The combination, however, is doomed to give way. Inferential Theism, whether it found on a posteriori or a priori arguments, must stand or fall alone; and fall it does by the trial of history; and fall it must by inherent necessity. Logically, it is incompetent. Metaphysically, what else could be expected of it? When the question is one of metaphysic or of facts of existence, the instrument of knowledge is an analysis of the given, not a syllogism from the given.*

It were to have been wished that Dr. Flint, in professedly taking the position of an inferential Theist, had thought it worth his while to give a moment's attention in a preliminary way to an explicit statement of what inference in this subject is, and what intuition is. Deliberately to have faced the task of such an explicit statement on the two sides might have helped the reader at certain turns in the discussion, and possibly even the writer; and besides, of the two positions, the inferential one, when it was set more in its naked truth, might have presented the prerogative claimed for it in a more challengeable light; while the intuitional, by being more definitely conceived, might have sustained less prejudice at the author's hands, if not, vice versa, the author at its hands. But even before both these points, the meaning of the word 'proof' would need to have been clearly settled. Dr. Flint says, 'The grounds or reasons which we have for our belief (that there is one God, etc.) must be to us proofs of God's existence.' And he quotes Ulrici to the same effect: The proofs for the existence of God coincide with the grounds for the belief in God. They are simply the real grounds of the belief established and expounded in a scientific manner. If there be no such proofs, there are also no such grounds,' etc. Those who affirm,' Dr. Flint adds,' that God exists, and yet deny that His existence can be proved, must either maintain a position obviously erroneous, or use the term proof in some extraordinary sense, fitted only to perplex and mislead.' + All this shows the need of settling the meaning of 'proof.' It is only when proof means—what it does not mean in these quotations-inferential or strictly logical proof, that the intuitionalist denies that God's existence either can or needs to be proved. If ' proofs ' are equivalent to grounds of belief, as they are here taken to be, no intuitionalist denies that God's existence can be proved. The intuitionalist equally with Dr. Flint has grounds of belief. An immediate knowledge of the fact that, established and expounded in a scientific manner,' is his ground. But this meaning of proof, though Dr. Flint's, is not the ordinary or logical sense of the term. "Proof is the deduction of the material truth of one judgment from the material truth of other judgments.' Who, then, uses the term in 'some extraordinary sense, fitted only to perplex and mislead,' is apparent.

6

It is somewhat similar with the other words specified, inference and intuition. More definition is desiderated. That it is so as to the former, the 'note' on pp. 424-5 will show. In that 'note' Dr. Flint breaks a lance

*No matter of fact can be a matter of demonstration in the highest sense of the term.' 'Reality must be tested, not by thought, but by intuition.'-Mansel, Metaphysics, ed. 1860, pp. 278 and 373. 'Demonstration in Metaphysics, in any proper sense of the term, is a vain dream.-Prof. Veitch in Mind, No. 6, p. 222. The application of the mathematical method to philosophy fixes for ever an impassable gulf between knowing and being, because it eliminates from knowing those mental assertions or necessary beliefs in regard to facts, on which our only conclusions as to Being can ever rest.' The foundation truths of existence can only rest on intuitive belief.'-An Examination of Prof. Ferrier's Theory of Knowing and Being. By Rev. John Cairns, A.M. Edin. 1856. Pp. 8 and 12.

† Pp. 59-60.

6

Ueberweg, Logic, sec. 135. From the nature of Probation, it is evident that Probation without inference is impossible.'-Hamilton, Lectures, vol. iv. p. 38.

with Aristotle. It is not needful here to enter into the subtleties of the logic of inference.* It is enough in the cause of Theism to say that in any inference, immediate or mediate, the inferred knowledge is always in thought second to some other knowledge. The latter is acquired first, and is indispensably to be acquired first, if the other is to be acquired at all; for this other is, by some longer or shorter process, to be derived from it. In an inferential system of theistic evidence, accordingly, the fact of God's existence is not a first knowledge of the mind, self-evident and underived. It is logically second to some other knowledge, and gets its guarantee or substantiating evidence from that other. It is true, if that other is true. Now, when it is expressly so said, we know where we are; we know what is meant, and what must be meant, when Dr. Flint professes himself an inferential Theist. To him, the fact of God's existence is not a fact self-evident and given intuitively to the mind. There are other facts logically, and not merely chronologically, before it, from which it is a derived consequence.

