meaning in this demand, unless it is that 
 the author requires of his readers that his 
 reasoning should conquer their common 
 sense ! 
 
 Nevertheless the advocate of unintelli- 
 gent development holds a position which 
 he maintains is logical and unimpregnable. 
 As a student of nature he knows only 
 bodies and the properties of bodies. All 
 his facts and phenomena are appreciated 
 by the senses. These supply the only tools 
 with which he is or allo'ws himself to be 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 221 
 
 acquainted. In their exercise he finds 
 fullest occupation for his life. By their help 
 he discovers the most wonderful structures 
 perfectly accomplishing the work they 
 have to discharge. He observes nothing 
 that he cannot thus apprehend. What- 
 ever is brought under his investigation 
 must be tested by the only standard with 
 which he is acquainted. If it does not 
 submit to his measure, and supply him 
 with evidence which his senses can appre- 
 ciate, it is dismissed as transcendental, it 
 can have no place in his philosophy. 
 
 Thus circumscribed, the naturalist ne- 
 cessarily, and from his premisses logically, 
 excludes mind from the phenomena he in- 
 vestigates. But the recognition of design in 
 nature was founded on the conviction that 
 there was a Designer outside of nature. 
 As long as those teleological views were ac- 
 cepted it was impossible for the naturalist 
 to descend to a pure materialistic plat- 
 form, or to limit the evidence on which 
 his science was built to that of the senses. 
 
22 2 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 Darwin's hypothesis of evolving from the 
 less perfect organisms of the past all the 
 living organisms, and all their various 
 structures and appliances, by the gradual 
 accumulation of unintended variations 
 which secured for their possessors some 
 advantage in the struggle for life, — this 
 hypothesis got rid of a directing or control- 
 ling designer. And thus the desideratum 
 of the materialist was supplied. Darwin's 
 hypothesis, says Carl Vogt, in the plain 
 language which he delights to use, " turns 
 the Creator without any hesitation out of 
 doors, inasmuch as it does not leave the 
 smallest room for the agency of such a 
 Being." It should be stated that Darwin 
 himself demands, in the exposition of his 
 hypothesis, the original interference of a 
 Creator when He breathed life and its 
 several powers into a few forms, or into 
 one ; and that some, like Prof. Asa Gray, 
 hold a modified theory of evolution, from 
 which the Creator is not eliminated, by 
 believing that in the economy of nature 
 
A Stat anent and an Apology. 22^ 
 
 He has led the variations along certain 
 beneficial lines, as a stream is led along 
 useful lines of irrigation. Nevertheless, 
 the logical issue . of Darwin's argument, 
 and that which is fully accepted by its 
 chief defenders and expounders, is the 
 banishment of design from nature. " The 
 whole world, living and not living, is," 
 according to Huxley, " the result of the 
 mutual interaction, according to definite 
 laws of forces possessed by the molecules 
 of which the primitive nebulosity of the 
 universe was composed. If this be true, 
 it is no less certain that the existing world 
 lay potentially in the cosmic vapour ; and 
 that a sufficient intelligence could, from, 
 a knowledge of the properties of that 
 vapour, have predicted, say, the state of 
 the fauna of Great Britain in 1869, with 
 as much certainty as one can say what 
 will happen to the vapour of the breath 
 on a cold winter's day." 
 
 With his data, and employing the tools 
 which he has elected, there is no other 
 
2 24 Scioiiific Unbelief : 
 
 stable position for the materialistic student 
 of science than this which he honestly 
 assumes. He clearly states and stands by 
 his position. 
 
 Darwin allows that all the facts and 
 forces in nature can be accounted for by 
 seeing in them the realization of a design 
 efficiently accomplished by God. But 
 this, he holds, would not be science. And 
 this is so with science as he limits it ; but 
 the strength of his position is its great 
 weakness. No science can be perfect 
 which clearly separates itself from all 
 others, and rejects help that cannot be 
 tested by its own methods. These methods 
 are as numerous as the sciences. Chemis- 
 try, Physics, Biology, Geometry, Ethics, 
 etc., have all their own methods. Rightly 
 pursued, each science should help the 
 others ; as none are circumscribed by a 
 hard-and-fast line. Each science has 
 obviously its own peculiar facts, which 
 belong to the specialist ; but a philosophic 
 view of the phenomena and forces' of the 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 22^ 
 
