"positive philosophy," and needlessly multiply the topics of controversy with them. The theory here maintained leaves range enough to satisfy the roving propensities of any reasonable explorer in the realms of natural science. It allows Darwin and his opponents to fight out on purely scientific grounds the battle between their theories. It gives Mill and his school a tether as long as eternity, and liberty to roam up and down all space unfettered by anything except the infirmities of their own powers. Let them open the book of nature and read, only they must not be allowed to read too much between the lines. Our views would limit somewhat the number of what are generally received by the intuitional school as first truths. If, however, some of the outposts are deserted, it is in order that we may intrench ourselves in an impregnable position.

This line of thought has important bearings upon the proper defence of the credibility of the Bible, and of its purported revelation of a positive religion. The principles determining the correctness of our interpretation of nature are not different in kind from those determining the trustworthiness of our interpretation of the written revelation. The difference is only in degree. In the evidences of Christianity the assumption of final cause comes not more absolutely, but only more prominently, into play. The evidences of

Christianity are inductive like those of science. They rest on observations of facts so peculiar and extensive that when coupled with the known wants of man, and with the assumption of divine benevolence and wisdom, God's veracity is implicated in their truth. A certain degree of uniformity in the operations of God in furnishing historical evidences is as securely established, and established upon the same principles, as is the approximation to uniformity pervading the phenomena of the physical world. In both cases we have to assume that there are ascertainable marks implicating the divine veracity.

Some principles partially developed here may also help us to a broader, deeper, and more rational interpretation of Bible history and types and prophecies. The machinery of interpretation known as the "analogy of faith" has by no means yet revealed the full measure of its power. The importance of having specific doctrines, like those of immortality, the atonement, and future judgment, come to us weighted with all the evidence of that wide induction of facts establishing the general truth of the Bible can hardly be overestimated. And, in turn, the weight of evidence which this meeting of the wants of man by the Bible supplies to the whole system of Christianity is not now appreciated as it should be.

CHAPTER II.

DARWINISM AS AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.

I. Introductory.

DR. WHEWELL,1 in his chapter on the "Relation of Tradition to Palaetiology," has with great wisdom and candor discussed the relations that ought to subsist between theologians and men of science. He shows, in the first place, how the promulgators of religious truth are compelled to avoid reference to the more recondite matters of science, for fear of calling attention away from the weightier matters of the spiritual life that more personally concern men. He points out that the flexibility of the Scriptures in adapting their teaching to scientific discoveries arises chiefly from this excellence, that their language is "adapted to the common state of man's intellectual development, in which he is supposed not to be possessed of science." 2 But from these facts there must arise trials of faith. "The moral and providential relations of man's condition are so much more important to

1 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. pp. 137–157. 2 Ibid, p. 143.

him than mere natural relations, that at first we may well suppose he will accept the sacred narrative, as not only unquestionable in its true. import, but also as a guide in his views even of mere natural relations. He will try to modify the conceptions which he entertains of objects and their properties, so that the sacred narrative of the supernatural condition shall retain the first meaning which he had put upon it in virtue of his own habits in the usage of language.” 1

In the same chapter it is very well remarked that physical science can tell us nothing of the origin of things. "The thread of induction respecting the natural course of the world snaps in our fingers when we try to ascertain where its beginning is. Since, then, science can teach us nothing positive respecting the beginning of things, she can neither contradict nor confirm what is taught by Scripture on that subject. The

.....

providential history of the world has its own beginning and its own evidence." 2

Another fact of great interest is noticed by the same author. "Scientific views, when familiar, do not disturb the authority of Scripture. When the language of Scripture, invested with its new meaning, has become familiar to men, it is found that the ideas which it calls up are quite as 1 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. pp. 141,

142.

2 Ibid., p. 145.

reconcilable as the former ones were with the most entire acceptance of the providential dispensation. And when this has been found to be the case, all cultivated persons look back with surprise at the mistake of those who thought that the essence of the revelation was involved in their own arbitrary version of some collateral circumstance in the revealed narrative. At the present day we can hardly conceive how reasonable men could ever have imagined that religious reflections on the stability of the earth, and the beauty and use of the luminaries which revolve round it, would be interfered with by an acknowledgment that this rest and motion are apparent only. And thus the authority of revelation is not shaken by any changes introduced by the progress of science in the mode of interpreting expressions which describe physical objects and occurrences; provided the new interpretation is admitted at a proper season and in a proper spirit; so as to soften, as much as possible, both the public controversies and the private scruples which almost inevitably accompany such an alteration.” 1

The question is then raised as to the proper time and spirit in which the "religious and enlightened commentator" is to make such changes in the current interpretation of sacred Scripture.

1 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. pp. 146, 147. See also, History of Inductive Science, Vol. i. p. 286.