{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_17194/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_17194","id":"gutenberg_17194","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17194","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Science - Physics","Religion and science"],"text":"Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Ralph Janke and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE RELATIONS\nBETWEEN\nRELIGION AND SCIENCE\n\nEIGHT LECTURES\nPREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD\nIN THE YEAR 1884\n\nON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A.\nCANON OF SALISBURY\n\nBY THE RIGHT REV.\nFREDERICK, LORD BISHOP OF EXETER\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n1903\n\n\n\n\n_First Edition_, 8vo, 1884.\n\n_Reprinted January and February (twice)_, 1885, _April_, 1885;\n\n_Re-issue_ (_Crown_ 8vo), _November_, 1885, 1903.\n\nOXFORD: HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY\n\n\n\n\nEXTRACT\n\n\nTHE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT\n\nOF THE LATE\n\nREV. JOHN BAMPTON,\n\nCANON OF SALISBURY.\n\n\n--\"I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, Masters,\nand Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold\nall and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the\nintents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and\nappoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the\ntime being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits\nthereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions\nmade) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity\nLecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said University, and\nto be performed in the manner following:\n\n\"I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, a\nLecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by no\nothers, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours\nof ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity\nLecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between\nthe commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the\nthird week in Act Term.\n\n\"Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons\nshall be preached upon either of the following Subjects--to confirm and\nestablish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and\nschismatics--upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures--upon the\nauthority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and\npractice of the primitive Church--upon the Divinity of our Lord and\nSaviour Jesus Christ--upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost--upon the\nArticles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and\nNicene Creeds.\n\n\"Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons\nshall be always printed, within two months after they are preached; and\none copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one\ncopy to the Head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city\nof Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; and the\nexpenses of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land\nor Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the\npreacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they\nare printed.\n\n\"Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to preach\nthe Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of Master\nof Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge;\nand that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons\ntwice.\"\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n\nTHE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF.\n\nPsalm civ. 24.\n\n_O Lord, how manifold are Thy works: in wisdom hast Thou made them all;\nthe earth is full of Thy riches._\n\nThe subject introduced: Scientific belief. Mathematics and Metaphysics\nexcluded. The Postulate of Science: the Uniformity of Nature. Hume's\naccount of it. Kant's account of it. Insufficiency of both accounts.\nScience traced back to observation of the Human Will. The development of\nScience from this origin. The increasing generality of the Postulate:\nwhich nevertheless can never attain to universality.\n\n\n\nLECTURE II.\n\nTHE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.\n\nGenesis i. 27.\n\n_So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He\nhim._\n\nThe voice within. The objection of the alleged relativity of knowledge.\nAbsolute knowledge of our own personal identity. Failure to show this to\nbe relative; in particular by Mr. Herbert Spencer. The Moral Law. The\ncommand to live according to that Law; Duty. The command to believe in\nthe supremacy of that Law; the lower Faith. The Last Judgment. The hope\nof Immortality. The personification of the Moral Law in Almighty God;\nthe higher Faith. The spiritual faculty the recipient of Revelation, if\nany be made. The contrast between Religion and Science.\n\n\nLECTURE III.\n\nAPPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION ON FREE-WILL.\n\nGenesis i. 27.\n\n_So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He\nhim._\n\nContradiction of Free-Will to doctrine of Uniformity. Butler's\nexamination of the question. Hume's solution. Kant's solution.\nDeterminism. The real result of examination of the facts. Interference\nof the will always possible, but comparatively rare. The need of a fixed\nnature for our self-discipline, and so for our spiritual life.\n\n\nLECTURE IV.\n\nAPPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.\n\nRomans i. 20.\n\n_For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are\nclearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His\neternal power and Godhead._\n\nFoundation of the doctrine of Evolution. Great development in recent\ntimes. Objection felt by many religious men. Alleged to destroy argument\nfrom design. Paley's argument examined. Doctrine of Evolution adds force\nto the argument, and removes objections to it. Argument from progress;\nfrom beauty; from unity. The conflict not real.\n\n\nLECTURE V.\n\nREVELATION THE MEANS OF DEVELOPING AND COMPLETING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.\n\nHebrews i. 1.\n\n_God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to\nthe Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by His\nSon._\n\nThe evolution of Knowledge. Does not affect the truth of Science. Nor of\nReligion. Special characteristic of evolution of Religious Knowledge,\nthat it is due to Revelation. All higher Religions have claimed to be\nRevelations. The evolution of Religious Knowledge in the Old Testament;\nyet the Old Testament a Revelation. Still more the New Testament. The\nmiraculous element in Revelation. Its place and need. Harmony of this\nmode of evolution with the teaching of the Spiritual Faculty.\n\n\nLECTURE VI.\n\nAPPARENT COLLISION BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.\n\nPsalm c. 3.\n\n_Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we\nourselves._\n\nEvolution examined. The formation of the habitable world. The formation\nof the creatures which inhabit it. Transmission of characteristics.\nVariations perpetually introduced. Natural selection. On the other side,\nlife not yet accounted for by Evolution. Cause of variations not yet\nexamined. Moral Law incapable of being evolved. Account given in Genesis\nnot at variance with doctrine of Evolution. Evolution of man not\ninconsistent with dignity of humanity.\n\n\nLECTURE VII.\n\nAPPARENT COLLISION OF SCIENCE WITH THE CLAIM TO SUPERNATURAL POWER.\n\nSt. John xiv. 11.\n\n_Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else\nbelieve Me for the very works' sake._\n\nThe claim to work miracles parallel to the freedom of the will. The\nmiracles of Revelation need not be miracles of Science. Our Lord's\nResurrection, and His miracles of healing, possibly not miraculous in\nthe scientific sense. Different aspect of miracles now and at the time\nwhen the Revelation was given. Miracles attested by the Apostles, by our\nLord's character, by our Lord's power. Nature of evidence required to\nprove miracles; not such as to put physical above spiritual evidence;\nnot such as to be unsuited to their own day. Impossibility of\ndemonstrating universal uniformity. Revelation no obstacle to the\nprogress of Science.\n\n\nLECTURE VIII.\n\nTHE CONCLUSION OF THE ARGUMENT.\n\n1 Corinthians xii. 3.\n\n_No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost._\n\nUniformity of nature not demonstrated, but established, except in two\ncases; the interference of human will and of Divine Will. The exception\nno bar to the progress of Science. Unity to be found not in the physical\nworld, but in the physical and moral combined. The Moral Law rests on\nitself. Our recognition of it on our own character and choice. But we\nexpect it to show its marks in the physical world: and these are the\npurpose visible in Creation, the effects produced by Revelation.\nNevertheless a demand for more physical evidence; but the physical\ncannot be allowed to overshadow the spiritual. Dangers to believers from\nleaning this way: superstition; blindness; stagnation. The guarantee for\nspiritual perceptiveness: to take Jesus as the Lord of the conscience,\nthe heart, the will.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF.\n\nThe subject introduced: Scientific belief. Mathematics and Metaphysics\nexcluded. The Postulate of Science: the Uniformity of Nature. Hume's\naccount of it. Kant's account of it. Insufficiency of both accounts.\nScience traced back to observation of the Human Will. The development of\nScience from this origin. The increasing generality of the Postulate:\nwhich nevertheless can never attain to universality.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF.\n\n     'O Lord, how manifold are Thy works: in wisdom hast Thou made them\n     all; the earth is full of Thy riches.'--_Psalm_ civ. 24.\n\nThose who believe that the creation and government of the world are the\nwork of a Being Whom it is their duty to love with all their hearts, Who\nloves them with a love beyond all other love, to Whom they look for\nguidance now and unending happiness hereafter, have a double motive for\nstudying the forms and operations of Nature; because over and above\nwhatever they may gain of the purest and highest pleasure in the study,\nand whatever men may gain of material comfort in a thousand forms from\nthe results of the study, they cannot but have always present to their\nminds the thought, that all these things are revelations of His\ncharacter, and to know them is in a very real measure to know Him. The\nbeliever in God, if he have the faculty and the opportunity, cannot find\na more proper employment of time and labour and thought than the study\nof the ways in which God works and the things which God has made. Among\nreligious men we ought to expect to find the most patient, the most\ntruth-seeking, the most courageous of men of science.\n\nWe know that it is not always so; and that on the contrary Science and\nReligion seem very often to be the most determined foes to each other\nthat can be found. The scientific man often asserts that he cannot find\nGod in Science; and the religious man often asserts that he cannot find\nScience in God. Each often believes himself to be in possession, if not\nof the whole truth, at any rate of all the truth that it is most\nimportant to possess. Science seems to despise religion; and religion to\nfear and condemn Science. Religion, which certainly ought to put truth\nat the highest, is charged with refusing to acknowledge truth that has\nbeen proved. And Science, which certainly ought to insist on\ndemonstrating every assertion which it makes, is charged with giving the\nrein to the imagination and treating the merest speculations as\nwell-established facts.\n\nTo propose to reconcile these opposites would be a task which hardly any\nsane man would undertake. It would imply a claim to be able to rise at\nonce above both, and see the truth which included all that both could\nteach. But it is a very useful undertaking, and not beyond the reach of\nthoughtful inquiry by an ordinary man, to examine the relations between\nthe two, and thus to help not a few to find a way for themselves out of\nthe perplexity. And this inquiry may well begin by asking what is the\norigin and nature of scientific belief on the one hand and of religious\nbelief on the other. In this Lecture I propose to deal with the former.\n\nIt is not necessary to include in the Science of which I am to speak\neither Mathematics or Metaphysics. In as far as I need touch on what\nbelongs to either, it will be only for the purpose of answering\nobjections or of excluding what is irrelevant. And the consequent\nrestriction of our consideration to the Science which concerns itself\nwith Nature greatly simplifies the task that I have undertaken. For it\nwill be at once admitted in the present day by all but a very few that\nthe source of all scientific knowledge of this kind is to be found in\nthe observations of the senses, including under that word both the\nbodily senses which tell us all we know of things external, and that\ninternal sense by which we know all or nearly all that takes place\nwithin the mind itself. And so also will it be admitted that the Supreme\nPostulate, without which scientific knowledge is impossible, is the\nUniformity of Nature.\n\nScience lays claim to no revelations. No voice of authority declares\nwhat substances there are in the world, what are the properties of those\nsubstances, what are the effects and operations of those properties. No\ntraditions handed down from past ages can do anything more than transmit\nto us observations made in those times, which, so far as we can trust\nthem, we may add to the observations made in our own times. The\nmaterials in short which Science has to handle are obtained by\nexperience.\n\nBut on the other hand Science can deal with these materials only on the\ncondition that they are reducible to invariable laws. If any observation\nmade by the senses is not capable of being brought under the laws which\nare found to govern all other observations, it is not yet brought under\nthe dominion of Science. It is not yet explained, nor understood. As far\nas Science is concerned, it may be called as yet non-existent. It is for\nthis very reason possible that the examination of it may be of the very\ngreatest importance. To explain what has hitherto received no\nexplanation constitutes the very essence of scientific progress. The\nobservation may be imperfect, and may at once become explicable as soon\nas it is made complete; or, what is of far more value, it may be an\ninstance of the operation of a new law not previously known, modifying\nand perhaps absorbing the law up to that time accepted. When it was\nfirst noticed in Galileo's time that water would not ascend in the\nsuction pipe of a pump to a greater height than 32 feet, the old law\nthat nature abhors a vacuum was modified, and the reasons why and the\nconditions under which Nature abhors a vacuum were discovered. The\nsuction of fluids was brought under the general law of mechanical\npressure. The doctrine that Nature abhorred a vacuum had been a fair\ngeneralization and expression of the facts of this kind that up to that\ntime had been observed. A new fact was observed which would not fall\nunder the rule. The examination of this fact led to the old rule being\nsuperseded; and Science advanced a great step at once. So in our own day\nwas the planet Neptune discovered by the observation of certain facts\nwhich could not be squared with the facts previously observed unless the\nLaw of Gravitation was to be corrected. The result in this case was not\nthe discovery of a new Law but of a new Planet; and consequently a great\nconfirmation of the old Law. But in each case and in every similar case\nthe investigation of the newly observed fact proceeds on the assumption\nthat Nature will be found uniform, and on no other assumption can\nScience proceed at all.\n\nNow it is this assumption which must be first examined. What is its\nsource? What is its justification? What, if any, are its limits?\n\nIt is not an assumption that belongs to Science only. It is in some\nform or other at the bottom of all our daily life. We eat our food on\nthe assumption that it will nourish us to-day as it nourished us\nyesterday. We deal with our neighbours in the belief that we may safely\ntrust those now whom we have trusted and safely trusted heretofore. We\nnever take a journey without assuming that wood and iron will hold a\ncarriage together, that wheels will roll upon axles, that steam will\nexpand and drive the piston of an engine, that porters and stokers and\nengine-drivers will do their accustomed duties. Our crops are sown in\nthe belief that the earth will work its usual chemistry, that heat and\nlight and rain will come in their turn and have their usual effects, and\nthe harvest will be ready for our gathering in the autumn. Look on while\na man is tried for his life before a jury. Every tittle of the evidence\nis valued both by the judge and jury according to its agreement or\ndisagreement with what we believe to be the laws of Nature, and if a\nwitness asserts that something happened which, as far as we know, never\nhappened at any other time since the world began, we set his evidence\naside as incredible. And the prisoner is condemned if the facts before\nus, interpreted on the assumption that the ordinary laws of Nature have\nheld their course, appear to prove his guilt.\n\nWhat right have we to make such an assumption as this?\n\nThe question was first clearly put by Hume, and was handled by him with\nsingular lucidity; but his answer, though very near the truth, was not\nso expressed as to set the question at rest.\n\nThe main relation in which the uniformity of Nature is observed is that\nof cause and effect. Hume examines this and maintains that there is\nabsolutely nothing contained in it but the notion of invariable\nsequence. Two phenomena are invariably found connected together; the\nprior is spoken of as the cause, the posterior as the effect. But there\nis absolutely nothing in the former to define its relation to the\nlatter, except that when the former is observed the latter, as far as we\nknow, invariably follows. A ball hits another ball of equal size, both\nbeing free to move. There is nothing by which prior to experience we\ncan determine what will happen next. It is just as conceivable that the\nmoving ball should come back or should come to rest, as that the ball\nhitherto at rest should begin to move. A magnet fastened to a piece of\nwood is floating on water. Another magnet held in the hand is brought\nvery near one of its poles or ends. If two north poles are thus brought\ntogether the floating magnet is repelled; if a north and a south pole\nare brought together the floating magnet is attracted. The motion of the\nfloating magnet is in each case called the effect; the approach of the\nmagnet held in the hand is called the cause. And this cause is, as far\nas we know, invariably followed by this effect. But to say that one is\ncause and the other effect is merely to say that one is always followed\nby the other; and no other meaning, according to Hume, can be attached\nto the words cause and effect.\n\nHaving established this interpretation of these words, Hume goes on to\nask: What can be the ground in reason for the principle universally\nadopted, that the law of cause and effect rules phenomena, and that a\ncause which has been followed by an effect once will be followed by the\nsame effect always? And he concludes that no rational ground can be\nfound at all, that it is the mere result of custom without anything\nrational behind it. We are accustomed to see it so, and what we have\nbeen so perpetually accustomed to see we believe that we shall continue\nto see. But why what has always been hitherto should always be\nhereafter, no reason whatever can be given. The logical conclusion\nobviously is to discredit all human faculties and to land us in\nuniversal scepticism.\n\nIt was at this point that Kant took up the question, avowedly in\nconsequence of Hume's reasoning. He considered that Hume had been misled\nby turning his attention to Physics, and that his own good sense would\nhave saved him from his conclusion had he thought rather of Mathematics.\nKant's solution of the problem, based mainly on the reality of\nMathematics, and especially of Geometry, is the direct opposite of\nHume's.\n\nIt will be most easy to give a clear account of Kant's solution by using\na very familiar illustration. There is a well-known common toy called a\nKaleidoscope, in which bits of coloured glass placed at one end are seen\nthrough a small round hole at the other. The bits of glass are not\narranged in any order whatever, and by shaking the instrument may be\nrearranged again and again indefinitely and still without any order\nwhatever. But however they may be arranged in themselves they always\nform, as seen from the other end, a symmetrical pattern. The pattern\nindeed varies with every shake of the instrument and consequent\nre-arrangement of the bits of glass, but it is invariably symmetrical.\nNow the symmetry in this case is not in the bits of glass; the colours\nare there no doubt, but the symmetrical arrangement of them is not. The\nsymmetry is entirely due to the instrument. And if a competent enquirer\nlooks into the instrument and examines its construction, he will be able\nto lay down with absolute certainty the laws of that symmetry which\nevery pattern as seen through the instrument must obey.\n\nJust such an instrument, according to Kant, is the human mind. Space\nand Time and the Perceptive Faculties are the parts of the instrument.\nEverything that reaches the senses must submit to the laws of Space and\nTime, that is, to the Laws of Mathematics, because Space and Time are\nforms of the mind itself, and, like the kaleidoscope, arrange all things\non their way to the senses according to a pattern of their own. This\npattern is as it were super-added to the manifestations that come from\nthe things themselves; and if there be any manifestations of such a\nnature that they could not submit to this addition, or, in other words,\ncould not submit to Mathematical Laws, these manifestations could not\naffect our senses at all. So too our Understanding has a pattern of its\nown which it imposes on all things that reach its power of perception.\nWhat cannot be accommodated to this pattern cannot be understood at all.\nWhatever things may be in themselves, their manifestations are not\nwithin the range of our intelligence, except by passing through the\narranging process which our own mind executes upon them.\n\nIt is clear that this wonderfully ingenious speculation rests its\nclaims for acceptance purely on the assertion that it and it alone\nexplains the facts. It cannot be proved from any principle of reason. It\nassumes that there is a demonstrative science of Mathematics quite\nindependent of experience, and that there are necessary principles of\nPhysics equally independent of experience. And it accounts for the\nexistence of these.\n\nWith Mathematics we are not now concerned, and I will pass them by with\nonly one remark. The ground on which Kant's theory stands is not\nsufficient, for this simple reason. It accounts for one fact; it does\nnot account for another fact. It accounts for the fact that we attach\nand cannot help attaching a conviction of necessity to all mathematical\nreasoning. We not only know that two straight lines cannot enclose a\nspace, but we know that this is so and must be so in all places and at\nall times, and we know it without any proof whatever. This fact Kant\naccounts for. Space is according to him a part of our kaleidoscope; you\ncan always look into it and see for yourself what are the laws of it.\nBut there is another fact. This space of which we are speaking is\nunquestionably to our minds not a thing inside of us but outside of us.\nWe are in it. We cannot get rid of a sense that it is independent of\nourselves. We can imagine ourselves non-existing, minds and all. We\ncannot imagine space non-existing. If it be a part of our minds, how is\nit that we can picture to ourselves the non-existence of the mind which\nis the whole, but not the non-existence of space which, according to the\nhypothesis, is the part? For this fact, which we commonly call the\nobjectivity of space, Kant's theory does not account. In fact Kant\nappears to have no escape from assigning this objectivity of space to\ndelusion. But a theory which requires us to call an ineradicable\nconviction of consciousness a delusion cannot be said to explain all the\nfacts. John Stuart Mill maintains that the other fact, namely, the\nconviction of the necessity of mathematical truth, is a delusion. And\nhis account also must be pronounced for that reason to fail in\naccounting for all the facts.\n\nBut our present concern is not with Mathematics but with Physics. And\nhere Kant fails altogether to convince; for, taking Time and the\nPerceptive Powers of the Understanding as parts of the human mind, he\nshows, what indeed is clearer and clearer every day, that the principles\n(so called) of Physics are indispensable Postulates, not indeed of\nobserving with the senses, but of comprehending with the understanding,\nwhatever happens. In order to give anything that can be called an\nexplanation of any event we must show that it falls under the general\nrules which constitute the uniformity of Nature. We have no other\nmeaning for the words understanding or explaining an event. Thinking,\nwhen analysed, is found to consist in bringing all that happens under\nuniversal laws, and no phenomenon can be said to be explained in thought\nexcept by being so related to all other phenomena. But it does not by\nany means follow that events cannot happen or cannot affect our senses\nwithout being susceptible of such explanation. To say that an event\ncannot be understood, and to say either that it cannot happen or that it\ncannot be observed by the senses, are two very different things. The\nfact is that Mathematics and Physics do not, as Kant assumes, present\nthe same problem for solution, and do not therefore admit of one\nsolution applicable to both. It is not the case that there is a science\nof abstract Physics corresponding to the science of Mathematics and\nsharing in the same character of necessity. In Mathematics we have\ntruths which we cannot but accept, and accept as universal and\nnecessary: in Physics we have no such truths, nor has Kant even\nendeavoured to prove that we have. The very question therefore that we\nare asked to solve in regard to Mathematics does not present itself in\nPhysics. I am constrained to believe that two and two are four and not\nfive; I am not constrained to believe that if one event is followed by\nanother a great many times it will be so followed always. And the\nquestion is, why, without any constraint, I nevertheless so far believe\nit that I require special evidence in any given case to convince me to\nthe contrary. And Kant's answer is irrelevant. He says that we cannot\nthink the sequence of events unless they fall under the postulates of\nthinking, that is, the postulates of science; but this is no answer to\nthe question. Why do we believe that, unless the contrary be proved,\neverything that is observed by the senses is capable of being reduced\nunder these postulates of thinking? The sequence of things cannot\notherwise be explained; but why should the sequence of all things that\nhappen be capable of being explained? The question therefore still\nremains unanswered. What right have we to assume this Uniformity in\nNature? or, in other words, what right have we to assume that all\nphenomena in Nature, observed by our senses, are capable of being\nbrought within the domain of Science? And to answer this question we\nmust approach it from a different side.\n\nAnd there is the more reason for this because it is undeniable that both\nthe definition and the universality of the relation of cause and effect,\nas they were accepted by Hume and his followers, are not accepted by men\nin general. In ordinary language something more is meant by cause and\neffect than invariable sequence, and the common assumption is not that\nall Nature obeys this rule with absolutely no variation, but that the\nrule is sufficiently general for all practical purposes.\n\nIf then we begin by asking what is the process of Science in dealing\nwith all questions of causation, we find that this process when reduced\nto its simplest elements always consists in referring every event as an\neffect to some cause which we know or believe to have produced some\nother and similar event. Newton is struck by a falling apple. His first\nthought is, 'how hard the blow.' His second is wonder, 'how far the\nearth's attraction, which has caused this hard blow, extends.' His\nthird, 'why not as far as the moon?' And he proceeds to assign the\nmotion of the moon to the same cause as that which produced the motion\nof the apple. Taking this as a working hypothesis, he examines what\nwould be the motions of all the planets if this were true. And the\nexamination ends with establishing the high probability of the Law of\nGravitation.\n\nNow this being the invariable process of Science, it follows that our\nconception of cause must come originally from that cause which we have\nwithin ourselves and with which we cannot but begin, the action of the\nhuman will. It is from this action that is obtained that conception\nwhich underlies the ordinary conception of cause, namely, that of force\nor power.\n\nThis conception of force or power is derived from the consciousness of\nour own power to move our limbs, and perhaps too of passions,\ntemptations, sentiments to move or oppose our wills. This power is most\ndistinctly felt when it is resisted. The effort which is necessary when\nwe choose to do what we have barely strength to do, impresses on us more\nclearly the sense of a force residing in ourselves capable of overcoming\nresistance. Having the power to move our limbs, and that too against\nsome resistance, we explain, and in no other way can we explain, other\nmotions by the supposition of a similar power. In so doing we are\nfollowing strictly the scientific instinct and the scientific process.\nWe are putting into the same class the motions that we observe in other\nthings and the motions that we observe in ourselves; the latter are due\nto acts of our own wills, the former are assigned to similar acts of\nother wills. Hence in infancy, and in the infancy of mankind, the whole\nworld is peopled with persons because everything that we observe to move\nis personified. A secret will moves the wind, the sun, the moon, the\nstars, and each is independent of the others.\n\nSoon a distinction grows up between the things that seem to have a\nspontaneous motion and those that have not, and spontaneous motion is\ntaken as the sign of life. And all inanimate things, of whatever kind,\nare held to be moved, if they move at all, by a force outside\nthemselves. Their own force is limited to that of resisting, and does\nnot include that of originating motion. But though they cannot originate\nmotion they are observed to be capable of transmitting it. And the\nnotion of force is expanded by the recognition that it can be\ncommunicated from one thing to another and yet to another, and that we\nmay have to go back many steps before we arrive at the will from which\nit originated. We began with the notion of a power the action of which\nwas or appeared to be self-originated: we come to the notion of a power\nthe action of which is nothing more than the continuance of preceding\naction. And the special characteristic of the action of this force as\nthus conceived, which we may call the derivative force, is seen to be\nits regularity, just as the special characteristic of the\nself-originating action was its spontaneity.\n\nAs experience increases the regularity of the action of the derivative\nforce is more and more observable, and then arises the notion of a law\nor rule regulating the action of every such force. And a perpetually\nincreasing number of phenomena are brought under this head, and are\nshown to be, not the immediate results of self-originating action, but\nthe more or less remote results of derivative action governed by laws.\nAnd even a large number of those phenomena, which specially belong to\nlife and living creatures, in whom alone, if anywhere, the\nself-originating action is to be found, are observed to be subject to\nlaw and therefore to be the issue not of self-originating but of\nderivative action. And this observed regularity it is found possible to\ntrace much more widely than it is possible to trace any clear evidence\nof what we understand by force. And so, at last, we frequently use the\nword force as it were by anticipation, not to express the cause of the\nphenomena, which indeed we do not yet know, but as a convenient\nabbreviation for a large number of facts classed under one head. And\nthis it is which enables Hume to maintain that we mean no more by a\ncause than an event which is invariably followed by another event. We\ndiscover invariability much faster than we can discover causation; and\nhaving discovered invariability in any given case, we presume causation\neven when we cannot yet show it, and use language in accordance with\nthat presumption. Thus, for instance, we speak of the force of\ngravitation, although we cannot yet prove that there is any such force,\nand all that we know is that material particles move as if such a force\nwere acting on them.