 universe, based on the facts and processes 
 peculiar to one division, is a retrograde 
 step such as would be taken if botanists 
 were to return to the artificial system of 
 Linnaeus. The science of the universe is 
 a complete whole ; its various parts may 
 be investigated separately, but all must 
 be united to produce the complete science : 
 just as in the body the different organs 
 can be thought of and studied separately, 
 but all are needed to form the perfect 
 body. " The body is not one member, but 
 many. If the foot shall say, Because I 
 am not the hand, I am not of the body ; 
 is it therefore not of the body ? And if 
 the ear shall say, Because I am not the 
 eye, I am not of the body ; is it therefore 
 not of the body ? If the whole body were 
 an eye, where were the hearing ? If the 
 whole were hearing, where were the smell- 
 ing ? But now hath God set the members 
 every one of them in the body, as it hath 
 pleased Him. And if they were all one 
 member, where were the body .•* But now 
 
 15 
 
2 26 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 are they many members, yet but one body. 
 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I 
 have no need of thee ; nor, again, the head 
 to the feet, I have no need of you. . God 
 hath tempered the body together, having 
 given more abundant honour to that part 
 which lacked ; that there should be no 
 schism in the body." (i Cor. xii. 14-25.) 
 
 In forcing all facts to fit into his mould, 
 and rejecting whatever will not bear the 
 pressure, the modern materialist is without 
 excuse ; but it should be remembered, 
 while condemning him, that this pro- 
 ceeding is not peculiar to himself, but 
 to a large extent characteristic of the 
 race. The exclusive devotion to any pur- 
 suit invariably interferes with the inde- 
 pendent attitude of the devotee to other 
 subjects. It matters not what the pur- 
 suit be — the most ennobling or the most 
 grovelling, the mere gain of money or the 
 gain of knowledge, the search for pleasure 
 or after science — whatever engrosses the 
 whole mind of necessity warps the judg- 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 2 2"] 
 
 ment, obscures mental vision, and affects 
 the life. It is far from easy to throw off 
 the bonds that such a pursuit coils round 
 one ; it is even difficult to see them, — to 
 realise that they are there. 
 
 The materialist, of course, begins his 
 investigation of nature with matter — with 
 "the primitive nebulosity of the universe," 
 —and out of this lifeless substance he 
 evolves, by the operation of properties 
 inherent in it, all the marvellous inter- 
 dependent physical phenomena and con- 
 ditions of the universe, and all the endless 
 marvels of life and structure and intelli- 
 gence which nature exhibits. But he begins 
 at the wrong end. In making dead matter 
 the efficient cause of intelligence, he inverts 
 experience. An intelligent agent external 
 to the dead matter must always operate 
 upon it to secure any piodification with a 
 purpose. The human mind, when un- 
 biassed, always begins with intelligence — 
 with God. And the God whose external 
 power and personality are clearly seen in 
 
2 28 Scientific Unbelief: 
 
 creation is the same God who is more 
 fully revealed in the Bible as the Author 
 of all things. Do we not witness, then, a 
 strange perversion of judgment when we 
 see the student of nature rejecting the 
 God revealed in it ? Instead of being 
 compelled by the evidence before him to 
 acknowledge God, the experience of our 
 day has led some to the conclusion that 
 the tendency of physical science is towarc 
 irreligion. But the Bible, which teaches 
 man the perfect character of the Creator, 
 reveals also the relation subsisting be- 
 tween man and God. The dread of God. 
 arising from the degradation which disobe 
 dience brought into the world, and which 
 has passed upon all men — for all have 
 sinned — is a doctrine fully revealed in the 
 Bible, but also abundantly obvious to 
 every one who examines his own inmost 
 nature, or intelligently looks out on man- 
 kind ; and nowhere is it more obvious 
 than in the professed creed of those who 
 claim to be the profound thinkers of our 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 2 2g 
 
 day. The doctrine may be ignored, but 
 the fact cannot be erased from the consti- 
 tution of man. The dread may be buried 
 out of sight by forgetting the object of it. 
 By an exercise of the reasoning faculty, 
 our consciousness, our common sense may 
 be conquered, and the Deity banished 
 from our philosophy. The fact, however, 
 remains ; and physical science, or natural 
 knowledge of any kind, is unable to reveal 
 an efficient mode of getting rid of it. But 
 the same Bible that manifests in its nature 
 and extent the evil, reveals as well the 
 Divine way of removing it. Through this 
 living Way many of the greatest masters 
 of science have returned to their God, and 
 rejoiced in His favour, — men like Faraday 
 and Brewster, who have held with the 
 same powerful grasp the doctrines of 
 revelation and the teachings of science, 
 and have adorned alike the life of faith 
 and the schools of philosophy. Honest, 
 independent, and fearless in the investi- 
 gation of science — the more honest, inde- 
 
230 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 pendent, and fearless because they were 
 dealing with the visible works of God — yet 
 were they equally loyal, loving, and trust- 
 ing, in the presence of the God of all grace. 
 
