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SCIENCE AND RELIGION.
AN ARGUMENT.

CHAPTER I.
SCIENCE AND" THEOLOGY— ANCIENT AND
MODERN.1
EACH generation of mankind thinks highly of its own impro-
tance and inclines to believe that it will mark an epoch in
human history. All of us who live out our seventy years witness
impressive changes. If we add to our personal experience- the
accounts which we hear from our fathers of the state of things
which they remember in their own childhood, the individual recol
lections of each of us extend back over nearly a century ; and every
century brings with it alterations of action and sentiment, which are
depressing or exhilarating according to the constitution of our minds,
but are always on a scale to force upon us a sense of the instability
of all opinions and institutions, and of the complicated influences
which control the fortunes of our race. The revolutions may be
intrinsically Jess violent than they seem to those who have borne a
part in them. Events which at the time of their occurrence appear
of world-wide moment, are seen afterward to have been without real
significance. As we look back over history we perceive long periods
apparently level and unbroken. Then, as now, perhaps old men
drew contrasts between past and present, spoke eloquently of
national degeneracy, or warmed into enthusiasm over a better time
that had set in. To us, as we survey these periods from a distance,
there will appear to have been few changes either for good or evil,
1 From the International Review.

4 ' SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
and each generation will seem extremely like its predecessors. The
English of Shakespeare or Swift were not essentially different from
the English of to-day. The accidents of life alter rapidly. The inner
nature alters very slowly. We feel acutely the alterations which we
have witnessed, because they are close to us ; but at least half the
impression is due to changes in ourselves rather than in what is
round us. We grow old ; we look back on the past with affectionate
regret, as when we were young we looked to the future with hope
and enthusiasm.. We do not see the sordid details of vulgar reality;
we are unconscious poets and idealize without being aware of it.
Nevertheless there are times when change is really rapid, so
rapid that the character of it cannot be mistaken ; times when a
Rip van Winkle who went to sleep in his youth would wake in
manhood to find himself in a world remade, all habits altered, all
the most cherished opinions swept away as in a whirlwind. Some
violent convulsion may have done it — a reformation or a French
Revolution shaking society like an earthquake — or the same effect
may have been produced more quietly by a swift, silent operation,
as if mankind had broken suddenly from the anchorage and were
hurried away by some irresistible current from all their bearings and
associations. Allowing for the tendency to exaggerate our self-importance,
there is reason to think that we are ourselves living in one of these
exceptional epochs ; that we have been launched into a current
which has already carried us out of sight of most of our old landmarks,
and is rushing forward with us with accelerating velocity. For the
last fifty years science has conferred upon us new and extraordinary
powers of rapid communication. Ideas are interchanged, produc
tions are interchanged, the human inhabitants of the globe can
move to and fro with an ease and speed never before known or
dreamed of ; and we are surrounded with vast political catastrophes,
empires rising and falling, races forming new combinations, pre
judices breaking down, whole continents opened out for the forma
tion of new and mighty nationalities, a universal levelling of all
old distinctions, as if mankind had been resolved into a thousand
million units to reorganize in fresh combinations, suited to an
altered order of things. Look alone at Great Britain. At the close
of the French war Great Britain had but half of its present popula
tion and a fifth of its present wealth. Lancashire was still an
agricultural county. Our manufactures were but as the lading
of a Thames barge compared to the freight of an ocean steamer.

ANCIENT AND MODERN. 5
Colonies we had few, and those valued by us but as markets for
our uncertain" commerce. Ships crawled to and fro across the At
lantic, spending six weeks upon the voyage. As many months
were consumed on a voyage to India or China. The landed aris
tocracy ruled in St. Stephens, and " use and wont" in the length
and breadth of the island. Stage-coaches rolled sleepily along the
unmacadamized high-roads. The impatient traveler, who was not
afraid of fatigue, might reach Edinburgh from London in two days
and nights. The magnate, who preferred his own carriage and his
own horses, was a fortnight on the way.
Each neighborhood supplied its own necessities and its own
amusements. The weaver made cloth at his solitary loom for the
tailor to cut into clothes in the adjoining village. The old wife in
the cottage spun her own yarn, and knitted her own and her hus
band's and children's stockings. The gentry confined their visits
within a circle of ten miles. Their daughters depended for their
larger acquaintance on the balls and races in the county town.
Schools there were none, except for the well-to-do. The village
boys and girls learnt their catechism at the parish church, and were
bound apprentices for the rest of their education. All the country
over, from the expense and difficulty of movement, each family
was rooted to its own soil, and the summer migrations of the
squires and parsons were confined, like that of the Vicar of Wake
field, to a change from the blue room to the brown.
Under these conditions, we who are now turned middle age be
gan our existence ; our hopes modest, our ambition limited to one
or other of the three black graces ; our horizon bounded, at fur
thest, by the limits of our own island, and our knowledge of the
rest of the globe extending but to names upon maps, huge por
tions of which remained blank, or to books of .travels which were
not accurately distinguished from the voyages of Gulliver or Rob
inson Crusoe or Sindbad the Sailor.
Our spiritual state was the counterpart of our material state.
We learnt what our fathers had learnt before us : Greek and Latin,
and arithmetic and geometry, Greek and Roman history, and, in
some favored instances, little English history, conceived from an
insular point of view. Modern languages we despised, and of mod
ern European literature we knew nothing. Physical science was
regarded rather as an amusement of dilettanteism than as an occu
pation for serious men. Of astronomy, we were taught the general
results. We knew, in words, ' that the earth was round ; that it

6 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY „
travelled round the sun as one of its planets ; and that the solar
system was perhaps but one of an infinite number of such systems.
But the knowledge had not penetrated beyond our memories. For
practical purposes, we still believed that our own earth was the
most important part of the universe, and man the central object for
which all else had been* made. Electricity was a toy, geology a
paradoxical novelty. Critical history had not commenced its
massacre of illusions. Schoolboys were taught to believe in the
Seven Kings' Rome. British antiquarians could insist modestly
that Brute of Troy need not be a fable. Chemists still talked of
the four elements. The keen, piercing process by which tradition
ary teachings on all subjects have since been brought to the bar to
answer for themselves, was still unheard of in any single depart
ment of human study.
A condition so stationary, so controlled outwardly and inward-
ljrby habit, corresponded to the stable character of the English
nation- Below the outward life and the intellectual cultivation
lay a foundation of morality based upon authority. We must
all live. Children must be taught that a certain conduct is
required of them ; that there is a rule of duty to which they
must conform. In a wholesome condition of society no ques
tions are asked as to what duty means, or why it is obligatory.
The idea of duty lies in the constitution of things, and the
source of it is the will of the maker of the world. Sixty years
ago speculations on the origin of the universe were confined to a
few curious or idle people ; the multitude of us believed without
the slightest conscious misgiving that the world was made by God
— that he had made himself known in a revelation which had been
guaranteed by miracles, and had himself declared the law which we
were required to obey — and that in the Bible, further, we had a his
tory of God's actions and intentions toward us, every word of which
was indisputably true.
Such a conviction was for all practical purposes universally
received throughout England and America, at least during the
first half of this century. Of course we know that there were
persons who did not believe ; but we were satisfied that in Christian
countries disbelief was caused by moral depravity. There were
infidels in religion as there were monsters in crime ; but infidelity
we were assured, was not a mistake, but a sin. It was the result of a
culpable misuse of faculties, which if fairly employed could arrive
only at an Orthodox conclusion. I remember that when I was a

ANCIENT AND MODERN. J
little boy, there was a family in the corner of the parish supposed
to entertain eccentric opinions on these subjects. They were harm
less and respectable, but they did not go to church, and naturally
were called atheists. We looked at them with a vague terror. If
we passed their door, we hurried by as if the place were haunted.
At last the old mother died. The husband asked that the body
might be buried without being taken into the church. It would, I
believe, have been illegal. At any rate the request was refused, and
I recollect, when the matter was talked over, hearing it said that
people who did not believe in God believed often in the devil, and
that inside the church the devil had special power to take hold of an
atheist. Some months after, one summer evening, I saw the hus
band stealing down to the churchyard to visit his wife's grave. His
look was gentle, sad, abstracted, full of human sorrow and human
sensibility. I recollect a sense of startled pity for the poor old man,
mixed with doubts whether it was not impious to entertain such a
feeling. We were under the influence of the remnants of a superstition
which in other days lit the fires at Smithfield, and of course it was
absurd and horrible. Yet when a creed has been made the base on
which moral convictions and moral conduct are rested, it can not
be questioned without grave consequences. We can not build our
lives on a balance of probabilities ; and unless we take for granted
the essential principles of duty, we can make nothing out of an
existence at all. The clerk in Eastcheap, as Mr. Carlyle says, can not
be forever verifying his ready-reckoner. The world, when it is in a
healthy state, will always look askance at persons who insist that
the ready-reckoners require revision.
Yet times come when the calculation becomes so terribly wrong
that the revision can not be put off any longer. It is but necessary
to describe such a condition of feeling to be aware how far we
have been driven from it — far as the era lies of railroads and tele
graphs and ocean steamers from the era of stage-coaches and Rus-
sells wagons. Whither these material changes may be carrying us,
it is idle to conjecture. Nothing of the same kind has ever been
witnessed on the earth before, and there is no experience to guide
us. The spiritual change is not so unexampled. Phenomena
occurred most curiously analogous at the time of the rise of Chris
tianity ; and from the singularly parallel course in which at these
two periods the intellect developed itself, we may infer generally
what is likely to come of it.

8 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
That we have been started out of our old positions, and that we
can never return to positions exactly the same is too plain to be
questioned. Theologians no longer speak with authority. They
are content to suggest, and to deprecate hasty contradiction. Those
who doubted before, now openly deny. Those who believed on trust
have passed into uncertainty. Those who uphold orthodoxy can
not agree on what ground to defend it. Throughout Europe,
throughout the world, the gravest subjects are freely discussed, and
opposite sides may be taken without blame from society. Doctrines
once fixed as a rock are now fluid as water. Truth is what men
trow. Things are what men think. Certainty neither is nor
can be more than the agreement of persons competent to form an
opinion, and when competent persons cease to agree the certain
has become doubtful — doubtful from the necessity of the case.
This is a simple matter of fact. What is generally doubted is doubt
ful. It is a conclusion from which there is no escape. The univer
sal assent which constitutes certainty has been dissolved into the
conflicting sentiments of individual thinkers.
First principles are necessarily assumptions. They can not
prove themselves. For three centuries all Protestant communities
assumed as a first principle the infallibility of the Bible. They
regarded the writers of the various books as the automatic instru
ments of the Holy Spirit ; and pious and simple people held in
entire consistency that if the Bible was a rule of faith where each
person, learned or unlearned, could find the truth, the translations
must be inspired also. These positions were safe so long, and so
long only, as it was held to be sinful to challenge them. Wisely do
men invest authority, whether of writing or person, with a sacred
character. The mass of men can only be made to feel the superi
ority of what is higher than themselves when it is surrounded with
a certain atmosphere of dignity. It is essential to society that
princes and magistrates shall be regarded with respect, for1 they
represent not themselves only, but the law which they administer.
Til e sovereign function is gone if every intruding blockhead may
take his sovereign by the hand and examine with his own eyes of
what matter kings are composed. The blockhead can not be made
to understand for himself why authority ought to be obeyed. He is
therefore properly placed when he can not reach to measure himself
against it. The outward protection taken away, the illusion is gone.
The judge without his robe may retain his intellectual supremacy, but
his intellectual supremacy will inspire no awe in the vulgar crowd.
Stripped of robe and ceremony he appears but a common man.

ANCIENT AND MODERN. 9
The spell of sanctity once broken, the Bible once approached,
examined, and studied, as other books, an analogous result has
followed. The critic has approached tenderly and respectfully, but
the approach at all implies an assumption of a right to question the
supernatural character of the object of his investigation. Certainty
passes into probability, and the difference between certainty and
probability is not in degree but in kind. A human witness is sub
stituted for a divine witness, and faith is changed into opinion. The
authority of the translation was the first to be shaken. Then vari
ations in the MSS. destroyed the confidence in the original text. If
the original language was miraculously communicated, there was
a natural presumption that it would be miraculously preserved. It
had not been miraculously preserved, and the inference of doubt
extended backward on the inspiration.
The origin of the different books was next inquired into, with
their authorship and antiquity. At each step the uncertainty be
came deeper. The gospel history itself was found to be a labyrinth
of perplexities. The divine sanction for accuracy and authenticity
once obscured, the popular sense which had cleared the modern
world of superstition, and had driven the supernatural out of secu
lar history, began to ask on what ground the Bible miracles were to
be believed if all other miracles were to be rejected. Geology
forced itself forward, and declared that the history of the creation
in the Book of Genesis was irreconcilable with ascertained facts. '
Along the whole line the defending forces are falling back, not know- '
ing where to make a stand ; and materialism all over Europe stands
frankly out and is respectfully listened to when it affirms that the
war is over, that the claims of revelation can not be maintained, and
that the existence of God and of a future state, the origin of man,
the nature of conscience, and the meaning of the distinctions
between good and evil are all open questions.
No serious consequences, at least in England and America, are
as yet outwardly apparent. We are a law-abiding race ; the mass of
us are little given to unpractical speculation. We are too earnest to
tolerate impiety, and the traditions of religion will retain their hold
with the millions long after they have lost their influence over the
intellect. Intellect we know is not omniscient. Emotion has a
voice in the matter, which is always on the side of faith, and women
in such subjects are governed almost wholly by their feelings. The
entire generation at present alive may probably pass away before
the inward change shows itself markedly in external symptoms.

