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DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS FACULTY IN MAN, APART FROM REVELATION. By the Rt. Rev. Bishop WELLDON, D.D.

This paper has not been finally corrected by the author.

desire to preface it by two or three explanatory remarks.

1. Whatever be the way in which man came into the world, whether by an immediate act of the Creator or by evolution from a lower species, it is evident that there must have been a first man, in other words, there was at some point of the world's history a being who first deserved the name of man. It is perhaps a difficulty in the way of the modern doctrine of man's descent from some lower animal that the beings immediately next to him in the evolutionary scale should be either non-existent or far less numerous than such beings as are infinitely below him. But if there was, as there must have been, a first man, then the nature of man stands by itself; it is what it has been experimentally proved to be, and it must not be limited by any such standard as may be applicable to the nature of lower beings.

2. History proves the spiritual element in man. To deny it is wholly to misconceive human nature. It may be admitted that the spiritual part of man's nature, like other parts, has at times become distorted, that is, it has tended to such results

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THE ANNUAL ADDRESS.

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DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS FACULTY IN MAN, APART FROM REVELATION. By the Rt. Rev. Bishop WELLDON, D.D.

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HE object of my paper is to show how man was historically prepared, as it seems, for the reception of the spiritual truths committed to his reason, and his conscience by God. For however the nature of revelation may be conceived, it depends not only upon the will of God to reveal Himself to man, but upon man's capacity for accepting what is so revealed. But as this paper necessarily lies somewhat apart from the ordinary lines of Christian Apologetics and indeed of the relation between Christian faith and Scientific Discovery or Theory, I desire to preface it by two or three explanatory remarks.

1. Whatever be the way in which man came into the world, whether by an immediate act of the Creator or by evolution from a lower species, it is evident that there must have been a first man, in other words, there was at some point of the world's history a being who first deserved the name of man. It is perhaps a difficulty in the way of the modern doctrine of man's descent from some lower animal that the beings immediately next to him in the evolutionary scale should be either non-existent or far less numerous than such beings as are infinitely below him. But if there was, as there must have been, a first man, then the nature of man stands by itself; it is what it has been experimentally proved to be, and it must not be limited by any such standard as may be applicable to the nature of lower beings.

2. History proves the spiritual element in man. To deny it is wholly to misconceive human nature. It may be admitted that the spiritual part of man's nature, like other parts, has at times become distorted, that is, it has tended to such results

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as were injurious to man himself. But it remains an essential factor of his being. Man is akin to God; he aspires to spiritual knowledge and felicity, and his religious history in all the ages is one long effort to attain the satisfaction of his spiritual nature.

3. There is no other means of satisfying man's spirituality than by revelation. All mere secular truth he may slowly but surely discover for himself. But the truths of God's being and character, of heaven and hell, of immortality, of eternal life, he can learn, if he learns them at all, only by direct communication from God. These truths and others like them, vitally important as they are to him, he cannot know unless God himself reveals them.

Assuming, then, the existence of a beneficent Deity, I perceive no intrinsic difficulty in revelation. Rather it seems to me to be such a communication as I should expect God to make to man for human good; and with all my heart I believe that God has "at sundry times and in divers manners revealed Himself through chosen agents to humanity.

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All that I propose to do in this paper is to enquire how man, by using his own natural powers, was disposed to apprehend and embrace the revelation which it was God's will to make.

When man began to think at all, he began by thinking about himself. He was chiefly concerned with himself, chiefly interested in himself; it was only natural that he should judge everybody and everything outside himself by his own nature. The old saying, "Ανθρωπος μέτρον παντων contains a deep psychological truth. Man cannot escape from himself. Consciously or unconsciously he refers all phenomena to himself. Even his deities, as Aristotle has observed, he creates in his own image.

But as soon as man reflected, in however a rudimentary manner, upon himself, he became conscious of a dualism in his own nature. To say that in early times he conceived himself, intelligently and scientifically, as a being composed of two distinct elements,

* ὥαπερ και τὰ ἔιδη ἑαυτοῖς άφομοιοῦοιν οἱ ἄνθρωπού, οιτω και τους βίους τῶν Oewv, Polit, i, 2, 7.

his body and soul, would be to antedate what has been a subsequent result of self-introspection. But it must have occurred to him, almost in the birthday of human thought, that his nature was not single but composite. He realised, however faintly at first, that there was in his nature one part which issued commands and another part which obeyed them. He realised, too, that there was in his nature not only his material body, but something else that was different from the body, something immaterial, impalpable, invisible. For it was evident that he himself was not always the same, that there are times when his being seemed to live and act as a single whole, and other times when one part of his being seemed to be present, and the other part to be temporarily divorced from it.

Among the experiences which conferred upon his mind the essential dualism of his nature, it is probable that the contrast between waking and sleeping was powerful as it was natural. For the greater part of his life he is conscious, intelligent, active, energetic; he sees, he feels, he thinks, he converses and others converse with him; he is occupied in eating and drinking and in the regular avocations and pleasures of his nature; he exercises the power of will and enjoys the satisfaction of gratifying it, and suffers the pain of finding it disappointed and defeated. But for the lesser part he is as one living though without life; he is feeble as a babe; he lies at the mercy of circumstances; he is bereft of consciousness, character and judgment; he is little more than a dull brute, quite inert, insensible of all that passes before his closed eyes, and impotent to defend himself against the assault of man or beast. This attitude of strenuousness and personal daily experience; and it primitive man should reflect upon it. could he render to himself? He could scarcely, I think, avoid the inference that something, which existed and was active within him during his waking hours, passed out of him for a while, when he fell asleep-that something he called his soul or his spirit. But there was a further question that must have suggested itself to primitive man: If the spirit departs from the body during sleep, what becomes of it? The body remains,

helplessness is man's was inevitable that What account of it