 A shorter treatment may be given of 
 scientific unbelief as it is exhibited in the 
 hostile attitude assumed by materialists to 
 the Christian religion. The logical issue 
 of their scientific creed precludes the possi- 
 bility of acquiescence in the doctrines of a 
 revealed religion which rests entirely on 
 the basis of the supernatural. 
 
 The same fundamental sources of mis- 
 take which we have seen to be present in 
 the materialist's more generalised position 
 of the rejection of God, interfere with his 
 judgment in dealing with Christianity. But 
 in addition to these we have here a great 
 amount of hard words and opprobrious 
 epithets indulged in, I regret to say, by 
 both sides, but with this noteworthy differ- 
 ence : that the leaders of theological thought 
 and the masters of theological science rest 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 231 
 
 on the force of their reasoning, and only 
 the most feeble expounders of revelation 
 condescend to violent language ; whereas 
 the founders and prophets of the material- 
 istic philosophy — excepting the illustrious 
 observer who has given his name to the 
 doctrine — are responsible for the use, on 
 their side, of words and phrases that, to 
 say the least, are worse than objectionable. 
 The errors which influence the attitude 
 of some defenders of religious life and 
 dogma to scientific opinion, as well as of 
 scientific unbeUevers to Christian truth, 
 are due partly to presumption and partly 
 to ignorance, — presumption in travelling 
 beyond the province of one's own science, 
 and ignorance in not ascertaining the true 
 state of the case before making such excur- 
 sions. Eminence in one science does not 
 mean eminence in all. The mental training 
 secured in arranging and co-relating phe- 
 nomena of one kind may be applied to 
 test the processes of reasoning employed in 
 constructing systems relating to other kinds 
 
232 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 of phenomena. But the logical faculty can 
 never ascertain whether the phenomena 
 are true or false in themselves. This can 
 only be determined by a competent know- 
 ledge of the nature of the phenomena which 
 form the premisses of the reasoning. Grant 
 the premisses, then the logic which is com- 
 mon to all the sciences will enable us to 
 ascertain whether the conclusions follow 
 fairly from them ; but it can never assist in 
 discovering the matter of fact. No one is 
 therefore warranted to dictate within a 
 province not his own, whatever be his 
 eminence in his special science. 
 
 Abundant instances exist in which the 
 publicly recognised or self-assumed de- 
 fenders of religion have not hesitated to 
 dictate in sciences though they are com- 
 pletely ignorant of their veriest rudiments. 
 Such proceedings receive, as they de- 
 serve, the ridicule of their opponents, and 
 encourage a condemnation in which the 
 whole party they ignorantly defend are too 
 often included. No less true, however, is 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 233 
 
 this of the aggressors among men of science 
 when deaUng with the facts of rehgion. The 
 measure they mete to their opponents may 
 be applied to themselves. Science has not 
 suffered from the one set of aggressors ; 
 nor has religion permanently suffered from 
 the other. 
 
 Let me justify this position by adducing 
 an instance or two. Take the extraordin- 
 ary proposal made by Sir Henry Thomp- 
 son and publicly advanced by Tyndall, of 
 submitting the efficacy of prayer to the 
 test of physical experiment. The terms of 
 the proposal are so familiar, that it is un- 
 necessary to repeat them. 
 
 A fundamental error is concealed in his 
 statement of the case when he speaks of 
 prayer as a form of physical energy, or as 
 the equivalent of such energy. In asking 
 a favour from God, the petitioner recog- 
 nises the Divine will as supreme. The 
 physical energy, asserted to be obtained in 
 answer to prayer, is not connected with 
 the prayer as the etfect. with the cause, 
 
234 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 neither is there any causal connexion 
 between the prayer and the action of God. 
 The very nature of prayer, as well as the 
 belief of the petitioner, connects the answer, 
 whether it aftects the physical or the moral 
 world, with the free pleasure of God. 
 