IO SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
None the less it is quite certain that the ark of religious opinion has
drifted from its moorings, that it is moving with increasing speed
along a track which it will never retrace, and towards issues infi
nitely momentous. What are these issues to be ? " The thing that
hath been, that shall be again."
Once before the civilized nations of Europe had a religion on which
their laws were founded, and by which their lives and actions were
governed. Once before it failed them, and they were driven back
upon philosophy. Allowing for thedifference of ti.mes, the intellec
tual phenomena were precisely the same as those which we have
ourselves experienced. The philosophic schools passed through the
same stages, and the latest of them arrived at the same conclusion,
that the universe of things could be explained by natural causes ;
and as no symptom could be discovered of any special divine inter
ference with the action of those causes, so there was no occasion
for supposing that such interference had ever been or ever would
be. The scientific triumph, as it was then regarded, was proclaimed
as a new message of glad tidings to mankind. It was believed by
politicians and philosophers, by poets and historians. It was never
believed by the mass of simple-minded people, who held on in spite
of it to the traditions of the old faith, till Christianity rose out of
the dying ashes of paganism, restored conscience to its supre
macy, and made real belief in God once more possible.
Human nature remains what it always was. The nature of God,
and the relation in which man stands to God, are the same now as
they were when man first began to be. The truth of fact is what it
is, independent, happily, of our notions of it. We do not make
truth "by recognizing it; we can not unmake truth by denying it.
So much of it as it concerns us practically to know we learn by expe
rience, as we learn every natural lesson ; and if man is not permit
ted to live and prosper in this world without an acknowledgment of
his Maker, the scientific experiment will fail as it failed before. The
existing forms of religion may dissolve, but the truth which is the
soul of religion will revive more vigorous than ever. The analogy is
the more impressive the more closely we compare the details of the
two periods.
No one knows distinctly how the pagan religions began. Some
say they were corruptions of patriarchal traditions ; some trace them
to fear and ignorance; some to consciousness of responsibility;
some to the involuntary awe forced upon the mind by the star-
spangled sky and the majestic motion through it of sun, moon and

ANCIENT AND MODERN. II
planets. All these influences probably were combined to excite
each other, the last, as was most natural, giving shape and form to
the emotion of piety. "The number 12 and the number 7, occur
ring, as they do, in all the old mythologies, point unmistakably
to the twelve months and to the seven celestial bodies visible
from the earth, which have a proper motion of their own among
the stars. However the idea was generated, it seized on the
minds of men as soon as born with an irresistible fascination, and
took direction of their whole being. The nobler nations assigned
to God, or the gods, the moral government of mankind. The will
of the gods was the foundation of their legislation. Law was to be
obeyed because it was so ordered by the maker and master of the
world. The early Greek or Roman directed his whole life by the
reference of every particle of it to the gods as entirely as the most
devout of Catholic Christians. Meanwhile fancy and imagination wan
dered in the expanse of possibilities, giving these airy creations a local
habitation and a name. The law was stern and severe. A brighter
aspect was given to religion in music and song and sacrifice, and
legends, and heroic tales ; and poets watched the changing phenom
ena of days and nights, and summer and winter, and heat and cold,
and rain and thunder, and human life, and wove them all into a
mythology, till there was not a river without its god, a grotto with
out its nymph, a wood without its dryad, a- noble, heroic man with
out a deity for his father. All went flowingly so long as the world
was young. The vast fabric of unreality grew on without intention
of fraud ; but the time came when intellect began to ask questions,
and the stories which were related as sacred truths were seen first
to be inconsistent, and then to be incredible. The first resource
for defense was allegory. The stories about the gods were not true
in themselves, but only figuratively true. Behind the ceremonial of
the temples lay " the mysteries" in which the initiated were ad
mitted into the real secret. So interpreted, Homer and Hesiod
continued to be tolerable. But the strength of the traditions was
weakened insensibly by allegoric dilution. When any thing might
mean any thing, men began to ask whether any thing at all was
known about the gods. They looked round them, and into their
own souls, at the phenomena of real experience, and asked what "
lessons they could discover in facts which could not be disputed.
So began Greek philosophy. The tone at first was reverent.
Order and uniformity was manifest throughout the universe, and
where order was, it were assumed that there was an ordering mind.

12 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
Some thought that the origin of things was " spirit," others that It
was "matter;" some that spirit and matter were co-eternal, others
that matter had been created by spirit out of nothing. It was
asked what the nature of spirit was. Was spirit self-existing out
side the universe, or was it infused in material substance as the soul
of a man is in his body ? Was it conscious of itself ? or was not the
most perfect being a serene automaton which needed no considera
tion, and therefore never reflected upon itself ? Again, was spirit
intellectual merely, or was it just and good ? and if good, whence
came evil ? Such questions cut deep, but they were not necessarily
irreligious. Plato taught a pure theism. Aristotle believed matter
to be eternal ; he believed God to be eternal also, and the phe
nomena of existence to result from the efforts of matter to shape
itself after the all-perfect pattern which it saw in God. Even Epi
curus did not deny that the gods existed. He denied only that
there was any trace of their interference with human fortunes.
The difficulty was to account for sin and misery, if a conscious
Providence immediately directed every thing. The most popular
religious solution of the problem was the doctrine of what was called
plastic nature. Nature was supposed to be a force developing itself
unconsciously and automatically, as the seed develops into the tree,
or, as it was ingeniously expressed by Aristotle, " as if the art of the
shipwright was in the timbers." Each organ of every living thing cor
responded to its functions. But the operations of nature were not
mechanical like human contrivances. Organization was governed
by laws from within, not by intention directing it from without, and
nature being imperfect, and only striving after perfection, being pro
gressive and not yet complete, her creations partook necessarily of
her infirmities, and were subject to decay and change. Such a con
ception of nature was an earlier form of Spinozism. The bird
builds its nests, the spider stretches its web automatically. The
human craftsman, as he becomes skilled in any art, does his work
more and more spontaneously, and with less and less conscious
reflection. When he is a master of his business, he makes each
stroke as surely, yet with as little thought about it, as he lifts his
food to his mouth.
With these and the like ingenious speculations, philosophers en
deavored to answer the questions which they put to themselves
about their own nature and the world they lived in ; religion and the
religious rituals all the while being neither abandoned nor denied
but remaining as a dress or a custom which each day was wearing

ANCIENT AND MODERN. 13
thinner. And human life all the while was real, as it is now, brief,
struggling, painful, the plaything of accident, a fire-fly flashing out
of the darkness,, and again disappearing into it ; coming none knew
whence, going none knew whither : yet while it lasted, with its pas
sions and its affections, its crimes and its virtues, its high aspira
tions, its mean degradations, its enthusiasms and its remorse, its
wild bursts of joy and agonies of pain, it was an important posses
sion to the owner of it, and speculations about plastic nature
would not be likely to satisfy him when he demanded the meaning
of it. Yet demand the meaning of it man will and must. Life is
too stern to be played with, and as the old creed died into a form,
and philosophy proved so indifferent a substitute, dark and ter
rible notions can be seen rising in Greek poetry ; notions that there
were gods, but not good gods ; notions of an inexorable fate ; no
tions that men were creatures and playthings of powerful and ma
lignant beings who required to be flattered and propitiated, and
that beyond the grave lay gloomy possibilities of eternal and hor
rible suffering. Gone the sunshine of Homer, this healthy vigor,
unconscious of itself. Gone the frank and simple courage which
met the storm and the sunshine as they came,untroubled with sickly
spiritual terrors. In iEschylus, in Sophocles, in Euripides, even
in Plato himself, the prevailing thought is gloomy and desponding.
Philosophy, it was plain, had no anodyne to offer against the sad
conviction of the nature of man's life on earth, or availed to allay
anxiety for what might happen to him hereafter.
In this condition the Romans came into the inheritance of the
world, and became its spiritual as well as administrative trustees.
Their religion, too, had gone like the Greek. They had allowed the
national divinities of Italy to be identified with the gods of Hellas.
They had modelled their literature on the Athenian type. They had
accepted Greek poetry and philosophy as containing the best
which could be felt or known on the great questions which most
concerned humanity. But for them some practical theory of life
was necessary by which they could rule the present, and face the
future. They were not a people to be troubled with subjective
sorrows. They were earthly, unideal, material in all that they
thought and in all that they did. The Roman proconsul, when
reminded of " truth," asked scornfully, " What is truth ?" That
men had bodies he knew well ; whether they had souls or not was
no matter of present concern.
Roman statesmen, called as they were to govern the human

14 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
race from the British Channel to the Euphrates, had no leisure for
any such idle disquisitions. Their only care was that their subjects
should obey their magistrates, live peaceably, thrive, and cultivate
the earth. For the rest, each individual, so long as he indulged in
no political illusions or enthusiasms, was free to dream or fancy
what he pleased. Their own convictions followed the pattern of
their government. They had no illusions. The material wel
fare of man was all that they understood or were interested in, and
the creed on which they settled down found an exponent in the
greatest of their poets. The practical misery of mankind had risen
from wars and crimes. The Romans bade war and crime to cease.
The spiritual misery of men had been self-caused by fantastic
imaginations, ¦ by groundless terrors, by dreams of supernatural
powers, whose caprice persecuted them in this world, and whose
vindictive malice threatened to make them wretched in the next. ,
Religion had been the curse of the earth, and though fools might
still torture themselves with a belief in it, if they so pleased,
Lucretius, speaking the very inmost conviction of the imperial
Roman mind, informed them that religion was a phantom begotten
of fear and ignorance. The universe, of which man was a part, was
a system of things which had been generated by natural forces.
Gods there might be, somewhere in space, created by nature also,
but not gods who troubled themselves about men. All things pro
ceeded from eternity in one unchanging sequence of cause and
effect, and man had but to understand nature and follow her direc
tions to create his own prosperity and his own happiness, undis
turbed by fear of supernatural disturbance. If the sufferings and
enjoyments of this world were distributed by a superintending
providence, it was a providence which showed no regard for moral
worth or worthlessness. The good were often miserable, the
wicked flourished, and a power so careless of justice, even if it
existed, did not deserve to be reverenced. But it existed only in
the brain of man. Evils, or what were called evils, were a neces
sary part of an imperfect existence. But evil was disarmed of half
its power to hurt when its origin was known, and the more care
fully the laws of nature were studied, the more successfully man
could contend against it.
Long before Rome became the world's mistress, the theory had
been thrown out by Democritus : Epicurus had worked it into shape,
and it had been the creed of a sect among the Greeks. As soon
as it had become practically embodied in the Roman system of

MODERN. 15
government, it was developed into a plain confession of faith,, and
as the legions struck down the nationalities of Asia and Europe,
the intellect of Lucretius declared the overthrow of their super
stitions and proclaimed the sovereignty of science.
Unlike the Greek mythology, the system of Lucretius was not
a thing of imagination. Splendidly as his genius illustrated the
details of the Epicurean philosophy, the system itself was based
on observation of facts astonishingly accurate, if we consider the
age at which he lived ; and his inferences were drawn in the
strictest scientific method. Within the proper limits of physical
'science he anticipated many of the generalizations of the best
modern scientific thinkers. His moral and spiritual conclusions
are almost exactly the same as theirs. Spiritual philosophy grows
out of general principles, and whether those principles be derived
from a wide or limited induction, whether the facts appealed to
be completely known or only imperfectly, when once the principles
are assumed the same deductions will follow.
Lucretius opens with the most beautiful lines in Latin poetry,
describing the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis. His object was to
create at once and indelibly the impression which he most desired
to convey, of the horrors which had been occasioned by religion and
the dread of the unknown. Had he lived in our time, he would
have referred to the massacre of St. Bartholomew, to an auto-da-
fe, or to the burning of a witch. Ignorant of the real causes of
things, men had ascribed the calamities from which they suffered
to evil spirits, whom it was necessary to flatter and appease. They
were frightened as children were frightened at the dark. Their
terrors would disappear with sounder and clearer knowledge.
As the modern astronomer believes that the solar, and perhaps
the sidereal, system was once a mist of fiery dust which became
condensed by motion into suns and planets, Lucretius conceives
that space was originally filled with atoms like the motes which we
see floating in a sunbeam in a dark room. The modern philoso
pher derives the first motion from a tendency of floating particles
of unequal density to rotate. Lucretius postulates a downward
tendency with lateral declinations from the properties of the atoms
themselves. Motion once given, coherence begins, and matter
in combination develops the phenomena which we experience.
Atoms, germs, monads — call them what we please — are not things
without function or property. They tend to assume forms, and in
those forms to acquire new powers. The universe exists, and we

l6 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
• exist. To say that it exists, because God willed it so, is to say
nothing. God is only a name for our ignorance. We conceive of him
as more perfect than matter, as being the cause of matter, and we
find no difficulty in making so large an assumption. But it is more
easy to conceive that matter may exist with less perfect functions,
than God with entirely perfect functions.
The 'earth, when first- formed, was fertile, like a woman in her
youth. She produced freely all kinds of living creatures, and in
the exuberance of natural fecundity she threw out of herself every
variety of combination which could consist with the nature of
things. She produced plants, she produced animals ; some strong,
some weak, some with power to propagate their species in their
own likeness, some without that power, some able to support
themselves with ease, others with difficulty or not at all. Infinite
varieties of living things were thus brought into existence to take
their chance of continuance. The most vigorous survived. Lions
were preserved by their fierceness and strength, foxes by their cun
ning, stags by swiftness of foot, man by superior intelligence, and
other animals again by man's help, because he found them useful
to him, as dogs and horses, sheep and oxen. While assigning to the
earth these vast powers of productiveness, Lucretius, nevertheless,
limits those powers with curious caution. The earth could create
only beings consistent with themselves. Rivers could not be made
to run with gold. Trees must bear fruit, not sapphires and emer
alds. Horses might be made of many kinds, and men of many
kinds ; but Centaurs, half horse and half man, could not be made,
because a horse grows to maturity with five times the rapidity with
which a man can grow.
The readers of Darwin will miss the theory of the modification of
species, which it was impossible for Lucretius to have guessed ; but
they will find nowhere the modern doctrine of the survival of the
fittest stated more clearly and carefully. Those who deny most
earnestly that any elemental power of spontaneous generation can
be traced in operation at present, are less confident that it may
not have existed under earlier conditions of this planet, or may
not exist at present in other planets. The theory of Lucretius is
not in the least more extravagant than the suggestion of Sir Wil
liam Thompson that the first living germ was introduced by an
aerolite.

SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY— ANCIENT AND
MODERN.
CHAPTER II.
r THE Stoics, like the authors of the Bridgewater Treatises, had
pressed science into the service of religion by the theory Of final
causes. They had examined the eye, and had found an organ con
structed curiously to enable us to see. So the ear seemed to be made
to hear, the feet to walk, the hands to minister to our various neces
sities. In the whole system of nature they had found an extraor
dinary adaptation of means to special ends, and the universe, as they
supposed, was generally subordinated to the interests of .man.
From the evidence of contrivance they had passed to a contriv
ing mind, and had built together a specious fabric of natural the
ology. Lucretius met the Stoics on their own ground, and antici
pated precisely the modern objection to the same positions. The
argument creates more difficulties than it removes ; for if we are to
suppose every thing which exists to have been designed, we have to
account for the existence of evil, while scientifically the inference
of intention confounds organization with mechanism. In machinery
the instrument is manufactured to supply a need which has been
felt already. Men dug the ground with their hands before they in
vented spades, and they used spades before they invented plows.
They made plows to do the work more easily which they were
already doing with inferior means. They fought before they used
shields and lances; they slept on the ground before they had beds;
and they ate and drank before they had dishes and drinking-cups.
In the organized works of nature the process is reversed- The use
does not produce the instrument, but the instrument occasions the
use. We see because we have eyes, we speak because we have
tongues of a peculiar form, we hear because we haveears. But with
out eyes there could be no sight, without tongues there could be no
articulation, there would be no sound if there were not ears to