\n\nAs Science advances it is seen that the regularity of phenomena is far\nmore important to us than their causes. And the attention of all\nstudents of Nature is fixed on that rather than on causation. And this\nregularity is seen to be more and more widely pervading all phenomena of\nevery class, until the mind is forced to conceive the possibility that\nit may be absolutely universal, and that even will itself may come\nwithin its supreme dominion.\n\nBut to the very last the idea of causation retains the traces of its\norigin. For in the first place every step in this building up of science\nassumes a permanence underlying all phenomena. We cannot believe that\nthe future will be like the past except because we believe that there is\nsomething permanent which was in the past and will be in the future. And\nthis assumption of something permanent in things around us comes from\nthe consciousness of something permanent within us. We know our own\npermanence. Whatever else we know or do not know about ourselves, we are\nsure of our own personal identity through successive periods of life.\nAnd as our explanation of things outside begins by classing them with\nthings inside we still continue to ascribe permanence to whatever\nunderlies phenomena even when we have long ceased to ascribe individual\nwills to any except beings like ourselves. And without this assumption\nof permanence our whole science would come to the ground.\n\nAnd in the second place let it be remembered that we began with the will\ncausing the motions of the limbs. Now there is, as far as we know, no\nother power in us to affect external nature than by setting something in\nmotion. We can move our limbs, and by so doing move other things, and by\nso doing avail ourselves of the laws of Nature to produce remoter\neffects. But, except by originating motion, we cannot act at all. And,\naccordingly, throughout all science the attempt is made to reduce all\nphenomena to motions. Sounds, colours, heat, chemical action,\nelectricity, we are perpetually endeavouring to reduce to vibrations or\nundulations, that is, to motion of some sort or other. The mind seems to\nfind a satisfaction when a change of whatever kind is shown to be, or\npossibly to be, the result of movement. And so too all laws of Nature\nare then felt to be satisfactorily explained when they can be traced to\nsome force exhibited in the movement of material particles. The law of\nGravitation has an enormous evidence in support of it considered simply\nas a fact. And yet how many attempts have been made to represent it as\nthe result of vortices or of particles streaming in all directions and\npressing any two bodies together that lie in their path! The facts which\nestablish it are enough. Why then these attempts? What is felt to be yet\nwanting? What is felt to be wanting is something to show that it is the\nresult of some sort of general or universal motion, and that it thus\nfalls under the same head as other motions, either those which originate\nin ourselves and are propagated from our bodies to external objects, or\nthose which, springing from an unknown beginning, are for ever\ncontinuing as before.\n\nThis then is the answer to the question, Why do we believe in the\nuniformity of Nature? We believe in it because we find it so. Millions\non millions of observations concur in exhibiting this uniformity. And\nthe longer our observation of Nature goes on, the greater do we find the\nextent of it. Things that once seemed irregular are now known to be\nregular. Things that seemed inexplicable on this hypothesis are now\nexplained. Every day seems to add not merely to the instances but to\nthe wide-ranging classes of phenomena that come under the rule. We had\nreason long ago to hold that the quantity of matter was invariable. We\nnow have reason to think that the quantity of force acting on matter is\ninvariable. And to this is to be added the evidence of scientific\nprediction, the range of which is perpetually increasing, and which\nwould be obviously impossible if Nature were not uniform. And yet again\nto this is to be added that this uniformity does not consist in a vast\nnumber of separate and independent laws, but that these laws already\nform a system with one another, and that that system is daily becoming\nmore complete. We believe in the uniformity of Nature because, as far as\nwe can observe it, that is the character of Nature.\n\nAnd I use the word character on purpose, because it indicates better\nthan any other word that I could find at once the nature and limitation\nof our belief.\n\nFor, if the origin of this belief be what I have described, it is\nperfectly clear that, however vast may be the evidence to prove this\nuniformity, the conclusion can never go beyond the limits of this\nevidence, and generality can never be confounded with universality. The\ncertainty that Nature is uniform is not at all, and never can be, a\ncertainty of the same kind as the certainty that four times five are\ntwenty.\n\nWe can assert that the general character of Nature is uniformity, but we\ncannot go beyond this. Every separate law of nature is established by\ninduction from the facts, and so too is the general uniformity. Every\nseparate law of Nature is a working hypothesis. So too is the uniformity\nof Nature a working hypothesis, and it never can be more. It is true\nthat there is far more evidence for the uniformity of Nature as a whole\nthan for any one law of Nature; because a law of Nature is established\nby the uniformity of sequences in those phenomena to which it applies;\nwhereas every uniformity of sequence, of whatever kind, is an evidence\nof the general uniformity. The evidence for the uniformity of nature is\nthe accumulated evidence for all the separate uniformities. But, however\nmuch greater the quantity of evidence, the kind ever remains the same.\nThere is no means by which we can demonstrate this uniformity. We can\nonly make it probable. We can say that in almost every case all the\nevidence is one way; but whenever there is evidence to the contrary we\ncannot refuse to examine it.\n\nIf a miracle were worked science could not prove that it was a miracle,\nnor of course prove that it was not a miracle. To prove it to be a\nmiracle would require not a vast range of knowledge, but absolutely\nuniversal knowledge, which it is entirely beyond our faculties to\nattain. To say that any event was a miracle would be to say that we knew\nthat there was no higher law that could explain it, and this we could\nnot say unless we knew all laws: to say that it was not a miracle would\nbe _ex hypothesi_ to assert what was false. In fact, to assert the\noccurrence of a miracle is simply to go back to the beginning of\nscience, and to say: Here is an event which we cannot assign to that\nderivative action to which we have been led to assign the great body of\nevents; we cannot explain it except by referring it to direct and\nspontaneous action, to a will like our own will. Science has shown that\nthe vast majority of events are due to derivative action regulated by\nlaws. Here is an event which cannot be so explained, any more than the\naction of our own free will can be so explained. Science may fairly\nclaim to have shown that miracles, if they happen at all, are\nexceedingly rare. To demonstrate that they never happen at all is\nimpossible, from the very nature of the evidence on which Science rests.\nBut for the same reason Science can never in its character of Science\nadmit that a miracle has happened. Science can only admit that, so far\nas the evidence goes, an event has happened which lies outside its\nprovince.\n\nTo believers the progress of Science is a perpetual instruction in the\ncharacter which God has impressed on His works. That He has put Order in\nthe very first place may be a surprise to us; but it can only be a\nsurprise. In the great machinery of the Universe it constantly happens\nto us to find that that which is made indispensable, is nevertheless not\nthe highest. The chosen people were not the highest in all moral or even\nin all spiritual characteristics; if we refuse the explanation given by\nGoethe that they were chosen for their toughness, yet we have no better\nto give. The eternal moral law is of all we know the highest and\nholiest. Yet the religious instinct seems to have been more\nindispensable for the development of humanity according to the Divine\npurpose than the observance of that moral law in all its fulness. It\nwould never have occurred to us beforehand to permit in Divine\nlegislation any concession to the hardness of men's hearts; yet we know\nthat it was done. Science now tells us that Order takes a rank in God's\nwork far above where we should have placed it. It is not the highest; it\nis far from the highest: but it appears to be in some strange way the\nmost indispensable. God is teaching us that Order is far more universal,\nfar more penetrating than we should have supposed. But, nevertheless, it\nis not itself God; nor the highest revelation of God. It is the stamp\nwhich, for reasons higher than itself, He appears to have put on His\nworks. What is the limit to its application we do not know. There may be\ninstances where this Order is apparently broken, but really maintained,\nbecause one physical law is absorbed in a higher; there may be instances\nwhere the physical law is superseded by a moral law. But we shall\nneither refuse to recognise that God has stamped this character on His\nworks, nor let it on the other hand come between us and Him. For we know\nstill that He is greater than all that He hath made, and He speaks to us\nby another voice besides the voice of Science.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II.\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.\n\nThe voice within. The objection of the alleged relativity of knowledge.\nAbsolute knowledge of our own personal identity. Failure to show this to\nbe relative; in particular by Mr. Herbert Spencer. The Moral Law. The\ncommand to live according to that Law; Duty. The command to believe in\nthe supremacy of that Law; the lower Faith. The Last Judgment. The hope\nof Immortality. The personification of the Moral Law in Almighty God;\nthe higher Faith. The spiritual faculty the recipient of Revelation, if\nany be made. The contrast between Religion and Science.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II.\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.\n\n     'So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created\n     He him.' _Genesis_ i. 27.\n\nThe order of phenomena is not the highest revelation of God, nor is the\nvoice of Science the only nor the most commanding voice that speaks to\nus about Him. The belief in Him and in the character which we assign to\nHim does not spring from any observation of phenomena, but from the\ndeclaration made to us through the spiritual faculty.\n\nThere is within us a voice which tells of a supreme Law unchanged\nthroughout all space and all time; which speaks with an authority\nentirely its own; which finds corroboration in the revelations of\nScience, but which never relies on those revelations as its primary or\nits ultimate sanction; which is no inference from observations by the\nsenses external or internal, but a direct communication from the\nspiritual kingdom, the kingdom, as philosophers call it, of things in\nthemselves; which commands belief as a duty, and by necessary\nconsequence ever leaves it possible to disbelieve; and in listening to\nwhich we are rightly said to walk not by sight but by faith.\n\nNow, before going on to say anything more about the message thus given\nto us from the spiritual world, it is necessary to consider an objection\nthat meets us on the threshold of all such doctrines, namely, that it is\nsimply impossible for us to know anything whatever of things in\nthemselves. Our knowledge, it is urged, is necessarily relative to\nourselves, whereas absolute as distinct from relative knowledge is for\never beyond our reach. We can speak of what things appear to us to be;\nwe cannot speak of what they are. We know or may know whatever comes\nunder the observation of our senses as phenomena; we cannot know what\nunderlies these phenomena. And sometimes it has been maintained that we\nnot only cannot know what it is that underlies the phenomena, but cannot\neven know whether anything at all underlies the phenomena, and that, for\naught we can tell, the whole world and all that exists or happens in it\nmay be nothing but a system of appearances with no substance whatever.\nThis doctrine of the relativity of all knowledge is not only applied to\nthings external but to our very selves. We know ourselves, it is\nmaintained, only through an internal sense which can only tell us how we\nappear to ourselves, but cannot tell us in any the least degree what we\nreally are.\n\nNow this contention is an instance of a tendency against which we are\nrequired to be perpetually on our guard. The final aim of all science\nand of all philosophy is to find some unity or unities that shall\nco-ordinate the immense complexity of the world in which we live. Now\nthere is one and only one legitimate way of attaining this aim, and that\nis by patient, persevering study of the facts. But the facts turn out to\nbe so numerous, so multifarious, that not one life nor one generation\nbut many lives and many generations will assuredly not co-ordinate them\nsufficiently to bring this aim within probable reach. Hence the\nincessant temptation, first, to supply by hypothesis what cannot yet be\nobtained by observation, and, secondly, to bend facts to suit this\nhypothesis; and, if the framing of such hypotheses be legitimate, the\ndistortion of facts is clearly not legitimate. It seems too long to wait\nfor future ages to complete the task. We must in some sort complete it\nnow; and for that purpose if the facts as we observe them will not suit,\nwe must substitute other facts that will. Accordingly every doctrine\nmust be made complete, and to make this doctrine of the relativity of\nknowledge complete, we must get rid of all exceptions. But there is one\nexception that we cannot get rid of, and that is the conviction of our\nown identity through all changes through which we pass. Every man\namongst us passes through incessant changes. His body changes; he may\neven lose parts of it altogether; he may lose all control over some of\nhis limbs, or over them all. And there are internal as well as external\nchanges in each man. His affections change, his practices, his passions,\nhis resolutions, his purposes, his judgments; everything possibly by\nwhich he knows his own character. But through all these changes he is\nconscious of being still one and the same self. And he knows this; and\nknows it, not as an inference from any observation of sense external or\ninternal, but directly and intuitively. All other knowledge may\nconceivably be relative, a knowledge of things as they appear, not of\nthings in themselves. But this is not; it is a knowledge of a thing as\nit is in itself; for amidst all changes in the phenomena of each man's\nnature, this still remains absolutely unchanged. We do speak of sameness\nin application to phenomena; we say this is the same colour as that;\nthis is the same musical note as that; this is the same sensation as\nthat. But here we mean a different thing by the word same. We mean\nindistinguishability. We mean that we cannot distinguish between the two\ncolours, the two notes, the two sensations. And this no doubt is a\nrelative knowledge, not a knowledge of things in themselves. But we do\nnot mean incapacity of being distinguished when we speak of our own\npersonal identity. When a man thinks to-day of his life of yesterday,\nand regards himself as the same being through, all the time, he does\nnot simply mean that he cannot distinguish between the being that\nexisted yesterday according to his memory and the being that exists\nto-day according to his present consciousness: he means that the being\nis one and the same absolutely and in itself.\n\nAnd this conviction of personal identity will presently be found to fall\nin with the revelation of the Moral Law, which is my subject in this\nLecture. For it is by virtue of this personal identity that I become\nresponsible for my actions. I am not merely the same thinking subject, I\nam the same moral agent all through my life. If I changed as fast as the\nphenomena of my being changed, my responsibility for any evil deed would\ncease the moment the deed was done. No punishment would be just, because\nit would not be just to punish one being for the faults of a totally\ndifferent being. The Moral Law in its application to man requires as a\nbasis the personal identity of each man with himself.\n\nIf corroboration were needed of the directness of the intuition by which\nwe get this idea of our own personal identity, it would be found in the\nentire failure of all attempts to derive that idea from any other\nsource. Comte, the founder of the Positive School, can do nothing with\nthis idea but suggest that it is probably the result of some obscure\nsynergy or co-operation of the faculties. John Stuart Mill passes it by\naltogether as lying outside the scope of his enquiries and of his\ndoctrine. Mr. Herbert Spencer deals with it in a very weak chapter[1] of\nhis remarkable volume of First Principles. He divides all the\nmanifestations made to our consciousness, or, as we commonly say, all\nour sensations, into two great classes. He selects as the main but not\nuniversal characteristic of the one class, vividness; of the other\nclass, faintness; a distinction first insisted on, though somewhat\ndifferently applied, by Hume. He adds various other characteristics of\neach class, some of them implying very questionable propositions. And we\ncome finally to the following astonishing result. Sensations are divided\ninto two classes; each has seven main characteristics which distinguish\nit from the other. One of these classes make up the subject, that which\nI mean when I use the words I myself; the other the object or that\nwhich is not I. But there is absolutely nothing to determine which is\nwhich, which class is the subject and which is the object, which is I\nmyself, and which is not I myself. Vividness and faintness plainly have\nnothing in them by which we can assign the one to that which is I, the\nother to that which is not I. If we were to conjecture, we should be\ndisposed to say that surely the most vivid sensations must be the\nnearest and therefore must be part of that which is I; but we find it is\nquite the other way. The faint sensations are characteristic of that\nwhich is I, and the vivid of that which is not I. And the same remark\napplies to each pair of characteristics in succession. The fact is that\nMr. Spencer has omitted what is essential to complete his argument; he\nhas not shown, nor endeavoured to show, nor even thought of showing, how\nout of his seven characteristics of the subject the conception of a\nsubject has grown. It is quite plain that he not only makes his classes\nfirst and finds his characteristics afterwards, which we may admit to\nhave been inevitable; but he fails altogether to show how that by which\nwe know the classes apart has grown out of the characteristics that he\nhas given us. The characteristics which he assigns to that which is I,\nall added together, do not in the slightest degree account for that\nsense of permanent existence in spite of changes which lies at the root\nof my distinction of myself from other things. The very word same, in\nthe sense in which I use it when speaking of myself, cannot be defined\nexcept by reference to my own sameness with myself. It is a simple idea\nincapable of analysis, and is indeed, as was pointed out in my last\nLecture, the root of the character of permanence which we assign to\nthings external. To say that this conception has been evolved from the\ncharacteristics that Mr. Spencer has enumerated is like saying that a\ncat has been evolved without any intermediate stages from a fish, or a\nsmell from a colour.\n\nBut, if we now go a step further, and ask in what form this personal\nidentity presents itself in the world of phenomena, the answer is clear:\nour personality while bound up with all our other faculties, so that we\ncan speak of our understanding, our affections, our powers of perception\nand sensation, as parts of ourselves, yet is centred in one faculty\nwhich we call the will. 'If there be aught spiritual in man,' says\nColeridge, 'the will must be such. If there be a will, there must be a\nspirituality in man.' The will is the man. It is the will that makes us\nresponsible beings. It is for the action of our will, or the consent of\nour will, that we come to be called in question. It is by the will that\nwe assert ourselves amidst the existences around us; and as the will is\nthe man in relation to phenomena, so on the other side the will is the\none and only force among the forces of this world which takes cognizance\nof principles and is capable of acting in pursuit of an aim not to be\nfound among phenomena at all. The will is not the whole spiritual\nfaculty. Besides the power of willing we have the power of recognising\nspiritual truth. And this power or faculty we commonly call the\nconscience. But the conscience is not a force. It has no power of acting\nexcept through the will. It receives and transmits the voice from the\nspiritual world, and the will is responsible so far as the conscience\nenlightens it. It is the will whereby the man takes his place in the\nworld of phenomena.\n\nIt is then to the man, thus capable of appreciating a law superior in\nits nature to all phenomena and bearing within himself the conviction of\na personal identity underlying all the changes that may be encountered\nand endured, that is revealed from within the command to live for a\nmoral purpose and believe in the ultimate supremacy of the moral over\nthe physical. The voice within gives this command in two forms; it\ncommands our duty and it commands our faith. The voice gives no proof,\nappeals to no evidence, but speaks as having a right to command, and\nrequires our obedience by virtue of its own inherent superiority.\n\nIts first command we call duty. The voice within awakes a peculiar\nsentiment which, except towards its command, is never felt in our souls,\nthe sentiment of reverence. And it commands the pursuit of that,\nwhatever it may be, to which this sentiment of reverence attaches. This\nis the positive test by which we are to know what is ever to be our\nhighest aim. And along with this there is a negative test by which we\nare perpetually to correct the other, namely, the test of universality.\nThe moral law in its own nature admits of no exceptions. If a principle\nof action be derived from this law it has nothing to do with time, or\nplace, or circumstances; it must hold good in the distant future, in\nplanets or stars utterly remote, as fully as it holds good now and here.\n\nThis duty we can subdivide under four heads, accordingly as we apply it\nto our dealings with ourselves, with other moral and spiritual beings,\nwith other creatures that can feel pleasure and pain, with things that\nare incapable of either. If we are thinking of ourselves only, duty\nconsists in the pursuit of holiness, that is, in the absolute subjection\nof what does not demand reverence to that which does. It is plain that\nwhat deserves reverence in us is that which approaches most nearly to\nthe moral law in character. The appetites, the affections, the passions,\nhave each their own separate objects. They may be useful in the highest\ndegree, but they cannot in themselves deserve reverence, for their\nobjects are not the moral law; they must therefore be absolutely\nsubordinated to the will and the conscience which have for their\nobjects the very law itself. Holiness consists in the subjection of the\nwhole being, not in act alone, but in feeling and desire as well, to the\nauthority of conscience.\n\nIf we are thinking of other moral agents, duty prescribes strict and\nunfailing justice; and justice in its highest and purest form is love,\nthe unfailing recognition of the fullest claims that can be made on us\nby all who share our own divine superiority: to love God above all else,\nand to love all spiritual beings as we love ourselves, this is duty in\nrelation to other spiritual beings.\n\nIf we are thinking of creatures which, whether moral agents or not, are\ncapable of pain and pleasure, our duty takes the form of goodness or\ntenderness. We have no right to inflict pain or even refuse pleasure\nunless, if the circumstances were reversed, we should be bound in\nconscience to be ready in our turn to bear the same infliction or\nrefusal. The precept, Do as you would be done by, is here supreme, and\nit is to this class of duties that that precept applies, and the limits\nof our right to inflict pain on other creatures, whether rational or\nirrational, will be determined by this rule.\n\nAnd, lower still, our duty to things that are incapable of all feeling\nis summed up in that knowledge of them and that use of them which makes\nthem the fittest instruments of a moral life.\n\nThe sentiment of reverence is our guide in determining our duty, and the\ntest of universality perpetually comes in to correct the commands of\nthis sentiment and to clear and so to refine the sentiment itself.\n\nAs is the case in a certain degree with every other kind of knowledge or\nbelief, so in a very special degree the Moral Law finds its place even\nin minds that have very little of thought or of cultivation. The most\nuntutored is not insensible to the claim made on our respect by acts of\ncourage, self-sacrifice, generosity, truth; or to the call upon us for\nreprobation at the sight of acts of falsehood, of meanness, of cruelty,\nof profligacy. Even in the most untutored there is a sense that these\nsentiments of respect and reprobation are quite different in kind from\nthe other sentiments which stir the soul. And this is even more clear\nin condemnation than in approval. However perverted the conscience (the\nseat of these sentiments) may be, yet the pain of remorse, which is\nself-reprobation for having broken the moral law, is always, as has been\nwell said, 'quite unlike any other pain we know,' and is felt in some\nform and measure by every soul that lives. And as the sentiment thus\nholds a special place in the most untutored, so too does the sense of\nuniversality by which we instinctively and invariably correct or defend\nthat sentiment if it be challenged. The moment we are perplexed in\nregard to what we ought to do or what judgment we ought to pass on\nsomething already done, we instinctively, almost involuntarily,\nendeavour to disentangle the act from all attendant circumstances and to\nsee whether our sentiment of approval or disapproval would still hold\ngood in quite other surroundings. We try to get, at the principle\ninvolved and to ascertain whether that principle possesses the\nuniversality which is the sure characteristic of the Moral Law.\n\nIt will be matter of consideration in a future Lecture how our knowledge\nof the Eternal Law of the holy, the just, the good, and the right, is\nthus purified in the individual and in the race. At present it will be\nenough to have indicated the general principle of what may be called the\nevolution of the knowledge of morals.\n\nBut I now go on from the Moral Law as a duty to the Moral Law as a\nfaith. For the inner voice is not content with commanding a course of\nconduct and requiring obedience of that kind. This is its first\nutterance, and the man who hears and obeys unquestionably has within him\nthe true seed of all religion. But though the first utterance it is not\nthe last. For the same voice goes on to require us to believe that this\nMoral Law which claims obedience from us, equally claims obedience from\nall else that exists. It is absolutely supreme or it is nothing.\n\nIts title to our obedience is its supremacy, and it has no other title.\nIf it depended on promises of reward or threats of punishment addressed\nto us, it might be considered as a law for us, but could be no law for\nothers. It would in that case, indeed, be a mere physical law. Things\nare so arranged for you, and as far as you know for you only, that\nterrible pain will come to you if you disobey, and wonderful pleasure if\nyou obey. Such a law as that might proceed from a tyrant possessed of\nabsolute power over US and the things that concern US, and might be\neither good or bad as should happen. But such a law would not be able to\nclaim our reverence. Nay, rather, as is the case with all merely\nphysical laws, it might be our duty to disobey it. In claiming our\nreverence as well as our obedience, in making its sanction consist in\nnothing but the fact of its own inherent majesty, the Moral Law calls on\nus to believe in its supremacy. It claims that it is the last and\nhighest of all laws. The world before us is governed by uniformities as\nfar as we can judge, but above and behind all these uniformities is the\nsupreme uniformity, the eternal law of right and wrong, and all other\nlaws, of whatever kind, must ultimately be harmonised by it alone. The\nMoral Law would be itself unjust if it bade us disregard all physical\nlaws, and yet was itself subordinate to those physical laws. It has a\nright to require us to disregard everything but itself, if it be itself\nsupreme; if not, its claim would be unjust. We see here in things around\nus no demonstrative proof that it is supreme, except what may be summed\nup in saying that there is a power that makes for righteousness.\nEnlightened by the Moral Law we can see strongly marked traces of its\nworking in all things. The beauty, the order, the general tendency of\nall creation accords with the supremacy of the Moral Law over it all.\nBut that is by no means all. We see, and we know that we see, but an\ninfinitesimal fraction of the whole. And the result of this partial\nvision is that, while there is much in things around us which asserts,\nthere is also much which seems to deny altogether any supremacy\nwhatever in the Moral Law. The universe, as we see it, is not holy, nor\njust, nor good, nor right. The music of creation is full of discords as\nyet altogether unresolved. And if we look to phenomena alone, there is\nno solution of the great riddle. But in spite of all imperfections and\ncontradictions, the voice within, without vouchsafing to give us any\nsolution of the perplexity, or any sanction but its own authoritative\ncommand, imperatively requires us to believe that holiness is supreme\nover unholiness, and justice over injustice, and goodness over evil, and\nrighteousness over unrighteousness. To obey this command and to believe\nthis truth is Faith.\n\nThis is the Faith which is perpetually presenting to the believer's mind\nthe vision of a world in which all the inequalities of this present\nworld shall be redressed, in which truth, justice, and love shall\nvisibly reign, in which temptations shall cease and sin shall cease\nalso; in which the upward strivings of noble souls shall find their end,\nand holiness shall supersede penitence, and hearts shall be pure of all\ndefilement. This is the Faith which holds to the sure conviction that\nall things shall one day come to judgment; and whether by sudden\ncatastrophe or by sure development, the physical system shall surrender\nto the moral. This is the Faith which supplies perpetual strength to the\nhope of immortality; for though it cannot be said that the immortality\nof the individual soul is of necessity involved in a belief in the\nsupremacy of the Moral Law, yet there is a sense, never without witness\nin the soul, that all would not be according to justice if a being to\nwhom the Moral Law has been revealed from within is nevertheless in no\ndegree to share in the final revelation of the superiority of that Moral\nLaw over what is without. We cannot say that it is a necessary part of\nthe supremacy of the Moral Law that every one of those who know it\nshould partake of its immortal nature. We cannot even say that it is a\nnecessary part of the ultimate redressing of all injustice and\nresolution of all the discords of life that the hope of it should prove\ntrue in the individual as it will certainly prove true in the universe.\nFor we are unable to weigh individual merit or demerit, and cannot\nassert for certain that the balance of justice is not maintained even in\nthis present life. But nevertheless the hope that it must and will be so\nis inextinguishable, and Faith in an Eternal Law of Morals is\ninextricably bound up with hope of immortality for the being that is\nendowed with a moral and responsible nature.\n\nFaith in the absolute supremacy of the Moral Law is the first, but this\nagain is not the last step upwards in Faith. We are called upon, and\nstill by the same imperative voice within, to carry our Faith still\nfurther, and to believe something yet higher.\n\nFor the supremacy of the Moral Law must be a moral, not merely a\nphysical supremacy. In claiming supremacy at all the Moral Law does not\nassert that somehow by a happy accident, as it were, all things turn out\nat last in accordance with what is in the highest sense moral. The\nsupremacy of the moral over the physical involves in its very nature an\nintention to be supreme. It is not the supremacy of justice, if justice\nis done as the blind result of the working of machinery, even if that be\nthe machinery of the universe. In our very conception of a moral\nsupremacy is involved the conception of an intended supremacy. And the\nMoral Law in its government of the world reveals itself as possessing\nthe distinctive mark of personality, that is, a purpose and a will. And\nthus, as we ponder it, this Eternal Law is shown to be the very Eternal\nHimself, the Almighty God. There is a sense in which we cannot ascribe\npersonality to the Unknown Absolute Being; for our personality is of\nnecessity compassed with limitations, and from these limitations we find\nit impossible to separate our conception of a person. And it will ever\nremain true that our highest conceptions of God must fall altogether\nshort of His true nature. When we speak of Him as infinite, we are but\ndenying that He is restrained by limits of time and space as we are.