As to the definition of the other term-intuition, Dr. Flint omits a deliberate statement of what it is also. And not only so, but while his rejection of intuitive Theism is not made to follow on any criticism of it that can be called either, systematic or adequate, he exhibits in occasional expressions which he employs an appreciation of it that is certainly not ample, hardly even accurate. In fact, considering the importance of the question, What is the true logic of Theism?-considering what is the character of the constructions and defences of an intuitional Theism that are already raised, and what, therefore, was necessary to cover Dr. Flint's advance to his own position, considering, too, the aims and tendencies of thought on this whole subject, both in theistic and antitheistic ranks, the student will certainly require at this point something very different from what this book gives, not merely in amount of attention, but in rigour of thinking.

What says Dr. Flint in his scanty and scattered criticism of the intuitional system? It may be well to look at some of his remarks on the system which he rejects, before taking our stand finally to see the author build up his own system and to scrutinize his work.

He begins with a statement that seems, indeed, to take the question out of the hands of both the inferential and intuitional inquirer alike. "The proofs of God's existence,' he says, 'must be simply His own manifestations. They can neither be, properly speaking, our reasonings, nor the analyses of the principles involved in our reasonings.'§ What are called God's manifestations of Himself are so to us only as being thought by us. God's works and ways, apart from being thought, are not manifestations of His existence to any being. And they are thought as such manifestations either in the form of reasonings or of principles involved in reasonings. Speculative Theism is inevitably either inferential or intuitional. Dr. Flint's statement would destroy the question altogether, by leaving no functions for man's mind at all in gathering the evidence of God's existence.

In the one passage that deals in any connected way with an intuitive Theism, Dr. Flint makes the following statements. Speaking of those Theists

*The question, What is Inference? is involved even to the present day, in as much uncertainty as that ancient question, What is truth?'-Jevons, Principles of Science, vol. i. p. 136.

Ib., vol. i. p. 59. Ueberweg's Logic, secs. 74, 82, 99. Shute, A Discourse on Truth. King & Co. Lond. 1877. Ch. VI. A sharp discussion.

It is singular that neither Dr. Noah Porter (Elements of Intellectual Science, part iv.) nor Prof. Henry Calderwood (Phil. of the Infinite, 3d ed.) is referred to or met. Audiatur et altera pars.

§ P. 60.

who join with Atheists in denying that God's existence can be proved,' he says,* 'I confess I deem this a most erroneous and dangerous procedure. Such Theists seem to me not only the best allies of Atheists, but even more effective labourers in the cause of unbelief than Atheists themselves. They shake men's confidence to a far greater extent in the reasonable grounds of faith in God's existence, and substitute for these grounds others as weak and arbitrary as any Atheist could possibly wish. They pronounce illegitimate and invalid the arguments from effect to cause, from order and arrangement to intelligence, from history to providence, from conscience to a moral governor, -an assertion which, if true, infallibly implies that the heavens do not declare the glory of God. Then, in place of a universe revealing God, and a soul made in His image, and a humanity overruled and guided by Him, they present to us as something stronger and surer, an intuition, or a feeling, or an exercise of mere faith.' Now, as to the alleged atheistical tendency of intuitional procedure, which is almost the familiar cry, the Church is in danger,' the tables may be turned. Is it not possible that one's original certainty as to God's existence may be shaken for the first time only when it is discovered that we must necessarily lead proof for it? Early dogmatic instructions,' says Professor Calderwood,† giving personal reminiscences, made a due impression, and found a response in our mind; but these arguments (to prove the existence of God) for the first time startled us with the suspicion that the conclusion might be false. Left to ourselves, there was no difficulty; steering through these arguments, there was doubt and uncertainty.' The very fact,' says Christlieb, that a direct certainty of God exists in our minds per se, is the most simple refutation of Atheism.' To tell the Atheist, as the intuitionalist can do, that he is unnatural and self-contradictory, is more effective than only to tell him, as the inferential Theist can do, that he reasons badly.