18 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
hear. We are too feeble and too ignorant to place, ourselves be
hind the purposes of the Maker of the universe and insist that he
intended this and that. We do not know what he intended. We
see only that he does not work as we work, and if we insist on evi
dence of conscious design, we make the moral phenomena of human
experience hopelessly inexplicable. Organization is not contrivance,
but immeasurably superior to contrivance. What it is we can not
tell. We see only that the organs which we so much admire do not
come into existence complete, as we should expect to find them if
they were made with a determinate purpose. They are developed
slowly, age after age, in successive modifications of a single type,
the fish's fin becoming the wing of a bird, or the arm and hand of a
man, the fish's scales becoming the bird's feathers ; the horse's hoof
a variation of the finger nail.
Having launched man into the world, Lucretius traces his history
along the lines of the modern palaeontologist. Sir John Lubbock
might have transcribed many passages from him without altering a
word. He describes the unclothed, houseless biped, hiding help
lessly in caves, in danger of carnivorous beasts, and poorly feeding
himself on roots and leaves. A branch of a tree provides him with a
club and pebbles are his first missiles. The stone age follows. He
tears the ground with flints. He rises to bows and arrows.
He kills animals and clothes himself with their skins. He sees
sparks fly, and learns partly by accident the use of fire. He warms
his lodging with it and dresses his food. A forest breaks into flame
on a mountain-side. Straying afterward among the ashes of the
conflagration, he finds copper ore which had cropped above the sur
face smelted by the heat. He examines it, he heats it again and
finds it soft and malleable, and when cold once more he discovers it
to be hard as stone and available for a thousand uses. The copper
age succeeds the stone age, and the iron the copper, and so on
through all the epochs of mechanical discovery. The neces
sities of his body being provided for, the mind begins to work.
The man opens his eyes to the wonder of what is around him. He
has done much for himself. But forces are at work about him and
within him, before which he is helpless. Pains rack his bones, dis
ease lays him prostrate and powerless. Tempests destroy his crops.
Floods sweep away his homestead and his stock. The thunder
rolls, the levin bolt shoots from the cloud. The earth shakes the
meteor blazes across the sky. The sunrise and sunset do not strike
him with wonder. He has been accustomed to them from his birth

aCiENCL AjnD THEOLOGY. 19
and he knows that if the sun disappears, he will find it again when
he wakes from his slumber.1
, But what the sun was, or what the moon, or what the bright
procession of glittering gems which on cloudless nights passed over
the vault of the sphere in majestic calm, what these were who could
tell? The largest and brightest of these orbs moved among the
stars, on courses of their own, perhaps with life, with motion, with
motives, with will and purposes of their own. The clouds, too,
the fierce harbingers of storm and desolation, what were they?
Awe-stricken men called them gods, or the work of gods, with
passions like those of man. They bent before them with trembling
deprecation of their wrath. They invented religion, and in so doing
filled themselves with causeless terrors which banished peace from
their waking thoughts and filled their dreams with phantoms.
But their misgivings were not to haunt them forever,
Ignorantia causarum conferre.De.orum
Cogit ad Imperium res et concedere Regnum.
With knowledge of the causes of things, the dominion disappeared
of these imagined beings. Nature, when examined reverently,
showed no caprice, no sign of interference or passion or willfulness ;
one unchanging sequence of natural cause and natural effect pre
vailed throughout the universe. Each phenomenon was preceded
by some natural force producing it, and each advance of science
was a guarantee to men of security and happiness. Miserable man
was, and miserable he would be, so long as he was haunted by the
dread of the unknown ; not that the gods themselves, whatever
they might be, inflicted pain on any inferior creatures ; ,the gods were
blessed in themselves and paid no heed to mortals. But wretched
mortals tortured their own souls by causeless fear and terror. Thun-
1 It would seem true that, what we call the " solar myth" had been already sug
gested as an explanation of the current legends ; but the theory found no favor with
Lucretius, who dismisses it in a few lines as sensible as they are beautiful.
" Nee plangore diem magno, solemque per agros
Qucerebant pavidi palantes noctis in Umbris,
Sed taciti respectabant somnoque sepulti,
Dum rosea face sol inferret lumina ccelo.
A parvis quod enim consuerunt cernere semper
Alterno tenebras et lucem tempore gigni
Non erat ut fieri posset mirarier unquam,
Nee diffidere ne terras eterna teneret,
Nox in perpetuum detracto lumine solis." — De Rerum N'aturi, KB. v.

CO SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
der and lightning were the chief strongholds of superstition. Horace,
we remember, professed to have been converted by a thunderstorm.
Lucretius, though his knowledge fell far short of ours, was still satis-
fied that these aerial disturbances were natural phenomena. There
was never thunder from a clear sky. Clouds accompanied it always,
and clouds of a peculiar character. Could it be believed that the
Olympian Jove came down into a cloud to be nearer to his mark ? If
the thunder was his voice, he would warn before he struck ; but
the. flash always came before the sound. If the lightning struck the
wicked, some sign of purpose might be admitted,.
" icti flammus ut fulguris halent,
Pectore perfixo documen mortalibus acre."
But these fiery missiles fall on the innocent and the evil alike.
They fall on the shrines of the gods themselves as readily as on
the palaces of tyrants. Most often they fall on the earth or into
the sea. Were we to suppose that the Omnipotent was practic
ing his hand ? Lucretius did not know the phenomena of electricity.
But with intuitive genius he had anticipated two, at least, of our
most important modern discoveries. He had perceived that force
was a constant quantity, that it was not expended, but was converted
from one form into another. He had ascertained, also, that heat and
light were intimately connected with force. A blow produced heat;
sparks flew when steel was struck with flint ; lead would melt by
friction, even by the friction of the air when passing swiftly through
it. His editor, Creech, selects this particular theory as an illustration
of his scientific credulity. Lucretius had in fact struck on the
exact explanation of the incandescence of meteoric stones.
From thunderstorms Lucretius passed to the other aerial pheno
menon of rain. Rain was credited to Jupiter Pluvius, or whoever it
might be. Lucretius showed, with ingenious clearness, that rain did
not descend from any reservoir of waters above the firmament. It
descended because it had first ascended by evaporation ; moisture
rose from the sea, rose from the ground, rose whenever any wet thing
became dry. In the sky it condensed into clouds, from which it fell
again in rain.
So going one by one, through the chief strongholds to which super
stition attached itself, the Epicurean poet insisted, and as we all now
admit, insisted truly, that every one of them could be traced to
natural causes acting in a definite way, and that there was no sign
anywhere of miraculous interposition.

SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 21
Of this universal system man was a part, but not the chief part,
as in his vanity-he imagined. Nature, in her work of generation, had
no special thought of man, above her other children ; she had placed
him on the earth, a being who, if he could control his passion and im
agination, if he could labor quietly and enjoy the fruit of his labor,
was capable of modest happiness, and was equally certain of misery
if he gave way to wild ambitions or disordered appetites. Society
formed naturally, and regulations were made for the good of all, to
enable society to hold together. - If man would submit to these regu
lations, and would fulfill such functions of labor as fell to him, he
might live out the space of years which nature had allotted to him in
peace and content. His allotted time being over, then comes the end.
And what is the end ? From such a philosophy there could come but
one answer. Lucretius is only peculiar in this, that the answer which
he gives has no note of sadness in it, but is proclaimed as a message
of good news, a deliverance from groundless alarms. The future life
which haunted the consciences of the early nations was an antiicpa-
tion of torment. So far from being any check on vice, Lucretius in
sisted that it was a provocation to crime by adding new terrors to
death. The enormities into which men were seen daily plunging
were adventured only to escape want and poverty, and want and
poverty were dreadful because they were avenues to death. But
death rightly looked on was no fearful thing, scarcely a thing to be
regretted. What was death ? The separation of soul and body.
And what was soul ? When a child was conceived did some im
mortal spirit come racing through the sky to take possession 'of the
growing germ ? Not so at all. Soul was generated with body and
corresponded to body. In the human body there was a human
soul. In an animal body there was an animal soul. A horse had
not the mind of a man, nor a man the mind of a horse. The soul
was born with the body, and grew with its growth. Feeble, like its
tenement, in infancy, it strengthened as the body strengthened, came
to its maturity when the youth became a man, and with the coming
on of age mind and limbs lost their power together.
Whatever might be the nature of the soul, it was inseparably con
nected with an organized system of matter, and could have no exist
ence independent of it. The human soul and the animal soul were
the same in kind, they differed only as their bodies differed, and
resembled each other in the same proportion. At death the soul
of both dissolved like smoke, and ceased to be.
" Ergo dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animai,
Naturam ceu fumus in altas aeris auras.''

22 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
In a human body, and nowhere else, could a human soul have
existence. Clouds did not form in the sea. Fish did not swim on
dry land. Blood did not flow in a flower-stalk, or sap in stones.
To every thing there was an allotted place. The mortal had no fel
lowship with the immortal.
Was this a sad conclusion ? " Rather," says Lucretius, " it is the
most consoling of certainties. Death is nothing, for where death is
we are not. Before we "were begotten empires were convulsed ;
provinces were wasted with fire and sword ; nations were sunk in
wretchedness. We knew nothing of these calamities. They touched
not us. We could suffer nothing, for we were not. As it was be
fore we began to live, so it will be again when we have ceased to
live. Storms may roll over the earth, land may be mixed with sea,
and sea with sky. We shall know nothing of it. The substance of
our bodies will be in other forms, with other souls attached to them.
New beings will have come into existence, to live and pass away as
we did. But those beings will not be us. The continuity once broken
is broken forever. We shudder when we look upon a corpse. We
imagine that when our bodies are corrupting, we shall be in some
way present and conscious of our own decay. It is not so. . Our
bodies will decay, but we shall not be present. We shall not beany
more. We shall not suffer any more. " Ah !" some one says,
" must I leave my wife and children, and my pleasant home ? Must
all be taken from me?" They will not be taken from you, lor you
will have no being. You will not miss them. You will know no
regrets or vain longings for what is gone. Your friends will lament
for you. You will not lament for them. You will be in peace.
" Why, then, unhappy mortal," says Lucretius to the vain com
plainers, "why do you grieve? Why cry out on death ? Has your
life been happy, the banquet is over; you have taken your fill;
depart and be thankful. Have you been unfortunate, has life
brought you sorrow and pain, why wish for more of it ? Life and
sorrow end together. Would you live forever? The terms of
human existence do not alter. Had yOu a thousand lives they could
bring you nothing new. You would but tread again the same circle.
As it has been with you, so it would be, though you could repeat
the process to eternity. This is nature's sentence, and who shall
gainsay her? Dry your tears. Peace with your idle whines. Use
your time wisely while it is yours. A little space and it will be gone.
The ages before you were born are a mirror in which you can read
the ages to come. The past has no terrors in it. The future has

SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 23
npne, unless you create them for yourself. Real indeed they are to
you as long as you anticipate them. Tityus and Sisyphus, Cerbe
rus and the furies ! the thought of these will cause you agonies as
long as you believe in them. Know these spectres for what they are,
the offspring of your own fears, and be at rest. Who and what are
you that you dream of immortality? Wiser and nobler men than
you will ever be have lived, and are gone. Accept your fate.
There is no remedy."
Such was the Lucretian creed, which has this merit in it, that it
is free from cant. There is no half belief here ; no affectation ; no
professions from the teeth outward, of what the heart disowns; no
feeble struggling to reconcile the irreconcilable ; no half-formed mis
givings, which take from our actions their pith and marrow, and
make us dread to look into our consciences for fear of what we may
find there. It was a creed naturally accepted by resolute men who
were too proud to play intellectual tricks with themselves, and in it
is expressed completely the practical genius of the Roman empire.
The multitude never adopted it. The multitude continued their
offerings at the temple, consulted the oracles, and prayed, or affect
ed to pray, to the gods. The State did not openly profess it. The
State maintained scrupulously the established decencies and
ceremonials, but it was the real conviction of the Roman intellect.
It was the creed of Julius Caesar. It was the creed at heart of Cicero.
Tacitus would not have called himself an Epicurean, but his opinion
was substantially the same. Above all, it was a confession of the
faith on which for four centuries the civilized world was ruled. The
Romans knew nothing and cared nothing for spiritual ideals. Peace,
order, justice between man and man, and material prosperity, these
were the sole aims of the Roman administration, and the expla
nation of their contemptuous toleration of the motley superstitions
of the age.
Nations have never been formed on such principles. Nations in
their infancy aspire to something else than material prosperity.
They have beliefs, enthusiasms, patriotisms, with a savor of noble
ness in them. Csesar himself owed his conquests to the self-devo
tion of his soldiers, his own affection for them, and to his inconsis
tent idealism. And the experiment of the Roman empire showed
that nations can not any more live by such principles after they have
arrived at maturity. Coarse minds are brutalized by them. The
average mind rejects them, and prefers superstition, however wild.
Gibbon considered that, on the whole, the subjects of the empire

24 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
enjoyed greater happiness in the years which intervened between
the accession of Trajan and the death of Marcus Aurelius than at
any period before or since ; but it was a happiness in which their
nature became degraded, and when the shock came of the barba
rian invasions they had lost the £purage to resist.
It would of course be preposterous to pretend that there was any
general resemblance between the state of things under the Roman
sovereignty and the present condition of Europe and America. Then
the whole civilized world was held down under a single despotism.
Now free and powerful nations confront each other, each jealous of
its rights, and resolute to maintain them ; each professing to prefer
honor to prosperity. And yet in the long run the fate of nations is
determined by the convictions about the nature and responsibilities
of man which are embodied in their policy, and are entertained by
the ablest thinkers ; and every where, it may be said, opinions are
now professed by men whom we agree to admire, and are accepted
by politicians as the rule of legislation, which recall the phenomena of
the time when the old order of things perished, as if high cultivation
itself was like the blossoming of a plant, the final consummation of a,.
long series of past efforts which precedes a great change. The
flower sheds its petals. Seed-vessels develop in the place of it, from
which after a long winter there arises a new era.
The nations of modern Europe, like the early Greeks and Romans,
formed their original policy on religion. For centuries states and indi
viduals alike professed to be governed in all that they thought and
did by the supposed revelation which was given to mankind eigh
teen hundred years ago. Avowed disbelief of it there was none ;
of secret, silent misgiving there was probably very little. For prac
tical purposes that revelation was accepted as a fact, as little allow
ing of doubt as the commonest phenomena of daily experience.
The universal confidence received its first shock at the Reformation
of the sixteenth century. Just as the original pagan creed was
made incredible by the legends with which it was overspread, so
Christianity was overgrown by a forest of extravagant superstitions.
Conscience and intelligence rose in revolt, and tore them to pieces.
For a time all was well. The weeds were gone ; the faith of the
early church was restored m its simplicity. The Huguenots in
France, the Lutherans in Germany, the Puritans in England and
Scotland were as absolutely under the influence of religious belief
as the apostles and first converts. Providence to them was not a
form of speech, but a living reality. The preambles of the Eno-Hsh

SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 25
Acts of Parliament referred always to the will of the Almighty as
the foundation of human law. Skeptics even then had begun to
exist. There were men who, after the authority of the Church had
been shaken, had not acquiesced in the authority of a book ; and
philosophy commenced its search for other grounds of certainty ;
just as it commenced in Greece before ordinary men had begun
consciously to disbelieve in Paganism. But in neither instance
had these first efforts any wide effect. The time was not ripe for
.Democritus; it was not ripe for Hobbes or Spinoza. In an age
when the massive intellect of Cromwell was satisfied with Protest
ant Christianity, and hungry village congregations could demand a
second hour from their preachers, philosophy might speculate in
its closet, but it could not affect popular sentiment. The disin
tegrating forces, however, worked on below the surface. Puritan
ism and its ways went out of fashion. The austere virtues of the
Commonwealth were followed by folly and dissipation, and free
thought again raised its head. A new and enlightened genera
tion turned with shame and penitence from a piety which sent
wretched old women to the stake for crimes which had no exist
ence save in the diseased brain of cowardly fanatics. , Disbelief
in any present exercise of supernatural power extended backward
upon the past. The mythologies, the oracles, the auguries of the-
old world came to' be regarded as dreams. The miracles of the
medieval church were dismissed as forgery and illusion, and the
cures still alleged to be worked at the shrines of Catholic saints
were used as an argument, being admitted to be false, to show how
these legendary stories had passed into belief. The Old and New
Testament resisted longer the dissolving influence. They were
protected by the enchantment which still surrounded the accredited
records of revelation, and the history of the chosen people was looked
on as exceptional and special. But a charm, however sacred, could
not long repel the restless efforts of the speculative intellect. If
miracles were so inherently improbable that we were entitled to
reject without examination every alleged instance of. contemporary
supernatural interposition, on what ground could we draw a line so
rigid between sacred and profane history ? The lives of the saints
were as full of marvels as the Book of Kings or the Acts of the
Apostles ; why were we to disbelieve every story which lent support
to a religion which we did not like, while we insisted on the absolute
truth of each single detail which we found in. the Bible ? Revelation,
it was said, was itself a miracle ; the divinely authenticated author-

