upon impenetrable darkness and eternal silence.' In the language of another it is that which can be known as contrasted with the unknowable. If so-and I heartily concur in the definition-then religion, to have any meaning at all for a consistent evolutionist, must be a voice out of that silence, a revelation of that which otherwise must remain unknown. It is, of course, open to Christian apologists to place the essential foundation of their religion in conscience, or free will, or morality touched with emotion, or in the existence of a spiritual substance called a soul. But it is not possible for them to convince the scientific mind that this deserves the special name of religion, or can lead us up to God, or can satisfy the instinct of worship. Whatever else these, e.g. conscience, may be, they are the products of the original atoms, part of that system of things that falls within the region of the knowable, totally inadequate, therefore, to extend our information or to prolong our destinies beyond nature itself. Better confess the plain truth at once. Without the aid of revelation we look up through nature to .. the original atoms. It must, in short, be confessed that a great disservice was done to Christianity by those eminent and earnest thinkers who defended it as a republication of natural religion. But they were, like us all, creatures of their day, and did what work they had to do with such materials as lay ready to hand. And the same discernment which taught them then how, upon certain given premisses, Christianity could be perfectly well defended, would teach them now to abandon a line of argument which the simple march of thought and discovery has outflanked and turned. For the short and sufficient answer is that if a events past, present, and to come. Every event, therefore, must be taken to be a part of nature, until proof to the contrary is supplied.' Now, if this use of the word were exact or even common, I think the case for so-called 'miracles' would be stronger than it really is. But, putting this aside, let us try and give to nature a rigidly scientific meaning. It is, first of all, the sum total of phenomena that have existed or occurred within the sphere, both as to their causes and their results, of this present world-in other words, of that which can be made the subject of knowledge. To this might be added, but doubtfully, all phenomena belonging to other worlds which can be ascertained by astronomical inquiry: it is possible, but hardly natural,' to say that the position of a certain star in the heavens, or of a given line in its spectrum, is according to nature. But to extend the use to all events, including 'miracles' (if they happen), is sure to mislead. Miracles-using a bad word for the present under protest--are phenomena presented, indeed, to experience, but proclaiming themselves to be caused by powers of which nature knows nothing: they may be natural, but the nature is not ours, nor that by which our intelligences are conditioned. In the mind of science they are extranatural, in that of religion supernatural, because they point back to powers not only other, but also higher, than any which obtain in nature as we know it: hence, to speak of miracles as violating the laws of nature is, as Professor Huxley points out, absurd, but not absurd to speak of them as transcending those laws. The full meaning of all this will appear further on: for the present I am merely indicating in what sense I use these words, which has the double advantage of being both popular and exact. religion of nature were possible, a religion of revelation would be quite unnecessary and impertinent; and it is satisfactory to perceive that in the grasp of evolution the idea of a natural religion is dying like Rousseau's dream of a primitive natural society. Christianity must at least gain something from a philosophy which pronounces, in the matter of religion, either revelation or nothing.' 2. In the light of evolution we are enabled to obtain a clear and consistent definition of revelation, together with an insight into the part which it plays in the economy of the universe. Let us define it somewhat as follows. It is the exhibition, within the limits of nature and to sensible experience, of phenomena which, being the productions of super-evolutional causes, attest the existence of supernatural forces, and also convey some useful information about them. Once more, it is the 'eternal silence' that must speak, a voice out of the unknowable that must make itself known. And the Christian instinct, which may surely, in so vital a matter as this, be trusted to go right and to know the ground of its own beliefs, has never ceased to proclaim the occurrence of such phenomena as are above described. For the purposes of this argument I expressly confine revelation within the limits of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, or rather, following the example of the early Church, to the facts of the Apostles' Creed. Now I have already admitted that Christian thinkers must be at liberty, if they prefer it, to place the basis of their faith elsewhere than in a revelation (as just defined), even while I profess my