 The experiment proposed indicates a 
 total ignorance of the condition necessary 
 to the exercise of prayer, both on the part 
 of the suppliant and of Him who is suppH- 
 cated. It is of the very essence of prayer, 
 whether addressed to God or to a fellow- 
 man, that the petitioner should have confi- 
 dence and trust in him who is approached, 
 that he is ready to hear and help, and that 
 he will certainly grant the request if it be 
 consistent with his own purposes and the 
 best good of the petitioner. Without such 
 confidence the child does not present a 
 request to his father. Without this con- 
 fidence the Christian never exercises, nor 
 indeed could exercise, the privilege of 
 prayer. But in the proposed experiment 
 this confidence is at the outset destroyed 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 235 
 
 when the petitioner enters into a contract 
 to experimentally establish the efficacy of 
 prayer by means of a physical test, which 
 shall be estimated by one whose only posi- 
 tion in the contract is that he denies the 
 power of God to interfere with physical 
 nature. The petitioner in such an experi- 
 ment would obviously surrender his only 
 rational position before God. 
 
 And there is error also in regard to the 
 position occupied by God in prayer, seeing 
 that His free-will is denied. When we ask 
 a favour from a fellow-man we necessarily 
 imply that he has freedom of choice to 
 grant or refuse a petition. Still more 
 essential is this fundamental position to 
 our proper relation to God in our prayers. 
 We not only recognise God as acting 
 from His own free-will, but as possess- 
 ing data for action which are beyond our 
 reach. We do not seek help from a 
 short-sighted mortal like ourselves, but 
 from the Eternal, to whom all things are 
 ever-present, and who knows our state and 
 
236 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 wants better than we do ourselves. Our 
 limited wisdom often leads to the desire 
 for things as blessings which, were we duly 
 enlightened, would present a very different 
 aspect to us. But the petitioner has this 
 confidence : that every petition offered in 
 in faith, for things consistent with the will 
 of God and with our own best good, will 
 be granted. And if his desires are not 
 complied with, or his petitions are answered 
 in a way not anticipated, he rests with as- 
 surance on the conviction that He doeth all 
 things well. Each petition carries with it 
 by implication, if not actually expressed, 
 " Not my will, but Thine be done." The 
 case from the Christian's point of view 
 demands that the Prayer-Hearer should 
 possess the power of controlling nature 
 and man, and that He may and does exer- 
 cise spontaneous volition in the interests of 
 His people when moved thereto by prayer. 
 But this free-will of God is no more invari- 
 ably efficient as a physical agent on the 
 demand of another, than would the volun- 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 237 
 
 tary actions of man be in similar circum- 
 stances. It cannot therefore be measured. 
 No scheme has yet been devised for sub- 
 jecting the will of man ''to those methods 
 of examination from which our present 
 knowledge of the physical universe is 
 derived." The proposal, therefore, is some- 
 thing more than premature to subject the 
 volitions of God to these methods. The 
 occurrence of so many errors in this pro- 
 posal is a necessary consequence of the 
 fact that the experiment was proposed by 
 one who is practically ignorant of prayer, 
 and who moreover has taken no steps to 
 make himself acquainted with the position 
 of prayer in the science of theology. 
 
 We may parallel this disregard of the 
 essentials of efficient prayer by an illustra- 
 tion from Tyndall's own studies. As a 
 student of the late J. D. Forbes, I learned 
 to consider that the movements of the glacier 
 were due to a viscous condition of the ice 
 composing it. This view, clearly expounded 
 by its author, was enforced by facts and 
 
238 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 experiments which seemed to establish its 
 truth. Tyndall insists that the motion is 
 due to the breaking up and instant re^ 
 freezing of the glacier ice, and he supports 
 his opinion by his remarkable re-gelation 
 experiments. Suppose I still adhere to 
 the views early received from an illustrious 
 physicist, but propose, nevertheless, to ac- 
 cept the re-gelation theory if its advocate 
 will perform before me his re-gelation ex- 
 periment under certain conditions which I 
 must prescribe ; and chiefly that the metal 
 cavity in which the broken ice is re-frozen 
 must be raised to a red heat, and the 
 pressure must be continued for a specified 
 time. It is of no use to explain that my 
 conditions make the experiment impos- 
 sible. I take my stand on my proposal, and 
 till I receive the demonstration in my own 
 way I would be entitled to maintain, on the 
 same ground that Tyndall denies the effi- 
 cacy of prayer, that re-gelation supplies no 
 satisfactory explanation of the motion of 
 glaciers, and is indeed itself a myth. 
 