26 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
ity for a miraculous history. Such an answer was a tacit concession
that a miracle could not be substantiated by human evidence. The
spirit of Democritus had revived in Epicurus; the spirit of Hobbes
revived in Hume. The Essay on Miracles threw into words a con
viction which had been already formed in every logical mind in
Europe. If the supernatural was to be admitted any longer, it must
be received by faith ; it could not be proved by reason. So far as
philosophy had a word to say about the matter, the theological posi
tion had been taken by storm. Hume's arguments were desperately
resisted, as it was natural that they should be. Ingenious attempts
were made to recover the captured lines, but the conclusions de
manded were too weighty for the premises. No human skill could
make it probable on grounds of reason that while profane history
was full of fiction and mistakes, every incident and every word
should have been recorded exactly in sacred history. Such a his
tory would be itself the greatest of miracles ; and to assume a mir
aculous book was an act of faith, as Hume said, and it could be
nothing else.
In the last century there were no penny newspapers carrying
over the world the newest discoveries, with leading articles and
criticisms addressed to the million. Philosophic writings had a
small and select circulation, and the million continued to think as
their fathers had thought. If we can believe Berkeley and Butler,
however, their most accomplished lay contemporaries had ceased
to believe in Christianity as completely as Pericles and Alcibiades
had ceased to believe in Jupiter ; and had the political condition of
the world remained undisturbed, the doubt would have probably
extended downward, and the state of opinion at which we have at
present arrived might have been anticipated by half a century. But
the growth of liberalism on the Continent had been swifter than with
us. The catastrophe of the French Revolution, with the enthrone
ment of the Goddess of Reason, appeared as the visible fruit of infi
delity. The English mind was terrified back out of its uncertain
ties, and determined, reason or no reason, that it would not have
the Bible called in question. It was decided that Hume had been
sufficiently answered by Lardner and Paley. The discussion was
not to be reopened ; and English middle life returned for nearly
half a century to the fixed convictions of earlier times.
Behind the banner thus resolutely raised came an effort to restore
the influence of religion on the heart and emotions. First there was-
a prominent revival of evangelical piety. As the wave of spiritual

SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 27
feeling lost its force, it has been succeeded by superstition and by
a less sincere and simple, but still ardent appeal to tradition and
Catholic principles. The leaky vessel has not been repaired, for
repairs were . impossible, but the chinks and flaws in her planking
have been tarred over and painted. Stained windows have gone
back into the churches, and the white light which sufficed for the
simple, truth-loving Protestants have been replaced by the enervat
ing tints so dear to the devotional soul. Organs and choristers,
altars and altar ornaments, fine clothes and processions, the mystery
of the real presence, in the name of which more crimes have been
perpetrated in Europe than can be laid to the charge of the bloody
idol in Tauris — we have them even now among us in full activity.
The religious mind has set itself with all its might to make things
seem what they are not, and turn back the river of destiny to its
sacred fountains.
In vain. Practical life has meanwhile gone its way. The
principles of the once abhorred French Revolution have been
adopted as the rule of political action, even in conservative Eng
land ; and silently, without noise or opposition, we have taken
Jeremy Beritham for our practical prophet, and have admitted as
completely as was admitted by Augustus Caesar, or Trajan, that civil
government has no object beyond the material welfare of the peo
ple. The will of God has no more a place, even by courtesy, in our
modern statutes. Political economy is the creed which governs the
actions of public men ; and political economy, by claiming to be an
interpretation of a law of nature, dispenses with Providence, while
it assumes as an axiom that the masses of men are, have been, and
ever will be influenced by nothing else than a consideration of mate
rial interest. Eccentric individuals may have their generosities, their
pieties, their tastes for art or science or amusement. Interest is
the one constant commanding motive on which the practical states
man can rely. Respectable people fight against the unwelcome
truth when it is thrust upon them inconveniently. They believe
in political economy, and they believe that they believe in Chris
tianity. Naively and unconsciously they betray their true convic
tions in the language which they habitually use. When the
English Liturgy was written, " wealth" meant well-being. Well-
being is now money. Ask what a man is worth, the answer is
his rent-roll. Has he been fortunate? He has made a good
speculation, or he has inherited a " legacy " when he did not
expect it. Is the nation " prosperous "? Where should we look

28 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
but to the rate of wages and the imports and exports ? Are we in
an age of progress? The income-tax decides. The standard of
human value has become again what it was under the Caesars, and
which Christianity came into the world to declare that it was not.
People continue to go to church. They continued then to go to
the temples. They say their prayers in public, or perhaps in
private. So they did then. • The clergy pray for rain or fine weather,
and on great occasions, such as the potato blight, the archbishop
issues a special form of petition for its removal. • But the clergy
and the archbishop are aware all the time that the evils which they
pray against depend on natural causes, and that a prayer from a
Christian minister will as little bring a change of weather as the
incantation of a Caffre rain-makef. We keep to conventional forms,
because none of us likes to acknowledge what we all know to be
true ; but we do not believe ; we do not even believe that we
believe, the bishops themselves no more than the rest of us ; no
more than the College of Augurs in Cato's time believed in the
sacred chickens.
An energetic people are impatient of insincerity, and the con
victions which we all act upon have at last found a voice precisely
as convictions of an analogous kind found a voice in Lucretius.
We have practically eliminated Providence from the administration
of things. The Lucretian philosophy has revived again, reinforced
by a vast accumulation of new knowledge, to tell us, as Lucretius
did, that the universe can be accounted for without the hypothesis
of a Providence. The theory of development, as it is called, does not
deny the existence of God any more than Epicureanism denied
it. It denies only that the phenomena require the existence of
such a being to account for them. For a time, even after the
authority of tradition was shaken, science seemed to be on the
side of religion. The evidence of design in nature was urged, as it
was urged by the Stoics, in proof of a designing mind ; and as long
as each species of plant and animal was believed to be distinct from
every other, each one of them required a special art of creation to
bring it into being. Both positions are now abandoned by advanced
scientific thinkers. Lucretius' objections are again held to be fatal
to "final causes." If the " omnia ex ovo" is not an acknowledged
certainty, if we are not yet agreed that we are all descended from a
jelly-fish, yet every naturalist of consequence is convinced that the
phenomena of life are produced on constant and uniformly acting
principles of law; that the history of the animal creation is a his-

SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 29
tory of progressive growth,lower forms being succeeded by higher,
as the fcetus in the womb develops into a man, without any sign
of the action of any external energizing powers.
Moral and historical philosophy have modeled themselves on
the same type. Moral philosophy, based on the necessities of society
and general expediency, needs no God or voice of God, in the con
science, to explain its principles, while the admitted facts that the
character of a man depends on his organic tendencies, affected by
education and circumstances, -have modified, in spite of us, our
notions of free-will and our definition of moral responsibility. In
history, again, ingenious writers discover laws of evolution, causes
operating through centuries, determining the characteristics of
successive epochs, exhibiting individuals as the plaything of
broad and general forces, and reducing still further the limits
within which they can be the authors of their own actions.
Unchanged in principle, the Lucretian interpretation of life
and its conditions is passing swiftly into general acceptance.
And now arises the serious question how far these notions
will go, and how they will affect such spiritual belief as we
still continue to hold? The theory of development may be
held, and is held, by many persons who look forward to a
life beyond the grave. Can this expectation any longer allege a
rational ground for itself, or is it a plant which grew in another
soil, and lingers now as an exotic in a climate with which it has no
natural affinity? Time will show; but meanwhile we may learn
something from the history of the past. In the Rome of the
Empire, religion had less to say for itself than it has now, and
science relatively had far greater advantage over it. The print
which has been left by Christianity on the character of mankind is
too deep to be effaced or disregarded. Yet even in the Roman
Empire, the sciences which mastered the intellect could not master
the emotion, and there is an insight of emotion which the intellect
can not explain, but which nevertheless does and will exercise an
influence which can not be ignored ; and there are virtues necessary
to human society which will only grow when emotion is allowed to
speak. The educated Romans had satisfied, themselves that there was
no hereafter ; that Tartarus was a dream, and that at death they
faded into smoke. They could discourse eloquently On the good
and the beautiful. They could enforce order by the policeman.
They could develop useful arts. They could cultivate science and

30 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
material progress. They could create the condition, in fact, which
was so impressive to the mind of Gibbon. But morality and purity
and charity, patriotism, enthusiasm, even art and poetry, withered
under a creed which deprived life of its human interest and the
imagination of every object which could kindle it. Very remark
ably, even among statesmen like Celsus, who still held to the scien
tific formula of things, a belief in a future life and future retribu
tion made its way once more against the wind into the position of
an admitted truth. The better sort of men clung vaguely to the
moral principles of religion ; and when paganism was fairly dead,
all that had been true in paganism, a belief in God, a belief that
the world after all was not. deserted by a moral government, that
our earthly life is but the threshold of our true existence, all this
revived in Christianity. Centuries passed before the transformation
was complete, centuries of miserable retribution for the long pur
suit of a godless, material prosperity. The civilized animals (for
animals only they had proclaimed themselves to be) were awakened
roughly from their dreams by the fierce inrush of the " Scourge of
God" out of the northern forests.
Man's nature is the same as it always was. Science has much
to teach us, but its message is not the last nor the highest. If we ,
may infer the future from the past, a time will come when we shall
cease to be dazzled with the thing which we call progress, when
increasing " wealth" will cease to satisfy, nay, may be found inca
pable of being produced or preserved except when relegated to a
secondary place, when the illusions which have strangled religion
shall be burnt away and the immortal part of it restored to its right
ful sovereignty. A long weary road may lie before us. Not easily
will an inviolable atmosphere of reverence form again round spirit
ual faith to warn off the insolent intruder. Piety, reverence, hum
ble adoration of the great Maker of the world, are in themselves so
beautiful that religious faith might have remained forever behind that
enchanted shield, if imaginative devotion could have kept within
bounds its wild demands upon the reason. Not till Catholics had
piled superstition on superstition, not till Protestants had elabo
rated a speculative theology which conscience as well as intellect at
length flung from it as incredible, did the angels which guarded the
shrine fold their wings and fly. The garden of Eden is desecrated now
by the trampling of controversy, and no ingenious reconciliations of
religion and science, no rivers of casuistic holy water, can restore
the ruined loveliness of traditionary faith. But the truth which is

SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 31
in religion will assert itself again as it asserted itself before. A
society without God in the heart of it is not permitted to exist ;
and when once more a spiritual creed has established itself which
men can act on in their lives, and believe with their whole souls, it
is to be hoped that they will have grown wiser by experience,
and will not again leave the most precious of their possessions to
be ruined by the extravagances of exaggerating credulity.
James Anthony Froude.

CHAPTER I I I.
THE REPLY TO MR. FROUDE.
By PROFESSOR P. G. TAIT.

DOES HUMANITY REQUIRE A NEW
REVELATION?1
THIS question we answer with a prompt and decided — No !
Let us briefly consider :
I. How it has recently been raised.
2. By what arguments and analogies an affirmative answer has
been supported.
3. Why there is no necessity for a new revelation.
We will not formally take up these as separate heads, but merely
use them as a sort of framework for our discourse.
" What is generally doubted is doubtful."
So at least says Mr. Froude, with charming dogmatism, in his
extremely well-written articles in recent numbers of this Review.1
This paradox is in fact one of the two chief reasons which he gives
for looking upon the Christian religion as a scheme which suited its
time, no doubt, but which now requires to be superseded. I can
not attempt to compete with him in word-painting, nor should I
desire to use it, even if I could, in place of argument. Thus,
instead of commenting on this statement of his, for the moment at
least, I try to imagine how one would fare at Mr. Froude's hands
if he took a somewhat similar — though perhaps not equally startling
— license. Suppose, for instance, a writer of acknowledged power
were to lay down as a matter of undisputed certainty a proposition
such as this :
What is generally misunderstood is unintelligible.
1 " Science and Theology — Ancient and Modern." — From the International Review.

DOES HUMANITY REQUIRE 33
With what howls of execration, with what withering sarcasm
would such a writer be welcomed — according to the style and
temper of the multitudinous and mutually incompatible schools of
thinkers, to every one of whom he would have given mortal
offense ? I can not conjecture what exact form of denunciation
would be employed by Mr. Froude ; but it would assuredly be
something tremendous. Yet I venture to assert that this proposi
tion contains quite as much of essential truth as does that laid down
by Mr. Froude.
Fancy the theorist in politics or in political economy who has
for years endeavored to bring his universal panacea before a listless
public, and whose sole reward has been some contemptuously sarcas
tic notices, of a few lines each, in the more obscure of the daily
journals — not one of the writers having taken the trouble to master
what he was criticising. Is this great theorist necessarily unintel
ligible because everywhere misunderstood ?
Fancy, again, the modern poetwho should say his lyrics were
misunderstood, because generally regarded as delirious and more
than obscene: — while to himself, the true and only judge, they were
merely the voice of Nature speaking by his pen; — would he allow
that the genuine reason is that his verses are unintelligible ?
Such men might not make out their case, though they would be
hard to convince that they were in the wrong. But when a scien
tific man appears on the field, he tells you at once that there is no
suck thing in mathematical or physical science as the Unintelligible,
though there is much that is imperfectly, pr not at all, understood.
Or, to take higher game, let us consider Mr. Froude himself.
Is the term Force unintelligible because all but universally mis
understood and misapplied, so far, indeed, as to be generally con
founded with Energy? Mr. Froude says 'that Lucretius, "with
intuitive genius, had anticipated two, at least, of our most impor
tant modern discoveries. He had perceived that force was a con
stant quantity, that it was not expended, but was converted from
one form to another."
Of course what is here referred to is the Conservation of Energy ;
but, though so generally misunderstood, the principle itself is by no
means unintelligible. Yet the error here committed is, from the
scientific point of view, so great as of itself seriously to shake our
confidence in the rest of the article of which it forms a part. While
engaged with this branch of the subject, and to avoid repetition, I
may allude, once for all, to a little more of Mr. Froude's unscientific