own inability to comprehend their position. But there is a state of mind increasingly prevalent, and fraught with growing danger to the future fortunes of the Christian religion, from which the progress of evolution is even now beginning to set us free. It is that tone of thought which regards the occurrence of super-evolutional phenomena as being, on the whole, a matter of comparatively slight importance; and with this tone the genius of evolution, with its intense and vivid appreciation of the meaning and potency of facts, will tend more and more to make it impossible for the mind of man to be contented. Parentheti– cally it must be observed that this temper of mind must not be confounded with another which is content to say: Whether the facts occurred in this way may be uncertain, but if they did this is what they mean.' The time is then, I think, rapidly drawing on when modern thought will demand of theology, and that with some excusable peremptoriness of tone, to state once for all upon which footing it elects to stand. At present the tone of many scientific minds seems to be somewhat as follows: 'We really cannot occupy ourselves in serious discussion, because we never quite know where we have you. You always seem to us to assume a supernatural standpoint, and then, when confronted with the obvious difficulties involved in this, to fly elsewhere for refuge. Adopt the alternative that the Christian history is true in fact, and we will argue the question. Adopt the alternative that it is only a framework for moral ideas and spiritual truths, and that too we can make shift to estimate. But to halt uneasily between the two, to say that so tremendous an event as the resurrection of a dead man may have happened or may not, but that on the whole it does not much matter, is to interpose a fatal barrier to sincere discussion with minds that have been trained to estimate the nature and consequences of fact. If this story be true, then every conception that man can form of himself and his surroundings must be profoundly modified; if it be false, then it should not be allowed to intrude itself upon a religion which, as you more than half seem to assure us, having first succeeded in convincing yourselves, was not founded upon it, does not need it, and would be all the better without it.' 3. In the very act of intensifying the desire to find a natural explanation for phenomena, evolution will serve to bring out into stronger relief those aspects of the Christian revelation which, up to the present, remain unaccounted for by natural means. It must be remembered that every unsuccessful attack leaves the thing attacked stronger or more difficult of explanation than it was before. The Jewish commonwealth and the Christian Church, the Old and New Testaments, the history of Christ, and the effects of this upon the destinies of mankind, have not, I think it must in fairness be confessed, been so far explained, or their origin traced out, as to convince the minds of ordinary persons that no more remains behind, or that there has been no exhibition of other than human power: every person who attempts the task has his own theory, but no two theories agree together, or secure anything like general approval. And so long as this continues, so long will man be disposed to entertain feelings of reverence and even of worship towards a display of wisdom, power, and goodness, which, so far, resists explanation by any effort of human industry or ingenuity. I do not of course for one moment think of denying that the time may come when the minds of men will be as fully satisfied concerning these points as they are now concerning, say, the origin and progress of the English constitution; but I am insisting that, until that very serious intellectual revolution takes place, the natural tendency of evolution will be to find a place for revelation in the domain not of the unknowable, but of the inexplicable. By its power to clear things up, to limit the scope of human faculties, to draw out the necessities of rational human life, evolution will serve to emphasise the truths, if they be truths, upon which Christianity reposes. Hardy trees may be cut down to the very root by the sharp frost of unsparing criticism without being killed. 4. And this thought leads naturally to another. The more clearly 2 Dean Stanley's commentary on 1 Cor. xv. has some good remarks on St. Paul's reliance upon the resurrection of Christ as a fact. and definitely evolution teaches men to think, the more will it enable them to disentangle the primitive Christian faith from the mass of dogmas and traditions by which, in the long course of ages, it has been encrusted. Even to mention these would be to wander into the field of theology proper, where I have no mind to be caught straying. Suffice it to say that if the essence of Christianity consists in all that may be fairly gathered from the history and doctrine of Jesus Christ, then the religion of the present day has collected round that kernel of the faith a prodigious quantity of husk and shell. The true test of vitality is the power to undergo searching reformation. And it is, to say the least, more than possible that