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6

Dr. Flint's next sentence, in the passage above, plunges into absolute scepticism by calling intuitions weak and arbitrary. The analysis that eliminates these first principles of knowledge may be weak and arbitrary, but let intuitions once, by a competent process, be eliminated from the composite of human thinking and acting, and the props of heaven are not more settled or sure. They bear up the heaven of knowledge. Intuitions are from the Creator's own hands direct. God made intuitions; man made reasonings.

As to the arguments from effect to cause, etc., the intuitionalist certainly does pronounce such arguments illegitimate and invalid. And both Dr. Flint and he must do so or be condemned of logic. Each of the pairs of terms mentioned gives the two terms of a relation in thought, and between the two terms of a relation there is no argument legitimate or possible. Will Dr. Flint say there is, and break a lance here with Hume and Sir W. Hamilton too, as he did lately with the Father of Logic? What remains of the quotation is surely quite inept.

6

It is said on the page following the last quotation, An intuition, a feeling, and a belief, are very different things; and not much dependence is to be put on the psychology which is unable to distinguish between them.' That is true; but it looks as if Dr. Flint, had he himself duly remembered the distinction he so signalizes, could hardly have made some of the statements which he has made on the previous ill-fated page which has been quoted.

Dr. Flint further says, "Theism is perfectly explicable without intuition, as the evidences for it are numerous, obvious, and strong.'s Now, not to speak of the fact which Dr. M'Cosh-Dr. Flint's predecessor in argument— * P. 80. † Phil. of the Infinite, 1st ed. p. 76. Modern Doubt, p. 141. SP. 83.

remembers so well, that there is not anything that is explicable perfectly or at all without intuition, and keeping to the sense in which Dr. Flint uses the expression, the question, in the first place, what we need or do not need as evidence, is irrelevant, the scientific question is: What is the evidence which we have? In the second place, Dr. Flint himself in another place says, 'The a posteriori arguments fail to satisfy either mind or heart until they are connected with, and supplemented by, this intuition of the reason— infinity.'*

6

Dr. Flint speaks also of the necessity of proving that the supposed intuition of God is an intuition; and he asks, 'Is that proof likely to be easier, or more conclusive, than the proof of the divine existence?' How the immediate perception of God, he adds, is to be vindicated and verified,' ' especially if there be no other reasons for believing in God than itself, it is difficult to conceive.'† But the relevant question, again, is as to the nature and validity of our evidence, not as to its facility. And with reference to 'other reasons' for God's existence needed to supplement the intuitive, it will be time enough to examine the statement when once Dr. Flint has explicitly made it, that what has intuitive evidence needs or admits any other. Another objection to intuitive Theism is thus stated: "The history of religion, which is what ought to yield the clearest confirmation of the alleged intuition, appears to be from beginning to end a conspicuous contradiction of it.' If all men have the spiritual power of directly beholding their Creator, have an immediate vision of God, how happens it that whole nations believe in the most absurd and monstrous gods? The various phases of polytheism and pantheism,' it is added, are inexplicable, if an intuition of God be universally inherent in human nature.' If Dr. Flint could have said that there had been no God at all, absurd or rational, monstrous or beautiful,—no polytheism or pantheism or other theism among the nations or some of them, he would have said what was to his purpose. What he has said is clearly all that the intuitional Theist needs for his purpose. The appearance of contradiction,' therefore, between intuitional Theism and the 'history of religion,' must be a deceitful appearance. All men have a religion and a God. § To adapt the language of Culverwell, 'I never heard of a nation apostatizing from these common notions, from these first principles.' || Moreover, how would Dr. Flint argue from the moral phenomena of the world as to fundamental moral principles, if he followed the line he takes here in reference to Theism? As to an immediate vision of God,' 'face to face, without any medium,' ¶ and so on, it may hurt all accurate notions in the case, it cannot help them, to use such phrases.