34 A NEW REVELATION?
science. Thus he applauds the methods of Lucretius, and says his
moral and spiritual conclusions agree with those of the best modern
scientific thinkers. We shall presently have to ask, Who are the
best modern scientific thinkers ? and the answer will promptly and
effectually dispose of Mr. Froude's notion that their moral and
spiritual conclusions agree with those of Lucretius.
Again, Mr. Froude says, after sketching the cosmogony of
Lucretius :
" ' The reader of Darwin will miss the theory of the modification of species, which
it was impossible for Lucretius to have guessed ; but they will find nowhere the
modern doctrine of the survival of the fittest stated more clearly and carefully.
Those who deny most earnestly that any elemental power of spontaneous genera
tion can be traced in operation at present, are less confident that it may not have
existed under earlier conditions of this planet, or may not exist at present in other
planets. The theory of Lucretius is not in the least more extravagant than the
suggestion of Sir William Thompson that the first living germ was introduced
by an aerolite."
This passage contains a tangled mass of error, for the discussion
of which the space at my disposal would be wholly .insufficient.
Not to speak of the adventitious p in Thompson, nor of the
ridiculous superlative in the phrase " survival of the fittest" (which
is not Mr. Froude's, but which it is strange to see used without
protest by an accurate writer), the statement about the opponents
of spontaneous generation is as wholly incorrect as is the allusion to
the meteorite theory of Helmholtz and Thomson.
Take another general proposition, quite as defensible as Mr.
Froude's :
He who is generally trusted is trustworthy.
I should think Mr. Froude's vast historical knowledge would
make him one of the very first to cry out against a statement such
as this. Every one of us, in his own personal experience of
bankers, railway directors, insurance officers, and what not, has had
ample reason to know and feel its absolute falsity.
After what has just been said, it is hardly necessary to examine
or comment upon the other dogmatic statements of Mr. Froude,
such as " Truth is what men trow"
" Things are what men think."
As contributions to English etymology, these may or may not be
accurate. With that I have nothing to do. But as logical propo
sitions — and it is as such that they are brought forward and used 

DOES HUMANITY REQUIRE 35
they are" transparently incorrect. Yet these and their like form one
half of the basis of Mr. Froude's slashing but melancholy argu
ment. Let us for a moment suppose them cut away, as at least
useless if not wholly misleading, and endeavor to discover what
support remains.
PI ere it is :
" The theory of development, as it is called, does not deny the existence of
God any more than Epicureanism denied it. It denies only that the phenomena
require the existence of such a being to account for them. For a time, even after
the authority of tradition was shaken, science seemed to be on the side of relig
ion. The evidence of design in nature was urged, as it was urged by the Stoics,
in proof of a designing mind ; and as long as each species of plant and animal
was believed to be distinct from every other, each one of them required a special
act of creation to bring it into being. Both positions are now abandoned by
advanced scientific thinkers."
If this be so, it is no doubt a very sad state of things, and per
haps might explain the following very extraordinary assertion with
reference to the present time as compared with that of the
Caesars :
" People continue to go to church. They continued then to go to the temples.
They say their prayers in public, or perhaps in private. So they did then. The
clergy pray for rain or fine weather, and on great occasions, such as the potato
blight, the archbishop issues a special form of petition for its removal. But the
clergy and the archbishop are aware all the time that the evils which they pray
against depend on natural causes, and that a prayer from a Christian minister will
as little bring a change of weather as the incantation of a Caffre rain-maker. We
keep to conventional forms, because none of us likes to acknowledge what we
all know to be true ; but we do not believe ; we do not even believe that we believe,
the bishops themselves no more than the rest of us — no more than the College of
Augurs in Cato's time believed in the sacred chickens."
I feel assured that there are but few thinking men who will
indorse a statement like this. So far as it is connected with
science, it rests upon absolutely no scientific basis whatever ; for
science has ?iot proved, and will never be able to prove, that there
are not now any direct interferences (from without) in what we call
the order of nature. And the assertions as to our beliefs are prob
ably even more wide of the mark than those of Elijah, when to his
querulously-egotistical exclamation, " I have been very jealous for
the Lord God of Hosts : because the children of Israel have for
saken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy proph
ets with the sword ; and I, even I only, am left ; and they seek
my life, to take it away" — the altogether unexpected and crushing

36 A NEW REVELATION?
answer came : "Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all
the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth whicli
hath not kissed him."
Perhaps Mr. Froude's answer to-this objection may be that sup.
plied by his own words : " We are too earnest to tolerate impiety,
and the traditions of religion will retain their hold with the millions
long after they have lost their influence over the intellect. Intel
lect we know is not omniscient. Emotion has a voice in the mat
ter, which is always on the side of faith, and women in such sub
jects are governed almost wholly by their feelings.
Still it is not easy to reconcile this statement with the last above
quoted. But who, pray, are the advanced " scientific thinkers" so con
fidently appealed to by Mr. Froude as having given up the proof
which is furnished by the evidence of design in nature ?
Mr. Froude says, ' ' the inferences [of Lucretius] were drawn
in the strictest scientific method. Within the proper limits of phys
ical science he anticipated many of the generalizations of the best
modern scientific thinkers. His moral and spiritual conclusions are
almost exactly the same as theirs ;" " the fate of nations is deter
mined by' the convictions about the nature and responsibilities of
man which . . . are entertained by the able'st thinkers ; and
everywhere opinions are now professed by men whom we agree to
admire, . . . which recall the . . . time when the old
order of things perished." If these, extracts contain even a trace
of truth, we are indeed in a bad way. Let us examine them. One
thing is specially to be remarked, the persistence and iteration with
which Mr. Froude claims as supporters of his views the ablest scien
tific thinkers.
When we ask of any competent authority, who were the
" advanced," the " best," and the " ablest" scientific thinkers of
the immediate past (in Britain), we can not but receive for answer
such names as Brewster, Faraday, Forbes, Graham, Rowan Hamil
ton, Herschel, and Talbot. This must be the case unless we use
the word science in a perverted sense. Which of these great men
gave up the idea that nature evidences a designing mind ?
But perhaps Mr. Froude refers to the advanced thinkers still
happily alive among us. The names of the foremost among them
are not far to seek. But, unfortunately for his assertion, it is quite
certain that Andrews, Joule, Clerk-Maxwell, Balfour Stewart,
Stokes, William Thomson, and such like, have,, each and all of

DOES HUMANITY REQUIRE 37
them, when the opportunity presented itself, spoken in a sense
:altogether different from that implied in Mr. Froude's article.
Surely there are no truly scientific thinkers in Britain farther
advanced than these ! But then Mr. Froude has said that the
inferences of Lucretius "were drawn in the strictest scientific
method." Most scientific men think them, as a rule, metaphysical,
and even in some instances wholly absurd.
It is obvious from this that Mr. Froude's notions of science are
altogether at variance with those of the best authorities.
For true scientific writing there are three indispensable requi
sites :
I. Your facts must be facts.
2. Your reasoning must be logical.
3. Your knowledge must be in all respects adequate.
The words italicized are of the utmost importance, because the
very slightest defect of knowledge may be fatal to the whole con
clusion. Mr. Froude is a very able and plausible writer, and his position
as a historian is matter of common knowledge. But though these
qualifications undoubtedly render his essay very pleasant reading, ,
the fact that his subject deals to a certain extent with science has
proved sufficient to show that something more than literary knowl
edge and ability is wanted to confer upon it that accuracy which is
indispensable to authority. Nothing prepares one so well for the
solution of a hard problem as previous practice at similar but easier
ones, so we may usefully say a word or two about a few simpler
cases, which bear some little analogy to tlfat of Mr. Froude, in con
nection with his recent articles.
Nothing is more strikingly characteristic of the ignorance of
even educated people than the way in which certain persons obtain
undeserved popularity and come to be regarded (except of course by
experts) as authorities in literature or in science. The royal road
to this distinction lies in not merely looking and talking big, but in
doing so in a great variety of subjects. Lawyers laughed at the
late Lord Brougham's law, but thought him great in literature and
science ; scientific men laughed at his science, but allowed that he
was a master in law and literature ; and the recently published
Napier correspondence has shown in what hearty contempt he was
held by literary authorities like Macaulay.
The once celebrated " Vestiges of Creation" owed its popularity
not so much to the truth and novelty of some of its statements, and

38 A NEW REVELATION?
their supposed heretical boldness, as to the enormous range of sub
jects on which its author could smatter sufficiently to pass muster
with men who knew them only superficially. Even true scientific
men, though each convinced that the author was only superficially
acquainted with his own pet subject, were often incautious enough
to state that he was obviously well acquainted with every thing else.
It is a mere truism to say that no one can nowadays write with
authority on more than two or three branches even of science — and,
in general, these are closely allied : as physics, chemistry, and min
eralogy, anatomy and physiology, etc. And it is another, but less
generally received, truism that no one can make sound applications
of even the elements of a scientific subject without a really pro
found knowledge of the whole.
The Paper Science of the present day, that which pretends to
make the highest sciencg at once interesting and intelligible to all,
is a disgrace to education generally — a proof that such education
as even the best of non-specialists receive is incompetent to enable
them to detect superficiality and confident, because ignorant, smat
tering. What a contrast to the carefully thought-out treatises of
two centuries ago — rich and full, even when wholly speculative — on
the production of one of which a man spent often the best years of
his life ! What a contrast to these is the constant flow of trashy
verbiage from the " Easy- Writing" Paper Scientist ! Pie it is who
is mainly responsible for the state of things we have now to explain.
The assumed incompatibility of Religion and Science has been
so often and so confidently asserted in recent times that it has come,
like the universal knowledge and ability of Lord Brougham, or the
all-round scientific merits of the "Vestiges of Creation," to be
taken for granted by the writers of leading articles, etc., and it is
of course perpetually thrust by them broadcast before their too
trusting readers.
But the whole thing is a mistake, and a mistake so grave that no
true scientific man (unless indeed he be literally a specialist — such as
a pure mathematician, or a mere mycologist or entomologist) runs,
in Britain at least, the smallest risk of making it.
Who are, after all, the people who so loudly assert this so-called
incompatibility ? Do they, or does even any one of them, show that
thorough acquaintance with both sides of the question which is
usually, and I think rightly, imagined to be necessary for the forma
tion of a judgment of any value ? When one such presents himself
it will be time enough for genuine theologians, if not to feel alarm,

DOES HUMANITY REQUIRE 39
,at all events to be prepared for battle. Hitherto at least it appears
that the contest has been originated and carried on by the super
numeraries, I had almost said the camp-followers, of both classes,
the scientific and the theological. With a few, and these very
singular, exceptions, the true scientific men and the true theologians
of the present day have not yet found themselves under the neces
sity of quarreling.
An ignorant and mischievous supernumerary on the theological
side takes up old and now exploded views of the nature and mode
of production of the Bible — asserts (let us say) that every word,
nay, every letter, in it is divinely inspired and has been divinely
preserved to us — that its incidental references to objects of physical
or natural science must also be scientifically exact. Well may the
true theologian desire to be preserved from his friends !
" For the son dishonoreth the father, the daughter riseth up
against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ;
a man's enemies are the men of his own house."
Hereupon an equally ignorant and mischievous underling of the
scientific establishment, fancying he has an opportunity of attaining
the notoriety which is his main object in life, seizes on these absurd
statements, gravely assumes that they are put forward by the
masters and not by the underlings, and proceeds with much stage
effect and clatter to expose their absurdity. The_ long-enduring
public, led too often by ignorant though " educated " men (for a
" scholar" may be, and too often is, altogether innocent of the very
slightest power of detecting the characteristic difference between
science and pseudo-science, obvious though it be to the practised
eye) — the patient public, I say, under such leadership, grows ecstatic
over the tremendous contest, and hails the fancied victor as among
the foremost men of science of his time. It is like the terrific sword
and buckler combat in a melodrama, cheered to the echo, though
every one knows it is humbug. And thus Religion, which has never
really been in question, suffers in the judgment of the vulgar.
The same effect is often produced by a nearly converse process.
The mischievous scientific camp-follower begins throwing stones
at what he imagines to be religion ; but, as true religion is some
thing very different from the idea he has formed of it, he has of
course no chance of hitting his mark.
But the equally mischievous theological underling thinks his
opportunity has come ; and so at it they go, tooth and nail, ham
mer and tongs, with plenty of noise and no result, except of course

4° A NEW REVELATION?
that Religion again suffers in the eyes" of the ignorant, who fancy
that, this tomfoolery carried on in her name really involves her
interests. They have, besides, a sort of unexpressed notion that
Religion should be, like Caesar's wife, not only unimpeachable but
unimpeached — forgetting that a child may easily drive. in a nail so
that a giant may find difficulty in extracting it.
So much for the discussions on the so-called incompatibility of
Religion and Science. Almost invariably initiated and carried out
against the wishes and the convictions of the true leaders on either
side, they have become a sort of ladder by which hangers-on or
supernumeraries manage now and then to raise themselves into
public notice. To do' so with the greatest effect they adopt, as a
rule, the side of what they call Science. A well-known scientific
man puts it very happily thus : ' ' The dogs have partaken of the
children's bread, and are determined to show that they belong to
the family." It must be allowed that now and then some of the
really foremost men have thought it worth their while to confute a
more than usually loud-mouthed (and therefore popular) opponent,
but as a body they have as yet found no cause to interfere.
Mr. Froude, I think, has done much harm by throwing himself
unsolicited, and in great part unqualified, into this sham-fight of
underlings. [A knight, as Don Quixote found to his cost, ought
not to mix in the pastimes or quarrels of carriers and clothworkers.J
He is quite as one-sided as, though of course from any point of view
far more effective than, the scribblers with whom, in an evil hour,
he has temporarily associated himself. Had he confined himself
strictly to the somewhat novel question he has raised, which is
practically that at the head, of this paper, he would have to some
extent kept clear of these small fry and their perennial chatter, Diis
aliter visum !
According to Mr. Froude, we are, without being generally con
scious of it, living in a period of exceptionally rapid advance. This
advance consists not so much in material prosperity and scientific
discovery, as in shaking off, one by one, the trammels of a burden
some superstition which we are at length beginning to estimate at
its true value.
"Whither these material changes may be carrying us, it is idle to conjecture.
Nothing of the same kind has ever been witnessed on the earth before, and there
is no experience to guide us. The spiritual change is not so unexampled. Phe
nomena occurred most curiously analogous at the time of the rise of Christianity ;

DOES HUMANITY REQUIRE 41
and from the singularly parallel course in which at those two periods the intellect
developed itself, we may infer generally what is likely to come of it.
" That we have been started out of our old positions, and that we can never
return to positions exactly the same, is too plain to be questioned. Theologians
no longer speak with authority. They are content to suggest, and they deprecate
hasty contradistinction. Those who doubted before now openly deny. Those
who believed on trust have passed into uncertainty. Those who uphold ortho
doxy can not agree on what ground to defend it. Throughout Europe, through
out the world, the gravest subjects are freely discussed, and opposite sides may
be taken without blame from society." " Along the whole line the defending
forces are falling back, not knowing where to make a stand ; and materialism
all over Europe stands frankly out, and is respectfully listened to when it affirms
that the war is over, that the claims of revelation can not be maintained, and that
the existence of God and of a future state, the origin of man, the nature of con.
science, and the meaning of the distinctions between good and evil, are all open
questions." It is true he gives us a crumb or two of momentary comfort-
sufficient for the present and perhaps for the next generation.
" The entire generation at present alive may probably pass away before the in
ward change shows itself markedly in external symptoms. None the less is it
quite certain that the ark of religious opinion has drifted from its moorings, that it is
moving with increasing speed along a track which it will never retrace, and
towards issues infinitely momentous. What are these issues to be ? The thing
that hath been, that shall be again."
I do not venture directly to contradict all these assertions.
Some of them are certainly in part true ; some are at least plausible.
But I think the situation is enormously exaggerated. The state of
the real heart-depths of a nation is not to be judged by the froth or
dross which comes most prominently to the surface. The vices and
frivolities, whether of fashionable society or of the music-hall cad,
like the flippant lectures of half-educated materialists and the child
ish follies of ritualism, are but as ripples that disturb the surface of
the water ; while the strong current of common-sense, morality, and
religion flows on uninterruptedly below.
What led to the recent marvellous recovery of France ? What
but the fact that the glaring vices and frivolities, which to casual
observers were her most prominent feature, did not seriously affect
the real life of the nation ? Remember what Horace says of the
similar scum of his own times, and also of the true manhood which
(till the scum is brushed away) is obscured from the sight of the
careless observer :