\nWhen we speak of Him as absolute, we are but denying that He is subject\nto conditions as we are. So when we speak of Him as a person, we cannot\nbut acknowledge that His personality far transcends our conceptions. But\nit still remains the truth that these descriptions of Him are the\nnearest that we can get, and that for all the moral purposes of life we\ncan argue from these as if they were the full truth. If to deny\npersonality to Him is to assimilate Him to a blind and dead rule, we\ncannot but repudiate such denial altogether. If to deny personality to\nHim is to assert His incomprehensibility, we are ready at once to\nacknowledge our weakness and incapacity. But we dare not let go the\ntruth that the holiness, the justice, the goodness, the righteousness,\nwhich the Eternal Moral Law imposes on us as a supreme command, are\nidentical in essential substance in our minds and in His. Indeed, the\nmore we keep before us the true character of that law, the more clearly\ndo we see that the Moral Law is not His command but His nature. He does\nnot make that law. He is that law. Almighty God and the Moral Law are\ndifferent aspects of what is in itself one and the same. To hold fast to\nthis is the fullest form of Faith. To live by duty is in itself\nrudimentary religion. To believe that the rule of duty is supreme over\nall the universe, is the first stage of Faith. To believe in Almighty\nGod is the last and highest.\n\nIt will be seen at once by those who have followed me that I am in this\nLecture only working out to its logical conclusion what was said long\nago by Bishop Butler in England and by Kant in Germany. Butler calls the\nspiritual faculty whose commands to us I have been examining by the name\nof conscience: Kant calls it the practical reason. But both alike insist\non the ultimate basis of morality being found in the voice within the\nsoul and not in the phenomena observed by the senses. Science by\nsearching cannot find out God. To reduce all the phenomena of the\nuniverse to order will not, even if it could ever be completely done,\ntell us the highest truth that we can attain to concerning spiritual\nthings.\n\nScience may examine all the phases through which religions have passed\nand treating human beliefs as it treats all other phenomena it can give\nus a history of religion or of religions. But there is something\nunderlying them all which it cannot treat, and which perpetually evades\nall attempts to bring it under physical laws. For just as all attempts\nto explain away our conviction of our own personal identity have\ninvariably failed and will for ever fail to satisfy human consciousness,\nso too the strictly spiritual element in all religion cannot be got out\nof phenomena at all. No analysis succeeds in obliterating the\nfundamental distinction between moral and physical law; or in enabling\nus to escape the ever increasing sense of the dignity of the former, or\nin shutting our ears to the still small voice which is totally unlike\nevery other voice within or without. To bring the Moral Law under the\ndominion of Science and to treat the belief in it as nothing more than\none of the phenomena of human nature, it is necessary to treat the\nsentiment of reverence which it excites, the remorse which follows on\ndisobedience to its commands, the sense of its supremacy, as delusions.\nIt is always possible so to treat these things; but only at the cost of\nstanding lower in the scale of being.\n\nBut we have one step further to take. For as the spiritual faculty is\nthe recipient directly or indirectly of that original revelation which\nGod has made of Himself to His rational creatures, so too this appears\nto be the only faculty which can take cognizance of any fresh revelation\nthat it might please Him to make. If He commands still further duties\nthan those commanded by the supreme Moral Law, if He bids us believe\nwhat our reason cannot deduce from the primal belief in that Law and in\nHimself, it is to that faculty that the command is issued. If over and\nabove the original religion as we may call it there is a revealed\nreligion, it is the spiritual faculty that can alone accept it. Such a\nrevelation may be confirmed by signs or proofs in the world of\nphenomena. He who is absolute over all nature may compel nature to bear\nwitness to His teaching. The spiritual may burst through the natural on\noccasion, and that supremacy, which underlies all nature and which is\nnecessarily visible to intelligences that are capable of seeing things\nas they are in themselves, may force itself into the world of phenomena\nand show itself in that manner to us. But this always is and must be\nsecondary. The spiritual faculty alone can receive and judge of\nspiritual truth, and if that faculty be not reached a truly religious\nbelief is not yet attained.\n\nExternal evidences of revealed religion must have a high place but\ncannot have the highest. A revealed religion must depend for its\npermanent hold on our obedience and our duty on its fastening upon our\nspiritual nature, and if it cannot do that no evidences can maintain it\nin its place.\n\nThis account of the fundamental beliefs of Religion when compared with\nthe fundamental postulates of Science shows that the two begin with the\nsame part of our nature but proceed by opposite methods. Both begin with\nthe human will as possessing a permanent identity and exerting a force\nof its own. But from this point they separate. Science rests on\nphenomena observed by the senses; Religion on the voice that speaks\ndirectly from the other world. Science postulates uniformity and is\nexcluded wherever uniformity can be denied, but compels conviction\nwithin the range of its own postulate. Religion demands the submission\nof a free conscience, and uses no compulsion but that imposed by its own\ninherent dignity. Science gives warnings, and if you are capable of\nunderstanding scientific argument, you will be incapable of disbelieving\nthe warnings. Certain things will poison you; certain neglects will ruin\nyour health; disregard of scientific construction will bring your roof\ndown on your head; to enter a burning building will risk your life; some\nof these things you may learn by ordinary experience, some of them by\nthat combination of experience which is called Science. But if you are\ncapable of the necessary reasoning you cannot doubt, however much you\nmay wish to do so. And yet to defy these warnings and take the\ninevitable consequences of that defiance may be your highest glory.\nReligion also gives warnings; it assures you that the Eternal Moral Law\nis supreme; that, sooner or later, those who disobey will find their\ndisobedience is exactly and justly punished; that no appearance to the\ncontrary presented by experience can be trusted. But Religion will not\ncompel you to believe any more than Science will compel you to obey.\nDisbelieve if you choose and Religion will do nothing but perpetually\nrepeat its warnings and add that your disbelief has lowered you in the\nscale of being. So too Science gives promises; it promises, to the race\nrather than to the individual, life on easier conditions, and of greater\nlength; fewer pains, fewer diseases; perpetually increasing comforts;\nperpetually increasing power over nature. And Science is sure to keep\nthe promises. And yet we may refuse to accept the promises, and it is\nconceivable that the refusal may be far nobler than the acceptance. And\nReligion promises also. It promises stainless purity in the soul; and\ntruth and justice and unfailing love; and tenderness to every creature\nthat can feel; and a government of all that is under our dominion with a\nsingle eye to the service of God. And we may refuse to believe these\npromises or to care whether they are kept or not. But the refusal or\npursuit of such aims as these determines our position in the judgment of\nthe Supreme and in the court of our own conscience.\n\nGod has made man in His own image: that is, He has given man power to\nunderstand His works and to acknowledge Himself. And it is in\nacknowledging God that man finds himself divine. He is a partaker of the\ndivine nature in proportion as he recognises the Supreme Law and makes\nit the law of his own will. And therefore has his will been made free as\nwell as his mind rational: he has the power to choose as well as the\npower to know. And our choice lays hold on God Himself and makes us one\nwith Him.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III.\n\n\nAPPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION ON FREE-WILL.\n\nContradiction of Free-Will to doctrine of Uniformity. Butler's\nexamination of the question. Hume's solution. Kant's solution.\nDeterminism. The real result of examination of the facts. Interference\nof the will always possible, but comparatively rare. The need of a fixed\nnature for our self-discipline, and so for our spiritual life.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III.\n\n\nAPPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION ON FREE-WILL.\n\n     'So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created\n     He him.' _Genesis_ i. 27.\n\nReligion and Science both begin with the human will. The will is to\nScience the first example of power, the origin of the conception of\ncause; the bodily effort made by the will lies at the root of the\nconception of force. It is by comparing other forces with that force\nthat Science begins its march. And the will is to religion the recipient\nof the Divine command. To the will the inner voice addresses itself,\nbidding it act and believe. It is because we have a will that we are\nresponsible. In a world in which there were no creatures endowed with a\nwill, there could be no right-doing or wrong-doing; no approval by\nconscience and no disapproval; no duty and no faith.\n\nHere is the first possibility of collision between Science and Religion.\nScience postulates uniformity; Religion postulates liberty. Science\ncannot ever hope to reduce all phenomena to unity if a whole class of\nphenomena, all those that belong to the action of human will, are to be\nexcluded from the postulate of invariable sequence. The action of the\nwill is in this case for ever left outside. The evidence for the\nabsolute uniformity of nature seems to be shaken, when it is found that\nthere is so important a part of phenomena to which this law of\nuniformity cannot be applied. If a human will can thus interfere with\nthe law of uniformity, there enters the possibility that behind some\nphenomena may lurk the interference of some other will. Religion, on the\nother hand, tells every man that he is responsible, and how can he be\nresponsible if he is not free? If his action be determined by something\nwhich is not himself, how can the moral burden of it be put on him? To\ntell a man that he is to answer for it if he does something which he is\ntempted to do, is unmeaning, if he has no power to prevent himself from\ndoing it.\n\nBut this is not all. For besides the sense of responsibility we have a\ndirect consciousness of being free, a consciousness which no reasoning\nappears to extinguish. We sharply distinguish between that which goes on\nwithin us in regard to which we are free and that in regard to which we\nare not free. We cannot help being angry, but we can control our anger.\nWe cannot help our wishes, but we can restrain our indulgence or our\npursuit of them. We cannot directly determine our affections, but we can\ncherish or discourage them. There are extreme cases in which our wills\nseem powerless, but even here we are conscious of our power to struggle\nfor self-assertion and self-control. There is very much in us which is\nnot free; nay, there is much in us which impels us to action which is\nnot free. But we never confound this with our wills, and when our wills\nare overpowered by passion or appetite, we call the act no longer a\nperfectly free act, and do not consider the responsibility for it to be\nquite the same.\n\nThis question of the freedom of the will was considered by Bishop\nButler in the Analogy. He contented himself with proving that, make what\ntheory we would concerning the necessity of human action, all men in\npractice acted on the theory of human freedom. We promise; we accept\npromises; we punish; we reward; we estimate character; we admire; we\nshun; we deal with ourselves; we deal with others; as if we and all\nothers were free. And this was enough for his purpose. For he had to\nreconcile a Divine system of rewards and punishments with our sense of\njustice. And if he could show, as he did, that rewards and punishments\nwere plainly not inconsistent with that sense of justice in our dealings\nwith one another, it was impossible to call them inconsistent with that\nsense of justice in God's dealings with us.\n\nBut the purpose of these Lectures requires something more, and that for\ntwo reasons. For, in the first place, the doctrine of necessity was most\noften in Bishop Butler's days derived from a conception of a Divine\nforeknowledge arranging everything by supreme Will, not from the\nconception of a blind mechanical rule holding all in its unrelaxing\ngrasp. And though to the cold reason it may make no difference how the\nwill is bound, yet to the moral sentiment the two kinds of compulsion\ndiffer as life and death. To have no liberty because of being absolutely\nin the hands of Almighty God is quite another thing from having no\nliberty, as being under the dominion of a dead iron rule. It seems\npossible to accept the one and call it an unfathomable mystery; but to\naccept the other is to call life a delusion and the moral law a dream.\nAnd in the second place, the doctrine of necessity advanced as a theory\nand based on arguments not resting on facts, is a very different\nantagonist from the same doctrine advanced as a conclusion of science,\nand as deducible from a mass of co-ordinated observations. We may\ndismiss the mere theory after showing that it has not substance enough\nto hold its ground in ordinary life. We cannot so treat what claims to\nbe a scientific inference.\n\nThe modern examination of the question begins with Hume, who maintains\nthat the doctrine of liberty and that of necessity are both true and of\ncourse compatible with each other. But his arguments touch only the\nbroad question whether they are true for practical purposes, not whether\neither is true in the strict sense and without exception or\nmodification. To Kant's system, on the contrary, it was essential that\nboth doctrines should be true in the strictest sense. Holding that\ninvariable sequence was a law of Nature known independently of\nexperience and applicable to all phenomena in the minutest detail, he\ncould not allow that any act of the human will lay outside the range of\nthis law. Such an act being a phenomenon must, in his view, be subject\nto the law which the constitution of our minds imposed on all phenomena\napparent to us. And yet, on the other hand, holding that the eternal\nMoral Law made us responsible for all our acts, he could not but\nmaintain that in the doing of those acts we must be free. His mode of\nreconciling the two opposites amounted to this, that our action\nthroughout life considered as a whole is free, but that each separate\nact considered by itself is bound to the preceding acts by the law of\ninvariable sequence. We may illustrate this by the familiar instance of\na prism acting on a ray of light. The ray has or may have a colour of\nits own before it passes through the prism. The prism spreads it out and\nshows a series of colours. The order in which this series is arranged is\ndetermined by the character of the prism acting on the nature of the\nray. The colours when combined give the colour of the ray; when\nseparated by the prism each has its own distinct character, and the\norder of the colours is determined, and invariably determined, by the\nprism. So too in Kant's view the character of a man in itself may be\nfree, but when it passes through the prism of time into the world of\nphenomena and is spread over many years it shows a number of separate\nactions, no one of which taken by itself exhibits the man, though all\nput together are the true representation of him to human perception. The\nman is free. His life represents his free choice. But his separate acts\nare what that free choice becomes when translated into a series of\nphenomena, and are bound each to the preceding by the law of invariable\nsequence. It is plain at once that this does not satisfy our\nconsciousness. We are not conscious of freedom as regards our life as a\nwhole; we are conscious of freedom as regards our separate actions. Our\nlife as a whole embraces our past which is absolutely unchangeable, and\nour future which is not yet within our reach; we are conscious of no\npresent power over either. Our separate acts are perceptibly subject to\nour own control; nay, it is by the use of our free-will in our separate\nacts that we are able to change the character of our life or to preserve\nit from change; and with this corresponds our responsibility. We hold\nourselves responsible for each act as it is done; we hold ourselves\nresponsible for the character of our lives only so far as we might have\nchanged it by our acts. The solution leaves the difficulty where it was.\n\nIt is now customary with the advocates of the doctrine of necessity to\nexpress it by a different word, and call it the doctrine of determinism.\nThe purpose of changing the word is to get rid of all associations with\nthe idea of compulsion; just so in Science it is thought better to get\nrid of the words cause and effect, and substitute invariable sequence,\nin order to get rid of the notion of some compulsion recognisable by us\nin the cause to produce the effect. Determinism does not say to a man\n'you will be forced to act in a particular way;' but 'you will assuredly\ndo so.' There will be no compulsion; but the action is absolutely\ncertain. Just as on a given day the moon will eclipse the sun, so in\ngiven circumstances you will do the precise thing which it is your\ncharacter in such circumstances to do. And your sense of freedom is\nsimply the sense that the action proceeds from yourself and not from any\nforce put upon you from without.\n\nBut this too does not solve the problem. It is true that in regard to a\nvery large proportion of our actions the sense of freedom seems to be no\nmore than negative. We do what it is our custom, our inclination, our\ncharacter to do. We are not conscious of any force being put upon us;\nbut neither are we conscious of using any force ourselves. We float as\nit were down the stream, or hurry along with a determined aim, but\nhaving no desire nor purpose to the contrary, the question of freedom or\nnecessity never seems to arise. It is even possible and common for us\nnot to know ourselves as well as others know us, and to do many things\nwhich an observer would predict as sure to be our actions, but which we\nourselves fancy to be by no means certain. Even in these cases we\nsometimes awake to the fact that what we are thus allowing in our lives\nis not consistent with the law of duty, and, do what we may, we cannot\nthen escape the conviction that we are to blame, and that we had power\nto act otherwise if only we had chosen to exert the power. But it is\nwhen a conflict arises between duty and inclination that our inner\ncertainty of our own freedom of will becomes clear and unconquerable. In\nthe great conflicts of the soul between the call of duty and the power\nof temptation there are two forces at work upon us. We are never for a\nmoment in doubt which is ourselves and which is not ourselves; which is\nthe free agent and which is the blind force; which is responsible for\nthe issue, and which is incapable of responsibility. There is in this\ncase a real sense of compulsion from without, and a real sense of\nresistance to that compulsion from within. It is impossible in this case\nto account for the sense of being a free agent, by saying that this\nmerely means that we are conscious of no external force. We are\nconscious of an external force and we are conscious that this will of\nours which struggles against it is not an external force, but our very\nselves, and this distinction between the will and the forces against\nwhich the will is striving is ineffaceable from our minds. That the will\nis often weak and on that account overpowered, and that after a hard\nstruggle our actions are often determined, not by our wills but by our\npassions or our appetites, is unquestionable. Often has the believer to\npray to God for strength to hold fast to right purpose, and often will\nhe feel that without that strength he must inevitably fall. But he knows\nthat whatever source may supply the strength, it is he that will have to\nuse it, and he that will be responsible for using it or neglecting to do\nso.\n\nThe advocates of determinism urge that every action must have a motive,\nand that the man always acts on that motive which is the stronger. The\nfirst proposition may be granted at once. The freedom of the will is\ncertainly not shown in acting without any motive at all. If there be\nany human action which appears to be without any motive, it is not in\nsuch action that we find human freedom. Such action, if possible at all,\nmust inevitably be mechanical. A man who is acting from mere caprice is\neven more completely at the mercy of passing inclination than one who is\nacting from passion or from overpowering temptation. The freedom of the\nwill is not shown in acting without motive, but in choosing between\nmotives. But when it is further said that a man always acts from the\nstronger motive, the question immediately follows, what determines which\nis the stronger motive? It cannot be anything in the motives themselves,\nor all men would act alike in the same circumstances; and it is clear\nthat they do not. It must be therefore something in the man. And if it\nbe something in the man, it must be either his will acting at the\nmoment, which in that case is free, or his character. But if it be his\ncharacter, then follows the further question, what determines his\ncharacter? If we are to maintain the uniformity of nature, we must\nanswer by assigning the determination to the sum total of surrounding\nand preceding circumstances. Nothing will satisfy that law of\nuniformity but this; that, given such and such parents, such and such\ncircumstances of birth and life, there must be such a character and no\nother. At what point is there room in this case for any responsibility?\nI did not on this supposition make my character; it was made for me; any\none else born in my stead, and living in my stead, would of necessity\nhave acted exactly as I have done; would have felt the same, and aimed\nat the same, and won the same moral victories, and suffered the same\nmoral defeats. How can I be held responsible for what is the pure result\nof the circumstances in which I was born? But if, on the other hand, it\nbe said that our character is not the mere fruit of our antecedents and\nsurroundings, the law of uniformity is clearly broken. A new element has\ncome into the world, namely, my character, which has not come out of the\nantecedents and surroundings according to any fixed law. The antecedents\nand surroundings might have been quite the same for any one else, and\nyet I should have my character and he his, and our lives would have\naltogether differed.\n\nIt is clear that determinism does not get us out of the difficulty.\nHere, too, as in regard to the necessary truths of mathematics, and in\nregard to the relativity of all our knowledge, the theory has purchased\ncompleteness by the cheap expedient of calling one of the facts to be\naccounted for a delusion. Such a solution cannot be accepted. In spite\nof all attempts to explain it away, the fact that we think ourselves\nfree and hold ourselves responsible remains, and remains unaffected.\n\nBut let us examine how far the difference between the scientific view\nand the religious view of human action extends.\n\nObservation certainly shows that a very large proportion of human\naction, much even of that which appears at first sight to be more\nespecially independent of all law, is really as much regulated by laws\nof nature as the movements of the planets. I have already pointed out\nhow often an observer can predict a man's actions better than the man\nhimself, and how often the will is certainly passive and consents\ninstead of acting. In these cases there is no reason whatever to deny\nthat nature and not the will is producing the conduct. And not only so,\nbut that which seems most irregular, the kind of action that we call\ncaprice, there is very often just as little reason to call free, as to\nassign free-will as the cause of the uncertainties of the weather. But\nit is not in observing individuals so much as in observing masses of men\nthat we get convincing proof that men possess a common nature, and that\ntheir conduct is largely regulated by the laws of that nature. That\namongst a given large number of men living on the whole in the same\nconditions from year to year, there should be every year a given number\nof suicides, of murderers, of thieves and criminals of various kinds,\ncannot be accounted for in any other way than by the hypothesis that\nlike circumstances will produce like conduct. So, too, in this way only\ncan we account for such a fact as the steadiness in the proportion of\nmen who enter any given profession, of men who quit their country for\nanother, of men who remain unmarried all their lives, of men who enter a\nuniversity, of men who make any particular choice (such as these) which\ncan be tested by figures. Now, this argument is unanswerable as far as\nit goes; but it succeeds, like all the other arguments for the\nuniformity of nature, in establishing the generality, and not at all the\nuniversality of that uniformity. Indeed, it falls far short of proving\nas much uniformity in human action as is proved in the action of\ninanimate things. The induction which proves the uniformity of the laws\nof mechanics, of chemistry, of physics, is so far greater than the\ninduction which proves the uniformity of human conduct, that it is\nhardly possible to put the two side by side. When we turn from abstract\narguments to facts, the doctrine of necessity is unquestionably\nunproven.\n\nAnd this agrees with the result of a careful examination of the facts of\nhuman consciousness from the opposite point of view. We cannot but\nacknowledge that when we look very closely we find a very large\nproportion of our own actions to be by no means the result of an\ninterference by the will. A large proportion is due to custom; a large\nproportion to inclination, of which the will takes no special notice,\nand is not called on by the conscience to notice; a large proportion to\ninclinations which we know that we ought to resist, but we do not\nresist; a much smaller proportion, but still some, to passions and\nappetites against which we have striven in vain; only a very small\nproportion to deliberate choice. There is, in fact, no irresistible\nreason for claiming freedom for human action except when that action\nturns on the question of right or wrong. There is no reason to call\naction free that flows from inclination or custom, or passion, or a\ndesire to avoid pain, or a desire to obtain pleasure. The will claims to\nbe free in all these cases, but it is free in the sense that it might be\nexerted; and so, since it is not exerted, the action is not free. But\nwhen, at the call of duty, in whatever form, the will directly\ninterferes, then and then only are we conscious not only that the will\nis free, but that it has asserted its freedom, and that the action has\nbeen free also.\n\nThe relation of the will to the conduct falls under four distinct heads:\nfor sometimes the will simply concurs with the inclination; sometimes it\nneither concurs nor opposes; sometimes it opposes but is overpowered;\nsometimes it opposes and prevails. In the first case, inclination of\nsome kind or other prompts the man to action. The inclination, whether\nset up by an external object of desire or by an internal impulse of\nrestlessness or blind craving or the like, comes clearly from the\nnature, and is not free choice. There is no reason to believe that it is\nnot in most cases, possibly in all cases, under the dominion of fixed\nlaw. It may be as completely the product of what has preceded it as the\neclipse of the sun. And if the will concurs in the inclination, it is\nneedless to discuss the question whether the will acts or not. The\nconduct is the same whether the will adds force to the inclination or is\nsimply passive. The freedom of the will may in this case be considered\nas negative. So, too, may the freedom of the will be considered negative\nin the second case, which is that of the will neither concurring with\ninclination nor opposing it. In this case there may be a distinct\nconsciousness of freedom in the form of a sense of responsibility for\nwhat inclination is permitted to do. A man in this case knows that he is\nfree, perhaps knows that he ought to interfere and control the conduct.\nBut as he does not interfere, the freedom of the will is not asserted in\nact. And it is possible that, as far as all external phenomena are\nconcerned, there may be no breach in uniformity of sequence. This,\nhowever, can hardly be in the third case, which is when the will and the\ninclination are opposed, and the will is overpowered. Although the\ninclination prevails, yet the struggle itself is an event of the most\nimportant kind, and is sure to leave traces on the character, and to be\nfollowed by consequences. In this case we are distinctly conscious of a\npower to add force to that one of the contending opposites which is most\nidentified with our very selves, and we know whether we have added that\nforce or not. And not only may we add this force directly from within;\nwe may and we often do go outside of ourselves to seek for aids to add\nstill more force indirectly, and we do for this purpose what we should\nnot do otherwise. We dwell in thought on the higher aims which are the\nproper object of will; we read what sets forth those higher aims in\ntheir full beauty; we seek the words, the company, the sympathy of men\nwho will, we are sure, encourage us in this the higher path. And, on the\nother hand, we turn away from the temptation which gives strength to\nthe evil inclination, and if we cannot escape from its presence we\nendeavour to drive the thought of it from our minds. All this action is\nnot for the sake of anything thus done, but for the sake of its indirect\neffect on the struggle in which we are engaged. Whenever there is a\nstruggle, we are not only conscious that the will is free, but that it\nis asserting its freedom. In these struggles there is not a mere contest\nbetween two inclinations. We are distinctly conscious that one of the\ncombatants is our very selves in a sense in which the other is not. But,\nnevertheless, when all has been said, it still remains in this case that\nthe will is beaten and inclination prevails, and the conduct in the main\nis determined by the inclination, which is under the dominion of the law\nof uniformity, and not by the will, which claims to be free. The fourth\ncase in which the will prevails may, of course, make a momentous breach\nin the uniformity of sequence of the conduct. But in far the largest\nnumber of cases the struggle is very slight, and the difference between\nthe will and the inclination is not, taken alone, of grave importance in\nthe life. And in those instances in which the struggle is severe and\nthe resulting change is great, it is very often the case that the way\nhas been prepared, as it were in secret, by the quiet accumulation of\nhidden forces of the strictly natural order ready to burst forth when\nthe fit opportunity came. In the great conversions which have sometimes\nseemed by their suddenness and completeness to defy all possibility of\nreduction to natural law, there are often nevertheless tokens of deep\ndissatisfaction with the previous life having swelled up slowly within\nthe soul for some time, even for some long time beforehand. The\ninclination to go on in evil courses has been broken down at last, not\nmerely by the action of the will, but by the working of the machinery of\nthe soul.\n\nTo this it must be added that the action of the will is such that it\nvery often happens that, having been exerted once, it need not be\nexerted again for the same purpose. A custom is broken down, an\nexceedingly strong temptation has been overpowered, and its strength so\ndestroyed that its return is without effect. Or sometimes the act of the\nwill takes the form of deliberately so arranging the circumstances of\nlife that a dreaded temptation cannot return, or if it return cannot\nprevail; the right eye has been plucked out, the right hand cut off, and\nthe sin cannot be committed even if desired. While therefore the will is\nalways free, the actual interference of the will with the life is not so\nfrequent as to interfere with the broad general rule that the course of\nhuman conduct is practically uniform. In fact the will, though always\nfree, only asserts its freedom by obeying duty in spite of inclination,\nby disregarding the uniformity of nature in order to maintain the higher\nuniformity of the Moral Law. The freedom of the human will is but the\nassertion in particular of that universal supremacy of the moral over\nthe physical in the last resort, which is an essential part of the very\nessence of the Moral Law. The freedom of the will is the Moral Law\nbreaking into the world of phenomena, and thus behind the free-will of\nman stands the power of God.