the new science of the nineteenth century may affect Christianity as did the new learning of the fifteenth or sixteenth. There is certainly a large margin left for reform between the existence of things as they are now and entire destruction. But all this, I must repeat, lies comparatively on the surface, and belongs, moreover, more to the future course than to the present aspect of the question. What we really want to know, and what it is the special purpose of this paper to discover, is the effect likely to be produced upon men's capacity and inclination to accept the Christian revelation. And, to get at the root of the matter, the only way is to seek for, as well as we can, the essential sources of that persistent and consistent opposition to its claims which was never more vigorous or unaffected than at the present moment. It is really high time that modern Christian advocates sought to understand the real meaning and true drift of the arguments they have to deal with, and above all to realise the seriousness of the situation to which mere force of numbers, the silent acquiescence of the multitude, outward profession, and external triumphs are but too likely to blind them. We are told that more was done in respect of building and restoring churches just before the Reformation and the revolt against the Church than at any other period of her history. Those who comfort themselves concerning the stability of the faith by parading religious statistics would do well to accept a timely warning. The method of inquiry I propose to myself is to trace our difficulties to three of the chief fathers of modern scepticism-Hume, Spinoza, and Lessing-and then to see what, if any, answer evolution enables us to discover. It is right to add that our plan does not include the argument, much relied upon in these days, that the belief in supernatural events is a necessary product of superstition under given circumstances that is to say, that there are no 'miracles on record, the evidence for which fulfils the plain and simple requirements of elementary logic and of elementary morality.' For myself I attach little importance to this argument taken by itself, and apart from those preliminary and deep-lying objections that prepare the mind for its reception. But anyhow it is a question of evidence that does not come within our present subject, nor will the philosophy of evolution be likely to influence it one way or the other. It will still be open for one man to say: 'I cannot see how such a narrative as the Gospel could be framed by victims of delusion or accomplices in fraud;' and for another equally candid to reply: Having regard to the facts of history in general, I think this to be by no means an impossible alternative.' Indirectly, however, the course of our discussion may deal with this difficulty also. 6 Let us now epitomise, in the simplest and baldest language, the position of the three above-named thinkers. Says Hume, no evidence is sufficient to prove a supernatural event against a uniform experience derived from nature to the contrary. And if, adds Spinoza, such an event could be believed, it would convey no useful information to you about God and divine things; for it is only the natural and the orderly that reveal God. 'Ostendam nihil contra naturam contingere, sed ipsam æternum fixum et immutabilem ordinem servare; nos ex miraculis nec essentiam nec existentiam et consequenter nec providentiam Dei posse cognoscere.' 3 Nor further, chimes in Lessing, even if the miracle were provable and religiously useful, would it be fair to erect it into a permanent standard or criterion of belief. But this objection, the root and justification, as it seems to me, of all modern scepticism, he does not of course formulate at length in so many words. He does but tap the spring from which, gathering strength and volume as they flow, the waters of moral and even religious doubt have since his time taken their course. He suggests, for instance, that the New Testament is a second better primer in which religious truths have been provisionally revealed until reason could, in the fulness of time, discover them for herself. And then he lets fall such pregnant hints as these : Whether we can still prove this resurrection, these miracles, I put aside, as I leave on one side who the person of Christ was. All that may have been at that time of great weight for the RECEPTION of his doctrine, but is now no longer of the same importance for the recognition of the TRUTH of his doctrine.* And why should not we too, by means of a religion whose historical truth, if you will, looks dubious, be conducted in a similar way to closer and better conceptions of the Divine Being, our own nature, our relation to God, truths at which the human reason would never have arrived of itself? 5 So much for these fundamental statements of modern religious scepticism. If the natural remark be made that it is absurd to think of answering them in a single paper, I reply that I occupy the position of the junior connsel who opens the pleadings in great cases, and then sits down to make way for his betters. • Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, ch. v. |