42 ANEW "REVELATION?
" Non his juventas orta parentibus
Infecit sequor sanguine Punico —
******
Sed rusticorum mascula militum
Proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus
Versare, glebas, et severs
Matris ad arbitrium recisos
Portare fustes,"
And just as we all know from recent experience that a similar,
perhaps even a higher, manhood is to be found. to a practically
unlimited extent alike in Britain and in.America ; so we may feel
assured that the great bulk of the sound common-sense people, of
all classes, in these countries, is at heart leal to religion — of which,
therefore, it does not ostentatiously make parade. Flippant skeptics
may, in ordinary times, without great fear of contradiction, assert
the contrary. But they would be altogether confounded were a
season of trial, danger, and difficulty to arise, such as would neces
sarily call into practical display the simple but profound religious
convictions of these many true hearts.
Doubter — if you can be found — think of Elijah and be reas
sured ! Thus the second of Mr. Froude's chief reasons for his con
viction falls to pieces like the first. Christianity is not " generally
doubted." And even if it were, that which is generally doubted
is by no means necessarily "doubtful." Yet it is solely upon
grounds so uncertain, or rather so certainly erroneous, that the
startling conclusions he comes to are based.
The only passage in Mr. Froude's articles which suggests even
the slightest hope is the following :
" For centuries states and individuals alike professed to be governed in all that
they thought and did by the supposed revelation which was given to mankind
eighteen hundred years ago. Avowed disbelief of it there was none ; of secret,
silent misgiving there was probably very little. For practical purposes, that
revelation was accepted as a fact, as little allowing of doubt as the commonest
phenomena of daily experience. The universal confidence received its first shock
at the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Just as the original pagan creed
was made incredible by the legends with which it was overspread, so Christianity
was overgrown by a forest of extravagant superstitions. Conscience and intelli
gence rose in revolt, and tore them to pieces. For a time all was well. The
weeds were gone ; the faith of the early church was restored in all its simplicity.
The Huguenots in France, Lutherans in Germany, the Puritans in England and
Scotland, were as absolutely under the influence of religious belief as the apostles
and first converts. Providence to them was not a form of speech, but a living
reality. ' '

DOES HUMANITY REQUIRE 43
With the exception of one sneering epithet, the whole of this
'passage may be accepted as it stands. But what follows ? Instead
S>i the obvious conclusion, that the Reformation was not complete,
having left at least as many blots on dogmatic Christianity as it
had removed ; and that a second and more sweeping Reformation
is now urgently required — what is hinted at is the necessity for
an altogether new revelation, or, at least, a completely new system
of philosophic belief.
But the great bulk of the human race can not be philosophers —
can not even, so far at least as experience has taught us, be scholars.
Yet surely they are all individually, not merely numerically, as
important in the eyes of the common Creator (Mr. Froude does
seem to allow that there is a God, belief in whom is essential to the
existence of society) as is any, the most erudite, philosopher.
It would therefore appear, from the most absolutely common-
sense view — independent of all philosophy and speculation — it
would appear that the only religion which can have a rational claim
on our belief must be one suited equally to the admitted necessities
of the peasant and of the philosopher. And this is one specially
distinguishing feature of Christianity. While almost all other
religious creeds involve an outer sense for the uneducated masses
and an inner sense for the more learned and therefore dominant
priesthood, the system of Christianity appeals alike to the belief
of all ; requiring of all that, in presence of their common Father,
they should sink their fancied superiority one over another, and
frankly confessing the absolute unworthiness which they can not but
feel, approach their Redeemer with the simplicity and confidence
of little children.
" The Garden of Eden is desecrated now by the trampling of controversy, and
no ingenious reconciliations of religion and science, no rivers of casuistic holy
water, can restore the ruined loveliness of traditionary faith. But the truth which
is in religion will assert itself again as it asserted itself before. A society without
God in the heart of it is not permitted to exist ; and when once more a spiritual
creed has established itself which men can act on in their lives arid believe with their
whole souls, it is to be hoped that they will have grown wiser by experience, and
will not again leave the most precious of their possessions to be ruined by the ex
travagance of exaggerating credulity."
Most true, and yet most false ! But false only because of the
implied assumption that the "spiritual creed" already vouchsafed
to us is not one " which men can act on in their lives, and believe
with their whole souls."

44 A NEW REVELATION?
That men in myriads have already thus believed;- and acted on,
the altogether spiritual creed of the New Testament, is matter of
absolute certainty-. And if in the past, why not in the present and
in the future ?
The Founder of Christianity has given for all time the answer to
those who, discontented with what God has graciously done for
them, seek a new revelation. " If ye believe not Moses and the
prophets, neither would ye believe though one rose from the dead."
' To this there can be no answer except a bold denial of the
Divinity of Christ. That Christ claimed to be divine we know,
altogether independently of Scripture, from the historical facts
connected with His execution. We have His own triumphant
answer to the question (all-important so far as our present subject is
concerned): " Art thou he that should come, or do we look for
another?" But the claim comes out admitted in all its strength in
the words of the high-priest : ' ' What need we any farther witnesses ?
ye yourselves have heard the blasphemy."
All who approach the subject without bias can see from the New
Testament records how some of the most essential features of Chris
tianity were long in impressing themselves on the minds even of the
Founder's immediate followers. And we could not reasonably have
expected it to be otherwise. The revelation of Himself which the
Creator has made by His works we are only, as it were, beginning to
comprehend. Are we to wonder that Christianity, that second and
complementary revelation, is also, as it were, only beginning to be
understood ; or that, in the struggle for light, much that is wholly
monstrous has been gratuitously introduced, and requires a Refor
mation for its removal ? What more likely than that, in the endeavor
to frame a document for the stamping out of a particular heresy,
over-zealous clergy should carry the process a little too far, and so
introduce a new and opposite heresy ? But this is no argument
against Christianity ; rather the reverse.
It might in fact be asserted, with very great reason, that a
religion which, like any one of the dogmatic systems of particular
Christian sects, should be stated to men in a form as precise and
definite as was the mere ceremonial law, would be altogether an
anomaly — inconsistent in character with all the other dealings of
God with man — and altogether incompatible with that Free Will
which every sane man feels and knows himself to possess.
P. G. Tait.

CHAPTER IV.
THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.1
THE keen saying of Bacon, "there is a superstition in avoiding
superstition," has been often verified in the history of opinion ;
but it might have startled the master had he foreseen that its most
marked example would be furnished in these days by science itself.
We have had too many champions of Christianity, who weaken its
cause by denying the results of modern discovery; we have now
quite as narrow a type of dogmatists, who mistake their scorn of
revealed truth for philosophic wisdom. The work2 before us is a rare
specimen of this latest growth in England and in our own country.
We opened it, knowing the author to be a man of deserved reputation
in his own sphere, and hoping for light in regard to the questions which
employ the best minds of our time ; but we laid it down with the
conviction, that a thorough knowledge of the spectroscope, or of the
mysteries of chemical analysis, does not of necessity imply a knowledge
of theology and Christian history. With this feeling we shall freely
examine the book. It has seemed to us the more needful to do it,
because several of its reviewers, in fighting over the geological issue,
have left unanswered the false theory of revelation by which the
whole argument stands or falls. We shall gladly accept every genuine
fact. But when the most competent scholar in the field of natural
study, offers us his loose reading and looser logic as the verdict of
philosophy on religious belief, we shall try him by his own standard ;
and as he appeals to science, to science he shall go.
Let us state at the outset the line of the argument which our
author has given us. It is his purpose to show, by a review of the
most prominent ages of Christianity, that there has been from first to
last an irreconcilable conflict between science and dogmatic faith.
The lon°- record is divided by him into several critical epochs. The
first struggle of early Christianity ends in the suppression of the
schools of Alexandria, and is followed by the Southern Reformation,
as he strangely calls it, in which the tiuth of the unity of God,
1 From the International Review.
» " History of the Conflict between Religion and Science," by J. W. Draper, M. D.,
LL.D. New York : Appleton & Co.

46 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
destroyed by Christian idolatry, is reaffirmed by the Mohammedan
religion. The next conflict is as to the nature of the soul, and ends
in the anathema of the church on the pure, scientific doctrine of
Averroism. The succeeding conflict is with the dawning science of
Europe concerning the position and structure of the earth. This is
followed by the Reformation of Luther. The present is the contro
versy between religion and science, as to the government of the world ;
or the question of supernatural order, and natural law. Such is the
history which our learned author gathers at last into one conclusion.
Science is progressive. The religion of the Christian Scripture and
church is in its nature bound by certain unchangeable traditions, which
must always be opposed to the views affirmed by natural discovery.
We beg the reader to mark clearly the terms of the question. Had
he sought only to expose the superstitions of the past, his book would
have been no new discovery of a fact admitted by all reasonable
Christian men. Had he sought, again, to show that these errors were
only the crude conditions of our growth, and that we might look for
ward to an age when science should be found in harmony with the
essential truths of revelation, we should gladly hail him as a teacher.
But the conflict, in his view, is inherent in the character of revelation.
There is no hope save in the surrender of the whole fabric of a super
natural religion.
Such is the historic argument we are to meet ; and we may
state as clearly the position we shall take against it. We shall not
identify revelation with any traditional systems of Biblical interpre
tation or theology. It is here that such critics are seemingly strong.
only because they can wrest against revelation the weak weapons of its
defenders. We claim that Christianity is a revelation of God as a per
sonal Creator and Father; of the moral condition of man; of the
gift of redemption in Christ, and of the connection of a life of holiness
with the life to come. Such truths are in their nature essentially the
same in every age, because this revelation is fitted to the same spirit
ual wants, and has its witness in the moral life of the race. But as
this religion is given in the form of historic records, and yet more
interpreted by men, it must be studied in all such particulars by the
light of science, of language, and historic criticism. The Scriptures
are not designed to be the oracle of scientific certainty. Biblical
and doctrinal learning have their law of gradual progress, as have
all other departments of knowledge. In this view we should read the
history of the Christian past ; as the record of a growth of imperfect
systems indeed, of truth mingled with superstition, yet a record linked

THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 47
with the steps of all human civilization under the guidance of God.
If by this principle we examine the theory of our boastful critic, we
find that he has neither understood the meaning of revelation, the
worth of Christian history, nor the claims of its reasonable believers.
We turn, then, at once to his historic sketch. Instead of any
general argument, we prefer to follow the method of our author ;
for we can thus test, step by step, the solidity of his learning, and
give him the happy privilege of refuting himself. It might be thought
somewhat singular at first, that he should begin with an elaborate
story of the conquests of Alexander. But we soon learn his purpose.
It is necessary for him to prove that the pagan world was not indebted
to Revelation for the truth of monotheism, but that the doctrine
came from Persia. We pass over the pages of historic episode,
which may be useful to some readers not familiar with the common
places of that time, and mark the original discoveries of this writer.
None can deny the genius or learning of that remarkable school,
which in the later day of Greek wisdom produced such masters as
Ptolemy and Hipparchus. They were undoubtedly the heralds of
inductive science. Nor can we doubt, again, that the new impetus
given to the- Greek intellect was largely due to the march of Eastern
discovery. But we are indebted to our author alone for the information
that " this great intellectual development was aided by the knowl
edge they acquired of the religion of Persia." It is readily under
stood that some religious ideas entered from this source into the later
Jewish system, and in the form of Manichaean theosophy played a
large part in the Christian heresies ; nay, we may find traces of this
influence, although in a far less degree, in the Neo-Platonic school.
But it is neither proved by the remains of that time, nor allowed
by any historian of repute from Ritter to Ueberweg, that the later
Greek science was in any way affected by the peculiar tenets of the
Persian religion. The fancy of this critic, weaves this web of theory
out of the thinnest facts. Nor would it help him, if it were true,
since the religion of Persia was no monotheism in that later time.
It is a question by no means settled among critics, whether such
a truth was ever held by that people. Yet we are told, again, in
the most authoritative tone, that " Persia had at first followed the
monotheism of Zoroaster, and afterward accepted dualism." We need
only send him to the Avesta for the refutation of his statement. It
is the conclusion of our ripest scholars, at whose head stands Spiegel,
the translator of the sacred books, that " the religion of the Persians
in the time of Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes, was essentially the

48 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
same as it^ggars in the Avesta. Nay, we learn from the same
authority, thatZoroaster, or Zarathustra, although he was probably
the founder of the religion, was even in that day, as we may judge
from the character assigned him by classic writers, a very mythical
personage. Doubtless, therefore, the Persian, like other branches of
the Aryan religion, began with the worship of the heavenly bodies,
and afterward passed into the ritual system of the Avesta. It was,
indeed far purer than many of the superstitions of the East ; a religion
which had retained somewhat of the simplicity of the primal light-
worship, nearer to the Hebrew in its rejection of idols ; yet it was no
monotheism, but .-^dualism, and its mythology had created, beside
the powers of light and darkness, a host of lesser divinities. We
commend our author to a more thorough study of a subject, before
he attempts to invent a theory.
But we must pass from his historic rambles to his ideas of Greek
philosophy. Having taught us how the sublime truth of monotheism
entered from Persia, he will now prove that Greek genius reached in
that age its highest development, only to be followed by a barbarous
Christianity. To do this, he must show us that the guiding intellect
of that age, Aristotle, was a true inductive philosopher, not to be
confounded with the barren scholastics of the church. But if he is at
home in the epicylic theory, he is in the cloud-land of fancies when he
attempts metaphysics. We cite his words :
" Plato descended from the composition of a primitive idea to particulars; Aris
totle united particulars into a general conception." "The essential principle of
the Aristotelian philosophy was to rise from particulars to universals, advancing to
them by induction." " The inductive philosophy thus established is a method of
great power. To it all modern advances in science are due."
No statement could more misrepresent the truth. Aristotle, with
out doubt, studied nature with more accuracy than any before him,
and hence had at times what have been called " luminous antici
pations " of science. But to say in any sense whatever, that his
philosophic method was that of induction, is only possible to those,
who have gained their ideas of him at second-hand. The method of
Plato, as well as Aristotle, is to ascend from particulars to universals ;
but the main difference between them is, that Plato conceived his
universal ideas as entities, Aristotle held them as mental cognitions.
The analytic genius of the Stagyrite thus led him to the widest range
of systematic knowledge. But his method is that of rigid logical
demonstration ; and none can read his Physics without accepting the