A Statancnt and an Apology. 239 
 
 I shall take as the other example of the 
 ig-norance shown by men of science in 
 regard to the realities of Christian life, the 
 definition of religion given by Galton in 
 his recently-published " English Men of 
 Science." His definition consists of three 
 elements. The religious man is character- 
 ised first, according to Galton, by "the great 
 prevalence of the intuitive sentiments : so 
 much so that conflicting matters of obser- 
 vation are apt to be laid aside, out of sight 
 and mind." Intuitive truths or sentiments 
 are things which the mind sees to be true 
 immediately, in their own light, and with- 
 out any proof or reasoning. It is assumed 
 that some matters of observation conflict 
 with the intuitive sentiments of the reli- 
 gious man,- but this should not be assumed 
 without proof Besides, Galton has re- 
 ceived the testimony of some men eminent 
 in science, who have decided religious bias, 
 that they do not find any real antagonism 
 between religion and the study of nature 
 (p. 136). There is, however, a more serious 
 
240 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 defect on the face of the proposition than 
 this ; for, assuming that observed facts do 
 conflict with intuitive sentiments, it asserts 
 that the rehgious man is apt to put out of 
 sight and mind such conflicting matters of 
 observation. Such an attitude to any truth 
 would be destructive to the position of an 
 honest inquirer. In performing his simplest 
 functions the scientific investigator collects, 
 interprets, and classifies phenomena. He 
 has not the power to take in all the data in 
 all their ramifying details ; he fails to give 
 their true value and importance to all the 
 factors within his knowledge ; and the know- 
 ledge, however extensive, is yet limited : 
 as a result, his philosophic generalisations 
 are so far defective. A larger or smaller 
 group of exceptional or residual phenomena 
 are recognised as not completely harmonis- 
 ing with his generalisation. Such conflict- 
 ing data are not laid aside in science. It is, 
 then, obviously unfair to assert as a leading 
 element in religion, that its professors lay 
 aside out of sight and mind matters of ob- 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 2/^i 
 
 servation because they conflict with intuitive 
 truths. In recognising as exceptional and 
 hitherto unexplained any matters of obser- 
 vation which may appear to conflict with 
 accepted truths, they are following the 
 practice of science. It is very different if 
 they intentionally ignore any fact whatever, 
 putting it out of sight and mind. This 
 would deserve the gravest condemnation ; 
 but in uttering this condemnation it should 
 be remembered that such conduct is not 
 peculiar to the professors of religion. It 
 would be no difficult task to parallel every 
 instance in which a religious man has 
 ignored facts by an instance on the part 
 of one claiming to be a man of science. 
 The transgressor in both cases is always 
 a feeble, and at the same time a violent, 
 advocate. It is obviously wrong to ascribe 
 such errors to all who hold anything in 
 common with their authors, whether it be 
 in theology, biology, or physics. This 
 wrong is done to religious men by the 
 author of '' English Men of Science," and 
 
 i6 
 
242 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 all who, like him, after the fashion of 
 the day, confound religion with the views 
 of its more ignorant and blatant ex- 
 pounders. 
 
 Galton's second element of religious life 
 is the possession of " a sense of extreme sin 
 and weakness." It is true the mere observer 
 does not detect the vivid consciousness of 
 sin and personal unworthiness present to 
 every one who comes into personal relation 
 with the holy God. This is apprehended 
 only by the man who measures his own heart 
 and life by the standard of the perfect holi- 
 ness of God — a holiness fully appreciated by 
 each one whose relation to God depends on 
 its most marvellous exhibition, the re- 
 demption-work of Calvary. How much 
 soever he may attain to the life of purity 
 and uprightness essential to his professed 
 character, or may compare advantageously 
 with others around him, he is nevertheless 
 completely self-condemned before the Holy 
 One. His measure of purity is not relative 
 to his fellows. It is therefore only from a 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 243 
 
 complete misapprehension of the position 
 of a religious man, to maintain and assert 
 that his sense of inability to reach the 
 perfection of God cannot be associated 
 with independence of disposition, energetic 
 temperament, and healthful physique. 
 
