true.

Such Ideas as we have spoken of receive additions, in respect of their manifestation and development. The Ideas, the germ of them at least, were in the human mind before; but by the progress of scientific thought they are unfolded into clearness and distinctness. That this takes place with regard to scientific Ideas, the history of science abundantly shows. The Ideas of Space and Time indeed, were clear and distinct from the first, and accordingly the Sciences of Geometry and Arithmetic have existed from the earliest times of man's intellectual history. But the Ideas upon which the Science of Mechanics depends, having been obscure in the ancient world, are become clear in modern times. The Ideas of Composition and Resolution have only in recent centuries become so clear as to be the basis of a definite science. The Idea of Substance indeed was always assumed, though vaguely applied by the ancients; and the Idea of a Design or End in vital structures is at least as old as Socrates. But the Idea of Polarities was never put forth in a distinct form till quite recently; and the Idea of Successive Causation, as applied in Geology and in the other Palætiological Sciences, was never scientifically applied till modern times: and without attempting to prove the point by enumeration, it will hardly be doubted that many Scientific Ideas are clear and distinct among modern men of science which were not so in the ancient days.

Now all such scientific Ideas are, as I have been urging, points on which the human mind is a reflex of the Divine Mind. And therefore in the progress of science, we obtain, not indeed new points where the human mind reflects the Divine, but new points where this reflection is clear and luminous. We do not assert that the progress of science can bring into existence new elements of truth in 'the human mind, but it may bring them into view. It cannot add to the characters of Divine origin in the human mind, but it may add to or unfold the proofs of such an origin. And this is what we conceive it does. And though we do not conceive that the Ideas which science thus brings into

view are the most important of man's thoughts in other respects, yet they may, and we conceive do, supply a proof of the Divine nature of the human mind, which proof is of peculiar cogency. What other proofs may be collected from other trains of human thought, we shall hereafter consider.

27. (Recapitulation.)—This, then, is the argument to which we have been led by the survey of the sciences in which we have been engaged :-That the human mind can and does put forth, out of its natural stores, duly unfolded, certain Ideas as the bases of scientific truths: These Ideas are universally and constantly verified in the universe: And the reason of this is, that they agree with the Ideas of the Divine Mind according to which the universe is constituted and sustained: The human mind has thus in it an element of resemblance to the Divine Mind: To a certain extent it looks upon the universe as the Divine Mind does; and therefore it is that it can see a portion of the truth: And not only can the human mind thus see a portion of the truth, as the Divine Mind sees it: but this portion, though at present immeasurably small, and certain to be always immeasurably small compared with the whole extent of truth which with greater intellectual powers, he might discern, nevertheless may increase from age to age.

This is then, I conceive, one of the results of the progress of scientific discovery-the Theological Result of the Philosophy of Discovery, as it may, I think, not unfitly be called:-That by every step in such discovery by which external facts assume the aspect of necessary consequences of our Ideas, we obtain a fresh proof of the Divine nature of the human mind: And though these steps, however far we may go in this path, can carry us only a very little way in the knowledge of the universe, yet that such knowledge, so far as we do obtain it, is Divine in its kind, and shows that the human mind has something Divine in its

nature.

The progress by which external facts assume the aspect of necessary consequences of our Ideas, we have

termed the idealization of facts; and in this sense we have said, that the progress of science consists in the Idealization of Facts. But there is another way in which the operation of man's mind may be consideredan opposite view of the identification of Ideas with Facts; which we must consider, in order to complete our view of the bearing of the progress of human thought upon the nature of man.

CHAPTER XXXI.

MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.

I.

AN'S powers and means of knowledge are so

concerning God. It is well that men in their theological speculations should recollect that it is so, and should pursue all such speculations in a modest and humble spirit.

But this humility and modesty defeat their own ends, when they lead us to think that we can know nothing concerning God: for to be modest and humble in dealing with this subject, implies that we know this, at least, that God is a proper object of modest and humble thought.

2. Some philosophers have been led, however, by an examination of man's faculties and of the nature of being, to the conclusion that man can know nothing concerning God. But we may very reasonably doubt the truth of this conclusion. We may ask, How can we know that we can know nothing? If we can know nothing, we cannot even know that.

It is much more reasonable to begin with things that we really do know, and to examine how far such knowledge can carry us, respecting God, as well as anything else. This is the course which we have been following, and its results are very far from being trifling or unimportant.

In thus beginning from what we know, we start from two points, on each of which we have, we conceive, some real and sure knowledge:-namely, mathematical and physical knowledge of the universe without us; and a knowledge of our own moral and personal nature within us.

3. (From Nature we learn something of God.)-In pursuing the first line of thought, we are led to reason thus. The universe is governed by certain Ideas: for instance, everything which exists and happens in the universe, exists and happens IN Space and Time. Why is this? It is, we conceive, because God has constituted and constitutes the universe so that it may be so; that is, because the Ideas of Space and of Time are Ideas according to which God has established and upholds the universe.

But we may proceed further in this way, as we have already said. The universe not only exists in space and time, but it has in it substances-material substances or taking it collectively, Material Substance. Can we know anything concerning this substance? Yes: something we can know; for we know that material substance cannot be brought into being or annihilated by any natural process. We have then an Idea of Substance which is a Law of the universe. How is this? We reply, that it is because our Idea of Substance is an Idea on which God has established and upholds the universe.

Can we proceed further still? Can we discern any other Ideas according to which the universe is constituted? Yes: as we have already remarked, we can discern several, though as we go on from one to another they become gradually fainter in their light, less cogent in their necessity. We can see that Force as well as Material Substance is an Idea on which the universe is constituted, and that Force and Matter are a necessary and universal antithesis: we can see that the Things which occupy the universe must be of definite Kinds, in order that an intelligent mind may occupy itself about them, and thus that the Idea of Kind is a constitutive Idea of the universe. We can see that some kinds of things have life, and our Idea of Life is, that every part of a living thing is a means to an End; and thus we recognize End, or Final Cause, as an Idea which prevails throughout the universe, and we recognize this Idea as an Idea according to which God constitutes and upholds the universe.