THE CONFLICT OF' RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 49
criticism of Bacon, that he " constructed the world out of his cate
gories." It is curious to observe how a superficial thinker like Lewes,
in attempting to show the beginning of positive science with Aris
totle, has refuted himself in mistranslating the famous sentence from
the Metaphysics, " Art begins, when from a great number of experi
ences there is formed one general conception of like cases." But the
word rendered " experiences " is the exact contrary, " many hwoquara; "
not an induction of facts, but a logical unity in the mind. We have
dwelt on this, because it touches the whole argument of our critic.
Neither Aristotle nor his scholars in the middle age had reached the
path of experimental science. It was in the order of knowledge, that
they should first study the problems of human thought.
We are prepared, after the author's eulogy on the religion of Persia
and the perfection of later Greek science, for more novel discoveries
as to the rise and decline of the Christian faith. It is soon disposed
of. It fills a much smaller place in his view than the astronomy of
the Museum. There, was, it appears, as the result of these Mace
donian conquests and the " military domination of Rome," a general
sentiment of the " universal brotherhood " of man. The Jewish-
Christian sect thus at first gained its sway over the pagan world, as a
sort of " communism." We may well admire the genius which has
reached so plain a solution at last of the grandest problem of history ;
even simpler than that of Mr. Buckle, who wrote the story of
Christian civilization with Christianity left out. It is not enough for
such reasoners to recognize in the condition of the Roman world, in
the decay of pagan worship, and in the social interchange of nations,
that which gave room for the ideas of a nobler faith ; but we are
gravely asked to find in that world, lying under the yoke of the Caesars,
without liberty, with the most appalling growth of social vices, with
no belief save in the most swarming superstitions, the natural birth
of a religion, which purified not only idolatry. but the life of the
household and the state, and has shaped the whole civilization of the
after time. This is indeed a wonderful histantia crucis of the
inductive science. But our philosopher does not dwell long on the
origin of Christianity. Even the simple truth with which it began is
destined soon to fall away ; and we learn that it soon became a
distinct pagariism. There is probably nothing in history which can
quite compare with the inventive boldness of this chapter on the
corruptions of the church. We had long known that there were
errors and vices in the primitive age ; but we had no conception of
their extent. It has been discovered by this scholar, that Constan-

50 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
tine actually consecrated the ancient pagan rites under a Christian
form, with the express purpose of conciliating the many heathen of
the Empire. The Madonna was the Egyptian Isis, with the infant
Horus in her arms and the crescent moon under her feet. The Feast
of Purification was an open substitute for the Lupercalia. It is in this
spirit he writes history ; an instance or two of natural superstition is
cited as if the spots covered the whole disk of the sun ; and all the
ages of Christian life, of intellectual battle with pagan error, of
moral purity or social regeneration are nothing to his scientific mind.
But we must follow him now, as he enters with much learning
into the Christian theology of the early age. It will, doubtless, awe
many of his readers to find him so profound in his citations from the
Fathers, yet we beg leave to examine a few statements. Our author
informs us that Christian doctrine was, in the age of Tertullian, the
simplest of faiths, but it changed with Augustin into a system of
revolting dogmas. He quotes at large the famous apology to Severus.
" The attentive reader will have remarked," he says, " in Tertullian's
statement of Christian principles, a complete absence of the. doctrines
of original sin, total depravity, predestination, grace, and atonement."
Such a mode of dealing with the writings of this father is a little sin
gular. It should be known to such a critic that this simple Tertullian
was the most fertile intellect of the West African church, and did
more than any other in his age to shape that theology of the Latin
communion, which was afterward ripened by Augustin.- It should
be known that he is the author of manyjrtreatises, full of the most
subtle discussions of doctrine ; and although Augustin has brought
into more systematic shape the tenets which our critic specifies,
each one of them is to be traced in Tertullian. It should be known to
him that a view of the theology of that time must embrace the fathers
of the Eastern church, who represent more than the West its noblest
philosophic thought, and who joined the spirit of Plato with a Christian
faith in their discussion of the unity of God, freedom, and immortal
ity. To present this official paper of Tertullian to the emperor, as an
epitome of Christian theology, is as absurd, as it would be to send one
who desires to know the principles of the Novum Organon, to Bacon's
Apology in the case of the Earl of Essex. Nor is it strange, therefore,
that we find this choice criticism followed by as lucid a vilw of Augus
tin. Our author gives us a few disjointed passages, and then pounces
on the Pelagian controversy. It is dismissed by a summary appeal to
science. We are told that the great point of the controversy was
" whether death had been in the world before Adam, or was the penalty

THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 51
of sin." Pelagius was the unconscious herald of the modern school,
which proves that long before man, thousands of species and genera
had died ; and thus the church, in sustaining Augustin, severed the
ology from science ! It is indeed, difficult to meet such talk with due
gravity. Undoubtedly this question was involved in the controversy ;
but no one, at all acquainted with doctrinal history, is ignorant that
the real difference between the two was in regard to the nature of
divine grace and human ability. Nor does it matter at all, in our
estimate of the great doctor of the Latin church, whether he were
right or wrong in this particular. Such criticism is as absurd, as to
doubt Newton's laws of astronomy because he had a fanciful theory
about the London plague. The task of Augustin was to study the
deep laws of human nature in conscience and history, to show the truth
of Christianity in its adaptation as a revelation of redemption to the
moral want of the race ; and while there are errors in his system,
derived chiefly from the Platonic philosophy which he followed, no
competent scholar will deny him his place as one of the noblest teach
ers, not only of the Christian church, but of all time. To measure
him by the method of this critic, is to measure a mountain by a
microscope. At this point our learned author reaches the first step of his con
clusion. The barbarous religion of Christ at last seals its hostility
to science by the closing of the schools at Athens under Justinian.
It might not be very difficult for us to answer him on his own ground.
The act of Justinian was, of course, that of a despot. But what had
that to do with the real progress of science ? There was at that period
hardly a vestige of Greek genius such as had bloomed in the better
day of a Ptolemy or Hipparchus, and whatever of intellectual life sur
vived, had passed into the Christian church. But it is a deeper defect
which blinds him to the intellectual worth of that age. To him there
is no progress save in the sciences of mechanics and chemistry. It is
impossible for him to conceive that a religion, which did not produce
great geometers, or settle the structure of the globe, could have done
any thing for the race. Had he even got so far as the philosophy of
Comte, he might have learned that the growth of the human mind
must begin with the theological and the metaphysical before it can
reach the scientific stage. Had he known the deeper law of Christian
history, he would have discovered that, however admirable the knowl
edge of nature, the noblest science is that which concerns the moral
and social life of humanity. It was no loss to the world, if it waited
a few centuries longer for a Copernicus. The task of the church was

32 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
to educate the pagan mind in a purer faith, and whea that first step
was passed, to shape the life- of barbarian Europe ; and the same
Justinian, who closed the Athenian schools, had wisdom enough to
give the world the Pandects of Roman law.
But we are now ready for another of the great historical discoveries
of our author. It is the period which he has called the " Southern
Reformation." The religion of Mohammed proclaims the unity of
God against an idolatrous Christianity; and the church again shows
itself the enemy of science. It would be hard to. find a chapter in
which so narrow a basis of fact is made to support so huge a pile of
theory. We are told that the Christian church had introduced the
worship of Isis in the form of the Madonna ; that Nestorius was con
demned for rejecting this idolatry, and when his banished sect spread
over the East, the Arabian prophet was converted by its teachers.
But this is not all. " The life of the prophet was devoted to the exten
sion of this theological doctrine ; " and hence our historian claims
for Islamism the leadership of scientific progress, while Christendom
had lost the truth of the one God. It will be necessary only to turn
to the history of that age in order to test this theory. Nestorius was
one of the victims of a harsh theology ; and the church which con
demned him, had already been infected by the superstition, which
ripened later into Mariolatry. But every student knows, that while
the dispute concerning the feoi-o/coj- entered into the question, the
doctrine for which Nestorius was sentenced was that of the separation
of the two natures in Christ. We may justly lament the spirit of an
age, which had too far lost in its metaphysical subtleties the living
power of its own doctrine ; we may not doubt that such a decay left
Christendom the weak prey of the Arab invader. But t0 say 'n anv
wise that the church had renounced its faith in the one God, or that
its partial superstition could be called idolatry, is only extravagant
nonsense. We can thus fairly understand the relation of our religion
to that wonderful and brilliant era of Saracenic life. History has cast
a much clearer light in our day on the character of Mohammed, than
when he was wont to be treated as the arch impostor ; it has shown
that he was indebted to Jewish, probably to Nestorian sources for
much of his doctrine ; and that above all, the faith in the one God
in spite of blended errors, made that religion the conqueror of
the East. But it does not seem to occur to our author that this very
fact is the refutation of his strange claim for Islamism. He has
admitted that the religion of the Koran is only a bastard form of
Christianity, and thus he directly allows that all the progress he

THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 53
claims for the doctrines of Mohammed is due to the belief, which he
rejects as at war with science. Christianity gave the power which
overthrew idolatry; Mohammed gave the legends of the Koran,
the sensuality and the martial fanaticism. Nor is it less astounding
to hear a philosophic historian talk of Islamism as the "Southern
Reformation." Undoubtedly the monotheistic faith of Islam changed
the polytheism of the East, and was in that respect the source
of a higher civilization ; but we are not aware that it converted
any part of Christendom. It subdued the decaying empire by force
of arms, and the fresh strength of an Arab people was mightier than
an old, corrupt civilization. But what has that to do with a Southern
Reformation? Yet we have not ended the paradox. Our author is not content
with giving just praise to the Saracenic civilization, but he must hold
it up as far grander than that of Christian Europe during the same
period. We shall not yield to him in our admiration of that marvel
ous age. The history of the world has no chapter more brilliant than
that of the Caliphs, who won a victory grander than had been achieved
by the scimitar. That civilization grew like the tropic plant, which
reaches its full beauty in a season. But it shows an utter want of his
toric insight to compare it with the development of the Western race.
The genius of the Arab, like all of the Semitic stock, was narrow,
although intense in the range of its ideas. It could interpret the
works of Greek science ; but it could not lay the foundations of a
great social polity, or give birth to a literature and art like that of
Europe. Even in science we have the judgment of Whevvell, that the
original contributions of Arabian schools are slight. And it is a grave
¦mistake to speak of this progress, as if in any sense the religion of
Mohammed were more favorable to the cause of science, than the Chris
tianity of the church. Our critic might well consult a Semitic scholar,
not likely to be too partial in his religious tastes, Ernest Renan, who
will teach him that the bigots of the Koran were more hostile to the
study of Greek philosophy than any in the darkest day of the Latin
communion. Thus the age of the Mohammedan civilization reached
its bloom only to decay, and has left nothing save a splendid mem
ory. But it was the necessity of the Christian civilization, as it was
to endure, to have a slower growth. The church of the seventh cen
tury was busy with the education of the hordes that overturned south
ern and middle Europe ; and after the mind of the continent had been
trained in religious faith, in social order, in the fusion of races, in the
development of a rich, manifold life, it could ripen a literature, an art.

54 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
and a science also, which should survive when Islamism had passed
away forever.
But our historian has not quite closed his eulogy of Mohammedan
wisdom. Not only in regard to the unity of God was the Christian
church opposed to science ; but in the next conflict concerning the
nature of the soul we are to find the same sad bigotry. Averroes, the
great Arabic commentator of Aristotle, taught the doctrine of emana
tion, which according to this critic is the same with the modern
theory of evolution ; his learning passed from Spain into the Chris
tian schools, and was at last condemned by the church. It is strange
indeed, that in his zeal to array science against religion our eager
champion should have made such blunders in regard to the system
which he praises as genuine philosophy. He has found in Aristotle
the master of the inductive method ; and he now, with greater lack
of learning, accepts the doctrine of his commentator. Yet he should
have known that Averroes, or Ibn Roschd, is, in the opinion of the
most competent scholars, not a true interpreter of Aristotle in his
theory of emanation. The teaching of the Greek sage, as clearly
stated in the twelfth book of his Metaphysics is, that there exists an
active intellect, present to the human soul, yet distinct from the pas
sive or passional nature. There are other passages from his treatise
on the soul, which speak of this active intellect as alone incorrupti
ble. Hence the question arose, whether he held this universal mind
to be impersonal, so that there could be no personal, individual being
after death. The difference of view on this weighty point, is the
dividing line between the Christian disciples of Aristotle and the
system of Averroes. To omit all other authorities, we need only cite
the learned work of Renan on the Arabian sage, which our critic seems
to have skimmed just enough to mistake. Aristotle, as even Renan
admits, has not clearly expressed himself on this point ; but it was per
haps from some later Greek commentators, as Alexander of Aphrodi-
sias, that Averroes borrowed his idea. His system is that of a thor
ough pantheism. It starts with the conception of one indivisible soul,
impersonal, emanating through all, individual in none ; and thus ends
in the denial of a personal immortality. But our critic has not only
confounded the view of the Greek master with this notion of emana
tion ; he has strangely identified it with the doctrine of evolution.
Yet the two are very opposites. The theory of Averroes is a master
piece of metaphysical speculation ; it begins with the most abstract
idea of being, and reasons downward to all souls as partakers of
divinity. The theory of evolution is of a natural life, known only in

THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 55
phenomena, passing from the lowest embryotic form to organic com
pleteness, yet by the very nature of inductive reasoning excluding
all possible idea of being. Evolution admits no teleological view.
Aristotle and his disciple held that " God and nature do nothing in
vain " (De Coelo).
But we need spend no more words in showing this error. We leave
the critic in the hands of our positive sages, who will hardly forgive
him for indorsing the most subtle of metaphysical ideas, as science.
We need only turn at last to the absurdity of the charge against the
Christian church. It is so far from a conflict between religion and
science, that we may justly call the controversy a defense of the
sound science of the mind against the most baseless speculation.
We have no wish to defend the philosophy of the scholastic time, or
deny the worth of the knowledge that replaced its barren schools,
but we may claim at least that it shall not be loosely sneered at by
every half scholar, who can prate of the " dark ages," yet understands
nothing of the intellectual power that grappled with the problems of
human thought. It is indeed one of the most singular features of
that period, that it joined with its ecclesiastic spirit the utmost free
dom of inquiry ; nor do we need a better proof than the fact that
Averroism itself could have so strong an influence on its opinions, and
even men like those of the later school of Padua, could remain public
teachers, while they were sceptics in regard to the deepest truths of
the Christian religion. It was only when the doctrine of the Arabian
commentator appeared in an avowed pantheism, that it was rejected ;
nor was it an act of blind church authority, but Albert the Great
appeals to Aristotle himself in his masterly defense. If, therefore, our
critic wishes to sustain the theory of absorption into the divine
essence as a truth of modern science, his conflict is not with religion
alone, but with the best reason of every age.
We come now to nearer times, and conflicts where we shall not be
compelled to criticise so closely our author's vague learning, but can
dismiss his assumptions with fewer words. The next battle between
religion and science is as to the nature of the world. The old story of
Copernicus and Galileo appears again, and the persecutions of the
church are recorded with much eloquence. No one, we suppose, even
the narrowest of Roman ecclesiastics, would defend to-day the
ignorance of that time ; but it was reserved for this writer to discover
that the Copernican theory is " opposed to revealed truth." We are
gravely assured that Copernicus himself was aware of this. It is hard
indeed to reason with such a logician. He must have read history