 The completion of Galton's portrait of 
 a rehgious man is, that the ''revelations of 
 a future life, and of other matters variously 
 interpreted by different sects, satisfy the 
 intuitive sentiments." A more complete 
 misapprehension and mis-statement of the 
 Christian faith and practice could hardly be 
 given. The restored relation of the indi- 
 vidual to the personal God is the founda- 
 tion and superstructure of~ Christian life : 
 a future life and other matters are of 
 importance only in their relation to the 
 personal God. 
 
 Were a speciahst in science, however 
 successful in his own speciality, to 
 travel out of his province, and presump- 
 tuously to dogmatise upon defective and 
 erroneous data which he had empirically 
 
244 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 gathered, he would at once obtain the 
 position such a proceeding deserved. 
 Scientific men show no compassion to a 
 presumptuous sciolist. The records of 
 science in all times, — and at the present 
 day as much as at any time, — abound in 
 instances of severity in such cases. The' 
 man who is an authority in the science into 
 which the ignorant intrusion has been made 
 is necessarily the one who is most offended : 
 he is also most severe and most justifiable 
 in his condemnation of the intruder. But, 
 on the other hai;d, the sciolist, oblivious to 
 his errors, maintains, from his very igno- 
 rance of the case, a position which is seen 
 by every intelligent observer to be worse 
 than untenable. 
 
 Yet in matters of religion the scientific 
 unbeliever boldly presents his empirical 
 collection of erroneous data, and dogmati- 
 cally advances his deductions therefrom ; 
 and when he is called to account for his 
 errors, and is exhibited as a theological 
 sciolist, he recognises only the beat — loud 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 245 
 
 or faint, as the case may be — of the " drum 
 ecclesiastic." 
 
 . Until the sciolist in science admits ascer- 
 tained facts, there is no room for honest 
 enquiry and no hope for intelligent con- 
 viction. In the notorious case which has 
 in recent years been coming to the surface 
 in law-courts and public prints, it is abun- 
 dantly obvious that all the experiments of 
 Mr. Wallace and his advocates, and all the 
 demonstrations and expositions of the 
 actual form of the earth will never con- 
 vince Mr. Hampden, as long as he adheres 
 to and argues from his absurd and erro- 
 neous views. 
 
 In like manner, until the materialist 
 acknowledges that there are other facts 
 besides those of physical science, and 
 admits the realities of Christianity as ex- 
 pressed in its authoritative writings and 
 exhibited in the lives of its honest pro- 
 fessors, it is impossible to secure, on his 
 part, a trustworthy enquiry. When he 
 deals with the dogmas of theology let 
 
246 Scientific Unbelief : 
 
 him master some scientific and systematic 
 exposition of them. As long as he deals 
 fairly and intelligently with that exposition 
 he will be listened to. If his criticism 
 affects the Christian life, let him ascertain 
 the motives to action common to all 
 (however they differ on matters of less 
 importance) who accept the great doc- 
 trines of the Bible, — the substitution of 
 Christ and the power of the Spirit. 
 
 No intellectual treatment of the subject 
 can be entered upon unless this be con- 
 ceded. Without this the scientific unbe- 
 liever has no position in the enquiry ; just 
 as the Christian who ignorantly intrudes 
 into science, no matter what may be his 
 eminence in theology, is out of court. 
 But a merely intellectual position in relation 
 to Christianity is deceptive and unstable. 
 The desire to do the will of God is the one 
 condition of spiritual understanding. The 
 absence of this condition is the great cause 
 of infidelity. " If any man will do His 
 will, he shall know of the doctrine." 
 
A Statement and an Apology. 247 
 
 In looking into this subject, it has been 
 forced upon me that what is above all 
 wanted to direct intelligent, truth-seeking 
 men to the truth, is more numerous and 
 more pronounced hfe-testimonies to the 
 power of the Gospel. Each Christian must, 
 so manifest his life in Christ that it shall 
 be seen to consist, not in the acceptance of 
 dogmas concerning which there may be 
 much difference of opinion, but in a relation 
 to a living Person, and in the continued 
 exhibition of those characteristics in the 
 Redeemer's life which have, in our own day, 
 drawn from those who deny His work the 
 most eloquent tributes of admiration to 
 His life. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Watson and Hazell, Printers, London and Aylesbury. 
 
in