\n\nWhen the real claim of the will for freedom has been clearly seized by\nthe mind, it becomes apparent that there is no real collision between\nwhat Science asserts and what Religion requires us to believe. Science\nasserts that there is evidence to show that an exceedingly large\nproportion of human action is governed by fixed law. Religion requires\nus to believe that the will is responsible for all this action, not\nbecause it does, but because it might interfere. Science is not able,\nand from the nature of the case never will be able to prove that the\nrange of this fixed law is universal, and that the will never does\ninterfere to vary the actions from what without the will they would have\nbeen. Science will never be able to prove this, because it could not be\nproved except by a universal induction, and a universal induction is\nimpossible. At present there is no approximation to such proof.\nReligion, on the other hand, does not call on us to believe that the\nwill often interferes, but on the contrary is perpetually telling us\nthat it does not interfere as often as it ought. Revealed religion,\nindeed, has always based its most earnest exhortations on the reluctance\nof man to set his will to the difficult task of contending with the\nforces of his nature, and on the weakness of the will in the presence of\nthose forces.\n\nAnd when we pursue this thought further we see that for such creatures\nas we are the subjection of a large part of our own nature to fixed laws\nis as necessary for our dominion over ourselves as the fixity of\nexternal nature is necessary for our dominion over the world around us.\nThe fixity of a large part of our nature--nay, of all but the whole of\nit--is a moral and spiritual necessity. For it requires but a\nsuperficial self-examination to discern the indications of what the\nprofoundest research still leaves a mystery--that we are not perfect\ncreatures of our own kind--that our nature does not spontaneously\nconform to the Supreme Moral Law--that our highest and best consists not\nin complete obedience to which we cannot attain, but in a perpetual\nupward struggle. Now such a struggle demands for its indispensable\ncondition something fixed in our nature by which each step upwards shall\nbe made good as it is taken, and afford a firm footing for the next\nascent. If there were nothing in us fixed and firm, if the warfare with\nevil impulses, wayward affections, overmastering appetites had to be\ncarried on through life without the possibility of making any victory\ncomplete, the formation of a perpetually higher and nobler character\nwould be impossible; our main hope in this life, our best offering to\nGod would be taken away from us; we could never give our bodies to be a\nliving sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God; we could give our separate\nacts but not ourselves, for we should be utterly unable to form\nourselves into fitness for such a purpose. The task given to the will is\nnot only to govern the actions but to discipline the nature; but\ndiscipline is impossible where there is no fixity in the thing to be\ndisciplined.\n\nAnd this becomes still more important when we search more deeply and\nperceive that not the nature only but the will itself is in some strange\nway infected with evil. We can hardly imagine even a perfectly pure will\ncapable of continuing to the end a conflict in which no progress ever\nwas or could be made. The tremendous strain of fighting with an enemy\nthat might be defeated again and again for ever without ever suffering\nany change or relaxing the violence of any attack or giving the\nslightest hope of any relief, would seem too much for the most\nunearthly, the most noble, the most godlike of human wills. But wills\nsuch as ours, penetrated with weakness, perhaps with treachery to their\nown best aspirations, how utterly impossible that they could persevere\nthrough such a hopeless conflict.\n\nIt is the sustaining hope of the Christian that he shall be changed from\nglory to glory into the image or likeness of His Lord, and that when all\nis over for this life he shall be indeed like Him and see Him as He is.\nBut that hope is never presented as one to be realized by some sudden\nstroke fashioning the soul anew and moulding it at once into heavenly\nlineaments. It is by steady and sure degrees that the Christian believes\nthat he shall be thus blessed. And this progress rests on the fixed\nrules by which his nature is governed, and which admit of the character\nbeing gradually changed by the life. The Christian knows that God has so\nmade us that a temptation once overcome is permanently weakened, and\noften overcome is at last altogether expelled; that appetites restrained\nare in the end subdued and cost but little effort to keep down; that bad\nthoughts perpetually put aside at last return no more; that a clearer\nperception of duty and a more resolute obedience to its call makes duty\nitself more attractive, fills us with enthusiasm for its fulfilment,\ndraws us as it were upwards, and ennobles the whole man. The Christian\nknows that the thought of the Supreme Being, the contemplation of His\nexcellency, the recognition of Him as the source of spiritual life has a\nstrange power to transform, and evermore to transform the whole man. In\nthis knowledge the Christian lives his life and fights his battle. And\nwhat is this but a knowledge that he has a nature subject to fixed laws,\nwhich he can indeed interfere with, but without which his\nself-discipline would be of little value, and assuredly could not long\ncontinue.\n\nAnd if the progress of Science and the examination of human nature\nshould eventually restrict more closely than we might have supposed the\nlength to which the interference of the will can go; if it should appear\nthat the changes which we can make at any one moment in ourselves are\nwithin a very narrow range, this, too, will be knowledge that can be\nused in our self-discipline and quite as much perhaps in our mutual\nmoral aid. It is conceivable that the branch of science which treats of\nhuman nature may in the end profoundly modify our modes of education,\nand our hopes of what can be effected by it. But if so the knowledge\nwill only add to the store of means put within our reach for the\nelevation of our race. And we may be sure that nothing of this sort will\nreally affect the revelation that God has written in our souls that we\nare free and responsible beings, and cannot get quit of our\nresponsibility.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV.\n\n\nAPPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.\n\nFoundation of the doctrine of Evolution. Great development in recent\ntimes. Objection felt by many religious men. Alleged to destroy argument\nfrom design. Paley's argument examined. Doctrine of Evolution adds force\nto the argument, and removes objections to it. Argument from progress;\nfrom beauty; from unity. The conflict not real.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV.\n\n\nAPPARENT CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.\n\n     'For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are\n     clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even\n     His eternal power and Godhead.' _Romans_ i. 20.\n\nThe regularity of nature is the first postulate of Science; but it\nrequires the very slightest observation to show us that, along with this\nregularity, there exists a vast irregularity which Science can only deal\nwith by exclusion from its province. The world as we see it is full of\nchanges; and these changes when patiently and perseveringly examined are\nfound to be subject to invariable or almost invariable laws. But the\nthings themselves which thus change are as multifarious as the changes\nwhich they undergo. They vary infinitely in quantity, in qualities, in\narrangement throughout space, possibly in arrangement throughout time.\nTake a single substance such, say, as gold. How much gold there is in\nthe whole universe, and where it is situated, we not only have no\nknowledge, but can hardly be said to be on the way to have knowledge.\nWhy its qualities are what they are, and why it alone possesses all\nthese qualities; how long it has existed, and how long it will continue\nto exist, these questions we are unable to answer. The existence of the\nmany forms of matter, the properties of each form, the distribution of\neach: all this Science must in the last resort assume.\n\nBut I say in the last resort. For it is possible, and Science soon makes\nit evident that it is true, that some forms of matter grow out of other\nforms. There are endless combinations. And the growth of new out of old\nforms is of necessity a sequence, and falls under the law of\ninvariability of sequences, and becomes the subject-matter of Science.\nAs in each separate case Science asserts each event of to-day to have\nfollowed by a law of invariable sequence on the events of yesterday; the\nearth has reached the precise point in its orbit now which was\ndetermined by the law of gravitation as applied to its motion at the\npoint which it reached a moment ago; the weather of the present hour has\ncome by meteorological laws out of the weather of the last hour; the\ncrops and the flocks now found on the surface of the habitable earth are\nthe necessary outcome of preceding harvests and preceding flocks and of\nall that has been done to maintain and increase them; so, too, if we\nlook at the universe as a whole, the present condition of that whole is,\nif the scientific postulate of invariable sequence be admitted, and in\nas far as it is admitted, the necessary outcome of its former condition;\nand all the various forms of matter, whether living or inanimate, must\nfor the same reason and with the same limitation be the necessary\noutcome of preceding forms of matter. This is the foundation of the\ndoctrine of Evolution.\n\nNow stated in this abstract form this doctrine will be, and indeed if\nScience be admitted at all must be, accepted by everybody. Even the\nRoman Church, which holds that God is perpetually interfering with the\ncourse of nature, either in the interests of religious truth or out of\nloving kindness to His creatures, yet will acknowledge that the number\nof such interferences almost disappears in comparison of the countless\nmillions of instances in which there is no reason to believe in any\ninterference at all. And if we look at the universe as a whole, the\ngeneral proposition as stated above is quite unaffected by the\ninfinitesimal exception which is to be made by a believer in frequent\nmiracles. But when this proposition is applied in detail it at once\nintroduces the possibility of an entirely new history of the material\nuniverse. For this universe as we see it is almost entirely made up of\ncomposite and not of simple substances. We have been able to analyse all\nthe substances that we know into a comparatively small number of simple\nelements--some usually solid, some liquid, some gaseous. But these\nsimple elements are rarely found uncombined with others; most of those\nwhich we meet with in a pure state have been taken out of combination\nand reduced to simplicity by human agency. The various metals that we\nordinarily use are mostly found in a state of ore, and we do not\ngenerally obtain them pure except by smelting. The air we breathe,\nthough not a compound, is a mixture. The water which is essential to our\nlife is a compound. And, if we pass from inorganic to organic\nsubstances, all vegetables and animals are compound, sustained by\nvarious articles of food which go to make up their frames. Now, how have\nthese compounds been formed? It is quite possible that some of them, or\nall of them to some extent, may have been formed from the first. If\nScience could go back to the beginning of all things, which it obviously\ncannot, it might find the composition already accomplished, and be\ncompelled to start with it as a given fact--a fact as incapable of\nscientific explanation as the existence of matter at all. But, on the\nother hand, composition and decomposition is a matter of every-day\nexperience. Our very food could not nourish us except by passing through\nthese processes in our bodies; and by the same processes we prepare much\nof our food before consuming it. May not Science go back to the time\nwhen these processes had not yet begun? May not the starting-point of\nthe history of the universe be a condition in which the simple elements\nwere still uncombined? If Science could go back to the beginning of all\nthings, might we not find all the elements of material things ready\nindeed for the action of the inherent forces which would presently unite\nthem in an infinite variety of combinations, but as yet still separate\nfrom each other? Scattered through enormous regions of space, but drawn\ntogether by the force of gravitation; their original heat, whatever it\nmay have been, increased by their mutual collision; made to act\nchemically on one another by such increase or by subsequent decrease of\ntemperature; perpetually approaching nearer to the forms into which, by\nthe incessant action of the same forces, the present universe has grown;\nthese elements, and the working of the several laws of their own proper\nnature, may be enough to account scientifically for all the phenomena\nthat we observe. We do not even then get back to regularity. Why these\nelements, and no others; why in these precise quantities; why so\ndistributed in space; why endowed with these properties: still are\nquestions which Science cannot answer, and there seems no reason to\nexpect that any scientific answer will ever be possible. Nay, I know not\nwhether it may not be asserted that the impossibility of answering one\nat least among these questions is capable of demonstration. For the\nwhole system of things, as far as we know it, depends on the perpetual\nrotation of the heavenly bodies; and without original irregularity in\nthe distribution of matter no motion of rotation could ever have\nspontaneously arisen. And if this irregularity be thus original, Science\ncan give no account of it. Science, therefore, will have to begin with\nassuming certain facts for which it can never hope to account. But it\n_may_ begin by assuming that, speaking roughly, the universe was always\nvery much what we see it now, and that composition and decomposition\nhave always nearly balanced each other, and that there have been from\nthe beginning the same sun and moon and planets and stars in the sky,\nthe same animals on the earth and in the seas, the same vegetation, the\nsame minerals; and that though there have been incessant changes, and\npossibly all these changes in one general direction, yet these changes\nhave never amounted to what would furnish a scientific explanation of\nthe forms which matter has assumed. Or, on the other hand, Science _may_\nassert the possibility of going back to a far earlier condition of our\nmaterial system; may assert that all the forms of matter have grown up\nunder the action of laws and forces still at work; may take as the\ninitial state of our universe one or many enormous clouds of gaseous\nmatter, and endeavour to trace with more or less exactness how these\ngradually formed themselves into what we see. Science has lately leaned\nto the latter alternative. To a believer the alternative may be stated\nthus: We all distinguish between the original creation of the material\nworld and the history of it ever since. And we have, nay all men have,\nbeen accustomed to assign to the original creation a great deal that\nScience is now disposed to assign to the history. But the distinction\nbetween the original creation and the subsequent history would still\nremain, and for ever remain, although the portion assigned to the one\nmay be less, and that assigned to the other larger, than was formerly\nsupposed. However far back Science may be able to push its beginning,\nthere still must lie behind that beginning the original act of\ncreation--creation not of matter only, but of the various kinds of\nmatter, and of the laws governing all and each of those kinds, and of\nthe distribution of this matter in space.\n\nThis application of the abstract doctrine of Evolution gives it an\nenormous and startling expansion: so enormous and so startling that the\ndoctrine itself seems absolutely new. To say that the present grows by\nregular law out of the past is one thing; to say that it has grown out\nof a distant past in which as yet the present forms of life upon the\nearth, the present vegetation, the seas and islands and continents, the\nvery planet itself, the sun and moon, were not yet made--and all this\nalso by regular law--that is quite another thing. And the bearings of\nthis new application of Science deserve study.\n\nNow it seems quite plain that this doctrine of Evolution is in no sense\nwhatever antagonistic to the teachings of Religion, though it may be,\nand that we shall have to consider afterwards, to the teachings of\nrevelation. Why then should religious men independently of its relation\nto revelation shrink from it, as very many unquestionably do? The reason\nis that, whilst this doctrine leaves the truth of the existence and\nsupremacy of God exactly where it was, it cuts away, or appears to cut\naway, some of the main arguments for that truth.\n\nNow, in regard to the arguments whereby we have been accustomed to prove\nor to corroborate the existence of a Supreme Being, it is plain that, to\ntake these arguments away or to make it impossible to use them, is not\nto disprove or take away the truth itself. We find every day instances\nof men resting their faith in a truth on some grounds which we know to\nbe untenable, and we see what a terrible trial it sometimes is when they\nfind out that this is so, and know not as yet on what other ground they\nare to take their stand. And some men succumb in the trial and lose\ntheir faith together with the argument which has hitherto supported it.\nBut the truth still stands in spite of the failure of some to keep their\nbelief in it, and in spite of the impossibility of supporting it by the\nold arguments.\n\nAnd when men have become accustomed to rest their belief on new grounds\nthe loss of the old arguments is never found to be a very serious\nmatter. Belief in revelation has been shaken again and again by this\nvery increase of knowledge. It was unquestionably a dreadful blow to\nmany in the days of Galileo to find that the language of the Bible in\nregard to the movement of the earth and sun was not scientifically\ncorrect. It was a dreadful blow to many in the days of the Reformation\nto find that they had been misled by what they believed to be an\ninfallible Church.\n\nSuch shocks to faith try the mettle of men's moral and spiritual\nconviction, and they often refuse altogether to hold what they can no\nlonger establish by the arguments which have hitherto been to them the\ndecisive, perhaps the sole decisive, proofs.\n\nAnd yet in spite of these shocks belief in revelation is strong still in\nmen's souls, and is clearly not yet going to quit the world.\n\nBut let us go on to consider how far it is true that the arguments\nwhich have hitherto been regarded as proving the existence of a Supreme\nCreator are really affected very gravely by this doctrine of Evolution.\n\nThe main argument, which at first appears to be thus set aside, is that\nwhich is founded on the marks of design, and which is worked out in his\nown way with marvellous skill by Paley in his Natural Theology. Paley's\nargument rests as is well known on the evidence of design in created\nthings, and these evidences he chiefly finds in the frame-work of\norganised living creatures. He traces with much most interesting detail\nthe many marvellous contrivances by which animals of various kinds are\nadapted to the circumstances in which they are to live, the mechanism\nwhich enables them to obtain their food, to preserve their species, to\nescape their enemies, to remove discomforts. All nature thus examined,\nand particularly all animated nature, seems full of means towards ends,\nand those ends invariably such as a beneficent Creator might well be\nsupposed to have in view. And whilst there is undeniably one great\nobjection to his whole argument, namely that the Creator is represented\nas an Artificer rather than a Creator, as overcoming difficulties which\nstood in His way rather than as an Almighty Being fashioning things\naccording to His Will, yet the argument thus drawn from evidence of\ndesign remains exceedingly powerful, and it has always been considered a\nstrong corroboration of the voice within which bids us believe in a God.\nNow it certainly seems at first as if this argument were altogether\ndestroyed. If animals were not made as we see them, but evolved by\nnatural law, still more if it appear that their wonderful adaptation to\ntheir surroundings is due to the influence of those surroundings, it\nmight seem as if we could no longer speak of design as exhibited in\ntheir various organs; the organs we might say grow of themselves, some\nsuitable, and some unsuitable to the life of the creatures to which they\nbelonged, and the unsuitable have perished and the suitable have\nsurvived.\n\nBut Paley has supplied the clue to the answer. In his well-known\nillustration of the watch picked up on the heath by the passing\ntraveller, he points out that the evidence of design is certainly not\nlessened if it be found that the watch was so constructed that, in\ncourse of time, it produced another watch like itself. He was thinking\nnot of Evolution, but of the ordinary production of each generation of\nanimals from the preceding. But his answer can be pushed a step further,\nand we may with equal justice remark that we should certainly not\nbelieve it a proof that the watch had come into existence without design\nif we found that it produced in course of time not merely another watch\nbut a better. It would become more marvellous than ever if we found\nprovision thus made not merely for the continuance of the species but\nfor the perpetual improvement of the species. It is essential to animal\nlife that the animal should be adapted to its circumstances; if besides\nprovision for such adaptation in each generation we find provision for\nstill better adaptation in future generations, how can it be said that\nthe evidences of design are diminished? Or take any separate organ, such\nas the eye. It is impossible not to believe until it be disproved that\nthe eye was intended to see with. We cannot say that light was made for\nthe eye, because light subserves many other purposes besides that of\nenabling eyes to see. But that the eye was intended for light there is\nso strong a presumption that it cannot easily be rebutted. If indeed it\ncould be shown that eyes fulfilled several other functions, or that\nspecies of animals which always lived in the dark still had fully-formed\neyes, then we might say that the connexion between the eye of an animal\nand the light of heaven was accidental. But the contrary is notoriously\nthe case; so much the case that some philosophers have maintained that\nthe eye was formed by the need for seeing, a statement which I need take\nno trouble to refute, just as those who make it take no trouble to\nestablish, I will not say its truth, but even its possibility. But the\nfact, if it be a fact, that the eye was not originally as well adapted\nto see with as it is now, and that the power of perceiving light and of\nthings in the light grew by degrees, does not show, nor even tend to\nshow, that the eye was not intended for seeing with.\n\nThe fact is that the doctrine of Evolution does not affect the substance\nof Paley's argument at all. The marks of design which he has pointed out\nremain marks of design still even if we accept the doctrine of\nEvolution to the full. What is touched by this doctrine is not the\nevidence of design but the mode in which the design was executed. Paley,\nno doubt, wrote on the supposition (and at that time it was hardly\npossible to admit any other supposition) that we must take animals to\nhave come into existence very nearly such as we now know them: and his\nlanguage, on the whole, was adapted to that supposition. But the\nlanguage would rather need supplementing than changing to make it\napplicable to the supposition that animals were formed by Evolution. In\nthe one case the execution follows the design by the effect of a direct\nact of creation; in the other case the design is worked out by a slow\nprocess. In the one case the Creator made the animals at once such as\nthey now are; in the other case He impressed on certain particles of\nmatter which, either at the beginning or at some point in the history of\nHis creation He endowed with life, such inherent powers that in the\nordinary course of time living creatures such as the present were\ndeveloped. The creative power remains the same in either case; the\ndesign with which that creative power was exercised remains the same.\nHe did not make the things, we may say; no, but He made them make\nthemselves. And surely this rather adds than withdraws force from the\ngreat argument. It seems in itself something more majestic, something\nmore befitting Him to Whom a thousand years are as one day and one day\nas a thousand years, thus to impress His Will once for all on His\ncreation, and provide for all its countless variety by this one original\nimpress, than by special acts of creation to be perpetually modifying\nwhat He had previously made. It has often been objected to Paley's\nargument, as I remarked before, that it represents the Almighty rather\nas an artificer than a creator, a workman dealing with somewhat\nintractable materials and showing marvellous skill in overcoming\ndifficulties rather than a beneficent Being making all things in\naccordance with the purposes of His love. But this objection disappears\nwhen we put the argument into the shape which the doctrine of Evolution\ndemands and look on the Almighty as creating the original elements of\nmatter, determining their number and their properties, creating the law\nof gravitation whereby as seems probable the worlds have been formed,\ncreating the various laws of chemical and physical action, by which\ninorganic substances have been combined, creating above all the law of\nlife, the mysterious law which plainly contains such wonderful\npossibilities within itself, and thus providing for the ultimate\ndevelopment of all the many wonders of nature.\n\nWhat conception of foresight and purpose can rise above that which\nimagines all history gathered as it were into one original creative act\nfrom which the infinite variety of the Universe has come and more is\ncoming even yet?\n\nAnd yet again, it is a common objection to Paley's and similar arguments\nthat, in spite of all the tokens of intelligence and beneficence in the\ncreation, there is so much of the contrary character. How much there is\nof apparently needless pain and waste! And John Stuart Mill has urged\nthat either we must suppose the Creator wanting in omnipotence or\nwanting in kindness to have left His creation so imperfect. The answer\nusually given is that our knowledge is partial, and, could we see the\nwhole, the objection would probably disappear. But what force and\nclearness is given to this answer by the doctrine of Evolution which\ntells us that we are looking at a work which is not yet finished, and\nthat the imperfections are a necessary part of a large design the\ngeneral outlines of which we may already trace, but the ultimate issue\nof which, with all its details, is still beyond our perception! The\nimperfections are like the imperfections of a half-completed picture not\nyet ready to be seen; they are like the bud which will presently be a\nbeautiful flower, or the larva of a beautiful and gorgeous insect; they\nare like the imperfections in the moral character of a saint who\nnevertheless is changing from glory to glory.\n\nTo the many partial designs which Paley's Natural Theology points out,\nand which still remain what they were, the doctrine of Evolution adds\nthe design of a perpetual progress. Things are so arranged that animals\nare perpetually better adapted to the life they have to live. The very\nphrase which we commonly use to sum up Darwin's teaching, the survival\nof the fittest, implies a perpetual diminution of pain and increase of\nenjoyment for all creatures that can feel. If they are fitter for their\nsurroundings, most certainly they will find life easier to live. And, as\nif to mark still more plainly the beneficence of the whole work, the\nless developed creatures, as we have every reason to believe, are less\nsensible of pain and pleasure; so that enjoyment appears to grow with\nthe capacity for enjoyment, and suffering diminishes as sensitivity to\nsuffering increases. And there can be no doubt that this is in many ways\nthe tendency of nature. Beasts of prey are diminishing; life is easier\nfor man and easier for all animals that are under his care: many species\nof animals perish as man fills and subjugates the globe, but those that\nremain have far greater happiness in their lives. In fact, all the\npurposes which Paley traces in the formation of living creatures are not\nonly fulfilled by what the Creator has done, but are better fulfilled\nfrom age to age. And though the progress may be exceedingly slow, the\nnature of the progress cannot be mistaken.\n\nIf the Natural Theology were now to be written, the stress of the\nargument would be put on a different place. Instead of insisting wholly\nor mainly on the wonderful adaptation of means to ends in the structure\nof living animals and plants, we should look rather to the original\nproperties impressed on matter from the beginning, and on the beneficent\nconsequences that have flowed from those properties. We should dwell on\nthe peculiar properties that must be inherent in the molecules of the\noriginal elements to cause such results to follow from their action and\nreaction on one another. We should dwell on the part played in the\nUniverse by the properties of oxygen, the great purifier, and one of the\ngreat heat-givers; of carbon, the chief light-giver and heat-giver; of\nwater, the great solvent and the storehouse of heat; of the atmosphere\nand the vapours in it, the protector of the earth which it surrounds. We\nshould trace the beneficent effects of pain and pleasure in their\nsubservience to the purification of life. The marks of a purpose\nimpressed from the first on all creation would be even more visible than\never before.\n\nAnd we could not overlook the beauty of Nature and of all created things\nas part of that purpose coming in many cases out of that very survival\nof the fittest of which Darwin has spoken, and yet a distinct object in\nitself. For this beauty there is no need in the economy of nature\nwhatever. The beauty of the starry heavens, which so impressed the mind\nof Kant that he put it by the side of the Moral Law as proving the\nexistence of a Creator, is not wanted either for the evolution of the\nworld or for the preservation of living creatures. Our enjoyment of it\nis a super-added gift certainly not necessary for the existence or the\ncontinuance of our species. The beauty of flowers, according to the\nteaching of the doctrine of Evolution, has generally grown out of the\nneed which makes it good for plants to attract insects. The insects\ncarry the pollen from flower to flower, and thus as it were mix the\nbreed; and this produces the stronger plants which outlive the\ncompetition of the rest. The plants, therefore, which are most\nconspicuous gain an advantage by attracting insects most. That\nsuccessive generations of flowers should thus show brighter and brighter\ncolours is intelligible. But the beauty of flowers is far more than mere\nconspicuousness of colours even though that be the main ingredient. Why\nshould the wonderful grace, and delicacy, and harmony of tint be added?\nIs all this mere chance? Is all this superfluity pervading the whole\nworld and perpetually supplying to the highest of living creatures, and\nthat too in a real proportion to his superiority, the most refined and\nelevating of pleasures, an accident without any purpose at all? If\nEvolution has produced the world such as we see and all its endless\nbeauty, it has bestowed on our own dwelling-place in lavish abundance\nand in marvellous perfection that on which men spend their substance\nwithout stint, that which they value above all but downright\nnecessities, that which they admire beyond all except the Law of Duty\nitself. We cannot think that this is not designed, nor that the Artist\nwho produced it was blind to what was coming out of His work.\n\nOnce more, the doctrine of Evolution restores to the science of Nature\nthe unity which we should expect in the creation of God. Paley's\nargument proved design, but included the possibility of many designers.