$6 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
with strange eyes, if he does not know that such a theory, grand as
it was, could only be slowly accepted at that time; that men of
unquestioned science were doubters, as well as half-educated priests;
that it was not wonderful if the geocentric view, the most natural to
the unscientific mind, should ,be sustained by appeal to the language
of the Scriptures. But it is worse than absurd, when he thus attempts
to fasten on revealed truth the responsibility for all the imperfections
of human knowledge. It is the best evidence that there is no conflict
between science and religion, that the system of Copernicus has
taken its just place in the belief of Christian interpreters as well as of
astronomers. None can be found in our age who would regard the
language of Scripture as other than that of popular, phenomenal
speech : and he who speaks of the discovery " as opposed to revealed
truth," only proves a prejudice blinder than that of the most slavish
literalist. We cannot indeed fail to observe how this spirit peeps
out in page after page of our author's writings. It is not for the prog
ress of astronomy, after all, that we are to be grateful, but for the
fact that it has relieved us of our Christian superstition as to the im
mortality of man. We are told that the result of all our knowledge
of the stars is " that man, his pleasures or pains, are of no conse
quence ; " that a philosopher must rise above the vulgar error of be
lieving that " these gigantic bodies have no other purpose than what
is assigned by theologians, to give light to us." And is our author
unaware, that some of the truest Christian minds, before and after
Chalmers, have accepted the reasoning of modern astronomy as prov
ing the likelihood of other inhabited worlds, and so far from lessen
ing our hope of human redemption, as enlarging our ideas of the good
ness of God and the sphere of our immortality? But this is lost on
our philosophic author. Giordano Bruno, closes this chapter, and it is
strange with what perverse ingenuity an instance of church cruelty is
turned into an encomium on pantheism. We are not only to repro
bate the men who burned him, but to enroll him among the martyrs
of truth, and " erect his statue under the dome of St. Peter's ! "
Here, then, we reach the views of our author in regard to
the Protestant Reformation ; and although he has placed before it
a chapter on the age of the globe, we take the liberty of postponing
it for the sake of chronological order. The Reformation is, in his
phrase, the conflict respecting the criterion of truth. He begins with
a general sketch of the vain attempts of the church to enforce its doc
trines, and lays down as the principle of the Reformers the right of
private judgment. But we are told that, " so far as science is con-

THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 57
cerned, nothing is owed to the Reformation." The leaders " were
'determined to banish philosophy from the church." It is not a little
amusing that in proof of this he has cited Luther's denunciation of
Aristotle. Had he read the books of Luther, or known the spirit of
his age, he would have learned that the scholasticism of the Papal
church, the Aristotelian logic which had frozen the life of the Gospel,
called forth the wrath of the German apostle ; and we can pardon
his vehemence, when we know from his own history how hard was
the battle of faith against tradition. The protest against Aristotle
was the same in regard to the truth of religion, as that of Bacon
in philosophy against the " fruitless categories " of the school learn
ing. Our critic sees in it only the hatred of religion to science. But
the gravamen of the charge against the Reformation is stronger than
this. It was " the fatal maxim, that the Bible contained the sum of
all knowledge," " the Procrustean bed of the Pentateuch," that made
it the enemy of all progress in scientific discovery. We have here the
same deplorable misconception of history, which we have seen from
first to last in this volume. It is clear enough that the science of
Biblical interpretation was not far advanced among the Protestant
Reformers. The principle of the supreme authority of the Scriptures
was their noble weapon against the traditions of Rome ; nor was it
strange that it should be mistaken for a theory of verbal infallibility,
which a more thorough knowledge must correct. It was 'enough for
them that they opened the sealed book, and gave it to the study of
Christian men. To ignore the worth of the Reformation for history,
because Luther and Calvin did not understand the later results of
natural research in their bearing on the origin of the earth and man,
is unworthy of one who professes to write a philosophic history. The
masterly criticism of the great German historian, Neander, gives us
the true estimate of the Reformation. Had it not been for the reli
gious life, which stirred the mind of the world, all the discoveries of
science and the growth of letters would have done little for 'the civili
zation of Europe. But the later history of Protestant thought is evi
dently as unknown to our author as its beginnings. He has given us
the names of a few scholars, who seem to him more advanced in sound
learning ; yet the meager list proves how little he has studied its prog
ress in the interpretation of the Scripture, or the promotion of a
Christian science. To him it is merely a religion somewhat more tol
erable than that of the Vatican. The only Protestantism he accepts
is that which has entirely renounced its faith in a supernatual reve
lation. There can be in his view no alternative, save the dullest

58 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
adherence to the traditional theology of the past, or to fling away
every truth of Christianity. He looks with " cold impassiveness'' on
all this history since the Reformation, as of less moment than that of
a few fossil remains in some pre-Adamite cavern.
We can thus pass to the remaining chapters on the results of more
modern discovery. The question of the formation of the earth and
its age, is presented to us wjth a full array of the wonders opened by
men of science in the last half century. We accept readily every
sound conclusion which has been reached. But when we are told by
our critic, that there is an irreconcilable conflict between revelation
and modern geology, we simply reply that it is an absurd assumption.
There is nothing whatever in a reasonable view of the Mosaic cos
mogony, which forbids the belief that the earth has passed through a
long series of formations; nay, we hold that our knowledge of the
Scriptures has been vastly enlarged by the light thrown on the pri
meval history of man by the Bible of the rocks. It may indeed be well
for us to wait until we have some more fixed arithmetic than that
of our author, who talks of thousands of thousands of years preceding
our historic era. Such extravagance has naturally created doubt.
But the progress of Christian science on this subject is enough to
show that there is no conflict in any warrantable sense. There have
been and are those who have feared that the book of Genesis might
lose its truth, if it did not contain a scientific account of earth and
man, and who have thus resorted to very forced interpretations. But
each step of discovery has had its just influence. There is no intelli
gent mind which does not accept the geological view of the gradual
work of creation, or the facts which science has established as to the
character of the deluge. Nor is there any result as to the antiquity
of the race, which will fail to be received, whenever the vague
theories of the hour shall be finally settled. The history of the race
is not embraced of necessity in the annals of the Hebrew family.
We shall in all such questions arrive at as clear a conviction, as we
have already of the truth of the Copernican theory. It is to this
the whole progress of Biblical study is surely tending ; and if there
are naturalists, who know more of the spectroscope than the Scrip
tures, who misquote Augustin and Luther, yet call themselves schol
ars, we may allow for the unscientific defects of some Christian
divines. One last point remains. It is that of the government of the world
by divine intervention or unvarying law. We have here the fullest
exposition of the belief of our author. All the brilliant discoveries

THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 59
or theories of modern time, the nebular hypothesis, the wonders of
organic evolution, the correlation of forces, are brought together in
this chapter as centering in this one truth of natural law. This is to
deckle forever the fate of Revelation. Christianity declares a super
natural Deity. Science proves a fixed, unchanging order. We accept
this question as the highest for our modern thought ; but we reject
utterly his statement that it is a conflict between Christianity and
science. It is to the peculiar character of the charge, which this
writer brings against the claims of Revelation, that we ask attention,
since it involves the weightiest point of modern unbelief. The relig
ion of the Bible, we are told, gives us only a series of " miraculous
interventions." There have been, undoubtedly, too many defenders
of Christianity in past years, who claimed that a miracle was the sus
pension or infraction of a law of nature ; and to science itself we owe
a large debt, in that it has given us, since the controversies with the
English deists of the last century, a truer conception of law. If there
be a conclusion, as this wise man should know, in which all Chris
tian thinkers agree, it is that a miracle is the action of a divine and
higher law, which does not suspend but subordinates what we call
laws of nature. If we accept the truth of a personal God, we need
not doubt the possibility or probability of a special revelation. There
can be, therefore, no chasm between the Christian belief and the
results of modern science. It is rather in these grand discoveries of
unity of force, throughout the ages of development, that we find
higher proofs of one living mind, one divine plan. But it is with the
false science, which recognizes in this order only an impersonal force,
a law without a mind, that we have the real conflict of our time.
Christianity is not the issue. It is between atheism and faith in
God. Nor is it a small service which a bold thinker like Mill has done,
in having proven that the vague theism of the last century is as
untenable as Christianity to him who believes in nothing beyond
the phenomena of nature. We are content, therefore, to leave the
question here. If our philosopher is prepared to claim for science
that it is identical with an undisguised atheism, we can fully under
stand the drift of his reasoning.
With this study of so remarkable a work, we are now quite
prepared for the conclusion. It is with a triumphant appeal to the
gathered evidence of all ages, that the author declares science the
only true test of knowledge, and sets aside the authority of reve
lation. We were summoned, at the opening of the volume, to the
death-bed of paganism ; and we now have the funeral service read

6o THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
anew over the remains of Christianity. It would be indeed a relief,
if we could fairly understand him as only passing sentence on the
false theories which have obscured Christian truth ; but although
he levels his bolts chiefly against the Syllabus, it is too plain from the
chapters we have reviewed, that his argument is against the claims
of all supernatural religion. We cannot quite determine what may
be his creed, whether, as we infer from here and there a sentence, the
vague theism of a former type, or the more outspoken materialism
of our own day ; but in either case we can fully appreciate the ground
of his denial. We, too, will draw our conclusion, which we trust all
our readers will acknowledge after this examination of the argument.
It is, in a word, the utter misconception of the character of Revela
tion and of Christian history, which from first to last has led to this
imaginary conflict between science and religion. He has begun with
the false idea that Christianity is to be identified with the theories of
Biblical interpretation and theology, fastened on it in its early age ;
and his attempt has been from that point of view to dwell on the
mistakes and superstitions of the past, without the least admission
of its growth. Such a caricature of our religion is unworthy of a
scholar. It has been the empty sophism of unbelief from the first
until now. Let any blind or malignant critic read the Fathers only
to find in them some fanciful interpretations of Jewish history, while
he passes by their noblest ideas of the divine nature or of Christian
life ; let him hunt among the doctors of the middle age for every
absurdity in regard to the substance of soul or matter, and ignore
their masterly discussion of the deepest problems of thought ; let
him judge the past by the measure of the present, and forget all
the good it has done in the slow formation of the mind or social
character, and he will find enough to gratify his doubt. Yet the
author's own historic sketch is the refutation of his view. There is
not a single fact of importance which he has not distorted. There
is not a single point of Christian doctrine or history, which does
not appear through the smoked glass of his theory. But what is
it; after all, that his record of the conflicts of the past has proven ?
If in every age the progress of science has been impeded by religious
superstition, the same history shows that the truth has risen above
the dogmatism of the day. Each example, down to our own time,
witnesses that the settled results of knowledge have been accepted,
not only by men of science, but by the most intelligent minds among
Christian believers. Our author wrote, some years ago, a work on
the " Intellectual Development of Europe." We commend him to a

THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 6l
deeper study of that subject. If he reads the history of Christianity.
as even a thinker of sceptical views but of large and generous mind
may do, he will find in it the same law of development as in all
branches of science. It will be clear that there has been as slow a
growth, as long a conflict with traditional ideas in the study of
chemistry or of medicine, as in the theological systems of any time.
We might take the example of Biblical interpretation, and show how
from the early allegorical methods of the Fathers it has steadily gone
forward, by the more thorough study of language, by the light cast
on it from historic and Oriental research, and by the influence in later
days of natural discovery, until it rightly claims the rank of sacred
science. And if with a deeper view than that of tracing the intel
lectual development alone, if with a Christian eye he will read the
moral and social record of our religion, it will be to him a history
which alone explains the whole civilization of the past ; in every age
amid its errors he will yet trace a law of growth ; in the early time
he will recognize a divine truth, transforming the world from idolatry
to the faith in one God and a purer life ; in the darkest years of a
despotic church, a discipline of law needed for the education of
mankind. Such is our view of Christian history ; and in this light we may
briefly sum the argument, as it bears on the grave questions that
weigh on the mind of our own time. If indeed the spirit of this
writer were in any true sense that of modern science, we might well
despair of reconciliation.. But we will not confound its noble aims
with those who so misrepresent it. There is not and cannot be any
conflict between religion and science with those who understand the
mutual relation of each. It is the province of science to study
freely the facts of nature and of human history ; and whatever it veri
fies by its sure induction, must be admitted by all reasonable men.
Any theory of Scripture, at variance with the demands of this just
canon of criticism, is untenable, and must pass away before the
growing convictions of Christian scholars. It is a truth to be learned,
and deeply learned by the defenders of the faith, that their efforts
to rear the sacred word into the oracle of scientific truth has been
one of the strongest weapons in the hands of unbelief. But while we
grant this to science, there is an equal, nay, a greater lesson to be
learned on the other side. It is, we repeat, the province of Chris
tianity to teach those truths which do not lie within the sphere of
nature, but belong to the moral and spiritual history of mankind.
The being of a personal Creator and Providence; the fact of evil in

62 THE CONFLICT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
the conscience of the race ; the presence of a Divine Power in humar
history ; and the relation of this life with a personal life to come, are
neither proved nor disproved by any inquiries into the structure of
the globe and the origin of man. Yet this unreasonable conflict
has been forced on religion by a school of naturalists, who mask their
materialism under the name of science, and because nature teaches
only phenomena, deny all knowledge of a God beyond force, or a life
beyond that of these physical atoms. This philosophy is as untrue
to the methods of science as it is to the teaching of Christianity.
There can be no reconciliation in such a case. But we need not fear
for the result, in behalf of religious or of intellectual truth. Although
we may not hope for a speedy adjustment of such grave problems,
he must have read poorly the history of philosophic opinions, who
does not see in this a transition time ; nor may we doubt that the
materialistic tendency has already reached its worst extravagance, and
will pass away as like errors have passed. Science itself will reject
the vagaries of those who have turned it into a speculation ; it will
gather up the facts which a Darwin or a Huxley have found, while
their theories will be forgotten. Meantime, we may be content with
the wise saying of an English divine, that " patience is the true
temper of our age : " we may be sure, that the only conflict Chris
tianity can have, is with riie false spirit of those who misrepresent it ;
the only weapons it needs, those of sound learning and fearless study
of the truth.
E, A. Washburn.

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TT'GJR. 1880.
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H«ry W. Lcngfelloir,
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Dr. J. H. Ri^
Char lei T-- an vson,
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Wajier P*nant,
Thomas Hsghes,

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H H. Bovesen,
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Prof. Wm- B. Carpenter.
Wilkia Collins,
Emst Cartful,

Alex. H. Stephens,,.
Horace White, /
Gen'l J. H. Wilson,
Dnvid A. Wells, .
Prof- Snmnur, ^.
Brooks Adnms,
A- R, Spc ffo rd.

fS5rtt)*b!r-

•X

A-.S- HUI,
Mark Hopkins, '
P-A/Chodbourne, \
iVoah Porter, 1
Freit, Magoun, 1
-Svmuel Osgood,

J

yj ¦ .
Baron F. von Holtzemforff, Dr. E. DaPreajeaae,
J. E. Doner, ,--*. J Charle^C^'mriM^^
J. voir Huber, ' ,/ ^^.inceaa D.ira D'lstria, ¦ ¦ .
Carl Ahel, '\u^-i't'Prof. Angelo de GubexnatU V
**. August Vosel, i^>^ Madame Vlllarl, ' -'' *
Dr. J. P, TV^flpion, and others.

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