(To be continued.)

REVIVAL OF THE POPISH HIERARCHY IN SCOTLAND.

BY REV. JOHN BOYD, D.D.

FOR some time past there have been frequent intimations in the newspapers that the Pope was intending soon to complete his long cherished purpose of bringing again the whole of Great Britain under his pontifical sway. He would have done this in 1850, when he issued his celebrated Edict from the Flaminian Gate,' in which he declared that he annexed England to the See of Rome as an integral part of his ecclesiastical empire: but the exclusion of Scotland then, from that scheme for extending Papal authority and * P. 291. † P. 82. § Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 377. A Discourse, etc., p. 117. ¶ Pp. 81, 76, and 335.

+ P. 83.

domination, was not the result of accident, but of design. The Court of Rome was only feeling its way; it was just trying the experiment how far it could venture to push its pretensions, without exciting the indignant hostility of the Protestant people of Britain. To have extended the measure to Scotland, would have been to endanger its success. A full dose of pontifical presumption might be too much for public endurance. By attempting too much they might peril all; and knowing well how far the Ritualistic party had lowered the tone of Protestant feeling of England, and familiarized the minds of a large portion of the people with Popish dogmas and ceremonies, the Pope and his advisers concluded that the attempt was more likely to be successful if, in the meantime, it was restricted to the southern portion of our island. The extension, however, of the scheme to Scotland was never abandoned or lost sight of; as soon as it could be done safely, and without arousing against it the well-known Protestantism of Scotland, there was no doubt but it would be attempted. And, as is now well known, the Scottish Roman Catholic bishops have been most anxious to get their present quasi relation to their Church altered; so that they also might, like their English brethren, be members of an episcopal hierarchy created by express pontifical authority, and conferring on them full diocesan authority over their respective sees. Moreover, if public report is to be believed, Cardinal Manning has been labouring most zealously to effect this object, with a view, doubtless, to extend the area of his own authority, and rule as head of the Roman Catholic community over our whole island, as well as to elevate the Scottish portion of the Church into more direct relationship to Rome than it has enjoyed since the Reformation.

With her usual astuteness, Rome has been gradually and sedulously preparing the way for the full and complete development of her plans, and to familiarize the Scottish people with Romish titles and hierarchical pretensions, so that the issuing of the coming Edict may not take them altogether by surprise. His Holiness, a few years ago, created Dr. Eyre of Glasgow an archbishop, and conferred upon him metropolitan dignity and authority; and although his title is altogether illegal, it is to be regretted that it has been so quietly acquiesced in by a large portion of the people of Glasgow ;* and as, like his brother Archbishop Manning, he has, since his elevation to archiepiscopal position, been somewhat frequent in his attendance at and taking part in public meetings, Papal dignitaries are no strange things among us now, and when the Pope establishes the new hierarchy we shall soon become familiar with the whole rank and file of the episcopal fraternity.

It is, we think, very much to be regretted, that so many of the Protestants of this country feel very little concern about the doings of the Pope and his Court in relation to this matter. They admit that it is both impudent and presumptuous for Pope Pius IX. to send his Bulls into our land, and map out our country into as many episcopal dioceses as he thinks fit. But why, they say, trouble ourselves, or make any outcry on the subject. They are only his own subjects, the members of his own Church, that are affected by it; it touches neither our civil nor religious liberties as Protestants; and if he

* Very lately we were talking with a friend on this subject; he informed us that he has, on more occasions than one, met Dr. Eyre in the houses of Protestant friends, and that he had heard him addressed by them as your Grace,' as if his Papal appointment had actually given him the status of a peer of the realm. Such toadyism is not only lamentably weak, but utterly unwarrantable. An English archbishop being by royal appointment a peer of equal standing to a duke, he is entitled to be addressed as your Grace;' but as a Romish archbishop Dr. Eyre has no right whatever to be so designated in Protestant Scotland. The title as applied to him is an utter and unwarranted misnomer.