\nNot one design, but many separate designs, all no doubt of the same\ncharacter, but all worked out independently of one another, is the\npicture that he puts before us. But the doctrine of Evolution binds all\nexisting things on earth into one. Every mineral, every plant, every\nanimal has such properties that it benefits other things beside itself\nand derives benefit in turn. The insect developes the plant, and the\nplant the insect; the brute aids in the evolution of the man, and the\nman in that of the brute. All things are embraced in one great design\nbeginning with the very creation. He who uses the doctrine of Evolution\nto prove that no intelligence planned the world, is undertaking the\nself-contradictory task of showing that a great machine has no purpose\nby tracing in detail the marvellous complexity of its parts, and the\nstill more marvellous precision with which all work together to produce\na common result.\n\nTo conclude, the doctrine of Evolution leaves the argument for an\nintelligent Creator and Governor of the world stronger than it was\nbefore. There is still as much as ever the proof of an intelligent\npurpose pervading all creation. The difference is that the execution of\nthat purpose belongs more to the original act of creation, less to acts\nof government since. There is more divine foresight, there is less\ndivine interposition; and whatever has been taken from the latter has\nbeen added to the former.\n\nSome scientific students of Nature may fancy they can deduce in the\nworking out of the theory results inconsistent with religious belief;\nand in a future Lecture these will have to be examined; and it is\npossible that the theory may be so presented as to be inconsistent with\nthe teaching of Revelation. But whatever may be the relation of the\ndoctrine of Evolution to Revelation, it cannot be said that this\ndoctrine is antagonistic to Religion in its essence. The progress of\nScience in this direction will assuredly end in helping men to believe\nwith more assurance than ever that the Lord by wisdom hath founded the\nearth, by understanding hath He established the heavens.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V.\n\n\nREVELATION THE MEANS OF DEVELOPING AND COMPLETING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.\n\nThe evolution of Knowledge. Does not affect the truth of Science. Nor of\nReligion. Special characteristic of evolution of Religious Knowledge,\nthat it is due to Revelation. All higher Religions have claimed to be\nRevelations. The evolution of Religious Knowledge in the Old Testament;\nyet the Old Testament a Revelation. Still more the New Testament. The\nmiraculous element in Revelation. Its place and need. Harmony of this\nmode of evolution with the teaching of the Spiritual Faculty.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V.\n\n\nREVELATION THE MEANS OF DEVELOPING AND COMPLETING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.\n\n     'God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past\n     to the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken to\n     us by His Son.' _Hebrews_ i. 1.\n\nThe doctrine of Evolution has been applied not only to the formation of\nall created things, but to the development of human knowledge; and this\nwith perfect justice, though with some risk of misunderstanding. It is\ncertain, and, indeed, it is obvious, that knowledge grows. The ordinary\nexperience of mankind becomes larger and clearer in the course of time,\nand the systematised experience which we call Science makes the same\nprogress in still greater measure and with more assurance.\n\nOur Science has been built on the labours of scientific men in past\nages. New generalisations imagined by one thinker, new crucial\nexperiments devised by another, new instruments of observation invented\nby another,--these have been the steps by which Science has grown and\nestablished its authority and enlarged its dominion. When or by whom the\nfirst steps were made we have no record. No mathematician that ever\nlived showed greater natural power of intellect than he, whoever he was,\nwho first saw that the singular contained the universal; but we know\nneither his name nor his age, nor his birthplace nor his race. But after\nthose first steps had been taken, we know who have been the leaders in\nscientific advance. And we know what they have done, and what they are\ndoing; and we can conjecture the direction in which further advances\nwill be made. And so we can trace the development of this kind of\nknowledge, and in a certain and very real sense this development may be\ncalled an evolution.\n\nBut there is this difference between the evolution of nature and the\nevolution of the science of nature. The evolution of nature results in\nthe existence of forms which did not exist before; the evolution of\nknowledge results in the perception of laws which were already in\nexistence.\n\nThe knowledge grows, but the things known remain. The knowledge is not\ntreated as if independent of the things known or believed to be known,\nas a phenomenon belonging merely to the human mind, with beginnings and\nlaws and consequences and history of its own. And, consequently, its\nhaving a regular growth is not used as an argument against its\nsubstantial truth.\n\nThe Science of Mathematics, for instance, has a history; but no\nmathematician will admit that the fact that it has a history affects its\nclaims to acceptance as truth. We may ask, how men have been brought to\nbelieve the deductions of the higher mathematics, and we may answer our\nown question by tracing the steps; but our conviction is not shaken that\nthese deductions are true.\n\nAnd so, too, we can trace the steps by which the great generalisations\nof Science have been reached, and we may show that Kepler grew out of\nCopernicus, and Newton out of Kepler; but the proof that the knowledge\nof one truth has been evolved out of the knowledge of another, and that\nout of the knowledge of another, is not used to show that all this\nScience has nothing to do with truth at all, but is only a natural\ngrowth of human thought. Science has grown through all manner of\nmistakes--mistakes made by the greatest thinkers and observers, mistakes\nwhich men ignorantly laugh at now, as their own mistakes will be no\ndoubt laughed at in turn hereafter. But we do not, therefore, treat\nscientific thought as nothing more than one of the phenomena of\nhumanity; ways of thinking which necessarily grew out of the conditions\nin which men have existed, but sufficiently accounted for by their\norigin and mode of growth having been shown, and having no solidity of\ntheir own.\n\nWhat has been said of Science may be said also of Religion. Religion\nalso has had its development, and in some respects a development\nparallel to that of Science.\n\nIt is possible to trace the steps by which men have obtained an ever\nlarger and fuller knowledge of the Supreme Law of Right, a clearer\nperception of its application, of its logical results, of its relation\nto life, to conduct, to belief. It has grown through mistakes as Science\nhas. There has been false Religion, as there has been false Science.\nUnsound principles of conduct have been inculcated in Religion as\nunsound generalisations have been set up in Science. There have been\nimproper objects of reverence in Religion, as there have been impossible\naims proposed for scientific investigation. Ezekiel rises above the\ndoctrine that the children are punished for the sins of their parents,\njust as Galileo rises above the doctrine that nature abhors a vacuum.\nThe parallel is all the more complete in that in many cases false\nreligions have been also false sciences. The prayer to the fetish for\nrain is as contrary to true religion as it is contrary to true science.\nMany false religions are most easily overthrown by scientific\ninstruction. Many false sciences begin to totter when the believers in\nthem are taught true religion. The ordinary superstitions which have so\nstrong a hold on weak characters and uninstructed minds, are as\ninconsistent with true faith in God as with reasonable knowledge of\nnature. Science grows, but the facts, whether laws or instances of the\noperations of those laws, are not affected by that growth. And Religion\ngrows, but the facts of which it takes cognisance are not affected by\nthat growth. Neither in the one case nor in the other is the fact that\nthere has been a development any argument to show that the belief thus\ndeveloped has no real foundation. The pure subjectivity of Religion, to\nuse technical language, is no more proved by this argument than the pure\nsubjectivity of Science.\n\nBut there is one most important particular in which the development of\nReligion entirely differs from the development of Science. The leaders\nof scientific thought, from the time that Science has been conscious of\nitself, have never claimed direct divine instruction. For a long time,\nindeed, scientific thought rested largely on tradition, and that\ntradition was handed on from generation to generation without any\nexamination into its foundations. The stores of past observations seemed\nso very much larger in quantity than any that men could add in their own\nday, that it was natural to give more weight to what was received than\nto what was newly observed. The experience of each generation in\nsuccession seemed nothing in comparison with the accumulated experience\nof all preceding generations. And in many cases old traditions stopped\nthe growth of Science by preventing the acceptance of observations\ninconsistent with them. But such old traditions never claimed to rest on\na revelation from God; or, if such a claim was made here and there, it\nnever had strength enough to root itself in Science and form part of the\nrecognised authority on which Science stood.\n\nScience, from the time when it recognised itself as Science, has owed\nits development to observation of nature, and long before it shook off\nthe fetters of unexamined tradition it had disclaimed, even for that\ntradition, any other basis than this. But not so Religion. Many\nreligions, and among them the purer and higher religions, in proportion\nto their nearer approach to perfection, have claimed to rest on a Divine\nRevelation, and to be something more than either speculations of\nphilosophic observers of nature, or deductions from innate principles of\nreason or conscience. Not thinkers, but prophets, or men claiming to be\nprophets, have given the purest religions to their disciples among\nmankind. It has always been possible to bring all religious teaching to\nthe bar of conscience; it has been possible to put all religious\nteaching to logical examination; to systematise its precepts, whether of\nfaith or conduct; to inquire into its fundamental principles, and to ask\nfor the authority on which the whole teaching rests. But these\napplications of our intellectual faculties to Religion have always been\nadmitted as coming after, not as preceding, the teaching to which they\nare made. The prophet does sometimes reason when he is deducing from\nprinciples already accepted, new precepts, or new prohibitions; but he\ndoes not confine himself to such reasoning in the fulfilment of his\nmission. He professes to have a message to give. He will accredit it by\nsuch means as He supplies Who has sent him with this message. He will,\nin order to open the consciences of his hearers, appeal to past\nrevelations which they have already received, and with which his new\nmessage is in thorough harmony; but he often appeals also to his power\nover nature to bear witness that the Lord of nature has sent him. The\nHebrew prophet will appeal to the teaching of the Law, will repeat the\nold revelation with its old unshaken and unshakeable precepts, but he\nwill not stop there: he will also give signs from the Lord to prove that\nhe has a right to the title of prophet which he claims. Armed with this\ntitle, he will go on to predict the coming of the Great Restorer, the\nMessiah; he will insist on the judgment of all things, sure to be passed\nin its appointed day; he will hint at the immortality of the soul, and\nthe execution of the Almighty justice on every man that lives.\n\nIt is probable enough that many of the inferior religions have grown up\nwith no such claim at all. The worship of ancestors, where it has\nprevailed, has very likely, as has been suggested, grown out of dreams,\nin which loving memory has brought back in sleep vivid images of the\ndead who were reverenced while they lived, and cannot be readily\nforgotten after death. Such worship barely attains to what may be called\nin strictness a religion. Its connexion with the spiritual faculty, the\ntrue seat of religion, is weak and vague. It is like the honour paid to\na sovereign residing in a distant capital, with only the difference\nthat those who receive this worship are supposed to reside not in a\ndistant capital, but in another world. So, too, the worship of fetishes,\nof trees, of serpents, of the heavenly bodies, while they have some of\nthe inferior elements of religion in them, yet hardly deserve to be\ncalled religions. There is in them the sentiment of fear, the\nacknowledgment of persons or some resemblance of persons imperceptible\nby the senses; the acknowledgment of powers possessed by these persons.\nBut the central idea of a rule of holiness is either altogether wanting,\nor so very feeble and indistinct as to contain no promise of developing\ninto ultimate supremacy. These religions do not often lay claim to a\nrevelation from a supreme authority. And they have withered away with\nthe growth of knowledge and with clearer perceptions of what Religion\nmust be if it is to exist at all.\n\nAll the higher religions have claimed to rest on a divine revelation,\nand the Christian Religion on a series of such revelations. The\nChristian Religion does not profess (as does for instance the\nMahommedan) to be wrapped up in one divine communication made to one\nman and admitting thereafter of no modifications. Though resting on\ndivine revelation it is professedly a development, and is thus in\nharmony with the Creator's operations in nature. Whether we consider\nwhat is taught concerning the heavenly Moral Law, or concerning human\nnature and its moral and spiritual needs, or concerning Almighty God and\nHis dealings with us His creatures, it is undeniable that the teaching\nof the Bible is quite different at the end from what it is at the\nbeginning.\n\nThe New Testament considered by itself as a body of teaching is such an\nadvance on all that preceded it as to be quite unique in the history of\nthe world. The ideas conveyed in the Old Testament are absorbed,\ntransformed, completed, so as to make them as a whole entirely new; and\nto these are added entirely new ideas sufficient by themselves to form a\nwhole system of doctrine. And because of this it is difficult to speak\nof the new teaching as having grown out of the old.\n\nBut the Old Testament covers many centuries, and within its range we\ncan trace a steady growth, and that growth always of the same character,\nand always pointing towards what the Gospel finally revealed. The\nstrength of the moral sentiment in the earlier books is always assigned\nto the belief in, and reverence for, Almighty God. It is evidently held\nto be more important to believe in God and to fear Him than to see the\nperfection of His holiness. If we distinguish between Religion and\nMorality, Religion is made the more important of the two. It is more\nimportant to recognise that the holy God exists and reigns than to see\nclearly in what His holiness, and indeed all holiness, consists. The\nsentiment of reverence is more important than the perception of that\nuniversality which we now know to be the essential characteristic of the\nMoral Law. In analysing the origin and nature of Religion in the second\nof these Lectures, it was necessary to follow the order of thought, and\nbeginning with Duty to end with God. But the order of fact is not the\nsame. In actual fact man began with God and ends with a clearer\nperception of Duty. Hence in all the earlier stages the morality is\nimperfect. The profaneness of Esau is a serious offence. The ungenerous\ntemper, the unfairness and duplicity of Jacob are light in comparison.\nTruth is not an essential. Blood-shedding and impurity when in horrible\nexcess are treated as most grievous sins; but restrained within limits\nare easily condoned. Women are placed below their true and natural\nplace; polygamy if not distinctly allowed is certainly condoned; divorce\nis permitted on one side, not on the other. Slavery is allowed though\nput under regulation. But the unity and spirituality of God are guarded\nwith the strongest sanctions, and nothing could be said against idolatry\nand polytheism now, in sterner and clearer language than was used then.\nThe reverence for God required then was as great as the reverence\nrequired now. But the conception of the holiness which is the main\nobject of that reverence has changed; has in fact been purified and\ncleared. And the change is traceable in the Old Testament. The prophets\nteach a higher morality than is found in the earlier books. Cruelty is\ncondemned as it had not been before. The heathen are not regarded as\noutside God's love, and the future embraces them in His mercy even if\nthe present does not. Conscience begins to be recognised and appealed\nto. Idolatry is not merely forbidden, its folly is exposed; it is\ntreated not only with condemnation, but with scorn. Individual\nresponsibility is insisted on. Children are not held responsible for\ntheir fathers, though the inheritance of moral evil and of the\nconsequences of moral evil is never denied. And even trust in God rises\nto a higher level in Habakkuk's declaration that that trust shall never\nbe shaken by any calamity that may befall him, than in the earlier\nbelief that calamities would never befall those who held fast that\ntrust.\n\nIf we review this progress in moral teaching we recognise that it\ncorresponds to the natural and for the most part unconscious working of\nthat instinctive test which, as was pointed out before, we apply to all\nmoral questions, the test of universality. The pivots of all the\nprophetical teaching are the incessant inculcation of justice and mercy;\njustice which requires us to recognise the rights of others side by\nside with our own; mercy which demands our sympathy with the feelings of\nother creatures that can feel.\n\nWe are bound to recognise the claims of others to equal treatment with\nourselves, and any refusal or apparent refusal to do so must be\njustified by a universal rule applicable to all alike. The perpetual\nattempt to justify exceptions in this way is sure to end in diminishing\nthe number of those exceptions. If we are compelled to think much of the\nposition of woman in marriage, we are sure at last to come to Malachi's\ndeclaration that God hateth putting away. If we are compelled to think\nof the position of slaves, we cannot continue for ever to believe that\nthere are some beings with consciences and free wills, who nevertheless,\nbecause of the accidents of their lives, have no rights at all; and we\nacknowledge the righteousness of Jeremiah's denunciation of the breach\nof covenant when the nobles of Judah re-enslaved those whom they had\nsolemnly emancipated. If we think of the nature of responsibility and\nthe justification of punishment, we find it impossible to believe that\nan innocent man shall be rightly punished for the wrong-doing of\nanother, even if that other be his father or his mother; and we are\nconvinced that Ezekiel is speaking God's words when he proclaims on\nGod's behalf that 'the soul that sinneth it shall die; the son shall not\nbear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the\niniquity of the son.' And once more, whatever divine purpose gave the\nchosen people a priority among all peoples in knowledge of divine will\nand possession of divine favour, it is impossible to find any rule by\nwhich this priority shall for ever exclude all other peoples from being\nwithin the range of God's manifested love; and conscience cannot but\naccept as a divine message that the Gentiles also shall come to the\nHeavenly 'Light, and their kings to the brightness of His rising.' So\nagain, to turn from justice to mercy, we recognise that we are bound to\nspare pain to all creatures that can feel, and this duty can only be set\naside by some higher duty which makes that pain the means to a higher\nmoral end. And if we are set by our consciences to seek for some rule\nof universal application for this purpose, it becomes perpetually\nclearer that nothing can excuse cruel punishments inflicted on criminals\nor enemies, or hard-hearted indifference to the poor and the weak. Our\nown nature cries out for kindness in our pain, and that very cry from\nwithin compels our consciences to listen to the cry from without. And\nthe denunciations of cruelty and oppression we recognise as we hear them\nto be the voice of God.\n\nBut however true it be that this progress corresponds exactly throughout\nwith the necessary working of the great moral principles implanted in\nthe spiritual faculty, it nevertheless remains true also that all this\nteaching in its successive stages is given by men who did not profess to\nbe working out a philosophical system, but who claimed to bring a\nmessage from God, to speak by His authority, and in many cases to be\ntrusted with special powers in proof of possessing that authority.\nLooking back over it afterwards we can see that the teaching in its\nsuccessive stages was a development, but it always took the form of a\nrevelation. And its life was due to that fact. As far as it is possible\nto judge, that union between Morality and Religion, between duty and\nfaith, without which both religion and morality soon wither out of human\nconsciences, can only be secured--has only been secured--by presenting\nspiritual truth in this form of a Revelation.\n\nWhen we pass to the New Testament, all that has previously been taught\nin the Old, in so far as it is related to the new teaching at all, is\nrelated as the bud to the flower. The development, if it be indeed a\ndevelopment, is so great, so sudden, so strange, that it seems difficult\nto recognise that it is a development at all.\n\nFirst, the morality is in form, if not in substance, absolutely new. The\nduty of justice and mercy is pushed at once to its extreme limits, even\nto the length of entire self-surrender. The disciple has his own rights\nno doubt, as every other man has his; but he is required to leave his\nrights in God's hands and to think of the rights of others only. The\nhighest place is assigned to meekness in conduct and humility in spirit.\nThe humility of the Sermon on the Mount may possibly by careful\nanalysis be shown to be identical at bottom with the magnanimity of\nAristotle's Ethics. But the presentation of the two is so utterly\nopposed that in the effect on life the identity is altogether lost. And\nas justice and mercy, so too self-discipline is pushed as far as it can\ngo. Instead of the enjoyment of life being an integral part of the aim\nset before the will, hunger and thirst for righteousness, and penitence\nfor failure in keeping to it, are to fill up the believer's hopes for\nhimself. Of inward satisfaction and peace he is often assured; but\nthese, and these only, are the means to that peace. The disciple's life\nis to consist in bearing the cross, and bearing it cheerfully; in\nreturning good for evil, and love for indifference and even for hatred;\nin detaching his affections from all the pleasures to be obtained from\nexternal things; in fixing his trust and his love on his Eternal Father.\nTaken as a whole, this is quite unlike all moral teaching that preceded\nit, and there is no indication that any philosophy could ever have\nevolved it. It has fastened on the human conscience from the day that\nit was uttered; and whatever moral teaching since has not been inspired\nfrom this source has soon passed out of power and been forgotten. We\nfind when we examine that it exactly agrees with the fundamental\nteaching of the spiritual faculty when that teaching is applied to such\ncreatures as we are, and to such a God as the New Testament sets before\nus. But we find it impossible to assert that by any working of human\nthought this morality could have been obtained by the spiritual faculty\nunaided. On the contrary, it seems more near the truth to say that we\ncould never have obtained so clear a conception of the great Moral Law,\nif the teaching of the New Testament had not enlightened and purified\nthe spiritual faculty itself. And to this is to be added that the moral\nteaching of the New Testament recognises what we may now almost consider\na proved necessity of our nature, or at least a sure characteristic of\nthe government of the world, that perpetual progress without which\nnothing human seems to keep sweet and wholesome. Perfect as the New\nTestament morality is in spirit, it is nevertheless imperfect in actual\nprecepts. It leaves questions to be solved some of which have not been\nsolved yet. It left slavery untouched, though assuredly doomed. It said\nnothing of patriotism. It gave no clear command concerning the right use\nof wealth. It laid down no principles for the government of states,\nthough such principles must have a moral basis. There has been a\nperpetual growth in the understanding and in the application of this\nperfect teaching, and there will yet be a growth. Of no philosophical\nsystem of morals is it possible to say the same.\n\nBut in the second place, the New Testament contains not only a new\nmorality, it contains also a new account of human nature. The mystery of\nthat discord which makes the noblest and best of human souls a scene of\nperpetual internal conflict is acknowledged and its counterpart in God's\ndealings with mankind is set forth. The struggle between the spiritual\nfaculty asserting its due supremacy, and the lower passions and\nappetites, impulses and inclinations, is so described by Saint Paul that\nnone have ever since questioned his description with any effect. And our\nLord's teaching of our absolute dependence on God and helplessness\nwithout Him; and Saint John's teaching that the whole world, outside\nChrist, 'lieth in the wicked one,' lay down the same truth. And as the\nmystery of moral evil in mankind is thus set forth, so too the mystery\nof the remedy for that evil. In the love of God shown in the Cross of\nChrist, in our union with God through that same Death upon the Cross is\nthe power which conquers evil in the soul and carries a man ever upward\nto spiritual heights. And as all profounder thinkers have confessed the\ntruth of the account thus given of the internal contradiction of man's\nmoral nature, so have all believers borne witness (and only they could\nbear witness) to the account thus given of the solution of that\ncontradiction and the renovation of that nature. Millions have lived and\ndied in the Christian faith since the teaching recorded in the New\nTestament was given, and among them have been the purest, the justest,\nthe most self-sacrificing, the most heavenly-minded of mankind. And they\nall concur in saying that the one stay of all their spiritual lives has\nbeen communion with God through Christ.\n\nThirdly, the New Testament affirms with a clearness previously unknown\nthe immortality of the soul and the future gift of that spiritual body\nwhich shall in some way spring from the natural body as the plant grows\nfrom the seed. There had grown up, no doubt quite naturally,\nanticipations of this doctrine and ever stronger and more deeply-rooted\npersuasion that it must be true. But it is revealed in the New Testament\nas it is taught nowhere else, and it is sealed by the Resurrection of\nour Lord, ever since then the historical centre of the Christian Faith.\nHow exactly it harmonises with the teaching of the spiritual faculty I\nhave pointed out before.\n\nAnd, lastly, the New Testament not only tells us what never was told\nbefore of man's nature as a spiritual being and of his destiny\nhereafter; it tells also what was never told elsewhere of the nature of\nGod and of the relations between Him and His creature man. The unity and\nspirituality of the Godhead so strenuously insisted on in the Old\nTestament, is no less insisted on in the New. But the mysterious\ncomplexity embraced within that unity, though darkly hinted at in the\nolder teaching, is nowhere clearly set forth, but in the latter. We may\nfind anticipations of the teaching of St. Paul and St. John, and of our\nLord Himself as recorded by St. John, in the Book of Proverbs, in the\nProphets, in the Rabbinical writers between the Prophets and the New\nTestament, and we can see in Philo to what this finally came unaided by\nRevelation. But the Christian teaching on our Lord's nature and on the\nIncarnation is distinct from all this. And it is in the Christian form,\nand only in that form, that the doctrine has satisfied the spiritual\nneeds of the great mass of believers.\n\nNow there cannot be any doubt that the hold which this teaching has had\nupon mankind has depended entirely on the extraordinary degree in which\nthe teaching of the Bible has satisfied the conscience. Without that no\nmiracles however overwhelmingly attested, no external evidence of\nwhatever kind, could have compelled intellects of the highest rank, side\nby side with the most uncultivated and the most barren, to accept it as\ndivine, nor could anything else have so often rekindled its old fire at\ntimes when faith in it had apparently withered away. The teaching of\nthe Bible has always found and must always find its main evidence within\nthe human soul.\n\nAnd the fact that the teaching of the Bible, though when examined\nafterwards it turns out to be development or evolution, yet was always\ngiven at the time as a revelation, so far from diminishing the force of\nthis internal evidence adds to it still more force than it would\notherwise have. For what underlies the very conception of revelation is\nthe doctrine that all progress in higher spiritual knowledge is bound up\nwith conscious communion with God. Now it is an experience common to all\nbelievers that in that communion is to be found not only all strength\nbut all enlightenment also. The believer knows that he learns spiritual\ntruth in proportion as he refers his life to God's judgment, prays to\nGod for clearer vision of what is duty and what is right faith, and\nmakes it his one great aim to do God's will. He uses all the faculties\nthat God has given him to understand the great divine law; but he\nperpetually looks to God for instruction, and whatever else may be said\nof that instruction his experience tells him that his advance in\nspiritual knowledge is in proportion to his nearness in thought and\nfeeling to God Himself. That the progress of the human race in spiritual\nknowledge, unlike progress in scientific knowledge, should be due not to\nthinkers intellectually gifted, but to Prophets and Apostles inspired by\nGod, thus exactly corresponds with what the spiritually-minded man finds\nwithin his own soul. And so too does it correspond with what he sees in\nothers. Often and often the unlearned and untrained by sheer goodness of\nlife attain to wonderful perception of spiritual truth, and the holiness\nof the unlettered peasant reveals to his conscience the law of right\nconduct in circumstances which perplex the disciplined and well\ninformed. As the human race has learnt the highest spiritual truth by\ndirect communication from God, so too on communion with God far more\nthan on intellectual power, depends the progress of spiritual knowledge\nin every human soul.\n\nBut though the hold of the Bible on the faith of believers\nunquestionably depends on its satisfying the conscience in every stage\nof its enlightenment, it is equally certain that those who gave the\nmessages recorded in the Bible claimed something more as proof of their\nauthority than the approval of the conscience of their hearers. They\nprofessed to prove their mission by the evidence of supernatural powers;\nand the teaching of the Bible cannot be dissociated from the miraculous\nelement in it which is connected with that teaching. If, indeed, the Old\nTestament stood alone we might acknowledge that the miraculous element\nin it occupied comparatively so small a place, and was so separable from\nthe rest, and the evidence for it was so rarely, if ever,\ncontemporaneous, that it might be left out of count. But we cannot say\nthis of the New Testament, nor in particular of the account that has\nreached us of the sayings and doings of our Lord. The miracles are\nembedded in, are indeed intertwined with, the narrative. Many of our\nLord's most characteristic sayings are so associated with narratives of\nmiracles that the two cannot be torn apart: 'I have not seen so great\nfaith, no, not in Israel;' 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;'\n'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee;' 'Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees\nand the Sadducees;' 'It is not meet to take the children's bread and\ncast it to dogs;' 'This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting;'\n'Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?' 'Sin no more,\nlest a worse thing come unto thee.' In fact, there can be no real doubt\nthat our Lord believed that He could work miracles, and professed to\nwork them, and that His disciples believed that He worked many, and\nincluded that fact in their meaning when they spoke of Him as going\nabout doing good. And these disciples professed to work miracles\nthemselves and believed that they did work them. It is of course true\nthat they had no strictly scientific conception of a miracle, and would\noften have called by that name what was in reality extraordinary but not\nmiraculous. And it is true too that, if we take each miracle by itself,\nthere is but one miracle, namely our Lord's Resurrection, for which\nclear and unmistakeable and sufficient evidence is given. But while the\nexclusion of any one miracle as insufficiently attested is possible, the\nexclusion of the miraculous element altogether is not possible without a\ncomplete surrender of the position taken by the first Christian\nteachers. As they claimed to be inspired and to have enlightenment which\nwas not shared by mankind at large, so did they claim, if not each for\nhimself, yet certainly for our Lord, power not shared by ordinary men,\npower to step out of the ordinary course of natural events, and, whether\nby virtue of some higher law operative only in rare instances, or by\ndirect interference of the Almighty, to prove a divine mission by\nexhibiting in fact what is an essential part of the supremacy of the\nMoral Law, the dominion of that Law over the physical world.\n\nThe teachers of other religions besides the Christian have claimed\nsupernatural powers, and have professed to give a supernatural message.\nThis is a strong evidence of the deep-seated need in the human soul for\nsuch a direct communication from God to man. Men seem to need it so much\nthat without it they are unable to accept the truth, or to hold it long\nif they do accept it. All who thus claim supernatural authority must, of\ncourse, justify their claim. They must justify their message to the\nhuman conscience. What they teach must be an advance towards, and\nfinally an expression of, the Supreme Moral Law. And if they profess to\nhave miraculous power they must give reasonable evidence that such power\nis really theirs. But if they fail in this, still the fact remains that\ntheir very claim must answer to something in the spiritual nature of\nman, or it would not be so invariably made nor so largely successful.\n\nIt seems as if, whatever may be the ground of belief when once\nrevelation has penetrated into the soul, the exercise of supernatural\npower was needed to procure that access in the first instance. We\nbelieve because we find our consciences satisfied, and we bring up our\nchildren in such discipline of conscience that they too shall have\nsufficient training to recognise and hold fast divine truth. And if we\nhad lived at the time and could have had our eyes opened to see the\nspiritual power of the Christian Faith, we might have believed without\nany external evidence at all. But the first receivers of the message, to\nwhom the revelation was new, and, as must have often happened and we\nactually know did happen, to whom it was hard to reconcile that\nrevelation with previous teaching, how sure were they to need some\nother and outer evidence that it really came from God. The supernatural\nin the form of miracles can never be the highest kind of evidence, can\nnever stand alone as evidence; but it seems to have been needed for the\nfirst reception. And there seem to be minds that need it still, and to\nall it is a help to find that reasonable ground can be shown for holding\nthat such evidence was originally given.\n\nRevelation, in short, takes a higher stand than belongs to all other\nteaching, and except for its having taken that higher stand it does not\nappear that the highest teaching would have been possible. To look back\nafterwards and say that we find a development or an evolution is easy.\nAnd at first sight it seems to follow that, being an evolution, it may\nwell be no more than the outcome of the working of the natural forces.\nBut look closer and you see the undeniable fact that all these\ndevelopments by the working of natural forces have perished. Not\nSocrates, nor Plato, nor Aristotle, nor the Stoics, nor Philo have been\nable to lay hold of mankind, nor have their moral systems in any large\ndegree satisfied our spiritual faculty. Revelation, and revelation\nalone, has taught us; and it is from the teaching of revelation that men\nhave obtained the very knowledge which some now use to show that there\nwas no need of revelation. That altruism which is now to displace the\ncommand of God is nothing but the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount\nrobbed of its heavenly power, robbed of the great doctrine which\nunderlies the whole sermon. For that doctrine is the Fatherhood of God\nwhich has been shown most especially in this, that from the beginning He\nhas never forgotten His children.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI.\n\n\nAPPARENT COLLISION BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.\n\nEvolution examined. The formation of the habitable world. The formation\nof the creatures which inhabit it. Transmission of characteristics.\nVariations perpetually introduced. Natural selection. On the other side,\nlife not yet accounted for by Evolution. Cause of variations not yet\nexamined. Moral Law incapable of being evolved. Account given in Genesis\nnot at variance with doctrine of Evolution. Evolution of man not\ninconsistent with dignity of humanity.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI.\n\n\nAPPARENT COLLISION BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.\n\n     'Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and\n     not we ourselves.' _Psalm_ c. 3.\n\nReligion is rooted in our spiritual nature and its fundamental truths\nare as independent of experience for their hold on our consciences as\nthe truths of mathematics for their hold on our reason.\n\nBut as a matter of fact Religion has taken the form of a revelation. And\nthis introduces a new contact between Religion and Science, and of\nnecessity a new possibility of collision. There is not only possible\nopposition or apparent opposition of Science in what is revealed, in\nwhat we may call the actual substance of the revelation; but also in the\naccessories and evidences of the revelation, which may be no actual part\nof the revelation itself, but nevertheless are, to all appearance,\ninseparably bound up with it. It is therefore no more than might have\nbeen expected that the general postulate of the uniformity of nature\nshould appear to be contravened by the claim to supernatural power made\non behalf of revelation, and that the special, but just at present\nleading scientific doctrine, the doctrine of Evolution, should be found\ninconsistent with parts, or what appear to be parts, of the revelation\nitself. And we have to consider the two questions, What has Revelation\nto say concerning Evolution? and what has Science to say concerning\nMiracles?\n\nConcerning Evolution, we have first to consider how much in this\ndirection has been made fairly probable, and what still remains to be\ndetermined.\n\nIt cannot then be well denied that the astronomers and geologists have\nmade it exceedingly probable that this earth on which we live has been\nbrought to its present condition by passing through a succession of\nchanges from an original state of great heat and fluidity, perhaps even\nfrom a mixture mainly consisting of gases; that such a body as the\nplanet Jupiter represents one of the stages through which it has passed,\nthat such a body as the moon represents a stage toward which it is\ntending; that it has shrunk as it cooled, and as it shrank has formed\nthe elevations which we call mountains, and the depressions which\ncontain the seas and oceans; that it has been worn by the action of heat\nfrom within and water from without, and in consequence of this action\npresents the appearance when examined below the surface of successive\nstrata or layers; that different kinds of animal and vegetable life have\nfollowed one another on the surface, and that some of their remains are\nfound in these strata now; and that all this has taken enormous periods\nof time. All this is exceedingly probable, because it is the way in\nwhich, as Laplace first pointed out, under well-established scientific\nlaws of matter, particularly the law of gravitation and the law of the\nradiation of heat, a great fluid mass would necessarily change. And the\nwhole solar system may and probably did come into its present condition\nin this way. It certainly could have been so formed, and there is no\nreason for supposing that it was formed in any other way.\n\nOnce more, if we begin, as it were, at the other end, and trace things\nbackwards from the present, instead of forwards from the remote past, it\ncannot be denied that Darwin's investigations have made it exceedingly\nprobable that the vast variety of plants and animals have sprung from a\nmuch smaller number of original forms.\n\nIn the first place, the unity of plan which can be found pervading any\ngreat class of animals or plants seems to point to unity of ancestry.\nWhy, for instance, should the vertebrate animals be formed on a common\nplan, the parts of the framework being varied from species to species,\nbut the framework as a whole always exhibiting the same fundamental\ntype? If they all descended from a common ancestor, and the variations\nwere introduced in the course of that descent, this remarkable fact is\nat once accounted for. But, in the second place, observation shows that\nslight variations ARE perpetually being introduced with every\nsuccessive generation, and many of these variations are transmitted to\nthe generations that follow. In the course of time, therefore, from any\none parent stock would descend a very large variety of kinds. But if, in\nthe third place, it be asked why this variety does not range by\nimperceptible degrees from extreme forms in one direction to extreme\nforms in the other, the answer is to be found in the enormous\nprodigality and the equally enormous waste of life and living creatures.\nPlants and animals produce far more descendants than ever come even to\nsuch maturity as to reproduce their kind. And this is particularly the\ncase with the lower forms of life. Eggs and seeds and germs are\ndestroyed by millions, and so in a less but still enormous proportion\nare the young that come from those that have not been destroyed. There\nis no waste like the waste of life that is to be seen in nature. Living\ncreatures are destroyed by lack of fit nourishment, by lack of means of\nreproduction, by accidents, by enemies. The inevitable operation of this\nwaste, as Darwin's investigation showed, has been to destroy all those\nvarieties which were not well fitted to their surroundings, and to keep\nthose that were. One species of animal has been preserved by length of\nneck, which enabled it to reach high-growing fruits and leaves; another\nby a thicker skin, which made it difficult for enemies to devour;\nanother by a colour which made it easier to hide. One plant has been\npreserved by a bright flower which attracted insects to carry its pollen\nto other flowers of its kind; another by a sweet fruit which attracted\nbirds to scatter its seed. Meanwhile other animals and plants that had\nnot these advantages perished for the lack of them. The result would be\nto maintain, and perpetually, though with exceeding slowness, more and\nmore to adapt to the conditions of their life, those species whose\npeculiarities gave them some advantage in the great struggle for\nexistence.\n\nHere again we have the working of known laws of life, capable of\naccounting for what we see. And the high probability cannot be denied\nthat by evolution of this kind the present races of living creatures\nhave been formed. And to these arguments the strongest corroboration is\ngiven by the frequent occurrence, both in plants and animals, of useless\nparts which still remain as indications of organs that once were useful\nand have long become useless. Animals that now live permanently in the\ndark have abortive eyes which cannot see, but indicate an ancestor with\neyes that could see. Animals that never walk have abortive legs hidden\nunder their skin, useless now but indicating what was useful once. Our\nknowledge no doubt in this as in any other province of nature is but the\nmerest fraction of what may be known therein. But there is no evidence\nwhatever to show that what we have observed is not a fair sample of the\nwhole. And so taking it, we find that the mass of evidence in favour of\nthe evolution of plants and animals is enormously great and increasing\ndaily.\n\nGranting then the high probability of the two theories of Evolution,\nthat which begins with Laplace and explains the way in which the earth\nwas fitted to be the habitation of living creatures, and that which owes\nits name to Darwin and gives an account of the formation of the living\ncreatures now existing, we have to see what limitations and\nmodifications are necessarily attached to our complete acceptance of\nboth.\n\nFirst, then, at the very meeting point of these two evolutions we have\nthe important fact that all the evidence that we possess up to the\npresent day negatives the opinion that life is a mere evolution from\ninorganic matter. We know perfectly well the constituents of all living\nsubstances. We know that the fundamental material of all plants and all\nanimals is a compound called protoplasm, or that, in other words,\norganic matter in all its immense variety of forms is nothing but\nprotoplasm variously modified. And we know the constituent elements of\nthis protoplasm, and their proportions, and the temperatures within\nwhich protoplasm as such can exist. But we are quite powerless to make\nit, or to show how it is made, or to detect nature in the act of making\nit. All the evidence we have points to one conclusion only, that life is\nthe result of antecedent life, and is producible on no other conditions.\nRepeatedly have scientific observers believed that they have come on\ninstances of spontaneous generation, but further examination has\ninvariably shown that they have been mistaken. We can put the necessary\nelements together, but we cannot supply the necessary bond by which\nthey are to be made to live. Nay, we cannot even recall that bond when\nit has once been dissolved. We can take living protoplasm and we can\nkill it. It will be protoplasm still, so far as our best chemistry can\ndiscover, but it will be dead protoplasm, and we cannot make it live\nagain; and as far as we know nature can no more make it live than we\ncan. It can be used as food for living creatures, animals or plants, and\nso its substance can be taken up by living protoplasm and made to share\nin the life which thus consumes it; but life of its own it cannot\nobtain. Now here, as it seems, the acceptance of the two evolutions\nlands us in acceptance of a miracle. The creation of life is unaccounted\nfor. And it much more exactly answers to what we mean by a miracle than\nit did under the old theory of creation before Evolution was made a\nscientific doctrine. For under that old theory the creation of living\ncreatures stood on the same footing as the creation of metals or other\ninorganic substances. It was part of that beginning which had to be\ntaken for granted, and which for that reason lay outside of the domain\nof Science altogether. But if we accept the two evolutions, the\ncreation of life, if unaccounted for, presents itself as a direct\ninterference in the actual history of the world. There could have been\nno life when the earth was nothing but a mass of intensely heated fluid.\nThere came a time when the earth became ready for life to exist upon it.\nAnd the life came, and no laws of inorganic matter can account for its\ncoming. As it stands this is a great miracle. And from this conclusion\nthe only escape that has been suggested is to suppose that life came in\non a meteoric stone from some already formed habitable world; a\nsupposition which transfers the miracle to another scene, but leaves it\nas great a miracle as before.\n\nNor, if it was a miracle, can we deny that there was a purpose in it\nworthy of miraculous interference. For what purpose can rank side by\nside with the existence and development of life, the primary condition\nof all moral and spiritual existence and action in this world? In the\nintroduction of life was wrapped up all that we value and all that we\nvenerate in the whole creation. The infinite superiority, not in degree\nonly, but in kind, of the living to the lifeless, of a man to a stone,\njustifies us in believing that the main purpose of the creation that we\nsee was to supply a dwelling-place and a scene of action for living\nbeings. We cannot say that the dignity of the Moral Law requires that\ncreatures to be made partakers in the knowledge of it, and even\ncreatures of a lower nature but akin to them, must have been the results\nof a separate and miraculous act of creation. But we can say that there\nis a congruity in such a miracle, with the moral purpose of all the\nworld, of which we are a part, that removes all difficulty in believing\nit. Science, as such, cannot admit a miracle, and can only say, 'Here is\na puzzle yet unsolved.' Nor can the most religious scientific man be\nblamed as undutiful to religion if he persists in endeavouring to solve\nthe puzzle. But he has no right to insist beforehand that the puzzle is\ncertainly soluble; for that he cannot know, and the evidence is against\nhim.\n\nSecondly, if we look at the Darwinian theory by itself, we see at once\nthat it is incomplete, and the consideration of this incompleteness\ngravely modifies the conclusion which would otherwise be rightly drawn\nfrom it, and which, indeed, Darwin himself seems disposed to draw. For\nthe theory rests on two main pillars, the transmission of\ncharacteristics from progenitor to progeny, and the introduction of\nminute variations in the progeny with each successive generation. Now,\nthe former of these may be said to be well established, and we recognise\nit as a law of life that all plants and animals propagate their own\nkind. But the latter has, as yet, been hardly examined at all. Each new\ngeneration shows special slight variations. But what causes these\nvariations? and what determines what they shall be? In Darwin's\ninvestigations these questions are not touched. The variations are\ntreated as if they were quite indefinite in number and in nature. He\nconcerns himself only with the effect of these variations after they\nhave appeared. Some have the effect of giving the plant or animal an\nadvantage in the struggle of life; some give no such advantage; some are\nhurtful. And hence follows the permanent preservation or speedy\ndestruction of the plants and animals themselves. But we are bound to\nlook not only to their effects but to their causes, if the theory is to\nbe completed. And then we cannot fail to see that these variations in\nthe progeny cannot be due to something in the progenitors, or otherwise\nthe variations would be all alike, which they certainly are not. They\nmust, therefore, be due to external circumstances. These slight\nvariations are produced by the action of the surroundings, by the food,\nby the temperature, by the various accidents of life in the progenitors.\nNow, when we see this, we see also how gravely it modifies the\nconclusions which we have to draw concerning the ancestry of any species\nnow existing. Let us take, for instance, the great order of vertebrate\nanimals. At first sight the Darwinian theory seems to indicate that all\nthese animals are descended from one pair or one individual, and that\ntheir unity of construction is due to that fact; but if we go back in\nthought to the time at which the special peculiarities were introduced\nwhich really constituted the order and separated it from other animals,\nwe see that it is by no means clear that it originated with one pair or\nwith one individual, and that, on the contrary, the probabilities are\nthe other way. Although the separation of this order from the rest must\nhave taken place very early, it cannot well have taken place until\nmillions of animals had already come into existence. The prodigality of\nnature in multiplying animal life is fully acknowledged by Darwin, and\nthat prodigality is apparently greatest in the lowest and most formless\ntype of animal. There being, then, these many millions of living\ncreatures in existence, the external surroundings introduce into them\nmany variations, and among these the special variations to which the\nvertebrate type is due. It is quite clear that wherever the external\nsurroundings were the same or nearly the same, the variations introduced\nwould be the same or nearly the same. Now, it is far more probable that\nexternal surroundings should be the same or nearly the same in many\nplaces than that each spot should be absolutely unlike every other spot\nin these particulars. The beginnings of the vertebrate order would show\nthemselves simultaneously, or at any rate independently, in many places\nwherever external conditions were sufficiently similar. And the unity of\nthe plan in the vertebrata would be due, not to absolute unity of\nancestry, but to unity of external conditions at a particular epoch in\nthe descent of life. Hence it follows that the separation of animals\ninto orders and genera and even into species took place, if not for the\nmost part yet very largely, at a very early period in the history of\norganic evolution. Of course the descendants of any one of the original\nvertebrata might, and probably in not a few cases did, branch off into\nnew subdivisions and yet again into further subdivisions, and we are\nalways justified in looking for unity of ancestry among all the species.\nBut it is also quite possible that any species may be regularly\ndescended, without branching off at all, from one of the originals, and\nthat other species that resemble it may owe the resemblance simply to\nvery great similarity of external conditions. To find, for instance, the\nunity of ancestry between man and the other animals, it will certainly\nbe necessary to go back to a point in the history of life when living\ncreatures were as yet formless, undeveloped--the materials, as we may\ncall them, of the animal creation as we now see it, and not in any but a\nstrictly scientific sense, what we mean when we ordinarily speak of\nanimals. The true settlement of such questions as these can only be\nobtained when long and patient study shall have completed Darwin's\ninvestigations by determining under what laws and within what limits the\nslight variations which characterise each individual animal or plant are\ncongenitally introduced into its structure. As things stand the\nprobabilities certainly are that a creature with such especial\ncharacteristics as man has had a history altogether of his own, if not\nfrom the beginning of all life upon the globe, yet from a very early\nperiod in the development of that life. He resembles certain other\nanimals very closely in the structure of his body; but the part which\nexternal conditions had to play in the earliest stages of evolution of\nlife must have been so exceedingly large that identity or close\nsimilarity in these external conditions may well account for these\nresemblances. And the enormous gap which separates his nature from that\nof all other creatures known, indicates an exceedingly early difference\nof origin.\n\nLastly, it is quite impossible to evolve the Moral Law out of anything\nbut itself. Attempts have been made, and many more will no doubt be\nmade, to trace the origin of the spiritual faculty to a development of\nthe other faculties. And it is to be expected that great success will\nultimately attend the endeavours to show the growth of all the\nsubordinate powers of the soul. That our emotions, that our impulses,\nthat our affections should have had a history, and that their present\nworking should be the result of that history, has nothing in it\nimprobable. There can be no question that we inherit these things very\nlargely, and that they are also very largely due to special\npeculiarities of constitution in each individual. That large part of us\nwhich is rightly assigned to our nature as distinct from our own will\nand our own free action, it is perfectly reasonable to find subject to\nlaws of Evolution. Much of this nature, indeed, we share with the lower\nanimals. They, too, can love; can be angry or pleased; can put affection\nabove appetite; can show generosity and nobility of spirit; can be\npatient, persevering, tender, self-sacrificing; can take delight in\nsociety: and some can even organise it, and thus enter on a kind of\ncivilisation. The dog and the horse, man's faithful servants and\ncompanions, show emotions and affections rising as far as mere emotions\nand affections can rise to the human level. Ants show an advance in the\narts of life well comparable to our own. If the bare animal nature is\nthus capable of such high attainments by the mere working of natural\nforces, it is to be expected that similar forces in mankind should be\nfound to work under similar laws. We are not spiritual beings only, we\nare animals, and whatever nature has done for other animals we may\nexpect it to have done and to be doing for us. And if their nature is\ncapable of evolution, so too should ours be. And the study of such\nevolution of our own nature is likely to be of the greatest value. This\nnature is the main instrument, put into the grasp as it were of that\nspiritual faculty which is our inmost essence, to be used in making our\nwhole life an offering to God. It is good to know what can be done with\nthis instrument and what cannot; how it has been formed in the past, and\nmay be still further formed for the future. It is good to study the\nevolution of humanity. But all this does not touch the spiritual faculty\nitself, nor the Moral Law which that faculty proclaims to us. The\nessence of that law is its universality; and out of all this\ndevelopment, when carried to its very perfection, the conception of such\nuniversality cannot be obtained. Nothing in this evolution ever rises to\nthe height of a law which shall bind even God Himself and enable Abraham\nto say, 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' The very word\nright in this, its fulness of meaning, cannot be used.\n\nEvolution may lead the creature to say what is hateful and what is\nloveable, what is painful and what is delightful, what is to be feared\nand what is to be sought; it may develope the sentiment which comes\nnearest of all to the sentiment of reverence, namely, the sentiment of\nshame; but it cannot reveal the eternal character of the distinction\nbetween right and wrong. Nay, there may be, as was pointed out in the\nlast Lecture, an evolution in our knowledge even of the Moral Law, just\nas there is an evolution in our knowledge of mathematics. The fulness of\nits meaning can become clearer and ever clearer as generation learns\nfrom generation. But the principle of the Moral Law, its universality,\nits supremacy, cannot come out of any development of human nature any\nmore than the necessity of mathematical truth can so come. It stands not\non experience, and is its own evidence. Nor indeed have any of the\nattempts to show that everything in man (religion included) is the\nproduct of Evolution ever touched the question how this conception of\nuniversal supremacy comes in. It is treated as if it were an\nunauthorised extension from our own experience to what lies beyond all\nexperience. This, however, is to deny the essence of the Moral Law\naltogether: that Law is universal or it is nothing.\n\nNow, when we compare the account of the creation and of man given by the\ndoctrine of Evolution with that given in the Bible, we see at once that\nthe two are in different regions. The purpose of giving the accounts is\ndifferent; the spirit and character of the accounts is different; the\ndetails are altogether different. The comparison must take note of the\ndifference of spirit and aim before it can proceed at all.\n\nIt is then quite certain, and even those who contend for the literal\ninterpretation of this part of the Bible will generally admit, that the\npurpose of the revelation is not to teach Science at all. It is to teach\ngreat spiritual and moral lessons, and it takes the facts of nature as\nthey appear to ordinary people. When the creation of man is mentioned\nthere is clearly no intention to say by what processes this creation was\neffected, or how much time it took to work out those processes. The\nnarrative is not touched by the question, Was this a single act done in\na moment, or a process lasting through millions of years? The writer of\nthe Book of Genesis sees the earth peopled, as we may say, by many\nvarieties of plants and animals. He asserts that God made them all, and\nmade them resemble each other and differ from each other. He knows\nnothing and says nothing of the means used to produce their resemblances\nor their differences. He takes them as he sees them, and speaks of their\ncreation as God's work. Had he been commissioned to teach his people the\nscience of the matter, he would have had to put a most serious obstacle\nin the way of their faith. They would have found it almost impossible to\nbelieve in a process of creation so utterly unlike all their own\nexperience. And it would have been quite useless to them besides, since\ntheir science was not in such a condition as to enable them to\ncoordinate this doctrine with any other. As science it would have been\ndead; and as spiritual truth it would have been a hindrance.\n\nBut he had, nevertheless, great ideas to communicate, and we can read\nthem still.\n\nHe had to teach that the world as we see it, and all therein contained,\nwas created out of nothing; and that the spiritual, and not the\nmaterial, was the source of all existence. He had to teach that the\ncreation was not merely orderly, but progressive; going from the\nformless to the formed; from the orderless to the ordered; from the\ninanimate to the animate; from the plant to the animal; from the lower\nanimal to the higher; from the beast to the man; ending with the rest of\nthe Sabbath, the type of the highest, the spiritual, life. Nothing,\ncertainly, could more exactly match the doctrine of Evolution than\nthis. It is, in fact, the same thing said from a different point of\nview. All this is done by casting the account into the form of a week of\nwork with the Sabbath at the end. In so constructing his account, the\nwriter made use of a mode of teaching used commonly enough in the Bible.\nThe symbolical use of the number seven is common in other inspired\nwriters. The symbolical use of periods of time is not without example.\nThat the purpose of the account was not to teach great truths, but to\ngive men information upon scientific questions, is incredible. And, in\nfact, if we look in this account for literal history, it becomes very\ndifficult to give any meaning to what is said of the seventh day, or to\nreconcile the interpretation of it with our Lord's words concerning the\nSabbath, 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' There is no more\nreason for setting aside Geology, because it does not agree in detail\nwith Genesis, than there is for setting aside Astronomy because all\nthrough the Old Testament the sun is spoken of as going round the earth.\n\nAnd when the writer of Genesis passes from creation in general to man\nin particular, it is still clear that he has no mission to tell those\nfor whom he was writing by what processes man was formed, or how long\nthose processes lasted. This was as alien from his purpose as it would\nhave been to tell what every physiologist now knows of the processes by\nwhich every individual man is developed from a small germ to a breathing\nand living infant. He takes men--and he could not but take men as he\nsees them--with their sinful nature, with their moral and spiritual\ncapacity, with their relations of sex, with their relations of family.\nHe has to teach the essential supremacy of man among creatures, the\nsubordination in position but equality in nature of woman to man, the\noriginal declension of man's will from the divine path, the dim and\ndistant but sure hope of man's restoration. These are not, and cannot\nbe, lessons of science. They are worked out into the allegory of the\nGarden of Eden. But in this allegory there is nothing whatever that\ncrosses the path of science, nor is it for reasons of science that so\nmany great Christian thinkers from the earliest age of the Church\ndownwards have pronounced it an allegory. The spiritual truth contained\nin it is certainly the purpose for which it is told; and evolution such\nas science has rendered probable had done its work in forming man such\nas he is before the narrative begins.\n\nIt may be said that it seems inconsistent with the dignity of man's\nnature as described in the Bible to believe that his formation was\neffected by any process of evolution, still more by any such process of\nevolution as would represent him to have been an animal before he became\na man.\n\nBut, in the first place, it is to be observed that Science does not yet\nassert, and there is no reason to believe that it ever will assert, that\nman became a fully developed animal, with the brute instincts and\ninclinations, appetites and passions, fully formed, an animal such as we\nsee other animals now, before he passed on into a man such as man is\nnow. His body may have been developed according to the theory of\nEvolution, yet along a parallel but independent line of its own; but at\nany rate it branched off from other animals at a very early point in\nthe descent of animal life. And, further, as Science cannot yet assert\nthat life was not introduced into the world when made habitable by a\ndirect creative act, so too Science cannot yet assert, and it is\ntolerably certain will never assert, that the higher and added life, the\nspiritual faculty, which is man's characteristic prerogative, was not\ngiven to man by a direct creative act as soon as the body which was to\nbe the seat and the instrument of that spiritual faculty had been\nsufficiently developed to receive it. That the body should have been\nfirst prepared, and that when it was prepared the soul should either\nhave been then given, or then first made to live in the image of\nGod,--this is a supposition which is inconsistent neither with what the\nBible tells nor with what Science has up to this time proved.\n\nAnd to this must be added that it is out of place for us to define what\nis consistent or inconsistent with the dignity of man in the process or\nmethod by which he was created to be what he is. His dignity consists in\nhis possession of the spiritual faculty, and not in the method by which\nhe became possessed of it. We cannot tell, we never can tell, and the\nBible never professes to tell, what powers or gifts are wrapped up in\nmatter itself, or in that living matter of which we are made. How\nabsolutely nothing we know of the mode by which any single soul is\ncreated! The germ which is to become a man can be traced by the\nphysiologist through all the changes that it has to undergo before it\ncomes to life. Is the future soul wrapped up in it from the first, and\ndormant till the hour of awakening comes? or is it given at some moment\nin the development? We see in the infant how its powers expand, and we\nknow that the spiritual faculty, the very essence of its being, has a\ndevelopment like the other faculties. It has in it the gift of speech,\nand yet it cannot speak. Judgment, and taste, and power of thought;\nself-sacrifice and unswerving truth; science and art, and spiritual\nunderstanding, all may be there in abundant measure and yet may show no\nsign. All this we know; and because it is common and well known we see\nnothing inconsistent with the dignity of our nature in this concealment\nof all that dignity, helpless and powerless, within the form of an\ninfant in arms. With this before us it is impossible to say that\nanything which Science has yet proved, or ever has any chance of\nproving, is inconsistent with the place given to man in Creation by the\nteaching of the Bible.\n\nIn conclusion, we cannot find that Science, in teaching Evolution, has\nyet asserted anything that is inconsistent with Revelation, unless we\nassume that Revelation was intended not to teach spiritual truth only,\nbut physical truth also. Here, as in all similar cases, we find that the\nwriter of the Book of Genesis, like all the other writers in the Bible,\ntook nature as he saw it, and expressed his teaching in language\ncorresponding to what he saw. And the doctrine of Evolution, in so far\nas it has been shown to be true, does but fill out in detail the\ndeclaration that we are 'fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are\nThy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.' There is nothing in all\nthat Science has yet taught, or is on the way to teach, which conflicts\nwith the doctrine that we are made in the Divine Image, rulers of the\ncreation around us by a Divine superiority, the recipients of a\nRevelation from a Father in Heaven, and responsible to judgment by His\nLaw. We know not how the first human soul was made, just as we know not\nhow any human soul has been made since; but we know that we are, in a\nsense in which no other creatures living with us are, the children of\nHis special care.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VII.\n\n\nAPPARENT COLLISION OF SCIENCE WITH THE CLAIM TO SUPERNATURAL POWER.\n\nThe claim to work miracles parallel to the freedom of the will. The\nmiracles of Revelation need not be miracles of Science. Our Lord's\nResurrection, and His miracles of healing, possibly not miraculous in\nthe scientific sense. Different aspect of miracles now and at the time\nwhen the Revelation was given. Miracles attested by the Apostles, by our\nLord's character, by our Lord's power. Nature of evidence required to\nprove miracles; not such as to put physical above spiritual evidence;\nnot such as to be unsuited to their own day. Impossibility of\ndemonstrating universal uniformity. Revelation no obstacle to the\nprogress of Science.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VII.\n\n\nAPPARENT COLLISION OF SCIENCE WITH THE CLAIM TO SUPERNATURAL POWER.\n\n     'Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else\n     believe Me for the very works' sake.' _St. John_ xiv. 11.\n\nScience and Religion come into apparent collision on the question of the\nfreedom of the will. Science and Revelation come into a similar apparent\ncollision on the possibility of miracles. The cases are precisely\nparallel. In each individual man the uniformity of nature is broken to\nleave room for the moral force of the will to assert its independent\nexistence. This breach of uniformity is within very narrow limits, and\noccurs much more rarely than appears at first sight. But the demand to\nadmit not only the possibility but the fact of this breach is\nimperative, and to deny it is to turn the command of the Moral Law as\nrevealed in the conscience into a delusion. So, too, Revelation asserts\nits right to set aside the uniformity of nature to leave room for a\ndirect communication from God to man. It is an essential part of the\nDivine Moral Law to claim supremacy over the physical world. Unless\nsomehow or other the moral ultimately rules the physical, the Moral Law\ncannot rightly claim our absolute obedience. Revelation as given to us\nmaintains that this superiority has been asserted in fact here in the\nworld of phenomena. To deny this is very nearly equivalent to denying\nthat any revelation has been made. In this way Revelation asserts, for\nGod's message to the human race precisely the same breach of uniformity\nwhich every man's conscience claims for himself in regard to his own\nconduct.\n\nIt is, however, necessary to point out that when we speak of a breach of\nuniformity we are never in a position to deny that the breach of\nuniformity may be physical only and perhaps apparent only. It may be\nfound, it probably will be found, at last that the Moral Law has in\nsome way always maintained its own uniformity unbroken. The Moral Law\nhas in its essence an elasticity which the physical law has not. It\noften takes the form, that, given certain conduct, there will follow\ncertain consequences; and the law is kept though the conduct is free. It\nis further possible, and Revelation has no interest in denying it, that\nthe intervention which has apparently disturbed the sequence of\nphenomena is, after all, that of a higher physical law as yet unknown.\nFor instance, the miraculous healing of the sick may be no miracle in\nthe strictest sense at all. It may be but an instance of the power of\nmind over body, a power which is undeniably not yet brought within the\nrange of Science, and which nevertheless may be really within its\ndomain. In other ways what seems to be miraculous may be simply unusual.\nAnd it must therefore be always remembered that Revelation is not bound\nby the scientific definition of a miracle, and that if all the\nmiraculous events recorded in the Bible happened exactly as they are\ntold, and if Science were some day able to show that they could be\naccounted for by natural causes working at the time in each case, this\nwould not in any way affect their character, as regards the Revelation\nwhich they were worked to prove or of which they form a part. Revelation\nuses these events for its own purposes. Some of these events are spoken\nof as evidences of a divine mission. Some of them are substantive facts\nembraced in the message delivered. And if for these purposes they have\nserved their turn, if they have arrested attention which would not\notherwise have been arrested, if they have overcome prejudices, if they\nhave compelled belief, the fact that they are afterwards discovered to\nbe no breach of the law of uniformity has no bearing at all on the\nRevelation to which they belong. The miracle would in that case consist\nin the precise coincidence in time with the purpose which they served,\nor in the manner and degree in which they marked out the Man who wrought\nthem from all other men, or in the foreshadowing of events which are in\nthe distant future.\n\nThus, for instance, it is quite possible that our Lord's Resurrection\nmay be found hereafter to be no miracle at all in the scientific sense.\nIt foreshadows and begins the general Resurrection; when that general\nResurrection comes we may find that it is, after all, the natural issue\nof physical laws always at work.\n\nThere is nothing at present to indicate anything of the sort; but a\ngeneral resurrection in itself implies not a special interference but a\ngeneral rule. If, when we rise again, we find that this resurrection is\nand always was a part of the Divine purpose, and brought about at last\nby machinery precisely the same in kind as that which has been used in\nmaking and governing the world, we may also find that our Lord's\nResurrection was brought about by the operation of precisely the same\nmachinery. We may find that even in the language of strict science 'He\nwas the first fruits of them that slept,' and that His Resurrection was\nnot a miracle, but the first instance of the working of a law till the\nlast day quite unknown, but on that last day operative on all that ever\nlived.\n\nLet us compare the general resurrection with the first introduction of\nlife into the world. As far as scientific observation has yet gone that\nfirst introduction of life was a miracle. No one has ever yet succeeded\nin tracing it to the operation of any known laws. If it is a miracle it\nis a miracle precisely similar in kind to the miracle which believers\nare expecting at the last day. And assuredly if a miracle was once\nworked to introduce life into this habitable world, there is very good\nreason to expect that another miracle will be worked hereafter to\nrestore life to those that have lived. But there are scientific men who\nthink that the introduction of life was not a miracle, that it came at\nthe fitting moment by the working of natural laws; or, in other words,\nthat such properties are inherent in the elements of which protoplasm is\nmade that in certain special circumstances these elements will not only\ncombine but that the product of their combination will live. If this be\nso, it is assuredly no such very strange supposition that there may be\nsuch properties inherent in our bodies or in certain particles, whether\nparticles of matter or not, belonging to our bodies, that in certain\nspecial circumstances these particles will return to life. And if this\nbe so the general resurrection may be no miracle, but the result of the\nproperties originally inherent in our bodies and of the working of the\nlaws of those properties. And as the general resurrection so our Lord's\nResurrection may in this way turn out to be no breach of the uniformity\nof nature.\n\nBut this new discovery, if then made, would not affect the place which\nour Lord's Resurrection holds in the records of Revelation. It is not\nthe purpose of Revelation to interfere with the course of nature; if\nsuch interference be needless, and the work of revealing God to man can\nbe done without it, there is no reason whatever to believe that any such\ninterference would take place.\n\nOr, take again any of our Lord's miracles of healing. There is no\nquestion at all that the power of mind over body is exceedingly great,\nand has never yet been thoroughly examined. We know almost nothing of\nthe extent of this power, of its laws, of its limits. Marvellous\nrecoveries often astonish the physician, and he cannot account for them\nexcept by supposing that in some way the powers of the mind have been\nroused to interfere with the working of the nervous system. And some\nmen, on the other hand, have died or their health has been shattered by\nmere imaginations. Some men of note have attributed the recoveries\nclaimed for homoeopathy to this cause. Some have assigned to this\ncause the extraordinary cures that have been undeniably wrought at the\nshrines, or on sight or touch of the relics, of Roman Catholic saints.\nThe different impostures that have on many occasions prevailed for a\ntime and then lost their reputation and passed out of fashion, are\ngenerally supposed to have owed their short-lived success to the same\nobscure working of unknown natural laws. They have been tested by their\nsuccesses and their failures. They have succeeded, and for a time\ncontinued to succeed; but at last they have ceased to work because faith\nin them for some reason or other has been shaken down. Their falsehood\nhas thus been detected; but nevertheless their genuine success for a\ntime has been enough to show that they rested on a reality, and that\nreality seems to have consisted in the strange power of mind over body.\nIn this region all is at present unexamined; and all operations are\ntentative, and for that reason most are only successful for a time. Now\nour Lord's miracles are never tentative; that is not the character given\nto them either by friend or by foe. Nor is there any instance recorded\neither by friend or by foe of an attempted miracle not accomplished.\nNowhere is there any record given us by the assailants of the Gospel of\nany instance of His action parallel to the record given in the Acts of\nthe Apostles of the seven sons of Sceva the Jew. The accounts of his\nenemies charge Him with deceit, which is identical with saying that they\ndid not believe Him. But they do not ever charge Him with failure.\nNevertheless it is quite conceivable that many of His miracles of\nhealing may have been the result of this power of mind over body which\nwe are now considering. It is possible that they may be due not to an\ninterference with the uniformity of nature, but to a superiority in His\nmental power to the similar power possessed by other men. Men seem to\npossess this power both over their own bodies and over the bodies of\nothers in different degrees. Some can influence other men's bodies\nthrough their minds more; some less. Possibly He may have possessed this\npower absolutely where others possessed it conditionally. He may have\npossessed it without limit; others within limits. If this were so, these\nacts of healing would not be miracles in the strictly scientific sense.\nThey would imply very great superiority in Him to other men. But they\nwould be in themselves under the law of uniformity. Now it is clear that\nif this should turn out to be so, though these acts would not be\nmiracles for the purposes of Science, they would still be miracles for\nthe purposes of Revelation. They would do their work in arresting\nattention, and still more in accrediting both the message and the\nMessenger. They would separate Him from ordinary men. They would prove\nHim to be possessed of credentials worth examining. To the believer it\nwould make no difference whether Science called them miracles or not. To\nhim it would still remain the fact that here was a Messenger whom God\nhad seen fit to endow with powers which no other man ever possessed in\nsuch degree and such completeness, though others may have possessed some\ntouch of them greater or less.\n\nFurther, it is necessary to repeat what was briefly remarked in a\nprevious Lecture, that the position which miracles take as regards us\nwho read them many centuries after, and as regards those who witnessed\nand recorded them at the time, is quite different. To them the miracles\nwere the first and often the chief proof that the man who wrought them\nhad been sent by God, and that His message was a revelation, not an\nimposture; to us they are, if accepted at all, accepted as a part of the\nrevelation itself. There are no doubt a few minds that are convinced by\nPaley's argument, and beginning with accepting the miracles as proved by\nsufficient external evidence, go on to accept the conclusion that\ntherefore the teaching that was thus accompanied must be divine. But\nmost men are quite unable to take to pieces in this way the records in\nwhich Revelation is contained, and to go from external evidence taken\nalone to the messengers who thus proved their mission, and thence to the\nsubstance of the message which they taught. To most of us, on the\ncontrary, the Revelation is a whole, capable of being looked at from\nmany sides, and found to be divine from whatever side it is seen; and\none of its aspects is this supernatural character by which it appears\nto assert its identity with that Moral Law which claims absolute\nsupremacy over all the physical world. The main evidence of the\nRevelation to us consists in its harmony with the voice of the spiritual\nfaculty within us; and the claim which it asserts to have come through\nteachers endowed with supernatural power is so far corroborative\nevidence as it falls in with the essential character of the Moral Law.\nThat eternal law claims supremacy over the physical world and actually\nasserts it in the freedom of the human will; and a Revelation which\ncomes from Him Who in His own essential Being is that very law\npersonified, might be expected to exhibit the same claim in actual\nmanifestation in its approach to men.\n\nBearing these limitations and characteristics of the miraculous element\nin the Bible in mind, let us ask how that miraculous element is therein\npresented.\n\nFirst, in the account of the creation, it is taught that the original\nexistence of all matter flows from a spiritual source. We do not define\nGod as the cause, meaning that that is His essence, and that except as\ncausing other things to exist He does not exist Himself. But we\ndescribe Him as the Cause, meaning that all things exist by His Will,\nand that without His Will nothing could ever have existed. And as the\nRevelation tells us that He is the source of all existence, the Creator\nof the substance of things, so too does it assert that He gave all\nthings their special properties and the laws of those properties, and\nthat not only the original creation, but all the subsequent history of\nall things has been the outcome of His design, and that He has thus\nprescribed the government of the whole universe. And yet again the\nRevelation from the beginning to the end maintains His living Presence\nin and over all things that He has thus formed, and denies that He has\nparted with His power to do fresh acts of creation, fresh acts of\ngovernment, whenever and wherever He sees fit. For He is necessarily\nfree and cannot be restrained by anything but His own holiness. And\nunless He expressly revealed to us that His own holiness prevented Him\nfrom interfering with His own creation, we could not put limits to what\nHe could do. The Revelation that He has given us says just the contrary,\nand from end to end implies that He is present in the government of the\ncreation which He has made.\n\nWhat evidence, then, is there in the world of phenomena that He has ever\nthus interfered? Putting aside as untenable all idea of _a priori_\nimpossibility, admitting that God can work a miracle if He will,\nadmitting that a miracle avowedly worked in the interest of a divine\nrevelation stands on a totally different footing from a miracle avowedly\nworked in any other interest, putting the breach of the law of\nuniformity made by a miracle on the same footing as the breach of the\nsame law made by a human will; we have to ask what evidence can be given\nthat any such miracles as are recorded in the Bible have ever been\nworked?\n\nIt is plain at once that the answer must be given by the New Testament.\nNo _such_ evidence can now be produced on behalf of the miracles in the\nOld Testament. The times are remote; the date and authorship of the\nBooks not established with certainty; the mixture of poetry with history\nno longer capable of any sure separation into its parts; and, if the New\nTestament did not exist, it would be impossible to show such a distinct\npreponderance of probability as would justify us in calling on any to\naccept the miraculous parts of the narrative as historically true.\n\nBut in the New Testament we stand on different ground. And we have here\nfirst the evidence which Paley has put together to show that the early\nChristians spent their lives and finally surrendered their lives as\nwitnesses to a Gospel which included miracles both among its evidences\nand as part of its substance. It is not possible to get rid of miracles\nnor the belief in miracles from the history of the Apostles. They\ntestify to our Lord's Resurrection as to an actual fact, and make it the\nbasis of all their preaching. They testify to our Lord's miracles as\npart of the character of His life. It is necessary to maintain that they\nwere mere fanatics with no claim to respect but rather to the pity which\nwe feel for utterly ignorant goodness, if we are to hold that no miracle\nwas ever wrought by our Lord. It is difficult to maintain even their\nhonesty if they preached the Resurrection of our Lord without any basis\nof fact to rest on. No man who is not determined to uphold an opinion\nat all hazards can question that St. Paul and St. Peter believed that\nour Lord rose from the dead, and that they died for and in that belief.\n\nBut, in the second place, behind the Apostles stands our Lord Himself,\nand whatever may be said of the documents that compose the New\nTestament, they are at any rate sufficient to show that our Lord was\nuniversally believed by His disciples to have the power of working\nmiracles and to have often worked them. There is no hesitation in regard\nto this; no hint of any doubt. But not only so, there is no hint of any\ndisclaimer on His part. He must have known whether He could work\nmiracles or not. He must have known that His disciples believed Him to\npossess the power. There is not the slightest trace of His ever having\nimplied that this was a misconception. He did sometimes disclaim what\nwas ascribed to Him, even when what was ascribed to Him was truly His,\nbut was ascribed to Him without real knowledge of what it implied. 'Why\ncallest thou Me good? There is none good but One, that is, God,' we\nDO find. But 'Why askest thou Me to do this? There is none\nthat can do this but One, that is God,' we do NOT find. It is\nplain that He accepted the belief that assigned Him powers above those\nof other men--powers given Him by His Father in heaven--and never\ndiscouraged it. Nay, He demanded it. Take the lowest ground, and admit\nfor argument's sake that the New Testament contains a legendary element,\nand still you cannot cut the miracles out of the Gospels and Epistles\nwithout altering them beyond recognition. The Jesus Christ presented to\nus in the New Testament would become a different person if the miracles\nwere removed. And if He claimed to possess and exercise this power, the\nevidence becomes the evidence of One Who must have known and Whom we\ncannot disbelieve.\n\nAnd this claim, which He has thus made, and which was thus accepted by\nHis disciples, is corroborated by the power, different in form but\nsimilar in kind, which He exerted then on the men of His own day, and\nhas ever since continued to exert on all succeeding generations. The\nfirst disciples were under His absolute dominion. They preached Christ\nand not themselves. They referred everything to Him, and professed to\nhave no power but from Him. St. Paul with all his genius and marvellous\npower of influence, yet professes to be nothing without Christ and to be\neverything in Christ. Our Lord left no writing behind Him, but committed\nHis Revelation to His Apostles, and we only know Him through them. But\nthey are not like ordinary disciples of a great teacher; philosophers\nsucceeding a philosopher; prophets succeeding a prophet. To no one of\nthem does it occur for a moment to teach anything except as from Him.\nSt. Paul gives advice sometimes which he does not profess to be giving\nby our Lord's command, but when he does so, he puts the mark of his own\ninferiority on what he says, and claims for it no such authority as\nbelongs to a word from Christ. A word from Christ was final on all\nsubjects.\n\nAnd this power over men has never weakened from that day to this. There\nis no other power like it in the world. Science proceeds in far the\nmajority of cases by trial of some theory as a working hypothesis. Such\ntoo has been the procedure of Christian Faith. Trust Christ; stake your\nhappiness on Him; stake your hope of satisfying all spiritual\naspirations on Him; stake your power of winning the victory over\ntemptation on Him--this is the exhortation of Apostle, and martyr, and\nsaint, and evangelist, and pastor, and teacher. And those who have thus\ntried the strength of the Christian hypothesis have not failed. The\nChristian Church has been stained with many a blot. Ill deeds have been\nwrought in the name of Christ. Evil laws have been passed. Strange\nsuperstitions have prevailed. But no other body can show such saints, no\nother body can produce so great a cloud of witnesses. It is certain that\nthe lives and the deaths, the characters and the aims, of those who have\ntrusted their all to Christ have made them what He bade them be, the\nsalt of the earth. And they testify with one voice that they know no\nother power which has upheld them but the power of Christ whom they have\ntaken for their Lord. Others have sometimes been set up as in some sort\nrivals to Him as teachers or as examples; but here there is no rival\neven pretended. In no other man have men been called on to believe as a\nliving present power, able to give strength and victory in the\nconflicts of the soul. The Church, too, has passed through times of\nspiritual depression, we may almost say of degradation. And in the worst\nof times within the Church there has always remained a wonderful\nrecuperative power, which has shaken off inconsistencies and defects in\nthe past, and will do so yet more in the future. But this recuperative\npower has always shown itself in one form, and in one form only, namely,\na return to Christ and to trust in Him, a trust which has never been\nfalsified.\n\nThe martyrdom of our Lord's disciples is enough to prove that belief in\nHis supernatural powers and in His exercise of those powers was no\ngradual growth of later times, but from the very beginning rooted in the\nconvictions of those who must have known the truth. The character of our\nLord as revealed in the Gospels makes it impossible to disbelieve His\nclaims whatever they may be. His power attested by generations of\nbelievers ever since corroborates those claims by the persistent\nevidence of eighteen centuries.\n\nAgainst this evidence what is to be said?\n\nIt is said that the evidence for the uniformity of nature is so\noverwhelming that nothing can set it aside. And further it is said,\nthat, even if it be conceded that it might be set aside, no evidence\nsufficient for the purpose has yet been produced.\n\nNow to deal with this second assertion first, we must ask what is the\nnature of the evidence that would be deemed sufficient? If the inquirer\ndoes not believe that God created and still governs the world, assuredly\nno evidence will ever be sufficient to convince him that God has worked\na miracle. The existence of God is certainly not to be proved by His\ninterference with nature. Had He desired to reveal Himself to us\nprimarily in that way, He would have wrought many more miracles than we\nnow know of, and would have kept our faith alive by perpetual and\nunmistakeable manifestations of His presence and power. But He has not\nso willed. He has made our belief in Him rest mainly on the voice within\nourselves, in order that we might walk by faith and not by sight. It\nwill be a hopeless task to convince men that there is a God by\npointing, not to His creation but to His interference with creation. But\nif a man do believe there is a God, what kind of evidence ought he to\nexpect to show him that God has interfered in the course of the\ncreation?\n\nIn the first place, he must not expect that the physical evidence, that\nis the miraculous evidence, for Revelation should be of such a character\nas to stand above the spiritual evidence. Just as the fundamental\nevidence for the existence of a God is to be found in the voice of\nconscience, and the arguments from design and from the order and beauty\nand visible purpose of the creation are secondary--corroborative not\ndemonstrative--so too the primary evidence of a Revelation from God must\nbe found in the harmony of that Revelation with the voice of conscience,\nand only the secondary and corroborative evidence is to be looked for in\nmiracles. And in both cases the reason is the same. For it is not God's\npurpose to win the intellectually gifted, the wise, the cultivated, the\nclever, but to win the spiritually gifted, the humble, the\ntender-hearted, the souls that are discontented with their own\nshortcomings, the souls that have a capacity for finding happiness in\nself-sacrifice. It would defeat the purpose of the Revelation made to us\nif the hard-headed should have an advantage in accepting it over the\nhumble-minded. The evidence must be such that spiritual character shall\nbe an element in the acceptance of it. There would be a contradiction,\nif the faculty whereby we mainly recognised God were the spiritual\nfaculty, and the faculty whereby we mainly recognised His Revelation\nwere the scientific faculty.\n\nAnd, in the second place, we have no right to expect that the evidence\nfor miracles wrought in one age should be such evidence as properly\nbelongs to another age. It is sometimes urged that the evidence supplied\nby the testimony of the early Christians is of little value because it\nwas never cross-examined. No such precautions surrounded the evidence as\nwould now be required to give any value to evidence of similar events.\nThe witnesses gave up their lives to attest what they taught; but there\nwas no one to scrutinise what they asserted. St. Paul's evidence on our\nLord's Resurrection cannot now be put to the test of searching\nquestions. But to make such objections as these is to make what is on\nthe face of it an absurd demand. It is to ask that the scientific\nprocesses of the nineteenth century should have been anticipated in the\nfirst, that men should be miraculously guided to supply a kind of\nevidence which would be utterly superfluous at the time in order to be\nconvincing eighteen hundred years afterwards. This would indeed have put\nthe miraculous incidents in the New Testament narrative altogether out\nof place, and made the miracles more important than the Revelation which\nthey were worked to introduce.\n\nNow, if these two conditions are borne in mind, it is difficult to see\nwhat better evidence could be obtained of a miraculous life than we\npossess concerning the life of our Lord.\n\nThe moral and spiritual evidence is His own character which\nintentionally overshadows all the rest, and it is inconceivable that He\nshould have made a false claim. And the material evidence is the\ntestimony of men who freely gave their lives in proof of what they said.\nNor has anything yet been said or written to shake Paley's argument on\nthis point.\n\nBut, if we pass on to the other objection, that no evidence can ever be\nsufficient to prove a miracle because the evidence for the uniformity of\nnature is so overwhelming, we can only see in such an assertion an\ninstance of that inability to get out of an accustomed groove against\nwhich Science has perpetually to guard. In Science the uniformity of\nnature is so indispensable a postulate, that without it we cannot stir a\nstep. And if the student of Science is to admit a breach, it can only be\nby stepping outside of his science for the time and conceiving the\npossibility that there is some other truth beside scientific truth, and\nsome other kind of evidence beside scientific evidence. We have all\nheard of the need of guarding against the bondage in which custom binds\nthe mind. We have heard of the student who when first he saw a\nlocomotive looked perseveringly for the horses that impelled it, because\nhe had never known, and consequently could not imagine any other mode of\nproducing such motion. But this danger attends not only the separate\ninvestigations which Science makes into phenomena; it attends Science as\na whole. And it is necessary repeatedly to insist on the fact that\nScience has not proved and cannot prove that the scientific domain is\nco-extensive with nature itself.\n\nThe evidence for the uniformity of nature consists in the fact that from\nthe beginning of Science the known reign of physical law has been\nsteadily extending without a check; that instance after instance of\napparent exception has been brought by further examination within its\nprovince; that the hypothesis of uniformity has now been long on trial\nand has never yet been found to fail; that no one who has so tried it\nhas the slightest hesitation in trusting it for the future, as he has\nproved it in the past. But clearly as this evidence proves a general, it\nnever gets beyond a general, uniformity. It has not succeeded in showing\nthat the human will comes under the same rule. It has not succeeded in\nsilencing the voice within us, which claims superiority for the moral\nover the physical. And when the utmost extent of human knowledge is\ncompared with the vastness of nature, the claim to extend the induction\nfrom generality to universality is seen to be utterly untenable. So\nmuch as this, indeed, Science has rendered highly probable, that the\nuniformity of nature is never broken except for a moral purpose. It is\nonly for such a purpose that the will is ever free. It is only for such\na purpose that Revelation has ever claimed to be superior to nature. But\nbeyond this Science cannot go. Let it be granted that the claim for\nfreedom of the will has been often unduly pushed far beyond this limit,\nand let it be granted that religions professing to be revelations have\nincluded records of miracles which had no moral purpose. This does not\naffect the general conclusion that the evidence for uniformity has never\nsucceeded, and can never succeed in showing, that the God who made and\nrules the universe never sets aside a physical law for a moral purpose,\neither by working through the human will or by direct action on external\nnature.\n\nScience will continue its progress, and as the thoughts of men become\nclearer it will be perpetually more plainly seen that nothing in\nRevelation really interferes with that progress. It will be seen that\ndevout believers can observe, can cross-question nature, can look for\nuniformity and find it, with as keen an eye, with as active an\nimagination, with as sure a reasoning, as those who deny entirely all\npossibility of miracles and reject all Revelation on that account. The\nbelief that God can work miracles and has worked them, has never yet\nobstructed the path of a single student of Science; nor has any student\nwho repudiated that belief found any aid in his study from that\nrepudiation. The rush of Science of late years has for the time made\nmany men fancy that Science is everything; and believers in Revelation\nhave helped this fancy by insisting on their part that Revelation is\neverything; but such waves of opinion, resting really on feeling, are\nsure to pass away, and scientific men will learn that there are other\nkinds of knowledge besides scientific knowledge, as believers are\nalready learning that God teaches us by other methods besides the method\nof Revelation. The students of the Bible will certainly learn that\nRevelation need not fear the discoveries of Science, not even such\ndoctrines as that of Evolution. And the students of nature will\ncertainly learn that Science has nothing to fear from the teaching of\nRevelation, not even from the claim to miraculous power. For most\ncertainly both Science and Revelation come from one and the same God;\n'the heavens declare His glory, and the firmament showeth His handywork;\nHis law is perfect, converting the soul; His testimony is sure, making\nwise the simple.'\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VIII.\n\n\nTHE CONCLUSION OF THE ARGUMENT.\n\nUniformity of nature not demonstrated, but established, except in two\ncases; the interference of human will and of Divine Will. The exception\nno bar to the progress of Science. Unity to be found not in the physical\nworld, but in the physical and moral combined. The Moral Law rests on\nitself. Our recognition of it on our own character and choice. But we\nexpect it to show its marks in the physical world: and these are the\npurpose visible in Creation, the effects produced by Revelation.\nNevertheless a demand for more physical evidence; but the physical\ncannot be allowed to overshadow the spiritual. Dangers to believers from\nleaning this way: superstition; blindness; stagnation. The guarantee for\nspiritual perceptiveness: to take Jesus as the Lord of the conscience,\nthe heart, the will.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VIII.\n\n\nTHE CONCLUSION OF THE ARGUMENT.\n\n     'No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.'\n     1 _Cor._ xii. 3.\n\nIt is now the proper time to review the argument of these Lectures, and\nto endeavour to trace, if possible, the source of the estrangement which\njust at present separates Religion and Science.\n\nThe postulate of Science is admitted on all hands to be the uniformity\nof nature, and the proof of this postulate has been found to consist in\nan induction from the facts which nature presents and our senses\nobserve. Uniformity is quickly noticed, and after it has been noticed\nfor some time it is instinctively used as a working hypothesis. So used\nit accumulates perpetually increasing evidence of its truth, and if we\nexcept two great classes of facts, we never find any instance of its\nfailure. The two classes of facts which are thus excepted are the acts\nof the human will and the miraculous element in Revelation, both of them\ninstances of one thing, namely, the interference of the moral with the\nphysical. To complete the induction and to deprive the denial of\nuniversal uniformity of all evidence to rest on, all that is necessary\nis to get rid of these two exceptions. If Science could get rid of these\nexceptions, though it could not be said that the fundamental postulate\nwas demonstrated, it could be said that all the evidence was in its\nfavour and absolutely no evidence against it. And although scientific\nbelief would then still rank below mathematical belief, it would\nnevertheless have a cogency quite irresistible. Science would not\nthereby gain in power of progress, in practical acceptance, or in\nutility to man. But men are so constituted that completeness gives a\nspecial kind of satisfaction not to be got in any other way. If Science\ncould but be complete it would seem to gain in dignity, if it gained in\nnothing else. And it is easy to foster a kind of passion for this\ncompleteness until every attempt to question it is resented. I have\nseen a boy first learning mechanics show a dislike to consider the\neffect of friction as marring the symmetry and beauty of mechanical\nproblems; too vague, too uncertain, too irregular to be allowed any\nentrance into a system which is so rounded and so precise without it.\nAnd something of the same temper can sometimes be seen in students of\nScience at the very thought of there being anything in the world not\nunder the dominion of the great scientific postulate. The world which\nthus contains something which Science cannot deal with is pronounced\nforthwith to be not the world that we know, not the world with which we\nare concerned; a conceivable world if we choose to indulge our\nimagination in such dreams, but not a real world either now or at any\ntime before or after. And yet the freedom of the human will and the\nsense which cannot be eradicated of the responsibility attaching to all\nhuman conduct, perpetually retorts that this world in which we live\ncontains an element which cannot be subdued to obedience to the\nscientific law, but will have a course of its own. The sense of\nresponsibility is a rock which no demand for completeness in Science\ncan crush. All attempts at reconciling the mechanical firmness of an\nunbroken law of uniformity with the voice within that cannot be silenced\ntelling us that we must answer for our action, have failed, and we know\nthat they will for ever fail.\n\nIf indeed it could be said that the progress of Science was really\nbarred by this inability to make the induction complete, and to assert\nthe unbroken uniformity of all nature; if it could be said that any\nuncertainty was thus cast over scientific conclusions, or any false or\nmisleading lights thus held up to draw inquirers from the true path, it\nwould undoubtedly become a duty to examine, and to examine anxiously,\nwhether indeed it could be true that our faculties were thus hopelessly\nat variance with each other, the scientific faculty, imposing on us one\nbelief, and the spiritual faculty another, and the two practically\nirreconcileable. But there is no reason whatever for thinking this.\nNewton's investigations were unquestionably pursued, as all true\nscientific investigations must ever be pursued, in reliance on the truth\nof the uniformity of nature, and yet he never felt it the slightest\nhindrance to his progress that he always tacitly and often expressly\nacknowledged that God had reserved to Himself the power of setting this\nuniformity aside, and indeed believed that He had used this power. The\nbeliever who asserts the universality of a law except when God works a\nmiracle to set it aside is certainly at no real disadvantage in\ncomparison with an unbeliever who makes the same assertion with no\nqualification at all. It is granted on all hands that miracles are, and\never have been, exceedingly rare, and for that reason need not be taken\ninto account in the investigation of nature. It is granted that the\nfreedom of the human will works within narrow limits, and very slowly\nand slightly affects the great mass of human conduct and what depends on\nhuman conduct. And Science has often to deal with approximations when\nnothing but approximations can be obtained. We perpetually meet in\nnature with quantities and relations that cannot be accurately expressed\nnor accurately ascertained, and we have to be content with\napproximations, and we know how to use them in Science. Many chemical\nproperties can only be so expressed; many primary facts, such as the\ndistances, the volumes, the weights of heavenly bodies; and yet the\napproximations serve our purpose. And so too, if there be a reserve\nstill uncovered by the scientific postulate, that will not in any degree\naffect our investigation of what is so covered.\n\nIn short, the unity of all things which Science is for ever seeking will\nbe found not in the physical world alone, but in the physical and\nspiritual united. That unity embraces both. And the uniformity which is\nthe expression of that unity is not a uniformity complete in nature,\ntaken by itself, but complete when the two worlds are taken together.\nAnd this Science ought to recognise.\n\nLet us turn from the physical to the spiritual.\n\nThe voice within us which demands our acceptance of religion makes no\ndirect appeal to the evidence supplied by the senses. We are called on\nto believe in a supreme law of duty on pain of being lowered before our\nown consciences. And this law of duty goes on to assert its own\nsupremacy over all things that exist, and that not as an accidental\nfact, but as inherent in its essence. And this supremacy cannot be other\nthan an accidental fact unless it be not only actual but intended. And\nintention implies personality; and the law thus shows itself to be a\nSupreme Being, claiming our reverence, and asserting Himself to be the\nCreator, the Ruler, and the Judge of all things that are. And this same\nvoice within us asserts that we are responsible to Him for all our\nconduct, and are capable of that responsibility because free to choose\nwhat that conduct shall be. We are to believe not because the truth of\nthis voice is proved independently of itself, but simply because we are\ncommanded. Corroborative evidence may be looked for elsewhere, but the\nmain, the primary evidence is within the soul.\n\nHence the strength of this belief depends on ourselves and on our own\ncharacter. To every man the voice speaks. But its authority is felt in\nproportion to the spirituality of each who hears. Its acceptance is\nbound up in some way with our own wills. How far it is a matter of\nchoice to believe or to disbelieve it is not possible to define. The\nwill lies hidden as it were behind the emotions, the affections, the\nnobler impulses. The conscience shades off into the other faculties, and\nwe cannot always isolate it from the rest. But though it be impossible\nto say precisely how the will is concerned in the spiritual belief,\nthere can be no doubt that it always takes its part in such belief. It\nis the keen conscience, it is the will that can be moved to its depths\nby the conscience, that grasp most strongly the certainty of the law of\nduty. It is the man with the strongest and noblest aspirations, the man\nwho sees the beauty of humility, the man who feels most strongly the\ndeep peace of self-sacrifice, _that_ is the man who finds the voice\nwithin most irresistible. It is not by any means always the man who\nlives the most correct life; correctness of life may be due to natural\nand not to spiritual causes. And the man whom we should find faultless\nin point of morals may yet be wanting in spiritual depth, and not have\nas yet, and perhaps may not have to the last, the spiritual faculty\nstrong within him. But the man, even if he have many and grievous\nfaults, who nevertheless is keenly susceptible of higher things, is the\none to whom the voice within speaks with authority not to be gainsaid,\nand to him that voice is final.\n\nIt is this fact that the perception of things spiritual varies from man\nto man, and depends on character, and involves action of the will, that\nmakes it always possible to represent our knowledge of the law of duty\nas in itself standing on a less sure foundation than our knowledge of\nscientific truth. Whether a man has or has not the necessary power of\nmind to comprehend scientific reasoning is tested with comparative ease.\nAnd if he have that power, the reasoning is certain in course of time to\nbe understood, and when it is understood it compels assent so long as it\nkeeps within its own proper domain. But the perception of spiritual\ntruth depends on a faculty whose power or weakness it is far more\ndifficult to test; and it involves the will which may be exerted on\neither side. And for this reason men sometimes dismiss this truth as\nbeing no more than an imagination, needed by some men to satisfy an\nemotional nature, but having no substance that can be brought to an\nexternal test. The believer in God knows that the truth which he holds\nis as certain as the axioms of mathematics; but he cannot make others\nknow this whose spiritual faculty is not awake; and he is liable to be\nasked for proof not of the spiritual but of the physical kind.\n\nNow this much must be acknowledged, that we cannot but expect the claim\nto supremacy over all things to show itself in some way in the creation\nwhich has come from Him who makes that claim. It would, no doubt, be a\nserious difficulty if things physical and things spiritual were cut off\nfrom one another by an absolute gulf; if we were required to believe\nthat God had created and now ruled everything, and yet we could trace\nnot the slightest evidence of His hand either in the creation or in the\nhistory of the world.\n\nThere are then two ways in which we are able to recognise Him even in\nthis world of phenomena. For in the first place, the creation in its\norder and its beauty and its marvellous adaptation of means to ends,\nconfirms the assertion of the spiritual faculty that it owes its origin\nto an intelligent and benevolent purpose, exhibited in the form in which\npurpose is always exhibited. It works towards ends which we should\nexpect a holy and benevolent Creator to have in view, and it\naccomplishes those ends in so large a proportion that, making allowance\nfor the limited range of our knowledge, the general aim of the whole is\nseen with sufficient clearness. The argument is not strong enough to\ncompel assent from those who have no ears for the inward spiritual\nvoice, but it is abundantly sufficient to answer those who argue that\nthere cannot be a Creator because they cannot trace His action. And the\nscientific doctrine of Evolution, which at first seemed to take away the\nforce of this argument, is found on examination to confirm it and expand\nit. The doctrine of Evolution shows that with whatever design the world\nwas formed, that design was entertained at the very beginning and\nimpressed on every particle of created matter, and that the appearances\nof failure are not only to be accounted for by the limitation of our\nknowledge, but also by the fact that we are contemplating the work\nbefore it has been completed.\n\nAnd in the second place, while the creation, the more closely it is\nexamined the more distinctly shows the marks of the wisdom and goodness\nof the Creator, so the history of the world exhibits in the Revelation\nmade to man clear proofs of that heavenly love which corresponds to the\ncharacter of Him who has put love at the head of all the requirements of\nHis law. The Revelation given to us has undeniably made a real mark on\nthe world. It has upheld millions of men in a holiness of life\ncorresponding in a very real degree to the holiness required by the law\nof duty. It has perpetually more and more cleared up the true teaching\nof that law. It is still continuing the same process, and generation\nafter generation is better able to understand that teaching. Its fruits\nhave been a harvest of saints and martyrs, some known and reverenced,\nsome quite unnoticed. It has leavened all literature and all\nlegislation. It has changed the customs of mankind and is still changing\nthem. And if it be replied that all this is nothing but one form of the\ndevelopment of humanity and shows no proof of a Divine Ruler, we have a\nright to ask what then could be the source of such a development, and\nhow is it that so great a power should always have worked in the name of\nGod and should have always referred everything to His command? That\nfanaticism should plead God's authority without any right to do so is\nintelligible. But is it intelligible that all this truth and justice and\npurity and self-sacrificing love, all this obedience to the Supreme Law,\nshould be the fruit of believing a lie? If there be a God, it is to be\nexpected that He would communicate with His creatures if those creatures\nwere capable of receiving the communication; and if He did communicate\nwith His creatures it is to be expected that His communication would be\nsuch as we find in the Bible. The purpose of the Bible, the form of it,\nthe gradual formation of it, the steadily-growing Revelation contained\nin it, these harmonise with the moral law revealed originally in the\nconscience. And the effect which the Revelation has produced on human\nhistory is real and great. The power which God's Revelation has exerted\non the world is an undeniable fact among phenomena. It is not a\ndemonstration of His existence; but it is a full answer to those who\nsay, 'If God made and rules the world why do we find no signs of His\nhand in its course?'\n\nAnd thirdly, this Revelation has not merely taken the form of a message\nor a series of messages, but has culminated in the appearance of a\nperson who has always satisfied and still satisfies the conception\nformed by our spiritual faculty of a human representation of the divine\nlaw. Our Lord's life is that law translated into human action, and all\nthe more because human faculties had not first framed the conception\nwhich He then came to fulfil, but He exhibited the ideal, and our\nconception rose as it were to correspond to it. And, as He includes in\nHimself all the teaching, so does He give from Himself all the power of\nthe Revelation which He came to crown. And every true disciple of Christ\ncan bear witness to the reality of that power in sustaining the soul.\n\nThus has the God, whom our spiritual faculty commands us to worship and\nto reverence, shown Himself in the world of phenomena. And He has given\nproofs of His existence and His character precisely corresponding to\nthe conception which He has enabled, and indeed commanded, us to form of\nHim. And it is because the proofs that He has given are of this nature\nthat we are tempted to ask for more proofs of a different kind.\n\nFor it is undeniable that believers and unbelievers alike are\nperpetually asking for proofs that shall have more of the scientific and\nless of the religious character, proofs that shall more distinctly\nappeal to the senses. Believers in all ages have longed for external\nsupport to their faith; unbelievers have refused to believe unless\nsupplied with more physical evidence. Believers shrink from being thrown\ninwards on themselves; they fear the wavering of their own faith; they\nare alarmed at the prospect of the buttresses of their belief being\ntaken from them. They find it easier to believe the spiritual evidence,\nif they can first find much physical evidence. They wish (to use the\nApostle's words) to walk by sight and not by faith. And unbelievers want\na tangible proof that shall compel their understanding before it awakes\ntheir conscience. They demand a Revelation, not only confirmed by\nmiracles at the time, but confirmed again and again by repeated miracles\nto every succeeding generation. They want miracles in every age adapted\nto the science of the age, miracles which no hardness of heart would be\nable to deny, which would convince the scientific man through his\nScience independently of his having any will to make holiness his aim\nwhen he had been convinced. This kind of evidence it has not pleased God\nto give. It is not the scientific man that God seeks as such, any more\nthan it is the ignorant man that He seeks as such. And the proofs that\nHe gives are plainly in all cases conditioned by the rule that the\nspiritually minded shall most easily and most keenly perceive their\nforce.\n\nAnd, as far as unbelievers are concerned, I do not see that more need be\nsaid except to tell them that this rule is inflexible, and that it is by\nanother way that they must look to find God, and not by the way that\nthey insist on choosing. But believers who are in the same case need to\nbe warned of some very real dangers that always attend a faith which\nmakes too much of things not spiritual.\n\nFor, first, there is a real and great danger that the spiritual may be\naltogether obscured by the literal and the physical. We look back with\nastonishment on the Rabbinical interpretations of the Old Testament, and\nall the more because of the really great and true thoughts that are\nsometimes to be found in the midst of their fanciful conceits. We can\ntrace the mischief they did to true Religion by the perverted reverence\nwith which they regarded the words and even the letters, and the very\nshapes of the letters, in which their sacred books were written. Their\nperversions of the law of God, their subtle refinements of\ninterpretation, their trivial conceits, their false and misleading\ncomments and inferences, all certainly tended to encourage the hypocrisy\nwhich our Lord rebuked, and against which St. Paul contended. But we\nstill see something of the same spirit in the attempt to maintain a\nverbal and even literal inspiration of the whole Bible, filling it not\nwith the breath of a Divine Spirit, but with minute details of doctrine\nand precept often questionable, and, whenever separated from the\nprinciples of the eternal law, valueless or even mischievous. God's\nWord, instead of leading us to Him, is made to stand between and hide\nHis face.\n\nBut, secondly, there is a serious risk that if the mind be fastened on\nthings external in some way connected with, but yet distinct from the\nsubstance of Revelation, it may turn out that these external things\ncannot hold the ground on which they have been placed. They have to be\ngiven up by force at last, when they ought to have been given up long\nbefore. And when given up they too often tear away with them part of the\nstrength of that faith of which they had previously been not only the\nbuttress outside but a part of the living framework. It is distinctly\nthe fault of religious, not of scientific men, that there was once a\ngreat contest between the Bible and Astronomy, that there has since been\na great contest between the Bible and Geology, that there is still a\ngreat contest between the Bible and Evolution. In no one of these cases\nwas the Revelation contained in the Bible in danger, but only the\ninterpretation commonly put on the Bible. It is easy long afterwards to\ncondemn the opponents of Galileo and speak of their treatment of him\nand his teaching as fanaticism and bigotry; and such condemnation has\nnot unfrequently been heard from the very lips that nevertheless\ndenounced the teaching of the geologists. But in all these cases the\nprinciple has been the same, and believers have insisted that the Bible\nitself was gone unless their interpretation of it was upheld. And the\nmischief is double. For many believers, and more especially unlearned\nbelievers, instead of gently helping one another to form the necessary\nmodification of their view of the Bible teaching, instead of\nendeavouring to find the way out of the perplexity and to disentangle\nthe true spiritual lesson from the accessories which are no part of\nitself, insisted that it must be all or nothing, and prepared for\nthemselves a very severe trial. There was no doctrine involved whatever;\nthere was nothing at stake on which the spiritual life depended. The\nduty to be patient, to enquire carefully, to study the other side, to\nwait for light, was as plain as any duty could be. But all this was\nforgotten in a somewhat unreasoning impulse to resist an assault on the\nfaith. And there cannot be a doubt that on all these occasions many\nbelievers have been seriously shaken by slowly finding out that the\nposition they have taken is untenable. When men have to give up in such\ncircumstances they generally give up far more than they need, and in\nsome cases an unreasonable resistance has been followed by an equally\nunreasonable surrender. And while believers have thus prepared a\nstumblingblock for themselves they have put quite as great a\nstumblingblock before others. For students of Science, informed by\ninstant voices all around that they must choose between their Science\nand the Bible, knowing as they did that their Science was true, and\nsupposing that the lovers and defenders of the Bible best knew what its\nteaching was, had no choice as honest men but to hold the truth as far\nas they possessed it and to give up the Bible in order to maintain their\nScience. It was a grievous injury inflicted on them; and though some\namong them might deserve no sympathy, there were some whom it was a\ngreat loss to lose.\n\nBut in the third place, the result of this clinging to externals is to\nshut out Science and all its correlative branches of knowledge from\ntheir proper office of making perpetually clearer the true and full\nmeaning of the Revelation itself. It is intended that Religion should\nuse the aid of Science in clearing her own conceptions. It is intended\nthat as men advance in knowledge of God's works and in power of handling\nthat knowledge, they should find themselves better able to interpret the\nmessage which they have received from their Father in Heaven. Our\nknowledge of the true meaning of the Bible has gained, and it was\nintended that it should gain, by the increase of other knowledge.\nScience makes clearer than anything else could have made it the higher\nlevel on which the Bible puts what is spiritual over what is material. I\ndo not hesitate to ascribe to Science a clearer knowledge of the true\ninterpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, and to scientific\nhistory a truer knowledge of the great historical prophets. The advance\nof secular studies, as they are called, clears up much in the Psalms,\nand much in the other poetical Books of Scripture. I cannot doubt that\nthis was intended from the beginning, and that as Science has already\ndone genuine service to Religion in this way, so will it do still better\nservice with process of time.\n\nOn this side also, as on the scientific side, the teaching of the\nspiritual faculty and the teaching of Revelation indicate that the\nphysical and the spiritual worlds are one whole, and that neither is\ncomplete without the other. Science enters into Religion, and is its\ncounterpart, and has its share to take in the conduct of life and in the\nformation of opinion. And the believer is bound to recognise its value\nand make use of its services.\n\nIn conclusion, it is plain that the antagonism between Science and\nReligion arises much more from a difference of spirit and temper in the\nstudents of each than from any inherent opposition between the two. The\nman of Science is inclined to shut out from consideration a whole body\nof evidence, the moral and spiritual; the believer is inclined to shut\nout the physical. And each, from long looking at that evidence alone\nwhich properly belongs to his own subject, is inclined to hold the other\ncheap, and to charge on those who adduce it either blindness of\nunderstanding or wilful refusal to accept the truth. And when such a\nconflict arises it is the higher and not the lower, it is Faith and not\nScience that is likely to suffer. For the physical evidence is tangible,\nand the perception of it not much affected by the character of the man\nwho studies it; the spiritual evidence stands unshaken in itself, but it\nis hid from eyes that have no spiritual perception, and that perception\nnecessarily varies with the man.\n\nBy what means then can a man keep his spiritual perception in full\nactivity? And is there any test by which a man may know whether his\nspiritual faculty is in contact with the source of all spiritual life\nand is deriving from that source the full flow of spiritual power?\nRevelation, if it tells us anything, ought to tell us this. And the\nanswer which Revelation makes is expressed in the words of St. Paul, 'No\nman can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.' This\ndoctrine runs through the New Testament, and it implies that one main\npurpose of our Lord's appearance among men was to give them in His\nlife, His character, His example, His teaching, at once a touchstone by\nwhich they could always try their own spirits, and judge of the real\ncondition of their own spiritual faculty, and also a vivid presentation\nof the supreme spiritual law by which they could for ever more and more\nelevate and purify and strengthen their own spiritual power and\nknowledge.\n\nLet a man study the Jesus of the Gospels. Let him put before his\n_conscience_ the teaching that Jesus gives; the picture drawn of our\nFather in Heaven whose holiness cannot allow a stain upon a single soul,\nand whose tenderness cannot endure that a single soul should perish; Who\nruleth all the universe, and yet without whom not a sparrow falleth to\nthe ground; the picture drawn of the ideal human life, the humility, the\nhunger and thirst after righteousness, the utter self-sacrifice, the\npurity; the picture drawn of human need, the helplessness, the\nhopelessness of man without God. Let him ponder on all this and on the\nmany touching expressions, the truth, the depth, the force, the\nsuperhuman sweetness and gentleness with which all is presented. And if\nhis conscience bows before it, and can say without reserve and in\nunalloyed sincerity, 'This is my Lord; He shall be my teacher; here I\nrecognise the fulness of the eternal law; at His feet will I henceforth\nsit and learn; through Him will I drink of the well-springs of eternal\ntruth; His voice will I trust to the very utmost;' then may that man be\nsure that his conscience is in contact with the Father of spirits, and\nthat his study will guide him into fuller and clearer knowledge, and\nmore certain conviction that he is grasping the truth of God.\n\nLet a man put before his _heart_ our Lord's own character. Let him think\nof the life of privation without complaint, of service to His kind\nwithout a thought of self; of His unfailing sympathy with the unhappy,\nof His tenderness to the penitent; of His royal simplicity and humility;\nof His unwearied perseverance in the face of angry opposition; of His\ndeep affection for the friends of His choice even when they deserted Him\nin His hour of darkness; of His death on the Cross and the unearthly\nlove that breathed in every word He uttered and everything He did. Let\nhim read all this many times; and if his heart goes out to the Man whom\nhe is thus beholding, if he can say with all his soul, This is my Lord;\nhere is the supreme object of my affection; Him will I love with all my\nstrength; from Him I will never, if I can help it, let my heart swerve;\nno other do I know more worthy to be loved; no other will I keep more\nsteadily before my eyes; no other will I more earnestly desire to\nimitate; no other shall be my example, my trust, my strength, my\nSaviour; if a man can say this, it is certain that his heart is touched\nby God, and the heavenly fire is kindled in his soul.\n\nLet a man put before his _will_ the Lord's commands; the aims, the\nself-restraints, the aspirations that the Lord required in His\ndisciples. Let him ponder on the call to heavenly courage in spite of\nall that earth can inflict or can take away; the call to take up the\nCross and follow Him that was crucified; the warnings and the promises,\nthe precepts and the prohibitions; let him think of the Leader who never\nflinched, of the Lawgiver who outdid His own law; let him think on the\nnobleness of the aims to which He pointed; of the promise of inward\npeace made to those who sacrificed themselves, made by our Lord and\nre-echoed from the very depths of our spiritual being; let him think of\nthe sure help promised in return for absolute trust, tried by millions\nof saints and never yet known to fail. Let a man put this before his\nwill, and if he can say with all his soul, This is my Lord; here I\nrecognise Him who has a right to my absolute obedience; here is the\nMaster that I mean to serve and follow; and in spite of my own weakness\nand blindness, in spite of my sins, in spite of stumbling and weariness\nof resolution, in spite of temptations and in spite of falls, I will not\nlet my eyes swerve, nor my purpose quit my will; through death itself I\nwill obey my Lord and trust to Him to carry me through whatever comes;\nthat man most certainly is moving in the strength of God, and the power\nof the Eternal Spirit lives within him.\n\nOur Lord is the crown, nay, the very substance of all Revelation. If He\ncannot convince the soul, no other can. The believer stakes all faith on\nHis truth; all hope on His _power_. If the man of Science would learn\nwhat it is that makes believers so sure of what they hold, he must study\nwith an open heart the Jesus of the Gospels; if the believer seeks to\nkeep his faith steady in the presence of so many and sometimes so\nviolent storms of disputation, he will read of, ponder on, pray to, the\nLord Jesus Christ.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: The Data of Philosophy.]","title":"The Relations Between Religion and Science: Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":47302}